[MUD-Dev] Removing the almighty experience point...

[Matt Mihaly]

brian at thyer.net wrote:

> I like the idea of being able to employ stories based on what the
> players do.  Being able to interact with *their* actions and views
> on the world.  One problem with that, of course, is in graphical
> MMO's these days there's so many "world shards" that it's hard to
> do that.

Yep, world shards certainly make that hard. In fact, we made the
decision not to shard our largest game, Achaea, specifically because
it would cause so many problems with the way we run events and
storylines in-game. It's just not feasible to do it well on a
sharded system as far as I can see as each shard has to have the
capability to react to whatever players on that shard are doing.

> I guess it's frustrating for me.  I was introduced first to
> computer RPGs, then MMORPGs.  I burned out on MMO's after a few
> years and was re-introduced to them from a mechanics / developer
> standpoint, which rekindeled my excitement for them.  It was only
> after all of *that* when I started actual table top role playing.
> So when I look at MMOs today I'm interested in..I don't
> know..finding a way to combine the two.  To bring the feel of a
> tabletop role playing game to the MMO world.  Obviously you can't
> have a GM around all the time.  But having the world change I
> think could help encourage players to become involved and more
> emersed with the world.  To create and interact with events as
> they come.

It could, it's just a monumental task for something on the size of
Everquest. That doesn't devalue the approach at all, of course. It's
just about finding the right approach for the game you want to
develop and operate.

--matt
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