Quote:Original post by Humble Hobo Dunam, your comments really made my day. That border atmosphere setting is truly a center of interaction and emotional impact, good example.
I completely agree that situations do not require megadramatic, cataclysmic events to captivate interest. Simple, everyday events with deep emotional ties can provide a much richer, more living environment.
Not that the huge events can't do this as well, but when everything is a chain of world-shaking events, they lose flavor.
Large scale events need to be built up to with careful plot building. Killing off a character is not the only way to provoke emotions from a player.
Just some thoughts.
The problem is then how many of these events can be staged (especially if they are intricate and fitted manually) so that the player doesnt do the same one every other day (and even if there are many, eventually running out of them).
They already cant afford enough GMs to even help queued people within 30 minutes , so either we have a static set of choreographed 'events' or some system that generates them 'on the fly' (possibly assisted by tools to make a few GMs more effective in some coordinating role).
Previous threads have talked about automatic quest generators and I had added comments about integrating with a larger world plot mechanism to continually change the mix of elements driving the situations. Another mechanism allowed for modular quest templates so that over time new ones could be added (including some supplied by players). Another component would be a server engine that supported expanding/reusing parts/areas of the world to stage new situations as they are needed (filling in props to match the current quest template and then fading it out afterwards to then be reused for another).
When talking about quests in games, I think there are three viable ways to go:
1. Fully scripted quest (I liked the quests in fallout a lot) 2. Reusable quests (missions where the action is fun and logical enough that it would require a repeat, such as escort missions or 'reduce wolf population' etc.) 3. GM controlled quests (time intensive for GM's)
Any other type I haven't seen done well yet (but let me know if you think I've missed something and which game I should check out).
BTW the best way to make a play seem lifelike in my experience has by having some people act rude or selfish. Nothing creates a sense of reality more where every character is selfish. Even though I do not think the world is like that, people tend to take selfish people as 'realistic'. Try it.
I personnaly think that you could use a sort of special unlockable profession to make the world spin normally...
Let me explain.
People who usually play Paladin, as a sort of White Knight compulsive disorder, desperately needing to help widows and orphans, would positively JUMP on this sort of things.
To better exemplify this, I would quote Terry Pratchett's "Monks of Balancing", who are supposed to work in secret, and simply move small brass weights over the world, just to make sure it spins properly and doesn't tumble. To anyone exterior, it may appear useless, but it seems to work, since the Discworld hasn't tipped over yet...
Now, if you had a class, or maybe a sort of secret society using players' accomplished GM-generated missions to balance the world, I think it would allow for some leeway in the believability of the thing. Simply knowing you are on a mission to help the world balance out gets the player to accept stupid missions he would simply disregard if he wasn't already taking part in something greater.
Let's take the exemple of the "help reduce the wolf nuisance in Koom Valley" mission. No one would seriously consider a mission, but it could be accomplished through different ways... You could skin some wolves, or more rabbits the wolves feed on, or maybe set fire to preset areas, so that the taming areas, or raising areas are off for a while, and the respawn rate is lower, or anything in accordance to the different types of classes you may have. You could also plant some poisonous seeds in the areas known to home rabbits, if you were a ranger or a herbalist of sorts...
But you could also have some different societies... Maybe have the "secret monks of History", who make sure things happen. Or not, depending on what things are deemed to pertain to the REAL History... In terms of gameplay, it would simply mean generating PVP assassination missions, as counter-measures for PVE assassination missions. You simply give some backstory in the lines of "Mr. Bloodaxesonnephewson is on a rampage against the marauders living in Dangerdoom cave. But the marauders are supposed to attack a caravan in some days, and this caravan is supposed to bring weapons to that country, which will bring a stable peace to the area for a while. Should you fail to stop Mr. Bloodaxesonnephewson before it's too late, war would destroy the country for at least two years."
On the other hand, you don't have to actually make the things HAPPEN, since there is an almost constant respawn of baddies everywhere, including said cave. You can always use a corny explanation of what happened depending on your results in said counter-mission...
And the nice benefit is that you can always use said GM-generated quests to rid the world of those pesky griefers, or abusive gremlins. You can even create a mission to solve the abusive crafters problem, if you include complete looting of the preys...
Quote:Original post by Fournicolas Now, if you had a class, or maybe a sort of secret society using players' accomplished GM-generated missions to balance the world, I think it would allow for some leeway in the believability of the thing. Simply knowing you are on a mission to help the world balance out gets the player to accept stupid missions he would simply disregard if he wasn't already taking part in something greater.
I really like how you expanded on the wolf population thing, to me it was just an excuse to get you 'killing wolfs'.
However I think the thing above would not have the player 'accept stupid missions'. He'll accept them for the XP. He'll accept them for the reward. But I doubt many players would find such a mission fun to do, since it's essentially just woving around the world which is ussually the most boring type of quest, especially when it's a repeat quest.
