[MUD-Dev] MMO Quest: Why they're still lousy

[cruise]

Vincent Archer wrote:
> According to Mark Mensch:

>> But what about adding in even more?  Perhaps during the "Find 12
>> Monkey Paws" the NPC relaying the quest mentions that Tom's
>> Daughter was killed by the monkeys.  Later on in the game, the
>> players come across Tom.  For all intents and purposes, the NPC
>> does nothing special until you say something that contains the
>> words "Sorry" or "Daughter" or "Kid" and then the NPC activates a
>> special quest for those that do it.  Once you give a reason for
>> players to read the stories, they'll do so.  Of course that means
>> more work for the Dev

> The big problem with that is simple. The players still won't read
> the story. They'll just go to allakhazam.com, find out that you
> need to say "kid" to Tom, and then that he'll ask you to slay 238
> monkeys to reward you with the Ultimate Monkey Wrench.

> Trying to appeal to achiever mindset to engage them in a story is
> foolish. The achiever will usually do the easiest for him, which
> is to read the story in a medium that is suited for a text story
> (namely, a page, even one on a web), and then apply the result in
> the game.

Ah, but this is easy to automate, so that everyone who gets the
original quest can get a different NPC, relative and wild
animal. You could even collect a repetoire of these type of quests,
and randomly add them to your standard quests, so it wouldn't even
spring from one NPC. That would pretty much prevent any spoilage of
quests, and reward those who took the time to read the backstory.

--
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]
   "quantam sufficit"
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