[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Why do people like weather in MMORPGs?

[ceo]

Damion Schubert wrote:
>> Raph Koster wrote:

>>> My experience is that players whinge at anything that
>>> inconveniences them. :)

>>> A lot depends on which gameplay god you are worshipping. If you
>>> worship "easy in, easy out, quick to fun, fast feedback," which
>>> is certainly the deity du jour, then the above are anathema.

> director to make art that works in all light scenarios.  Also,
> don't underestimate how much people hate the idea of being forced
> to carry torches - this is especially true if they are usually
> two-handed weapon wielders.

I think it ranks pretty close to "dieing of hunger every 20 minutes"
in the "RPG player irritation spectrum", no? :)

Which is silly, since there are plenty of ways to work-in needing
light without gimping the player, from increasing monster perception
radiuses to decreasing player radius (compensated for by
"night-time" skills and abilities) to making torches "automatically
in use until fight mode is entered, at which time the player
automatically drops the torch; player automatically retrieves torch
after combat".

The really annoying thing is how many games historically have made
"having the brains + co-ordination to chuck a torch to the ground
and draw sword" into a massively time-consuming or difficult action,
taking as long (or longer) than it takes someone to run at you from
30ft or more away. *that's* what really gets people's backs up, IME.

> Weather is more of a mixed bag.  In most games, people love
> weather - it's a cheap and easy thing to do which makes you feel
> like you're part of a virtual world.  Players like to see change
> in their virtual world, and changes which don't inconvenience them
> personally

IIRC Ultima7 sparked this off with (for the time) rather beautiful
atmospheric weather, with simple-yet-effective tricks such as cloud
shadows + dimming of the pallete for the few seconds that a cloud
was directly overhead. My memory's going rusty on this, but I've a
feeling there are some effects from U7 that still haven't made it
into many of the MMORPG's, which is tragic really, especially as
they were so effective.

(on a related note, some of the U7 graphics were better than some
(by now I think the minority, but not sure?) modern MMORPG's -
compare the tree graphics in a modern 3D game, using 5-10 planes of
transparent polys to the luscious hand-drawn trees of U7. Compare
the density of a modern so-called forest to ones in U7. I wonder how
long it will be before *everyone* is licensing those 3rd party
tree/forest generators...)

> a talented art director to make art that works in all light
> scenarios.

...seems an increasingly hard job all-round, these days :(.

Adam M
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