[MUD-Dev2] The Future of Quests

[cruise]

Ricky C wrote:
> cruise, can you discuss some of the breakthroughs you're making in the
> procedural department? I mean, I think that procedural quest creation
> can be a good thing if it is varied enough and can introduce new things
> to the players (like 'Nothing' quests do), but how long can it keep
> players interested before it flops?

It sounds somewhat similar to the system described by Robert Flesch, 
except it can define it's own goals too.

I started with the problem mentioned by John Buehler in his reply:
 >My primary problem with questing in games is that there is no purpose 
to it.
 >Backstory supposedly explains to us why my character is supposed to kill
 >another five whatevers but as we all know that doesn't change anything.
 >Another five whatevers will be killed by the next character.

The question for quests always comes back to why? Why is the player 
doing this? The question before that is, "Why is the NPC asking them to 
do this?"

My NPC's can decide on what they need, then plan out from the actions 
available to them the best of way of achieving it over a long period of 
time. They're becoming better at evaluating how much a particular action 
or item means to them, which in turns allows them to barter, reward or 
be rewarded by each other for actions and objects.
This can range from an NPC asking you to fetch them a sword to the 
King's brother asking you to assassinate his sibling. Or asking any 
other NPC.

This means a) quests are automatically generated by the daily thoughts 
and feelings of NPCs and b) quests have a reason for them and will have 
an effect on the game.

Currently chaos theory is rearing its ugly head, and the combinatorial 
nature of the system is proving a little difficuly to tame, as I'm sure 
you can imagine, but I'm convinced it is tractable.