[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Loot on demand (was: Will company sanctionedcheating hurt theMMOcommunity?)

[Matt Owen]

Koster, Raph wrote on 13/05/2005 05:52:01:
> Cosmik wrote:

>> Many MMOs these days are utilizing in-game email systems. Perhaps
>> its time we move bulletin boards in-game as well? One thing I
>> especially liked about the MUD called Kingdom of the Winds was
>> its email/bulletin board system which allowed players to
>> communicate (roleplay and non-roleplay) with each other in ways I
>> haven't seen translated into any MMO I've played or followed.

> In-game bulletin boards are pretty much standard issue on
> muds. But when we put them in UO (which we considered a required
> feature for launch, because of their ubiquity in muds) they were
> hugely underutilized. Granted, they weren't a very good
> implementation. And I believe EQ had in-game boards at launch as
> well. I know M59 did.

> The MMO audiences simply seemed to prefer using the web.

Then bring the Web to the MMO, perhaps? (1)

With the power of modern hardware platforms the MMO could
incorporate web rendering within it's UI, thus saving the player the
bother of switching out of the MMO to fire up their browser. With
the limited MMO expierence I have, I've noticed that most MMOs don't
like losing focus to another application (although this could be
down to the graphics drivers).

Once you have incorporated Email, BBS, and [basic] Web access inside
your MMO, the user is left with little excuse to leave the game,
which from a designer/bean counter point of view is a good
thing. Admittedly accessing the Web from within the MMO wouldn't be
retaining the Role Playing of some MMOs but those users who prefer
not to step out of character aren't forced to use these GUI
extensions.

-Jaruzel.

(1) With Microsofts new Avalon rendering system, it is claimed that
rendering, say, Internet Explorer inside a 3D space, will be an almost
trivial programming exercise.
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