[MUD-Dev2] [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs

[Steve "Bloo" Daniels]

Jacob Cord wrote:
> 
> Why are boss monsters "spawned" at all? Why can't they be little monsters
> that were in an environment that supported their unmolested growth and just
> grew to the point of being a "boss"? 

In Asheron's Call, monsters gained XP from killing players.
And they leveled.  Back in the day, there was a practice of many
to level up a Level 1 rabbit near a newbie town.  Newbie spawns,
starts killing rabbits for the XP.  Doesn't pay attention to the
level indicator on one rabbit (there was no color 'con'ing).
Wham! Level 10 Rabbit kills PC...and gets stronger!

This made some of the major quests in the game, much more difficult.
Super new quest boss is attacked by 20 players, kills them all,
gets stronger, over and over.  Eventually, you need LOTS of people
working together to take out the super big boss.  And since Turbine
did an excellent job back then of advancing the story line and
changing the game world on nearly a monthly basis (they even destroyed
an entire town once), the whole server eventually needed that Super Boss
to go sometimes, requiring huge cooperation eventually.  The one I'm
thinking of in particularly required simultaneous actions in different
places to get all the doors and portals to the boss open, and there was
a role for a wide level range of players to take part in the story.

I haven't seen anything like that since.  I know some people are still
playing AC, but I don't know if all those systems and the story 
development is still in place.

I'll go one farther on your question: Why do the non-boss mobs keep
spawning in the same place where they last bazillion guys got killed?
Why don't they retreat? Call in reinforcements? Plot revenge?  The
ecologies of all the major MMOs should now be in total collapse due to
the extinction of key parts of the food chain (no rats, rabbits, snakes,
spiders, etc.) to say nothing of the Orc/Goblin/Drudge Genocide, the
clear cutting of the rain forests, the over-fishing of the lakes and
rivers, the toxic pilings from large scale mining and smelting operations.

Try to tell me that MMO 'mining and smelting' is nothing than a dumb
way to throttle new armor and weapons.  If you were a miner, you aren't
going to be anything else.  Think of the damage you're doing to our
world's children who now think mining is something you can do on a hike,
if you just keep a pickaxe with you.  Think of the children!

At best, your craft should be what your character does when you're not 
logged in.

-bloo