[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Kill Smarter...Not Harder (Player vs. Monster)

[Nicholas Koranda]

So I just logged in to a player run UO server that I had an account on
after a long absence.  I found that my two story stone house had decayed
and I was standing in an empty area, pondering my loss.  It got me
thinking about why I didn?t play UO anymore.  For the casual player that
I would be considered, it was not fun to fight other players since most
of the time, there is the one "sweet spot" way to create a character and
fight with that character and I really didnt care to do the same.  I am
not talking about just UO, I would imagine a lot of games have this
issue.

Since I wasn?t in the mood for that, fighting some monsters seemed like
it would be better suited to my tastes.  That is when it hit
me...fighting monsters is totally boring.  I mean, the whole idea of
fighting PVP is that there is another human on the other side that is
challenging you and your wits/skills.  A computer controlled monster
walks slow, is totally predictable and very dumb.  The problem is that
the scale that is used to gauge the difficulty of monsters is in there
damage and hit points, not their skills, movements, abilities, etc..  So
a dragon is only more difficult than a rat since a rat bites you for 1HP
and a dragon swats you with its tail for 1,000 HP.  A dragon is really
not more difficult because it hides in the shadows, or flies out the way
of your flame arrows, or blocks a sword swing with its claw, it just can
take a beating a whole lot longer.

My whole rant is that the new fighting type games (Morrowind, WoW, etc.)
that have come out go to such lengths to increase the graphical detail
of the world and its contents but leave so much to be desired with the
intelligence of the content.  I signed up for a 10 day trial of WoW and
played a dwarf who?s first tasks were to kill some wolves, rescue the
stolen goods from the orcs, and eventually kill some boss in a cave.  I
will say that never once was I challenged at all to kill them.  They
stood there and bashed me and I return the favor.  No moving, no skill. 
The graphics were cool and I liked the way my dwarfed look when I hopped
all over the place...in fact, I almost had more fun just jumping off
rocks and stuff...go figure.

Maybe as I am getting to be an old fart the things I like about games
are different than the general population nowadays.

I would really like to see a game that focuses more on the intelligence
and skill of the monsters and content, rather than the graphical
immersion that the player experiences.  I suppose as long as the PvP is
good enough, maybe people will just put up with dragons with a 19 IQ.