Reality check?

All of these ideas are going to be really difficult to actually implement. Do any of you guys actually have working implementations of any of these nifty things?

Or is this just suppossed to be a "Wouldn''t it be cool if.." kind of discussion, where it''s taken for granted that none of this stuff will ever be finished?

First of all - I'm usually nice and preach harmony... but I really despise people that post anonymously - signup for an account already

To answer your question... no, I have not implemented (in code) a system such as this. But, I did work (I was a founding member of Elysian Productions, Inc. – they are doing Ages of Athiria) for a very long time on the design of such a system.

Will a system such as this be created in an MMO*? Well, if AoA does get funding – I would say that the chances are very high that you will see something similar come to life. Other games, once the current round of “me too” or EQ Clones have run their course and players demand more, may have similar systems. I’m not naïve enough to think that it will exist in a game tomorrow nor do I think that it will never happen.

Anyway, I wish that I could say more... but all the work that I did in the design of such a system is protected by the various nondisclosures and first born that I have signed away.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

[edited by - Dak Lozar on June 4, 2003 8:35:36 PM]

Actually this isn''t so hard to implement as it can be worked into a MMO'' as part of the economy. For instance certain creatures may provide certain types of hide for harvest by players. Merchants may need this hide to make certain weapons or inks etc. The creatures may only exist in a different land and also be extremely tough to kill (keeps the market from being flooded).

I think covert quests will certainly be a good idea. It shouldn''t be necessary for the players to have to level up to a stupid degree to take on a quest, in fact I kind of like the idea that skills and not levels should be the way to go with regard to character progress in MMO''s

It should always be possible for the stronger creatures to kill the players, though they should get to a decent strength etc where the weaker creatures pose threats only in groups, After all given enough rats even a grown man can be killed by them.

Anyway back to the implementation question.

Implementing a dynamic quest system would require a logic module, with a database that contained the npc desires and their priorities (along with a few other variables). The more complex the quests to be generated, the more desires, enemies etc the npc would need to have defined for them. NPC merchants would own caravans and resources that could be targetted by their rivals, causing a quest generation of caravan protection or sabotage of a rival etc, depending on how much the npc hates said rival. Hate would be dynamic for each of the npcs desires so if they hate their rival more than they need supplies, they will probably create a sabotage quest. PC skills would ultimately dictate if the npc gives the quest or requires that a group takes the assignment etc. After all no NPC would trust a lowly surf to hijack a shipment of gold or a high level thief, unless they could guarantee the thief came back with the goods (this introduces the concept of threats and contracts taken out on PCs by NPCs!!

well rant over for now

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
All of these ideas are going to be really difficult to actually implement. Do any of you guys actually have working implementations of any of these nifty things?

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No

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Or is this just suppossed to be a "Wouldn''t it be cool if.." kind of discussion, where it''s taken for granted that none of this stuff will ever be finished?

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Yes

I think that a key part to creating a sustainable quest generation system that could create unique quests for each player would need to have multiple ways of aligning a player to factions. This way a players actions could impact relationships with the factions he is aligned with, as well as the relationships with other factions on a whole.

This would allow for characters to grow with stories attached to them, as well as for characters created in one context, i.e. a thief allied with the theives guild from Starter Town to build up and change allegiances through something more interesting then a simple faction change. The interaction of the different factions could act as seeds for different types of quests, either to improve relations between factions or to wage open war between them.

Creating a system with these kinds of factors, along with the various types of quests listed earlier should lead to an excellent system that allows the players to shape the game world while having individual quests.

It''s interesting to consider player killing in this context. You could have specific quests that would allow your target to kill you and you to kill your target (with the player''s knowledge that this would be involved, of course), optionally in addition to the usual mechanisms.

Or, a player could indicate his willingness to be a playerkiller whenever it becomes necessary (prior to actually being assigned such a quest), and the game could then assign quests to assassinate the player or prevent him from accomplishing his objective, whereupon the target is allowed to kill his assassin, but is not even notified of this or asked his permission.