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

[Miroslav Silovic]

sporky at squidi.net wrote:

>  3) Change the missions - Players go through the exact same
>  motions with every quest as just about every other
>  player. Something like Thottbot allows other players to look up
>  the locations and goals that other players had already
>  discovered. Personally, I think that instance missions are the
>  answer here, because you can modify the mission based on the
>  player. Most of these procedurally created content dungeons (like
>  in Anarchy Online) are simplistic at best, but with some serious
>  consideration put into their design, you could easily craft some
>  unique experiences for the player with just a few inputs. I mean,
>  you could even procedurally create the quests themselves, not
>  just the locations of the goals.

This is highly nontrivial if you're using the term 'quest' in the
classical sense. Basically, the computer-generated prose is
currently intractable AI problem. However, if by quest you mean that
NPCs and NPC community have relatively detailed computer-generated
goals that players can satisfy for a reward, this looks like very
good idea. Sims could provide plenty of inspiration.

>  4) Allow certain players to create their own quests - I think it
>  would be pretty nifty for a player to post a mission saying that
>  they need X number of monkey paws and that they'll pay Y dollars
>  for it. Players can accept the quest and fill out the order,
>  receiving special experience points used for some sort of
>  personal bonus. In Puzzle Pirates, crafting required hours of
>  time to build stuff, so the different shops would allow people to
>  come in an do time for a predecided paycheck. SWG also has the
>  ability for Bounty Hunters to get missions to kill Jedi players,
>  though these missions are not player made.

One way to deal with this is to give XP (or some other
advancement-related reward) for a first-sale of any object. That
way, you reward marketable trade, fetching items from NPCs, and
perhaps even bounties (if you sell a proof that you killed a
player).

You *only* want to reward the first sale in order to prevent the
obvious abuse of this system. :)

>  5) Allow certain players to create their own dungeons - I promise
>  you that players are far more creative than most MMORPGs give
>  them credit for. It seems that most of the time, their creativity
>  is called an exploit and time is spend trying to reign it in. If
>  you give certain, proven players the ability to make their own
>  dungeons, I think you'll find that they'll use the gift in ways
>  you never dreamed of (which some would consider a problem). In
>  the past, in games like Habitat, just giving a player the ability
>  to create notes was enough to spawn underground newspapers and
>  event flyers. Some of the best levels for games like Half-Life or
>  Unreal Tournament weren't created by the developers, but by the
>  fans. You'd need some sort of peer review before allowing player
>  dungeons to go live to prevent exploits (a room with the best
>  sword in the middle of it with no monsters), but I think player
>  creativity is worth it.

DarkeMUD solved this. The premise is that any good is stealable, and
any lock openable. This included the rented rooms in the inn. So the
players would buy a castle (at a rather steep price per room, and a
rather steep maintainance price), and populate it with monsters
(many of which also were player-crafted or player-summoned) and
traps - just so that they can provide some protection against thief
raids.

Occasionally somebody would connect while his castle was in the
middle of being raided. Hehehe.... :)

    Miro
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