[MUD-Dev2] [Media] Informal poll on MMOWatch

[Mike Rozak]

Mike Sellers wrote:
> This is what we've done (as have others in various ways like Mike Rozak I
> believe, and Matthew Mateas).  It's a hard problem -- but then so was
> realtime 3D rendering back in the day.  Creating NPCs like this definitely
> requires a different view of the players, the world, and the players'
> actions in it.

I think there's a fundamental law of the universe where something new is 
always too hard to do, until someone does it successfully... and then it's 
copied and refined until it's no longer too hard. Of course, statistically, 
the first people who try to do something new have a high liklihood of 
failure.


> Exactly.  And just as conversation trees go away, so do quest trees.
> "Quests" have become such a mainstay of MMO gameplay that it's difficult 
> for
> many to see what the game would be without them, but that's because quests
> are doing the heavy lifting of "what's going on in the world and why is it
> significant?" rather than the interactions between the PCs and NPCs.

Not exactly on topic, but while I've been holding back on quests, I've found 
it difficult to eliminate them because (a) players want/expect them and 
don't know what to do if there isn't a quest, and (b) even with NPCs as the 
center of the game, quests still prove useful.