02 Nov, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
You could say there are two main modes of play in muds, soloing and grouping. I read something today that got me interested in what has been done with other types of co-op play, namely a review of the PS3 game Demon's Souls.

Here's the review.

Here's another thread about the game on ...

Here's a gameplay video.

If you watch that video you'll see a few people shaded in blue. Those are the players; the interesting thing is they have no way to communicate in game other a few predefined emotes, they're just linked up by the playstation network anonymously through some specific game mechanics.

Now anonymous co-op play is nothing new (basically any MMO), but this game integrates it into the mechanics of what essentially is a 1P game.

I encourage everyone to read the review, as it goes into much more detail about the system, but basically as you play along solo in the gameworld there are various mechanisms for both bringing other players into your world, and traveling to other player's worlds. Think instancing with specific ways to cross the instance boundary. This is pretty interesting to me and I'm not sure if it's been done before.

Furthermore players can leave messages for each other that cross the individual player world boundaries, which could help or hinder your solo gameplay.

As we all know many muds these days suffer from low player populations, and part of this is players naturally playing at different times due to timezone and schedule differences. In the past this wasn't such a big deal as the playerbase was big enough, but with smaller playerbases I think some muds could take advantage of co-op play modes, especially unique ones like those in Demon Souls. Thoughts?
02 Nov, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Idealiad said:
If you watch that video you'll see a few people shaded in blue. Those are the players; the interesting thing is they have no way to communicate in game other a few predefined emotes, they're just linked up by the playstation network anonymously through some specific game mechanics.

Reminds me a bit of that Age of Reptiles mud, or the tigers in my Ice Age theme proposal.

It strikes me that if players can only communicate through predefined emotes, you could create bots that were pretty much indistinguishable from players. A dishonest mud owner might even try to pass them off as players, making it easier for them to reach the playerbase 'critical mass'.

Idealiad said:
As we all know many muds these days suffer from low player populations, and part of this is players naturally playing at different times due to timezone and schedule differences. In the past this wasn't such a big deal as the playerbase was big enough, but with smaller playerbases I think some muds could take advantage of co-op play modes, especially unique ones like those in Demon Souls. Thoughts?

Do you mean allowing players to help players on other muds as the equivalent of soul forms or black phantoms (perhaps using something similar to IMC)? I'm not sure how muds would feel about sending their players to another mud, even as a temporary arrangement like that - and while you could perhaps make it a two-way cloning, that would be hard to do unless the muds were very similar.

Or if you're just taking about co-op mode within the same mud, how would that differ from regular grouping in a game that also supports solo play?
03 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Or if you're just taking about co-op mode within the same mud, how would that differ from regular grouping in a game that also supports solo play?

You could lower the boundaries of grouping. On many muds if two newbies are in the same area it mostly ends up in a competition for mobs, if you automatically group them and award experience based on one's contribution to the group effort with a small bonus on top it could make for a more rewarding experience. Would take a bit of work to deal with things like corpse looting.
03 Nov, 2009, Idealiad wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Or if you're just taking about co-op mode within the same mud, how would that differ from regular grouping in a game that also supports solo play?


I was thinking more along the lines of co-op play when the players are not online together.

For example in the PS3 game I linked, when players die they leave bloodstains at the scene of their death. If a player activates the bloodstain, they see a short (2-3 seconds I think) replay of how that player died, possibly warning them of hazards in the level.

Players can also leave notes (in the form of runes) with warnings or just funny messages (all pre-defined but mixable) and so on. Then players can rate these messages for their usefulness, I think high ratings keep the rune around longer and give the message-leaver some benefit.

This is all thematic within the PS3 game because it revolves around the idea of souls and high magic and so on, but you could probably work similar things into other games with different themes and settings. Anyway this all serves to tie a community together that is not necessarily playing together.
03 Nov, 2009, Confuto wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
I've always liked the idea of collaborative questing. In most cases, quests are given to an individual or a group of players. Upon completion a reward is given to the individual, or split equally among the group members. In certain cases (WoW), the "real" reward will be a single special item that is given to a randomly selected player. The latter is particularly frustrating.

What I mean by collaborative questing is essentially a quest system in which each participant in the quest gets the same reward as if they'd completed the quest individually. I say participant rather than group member because I envision quests like these being lengthy and complex, and rather than one group of players getting the quest and doing it start to finish, what might happen instead is a single player would get the quest, do 10% of it and then log off. Another player would come along, do the next 15%, and so on until it was complete. There'd be no limit on how much of the quest any one person could do themselves. Depending on the implementation, I think a system such as this would encourage cooperation and information sharing between players who may not otherwise interact and who are generally out for themselves.

Something (very) tangentially related to the above is territory control. This is a pretty common mechanic, and often found in games with multiple player factions, but can easily be implemented for game with a single faction. EVE Online is a prime example of its implementation. Essentially the idea is that each faction controls a certain amount of territory. They can capture territory belonging to other factions and vice versa. It is easier to maintain control over territory than (re)capture it. Within their own territory, faction members can quest, bash, gather resources, etc. As a result, every member of the faction has a vested interest in maintaining their faction's control over its territory and - if possible - expanding it. Players can then do things - solo or in groups - that contribute positively towards this. Groups might launch full scale attacks, for instance, while individuals might try subterfuge. The mechanics should allow for solo and group action to be equally effective while not necessarily requiring both.
03 Nov, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
You could lower the boundaries of grouping. On many muds if two newbies are in the same area it mostly ends up in a competition for mobs, if you automatically group them and award experience based on one's contribution to the group effort with a small bonus on top it could make for a more rewarding experience. Would take a bit of work to deal with things like corpse looting.


That's actually kind of clever. I like it. Do you know of any MUDs that have tried something like that?
03 Nov, 2009, Scandum wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Confuto said:
I've always liked the idea of collaborative questing. In most cases, quests are given to an individual or a group of players. Upon completion a reward is given to the individual, or split equally among the group members. In certain cases (WoW), the "real" reward will be a single special item that is given to a randomly selected player. The latter is particularly frustrating.

WoW has thousands of quests which makes this part particularly frustrating, and I think the whole concept of 'joined' questing is flawed because it makes questing just like grouping. I personally prefer less quests of higher quality with the idea being that one player performs a quest, being helped out by other individuals for boss mobs. Downside is that people need to be a little less selfish, though that's not necessarily a downside.

Confuto said:
What I mean by collaborative questing is essentially a quest system in which each participant in the quest gets the same reward as if they'd completed the quest individually. I say participant rather than group member because I envision quests like these being lengthy and complex, and rather than one group of players getting the quest and doing it start to finish, what might happen instead is a single player would get the quest, do 10% of it and then log off.

Sounds like you want to turn an area into a big state machine full of chained mini quests. I think the main reason this hasn't been explored much is that areas tend to be very static, you can probably count the number of muds that allow scripts to set quest data on areas (opposed to players) on one hand. Unreal Tournament has a timed mini game much like this, called assault, where teams typically have to complete a 4 stage quest.

elanthis said:
Quote
You could lower the boundaries of grouping. On many muds if two newbies are in the same area it mostly ends up in a competition for mobs, if you automatically group them and award experience based on one's contribution to the group effort with a small bonus on top it could make for a more rewarding experience. Would take a bit of work to deal with things like corpse looting.

That's actually kind of clever. I like it. Do you know of any MUDs that have tried something like that?

None that I know of, though the trend seems to be to forbid so called 'kill stealing' common in stock Diku combat, which is somewhat the opposite of auto grouping. One way to deal with corpse looting is to limit inventory space (if you don't have the space to drag it around someone else might as well have it), and partial corpse searching, so there's a bigger chance to get all of the loot with more players searching.
03 Nov, 2009, Barm wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
I spent a few weeks playing Warhammer Online earlier this year and while it wasn't a very good MMO they did a few interesting things. One was Public Quests – these were outdoor missions that required a group of players to complete. Nothing new there except that, by default, anyone could join your group without asking. Initially, I didn't like that idea but after trying it out it I changed my mind. It just made everything a ton simpler. Consider the typical sequence:

Quote
Mage: "Frobitz is asking if we have room."
Warrior: "Incoming x 3"
Cleric: "I don't mind."
Warrior: "Heal plz"
Cleric: "I am healing"
Mage: "What about Frobitz?"
Warrior: "Yeah sure, invite them."
Cleric: "You're party leader."
Warrior: "Oh yeah. Sec. Incoming x 4."


Compared to:

Quote
Frobitz has joined the group.
Frobitz: "Hey folks."
Cleric: "Welcome"
Mage: "Greetings."
Warrior: "Heal plz."


Loot was awarded randomly with your chances being weighted based on your damage done or mana expended.
03 Nov, 2009, quixadhal wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Warhammer's open group system is good. You could mark your group as public, and then anyone looking for a group would just join with no fuss, or as private and it worked like the traditional invite-only group.

If you coupled that with DDO's individual loot tables, where every player gets a chest drop at the end of the scenario, and they get all the loot in it, it would go a long ways towards taking the pain out of grouping.
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