Urp.

What landfish meant to ask was: "Can we extend the conversation from monster players in this thread please?"

Several anarchist game design ideas that nobody thinks will work...

#1. No money. That''s right, your character has an implied social standing, which might raise if you stumble upon a massive fortune. BUT, there is never any reason to count out each individual gold piece you might have. This is OK, because...

#2. No shops. Well, sure, there are shops. But since you only have an economic standing that determines what you can afford to buy, you aren''t constantly upgrading to "better" weapons. The sword you buy will likely last you the rest of your life, you may even pass it down to your son. No, it''s not magical.

#3. Smart goblins. If they can build a shelter, they can build a fortress. No spcies on earth (or anywhere) is suicidal enough to charge at you with axes and NOT run away when you kill half thier raiding party in one blow. I say: "A player to every character!" and this includes goblins. (note: Not really a player to every character... but in accordance with NPCs are people too!, NPCs should be Nigh indistinguishable from PCs. so there.)

#4 NPCs are people too! There should be nothing in the RPG experience that feels fake. NPCs should have personality, emotion and intelligence. It''s only fair...

#5 Realism. Most designers think it would suck. Why? Because most designers are lazy. Think about the ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES of a realistic physical setting. Why does everyone think that players will lose motivation? We''re still offering them the chance to live out thier dreams collectively with sh!tload of other people. Realism can only add to the exhiliration of performing the impossible. Stop frightening yourself.

(drumroll please)
#6 Absolute character death. Everything i''ve heard so far leads me to believe this system is inherently balanced. The reason so many are opposed to it is FEAR. Little do they know, FEAR is what make the system work. Everything that applies to one player applies to everyone when it comes to absolute death. None of them wants to lose their character! But we digress. What do you think? Do you dare to dream the impossible dream?

For some reason, this and other ideas are opposed by the masses of game development. Mainly because they require a great deal of work and originality. So where does it go from here?

Well, I just wrote a very long and detailed post for you about a MUD I used to play with absolute character death. Unfortunately the post is gone forever now, so I''m not going to bother re-writing it. (hmmmm,. when my work is destroyed I don''t feel like re-doing it,.. interesting concept,. :p )

Suffice it to say, it was a very abused MUD with a lot of PK''er and troll problems. We discussed it and decided that absolute character death was causing all of those problems. Then we added a single ressurrection spell and the games popularity and fun factor both increased tenfold, and most of the PKers and trolls dissapeared. It ended up becoming fairly popular.

Take that however you want, but I take it as evidence that absolute character death is actually a very unbalanced system with a lot of inherent problems. It really is unfortunate that my detailed analysis of all those problems was just deleted, maybe I''ll try and re-write it some time.

Responding to ANON

#1 Why no money? Doesn''t the social standing work just like money? Find money = more social standing = buy more expensive things. I think money is really a very bad thing, but I think it''s a necessary evil in a society larger than just a village. For games, ''all you have to do'' (I know...harder than it sounds) is make sure to keep the money total balanced. You might even work out a system that is realistic. More pieces of money, means each piece is worth less.
You could even START out with a non-monetary system, but give players the option to create their own cities, then create their own monetary system for that city. Eventually (years?) the world will be filled with several cities, cities that will ally and unite to become stronger, and thus several monetary system can be placed. Some NPCs might only accept certain types of coin, some might only accept one, others might accept all types of coin. And the only one to determine how many coins their monetary system should have is the leader of a city/alliance/kingdom etc.

#2 See #1. Just make sure that shops are ordinary...very ordinary. No special magic items. And if there IS such a thing as a shop where players can buy magic items...the store owner better have the best bodyguards available

#3 Agree. When you create ''intelligent'' monsters, you should at least make them behave intelligent. Even nonintelligent monsters will run at the realization that they are overpowered (well not all, but some). With intelligence comes consciousness. A sense of risk, opportunity, death etc. In the example of goblins, 1 goblin facing two player characters should run as soon as it sees it can''t win...3 goblins facing those same two characters should attack as soon as they realize they are in the majority...and run when one of them goes down before they''ve even hurt one of the characters.

#4 NPC AI should be in the top 5 of things to do in any game. Not only combat AI that is.

#5 Gimme more realism than you can even think of. Although, realism does NOT mean ''like Earth'' but instead it means (to me) ''following the rules of the world the players play on''.

#6 Permanent Death: Not yet. I can just see it happening. After years of playing carefully, not risking anything, I''ve finally reached a place in my character''s life where I am respected for my actions. I am called upon to save a small settlement of human players from an invading dragon. I''ve battled this beast before, and had to flee from the fight. But now I''m stronger, and carry my latest discovery on my hip...Grimwol, Doom of Dragons, sword of thunder.
I finally track my prey down into a small valley, where it''s feasting on cows plundered from the village. I sneak up on it, but its keen sense detects me even though I''m using my potion of silent step that one of my forefathers retrieved from the mountains of bliss.
Before I know it, its long head raises into the air, its eyes pinning me to the ground. But, I knew I was not the underdog in this fight...
I put my left foot in front of my right...and my right in front of my left. Slowly I proceeded toward the demon creature.
And then...


YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED

Of course, upon returning I find myself staring at an empty character screen...a little gravestone lists my hero''s name

I think permanent death COULD be a thing to include in a game...in the future.

Silvermyst

Addenda. I didn''t say they were perfect. =)

Money: I am basically saying that you cannot raise your social standing unless you have evidence to prove you would. If you are a pauper, and you miraculously slay some dragon, you would likely find a horde... if you had active administration, that admin could see this and raise your standing, or something. This is just one of many possible routes...

Death: Gee, that would go under freak death, wouldn''t it? I think the next important step in MMORPG is to have characters remain constant on the server, with a bot that performs the scripted actions of the "mundane" life of the character, leaving the adventures for logged sessions.

But again, I think active administration would solve the above problem.

"NPC''s are People Too!"

Hm, is this a sign that somebody read my article on GameDev ... or is this clever little phrase just independant invention...

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Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive

Anon (we all know who you are, because no one else would come up w/ such whacky ideas),


I like the direction you are going in. If I am reading between the lines well enough, I see that you basically want to halt the constant circle of players killing, getting better stuff, getting stronger, killing, and so on...

I like that a lot.



If I'm thinking correctly, you mostly want to concentrate on the political and social aspect of the game.


My question again is: If you're not smacking goblins, then what are you doing that's involved w/ the society?

I'm not saying that the only fun thing to do is kill stuff and keep getting better and better, but what will the player do?

quote: Original post by Landfish
Death: Gee, that would go under freak death, wouldn't it? I think the next important step in MMORPG is to have characters remain constant on the server, with a bot that performs the scripted actions of the "mundane" life of the character, leaving the adventures for logged sessions.

I like this idea. In fact, the game that I referrenced many a time, Majik, is going to do a similar thing. Although, with them your char just walks around as an NPC kind of aimlessly I think.

I like the doing mundane tasks thing.






"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake
PM

Edited by - Nazrix on July 8, 2000 4:32:38 PM

Do you really know who I am? How can you be so sure?

Anyway, I''ve been thinking about that one for a long time. If the character is a blacksmith, then when the player is logged off the character goes and purchases materials, hammers out a weapon of two, eats, sleeps. It''s when the player is logged on that he can be involved in that bribery scandal, commit acts of arsen, catch a wanted criminal, hammer out a regal blade.

There might even be a bot (very complex, I warn you) that would watch player-controlled interaction, responses to questions, etc. Then iot would use that info to formulate a response while the player is offline. If a player''s been playing for a really long time, you might not even know if you''re talking to him or the bot.

Without the threat of random combat, you generally ensure that getting disconnected isn''t that risky, too.

Nazzlie: That is something like my master plan. Patience will reap great rewards.

I like it, *ahem* Anonymous Poster...I like it a lot

I''m not just saying that because I agree with Anonymous Posters either

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake