quote: Original post by Talanithus
Well, my concept was more for telling individual stories on a community level, not really as replacement for adventuring in the normal game world.
I firmly believe that MMORPGs should allow player communities to leave their mark upon the world, be it via guild halls, towns, etc. However, allowing players to have the ability to spawn monsters or affect the general locale could prove very problematic in mainting control and the integrity of the storylines that they would create. It would be, by far, the most ideal situation to allow player''s to physically control aspects of the world around them, but it brings up a host of other issues. By keeping the player''s changes confined to areas that only members of the community can visit or be affected by, it limits the potential for abuse.
I guess my personal interest would be to see these individual stories become a part of the dynamic world storyline, rather than a separate and distinct area. I have this vision of a "velvet rope pocket server", where someone comes up with very unique ideas within the game world but limits the gaming experience of these ideas to his friends.
A large part of policing player-driven changes would be through GMs and writing staff. By example: a player has hoarded enough resources to build his own little hamlet. This expands into a minor city, and all of the PCs involved become loyal to the character.
A GM staff should take note of this and put this into the storyline. Local earls/lords, recogizing this rise to power, may set out quests, tasks and missions to keep the character''s strength from growing. NPC bandits, recogizing a new area of wealth, may flock to the area. Wildlife will become sparse, as the npc creatures begin to recognize the influx of people. Vendors in nearby cities may lower prices, to convince people not to purchase items in the player-city.
A simple set-up such as having a flock of deer wander through the area, get killed and have the player-character accused of "killing the king''s deer" could be enough to start a player-driven war. Resources are tasked, npcs may flee, loyalties will change. The player has affected the game world, for better or for worse.
Another scenario, re: spawning npcs. A PC mage learns the ability to create monsters by merging different types of creaturs magically. They''d need certain charm spells, to lure the monster to their lairs (which require resources), and to bind them in "cages" (again, a high resource cost), then the transformation spells to create them. At lower levels, a high percentage of these transformations fail and the creature dies - an expensive pursuit!
On success, the creature may be controlled with simple commands: follow, patrol, guard; a "flag" is created that centers the NPC to a specific spot, but depending on the control flag they may either stand in one spot (guard) or patrol an area.
Set the NPC to need food, requiring a certain degree of maintence by the mage - or the PC may find the monster breaks his control, and is now loose inside his tower looking for something (or someone) to eat.
It might be hard to implement, but I do think such controls are very possible within a MMORPG, allowing a greater degree of player-driven changes onto the game world itself while still limiting the alterations to a specific region.
