[MUD-Dev] Attractive Grouping (Was: Focus vs. Scope)

[Paul McInnes]

"Hulbert, Leland" <LHulbert at czn.com> wrote:

> But what skill do you use to see the sunrise from Mt. Doom?

> I'm really hoping to build an XP system that benefits the people
> who =ust like to explore as much as the psychopaths that run
> around killing everything ;).

> That said, basing a skill system on this type of experience
> wouldn't be bad idea.  I would suggest that each experience
> provide a bonus to theast X skills used.  So if you climbed to the
> top of Mt. Doom, then youecome a better climber.  If you used a
> spell and flew there, then yourpell casting (or maybe just your
> Flying spell) goes up.  If you climbo the top of Mt. Doom and
> spend the night crafting while you wait forunrise, then your craft
> skill will go up.

> This has positive and negative side affects.  On the positive
> side, anykill you use a lot will be getting better faster.  On the
> down side,ou spend all day crafting, gaining no skill because
> you've done it allefore, but an orc comes by and you whack him
> with a stick, and suddenlyou are a better crafter.  I think teh
> positives would out-weigh theegatives.

> The real cumbersome part is being able to recognise "new"
> experiences. ither you have to create a global list of
> experiences, or some way tonterpret everything the character does
> to check if any particularction is new.  I think the global list
> with a flag bit on eachharacter for each experience would work
> best, but who gets to make uphe global list?  And what do you do
> when they leave out something?

The issue is probably not resolvable in the abstract, there are too
many "experiences" that are possible within an open-ended world to
expect a system to cope with them all. Indeed, one of the purposes
of an xp system (or reward system) is to identify certain
achievements, action or experiences as important.

If travelling to distant places is an activity you want to
encourage, give players rewards for reaching certain waypoints or
regions (it might be xp, it might be CoH badges) then make the
activity of travel to these locations challenging or interesting in
some way. It shouldn't come down to skills so much as activities and
tangible challenges. Require the character to do mountaineering, put
monsters in the way, have puzzles that need to be solved to unlock
the magic door, block the path at key points and introduce quests to
get past or whatever takes you fancy.

An exploration-focussed MMO could be very good fun, but you still
need to fill the 1000 hours with something other than travel. Of
course, the implication is that you need to decide in advance the
range of activities that are important in your game, but that seems
like a good thing rather than a bad thing. Repetition with variation
can be supported by a finite amount of content and game
balancing. Endless novelty sounds hard to do well ; )

Cheers,

pMac
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