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

[David Kennerly]

Paul Schwanz wrote:
> David Kennerly wrote:

>> Yes.  There are two problems with quests that change the world:

>>      1) No one completes the quest, so the world does not change.
>>      2) Someone does complete the quest, so the world does
>>      change.

>> Okay, so there's only one problem.  :)

>> When the world changes, what happens to the quests that only made
>> sense when the world was in its previous state?  In computer
>> science lingo, if Quest B has precondition X, then if Quest A
>> changes the state of the world to condition Y, then Quest B
>> cannot fulfill its function.  Since writing a quest is labor
>> intensive, it's a nontrivial dilemma.  When the state of the
>> world changes, what benefit offsets the labor cost of replacing
>> the newly-invalidated set of quests?

> If you make the world state mutable enough, then I'm not sure I
> see the problem here.  Think of it this way, when undertaking
> quest B with the world state at condition Y, you could get two
> quests for the price of one by having a quest C that has the
> ability to change the world state from Y to X.  Taken to its
> logical conclusion, the play moves away from being about static
> quests and toward managing world states.  Perhaps this is what a
> previous poster meant by removing quests altogether.  Personally,
> I think this could be a lot of fun, especially when some sort of
> community cooperation is required in order to change more global
> world states.

I see.  A single-sided game of capture the flag follows this model.
For example of a quest scenario, a sorcerer has a magical staff.  A
ranger quest offers a reward to steal the magic staff.  A paladin
quest offers a reward to return (steal back) the magic staff.  In
terms of developer labor, this means that at least two quests must
be written.  In terms of playable content, only one of these quests
is available at any given time.

Compare this to two quests that do not change the state of the
world.  Revise the above example, so that there is a trivial
difference: in the second quest, change the magical staff into a
magical spear.  Now it is stealing between two rivals without a
toggled state of the world.  The cost in terms of developer labor is
equal to or less than toggling the state of the world.  In addition,
the content available is two quests at any given time instead of
one.

However, this cost/content ratio is a naive analysis.  What must be
taken into account is the amount of enjoyment that has been produced
from having this simple finite state automaton with two states: not
stolen and stolen.  Each quest, then, may be represented as an arc
between the two vertices of the states of the world.  I suspect a
clever implementation of this could justify the additional
cost/content ratio.

Still, maintenance costs from dependencies must be accounted.
Quests do not exist in a vacuum.  The more interesting quests are
interdependent, such as the story arcs in City of Heroes, the series
in World of Warcraft, or the similar progression of quests in Final
Fantasy XI.  By a story arc, I mean a set of interdependent
missions.  Thus, a modification to one of these missions (or
quests--same thing), means that all dependent missions must be
updated.

This updating adds additional developer cost, including a higher
operating cost.  Each additional change requires changing the
dependencies.  The asymptotic order of growth for a function that
describes this overhead cost will be worse than linear, probably
polynomial.  If dependencies of the storylines are not partitioned,
the overhead could become exponential.  Unlike programmed code,
written narratives are rarely object-oriented.

I don't mean to smash dreams; I think there are clever solutions to
this problem too.  The solution depends on the details of the theme,
story, and quests involved.  I'd be happy to consider an example.

One similar example that comes to mind is the relics in Dark Age of
Camelot.  Beyond the "quest" to possess a relic, there may be quests
that are only offered during one of the states, such as when Albion
has its Merlin's Staff stolen.  Are there?

David
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev