<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <avtugsnyyNvasvpnq.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: from babe.globecomm.net [207.51.48.8] by in2.ibm.net id 48242.26224-1 Thu Jan 1 13:24:02 1970 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199705311114.EAA11709#user2,inficad.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 338d05d7.277223215@neptune --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00994.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00997.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00891.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01058.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00996">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00996">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00996">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Sat, 31 May 1997 04:14:44 -0700 (MST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Alex:] > } > The question that was left unanswered is: How can a mud have a working que > } > system without some kind of resets? > > Ling, Jeff (using some vaguely english-like language) Heh. I thought maybe I was just turning dyslexic when I read his posts. >and Caliban (???) > suggested some sorts of imm intervention/control. > > While perfectly valid, I think this circumvents the problem of resets instead > solving it. Yup. Works great - IMO, the reason muds and computer RPGs were created were so that you'd have something to do when you couldn't play Cyberpunk or Shadowrun with your buddies. > Let me restate. > I want some computer-run, hands-off, completely automated, totally computerize > human-free quests in the scenario. > Why? > Because if a human is needed to supervise, I may as well play a "classic" RPG. > I want the system to provide decent entertainment value when no imms are > present. Even for a single player. Agreed 100%. Though I plan to have a lot of fun fooling around with the world as an admin (switching into mobiles being my personal favorite), this is just me fooling around. No way in hell I want to maintain some sort of admin staff. > Quests, as I see them, provide short-term goals and some sense of accomplishme > and progress. I don't like quests. This is one reason I've never taken to LPs. They are too linear - and before you argue, you'll never get a quest randomized enough or with enough built-in paths to make it non-linear enough for me. Our standpoint is to look at things from a simpler perspective. How do stories and quests emerge in real life? Simple - they just emerge based on people's actions. There's no one (in my book, anyhow) that sits up in the sky carefully creating things for humans to do. There's no reason a mud can't be the same, not with the technology availible today. Basically, we have a bunch of *very* simple 'goals' set up in the world. Most of these are based on resource management (I'm showing my roll-player stripes here). For example: Boffo wanders out into the plains. It gets dark, and he stupidly forgot his torch. He accidentally wanders over the edge of a cliff. Buffy, riding by on her horse, hears cries for help. Investigates and finds Boffa lying with a broken leg, wailing like a baby, at the bottom of a cliff. Boom - quest. Buffy (should she deign to help the poor soul) has several problems to overcome. She's got to find some way down the cliff, get Boffo to quiet down, then get him back up the cliff. This could involve a lot of things - if she can set the bone it would make things much easier, for example. Perhaps she's got some liquor in her saddlebag that will kill his pain for long enough that she can drag him up the cliffside. Assuming she gets him back to town, she has to seek out a healer. The healer sees that the leg has been mashed almost to the point of no return by the horseback trip to town with the unset bone. The healer sets the bone, but proclaims that Boffo will never walk again. Buffy, being somewhat of a sappy fool, and anyhow not wanting her hard work dragging his ass back to town to go to waste, asks the healer if there isn't anything they can do. Healer tells her of a mystical herb which grows far off in the east in the private gardens of the King of Grooblegrum which has magical healing properties that can be used to repair Boffo's leg like new. Buffy, being a sappy fool, and because the person playing her thinks that sounds like fun, decides to go after the herb. And there's a whole new 'quest', as it were - she's got to first get over there, then manage to actually get the herb, then get it back. This may sound simple, but then, it also sounds simple to get the One Ring from the Shire to Mount Doom. :) So assuming your world is populated with enough interesting stuff, they'll be plenty of pitfalls on the trip (would be wise if she brought some buddies), plus she's got to get the herb (steal it? buy it from the king? do some favor for the king <quest alert>?) Now, the parts of this that you actually hand-craft are very limited. You've got the town healer, who of course knows how to heal, and has knowledge of stuff in the land such as magical healing herbs that he can send players after. There's the king, who actually has the herb...who knows what sorts of guards he has on it, or what he'll trade for it, or whatever. What if Buffy gets there and the king tells her that someone stole the herb several weeks ago? Fine! Makes perfect sense; the healer's information was just out of date. How you want to do this as far either hard-coding locations of things, or just by randomly inserting that 'knowledge' about things into mobiles heads as they generate in the world, thus ensuring a highly dynamic world while loosing some of the hand-crafted effect, is up to you. > I can think of several quests that seem to be immune to most scenarios: > * Guild initiation rites. Sure. This would qualify as a simple goal. It gets complex when the player is actually an assassin that has been paid a large amount of money to take out the guild leader. He finds that the keep is impregnable, so decides to try to join the guild in order to get closer to the leader. Does this require extra code on the part of the guild creator, or creation of a special 'quest' beyond someone desiring the guild leader dead? Nope. > * Teleporting a player into an extra-dimentional dungeon. What, you're just walking down the street munching on a snack and suddenly you're thrown into some dugeon? I dislike highly random events, as a player. It's fine if they *seem* random, but there should be something underneath. Ie, you find out that that spiffy looking ring that you found on the ground and slipped on your finger actually belongs to an other-worldly demon who summoned you to his plane to retrieve it. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01058" HREF="msg01058.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> alexo#bigfoot,com (Alex Oren)</li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00891" HREF="msg00891.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> alexo#bigfoot,com (Alex Oren)</LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00994.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00997.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00891.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01058.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00996"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00996"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00846" HREF="msg00846.html">Conventions (was RP thesis)</A></strong>, S001GMU <a href="mailto:S001GMU#nova,wright.edu">S001GMU#nova,wright.edu</a>, Tue 27 May 1997, 23:52 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00837" HREF="msg00837.html">Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Alex Oren <a href="mailto:alexo#bigfoot,com">alexo#bigfoot,com</a>, Tue 27 May 1997, 19:28 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00848" HREF="msg00848.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Tue 27 May 1997, 23:54 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00891" HREF="msg00891.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Alex Oren <a href="mailto:alexo#bigfoot,com">alexo#bigfoot,com</a>, Wed 28 May 1997, 18:49 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00996" HREF="msg00996.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</a>, Thu 01 Jan 1970, 20:24 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01058" HREF="msg01058.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Alex Oren <a href="mailto:alexo#bigfoot,com">alexo#bigfoot,com</a>, Tue 03 Jun 1997, 01:01 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01119" HREF="msg01119.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Wed 04 Jun 1997, 05:19 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00944" HREF="msg00944.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Fri 30 May 1997, 07:59 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00960" HREF="msg00960.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Resets, repops and quests</A></strong>, Shawn Halpenny <a href="mailto:malachai#iname,com">malachai#iname,com</a>, Sat 31 May 1997, 00:49 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>