Runter
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#1 id:36935 Posted Oct 29, 2009, 1:02 pm
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So I've been mulling over an idea for a MUD for a while and wanted to post it here to bounce some of the ideas.
First of all, I intend it to be a futuristic game. What I'm really interested in making is a scifi-political intrigue/competitive game. Instead of focusing on a large persistant world I plan on it being relatively small and focusing on the content I have being balanced. The gist of the setting is deep space on some type of ship. Perhaps a colony/exploration ship. In any event, the idea is that players will be able to explore the ship, study, invent, play, compete, and interact all on this ship. With all that being said I want to go over 3 points I plan to focus on.
1. Economy & politics
I would like to have a fluid economy largely based on supply and demand. Politics and wealth will probably play hand in hand. Power for factions in charge should be represented by being able to make decisions on the ship including when to fold. Fold scheduling. In ship rationing. Policies on the ship for instructing NPCs including resource gathering and construction and addition to public wings of the ship.
2. Generated content
Much of the content for players to experience should be generated on the fly. Currently I have been working on a system where the ship should from time to time orbit planets for short periods of time. 1-2hrs. At which time the players would be able to actually explore the planet, complete quests, recover resources, and solve riddles/puzzles, PVP. Even if the ship is relatively small there should be consistantly new content to experience on a daily basis.
3. Interesting gameplay
Being a heavy scifi futuristic styled game it should give me a lot options for classes/professions/skills. For example various scientists and doctors may be acceptable classes. Being able to have cybernetic parts with possible unique/ancient tech to be found is an interesting idea. The idea of public and private owned ships in the convoy is an idea I'm batting around as well as player ran corporations/factions.
I don't think I can be any less vague without boring you all with finer details and risking a tl;dr.
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......................... CoralMud project
For once you have tasted flight Ruby you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return. --
Leonardo Da Vinci Yukihiro Matsumoto
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David Haley
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#2 id:36936 Posted Oct 29, 2009, 1:31 pm
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I think it might be difficult to have a large, fluid economy based on supply and demand if your world is a relatively small ship with relatively limited resources. Supply will be small, and unless you can figure out a way for new raw materials to get onto the ship, it's unclear how you can make new stuff. Then again, you're talking about resource gathering and stopping on planets from time to time, so perhaps that is how new material can be injected into the economy. Basically, the problem is that you'll have a small and closed system, and figuring out how to make that economy work might be a challenge.
What is the "end-game" for players here? By end-game, I really mean "goals": what's the point of playing? Are you trying to accumulate wealth on the ship, take over the ship, kill other players, build your own convoy fleet, ...?
Why would one be a scientist or doctor? What would such a player spend their time doing?
Why would people go down to a planet to kill each other, but not have violence on the ship? Why are people interested in fighting each other on planets in the first place?
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Runter
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#3 id:37076 Posted Nov 3, 2009, 7:15 am
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David Haley said:I think it might be difficult to have a large, fluid economy based on supply and demand if your world is a relatively small ship with relatively limited resources. Supply will be small, and unless you can figure out a way for new raw materials to get onto the ship, it's unclear how you can make new stuff. Then again, you're talking about resource gathering and stopping on planets from time to time, so perhaps that is how new material can be injected into the economy. Basically, the problem is that you'll have a small and closed system, and figuring out how to make that economy work might be a challenge.
What is the "end-game" for players here? By end-game, I really mean "goals": what's the point of playing? Are you trying to accumulate wealth on the ship, take over the ship, kill other players, build your own convoy fleet, ...?
Why would one be a scientist or doctor? What would such a player spend their time doing?
Why would people go down to a planet to kill each other, but not have violence on the ship? Why are people interested in fighting each other on planets in the first place?
All good questions. All things I've been thinking over.
To answer your question about end-game content--- I think it's best to release new heroic content in episodes whereas every episode the story can be driven further, crisis avoided, new leaderboards, new adventures, and new mechanics introduced fit for a particular episode of content. This is what I have in mind for end game. My first episode will likely what I described. I understand the need for end-game content and it will be in place in the form of actual story, shifting balances of power, and seasonal shifting of class mechanics depending on the interaction with the newest content available. That's really all I can say for sure at this point. I want to avoid being a hodgepodge of different genres but I think there is a good place to blend sim, combat, strategy, and story driven genres.
Quote: Why would one be a scientist or doctor? What would such a player spend their time doing?
Well, currently my idea is to to have separation between combat and vocation. Basically allowing anyone the chance to be very competent in combat. I don't want anyone to feel like a second-class citizen for not being a soldier. Considering 3 simple classes-- soldier, medic, engineer -- Each class could have fundamental jobs important to a "party" deciding to go on-world and explore. Even if we compared each in a loose way to the roles any MMOs use for combat I don't think it's even needed. E.g. Tank, healer, DPS. Even if all are competent at combat there may be specific hurdles each class is more fit to tackle. So the obvious question becomes why be anything other than a soldier? For someone interested in fulfilling that particular duty---It very well may be what they want to do.
Quote:Why would people go down to a planet to kill each other, but not have violence on the ship? Why are people interested in fighting each other on planets in the first place?
Perhaps they would or wouldn't want to. It would present a place for competition that makes sense within the constructs of the game. Perhaps on the ship is "lawful." Other places could be "neutral" or even "chaotic." The three different ratings would play towards exactly what type of player-vs-player could take place in specifics locations.
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......................... CoralMud project
For once you have tasted flight Ruby you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return. --
Leonardo Da Vinci Yukihiro Matsumoto
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ATT_Turan
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#4 id:37102 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 8:34 am
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Runter said:Quote:Why would people go down to a planet to kill each other, but not have violence on the ship? Why are people interested in fighting each other on planets in the first place?
Perhaps they would or wouldn't want to. It would present a place for competition that makes sense within the constructs of the game. Perhaps on the ship is "lawful." Other places could be "neutral" or even "chaotic." The three different ratings would play towards exactly what type of player-vs-player could take place in specifics locations.
That's a perfectly valid justification for it - numerous science fiction series have had the concept of internal sensors on ships and stations that can detect weapons use, and there's no reason your colony ship can't have regularly placed guard stations so that anyone who gets into a lethal fight onboard the ship is going to be apprehended by the law. Even if you insist on some realism and say they have traveling time (presuming your ship doesn't have teleporters), the best a person could do onboard the ship is a suicide gank, and then you just have to make the penalties from dying that way worse than those for being killed...or remove any penalties accrued at all from being PK'ed onboard the ship.
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KaVir
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#5 id:37104 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 9:22 am
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ATT_Turan said:That's a perfectly valid justification for it - numerous science fiction series have had the concept of internal sensors on ships and stations that can detect weapons use,
How about something like the Justice Zone in Red Dwarf?
If you don't want to watch the whole thing, skip to around 6:30.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
Last edited Nov 4, 2009, 9:22 am by KaVir
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ATT_Turan
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#6 id:37107 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 11:53 am
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KaVir said:How about something like the Justice Zone in Red Dwarf?
I'm...not sure about that 
It's an interesting idea for a more fantasy-based setting, to me...I could see a city paying its mage guild to keep in effect some sort of entropic field that turns all acts of violence back upon the people initiating them. Reminds me a bit of the sanctuary spells in the TV show Angel, actually.
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Tyche
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#8 id:37109 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 1:30 pm
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ATT_Turan said:...you just have to make the penalties from dying that way worse than those for being killed...or remove any penalties accrued at all from being PK'ed onboard the ship.
Dead is dead. Unless you have cloning. Then I suppose you could penalize those who die "improperly" as type epsilon retards as opposed to type alphas or betas - ala Huxley's Brave New World.
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For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
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ATT_Turan
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#10 id:37111 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 4:00 pm
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Tyche said:ATT_Turan said:...you just have to make the penalties from dying that way worse than those for being killed...or remove any penalties accrued at all from being PK'ed onboard the ship.
Dead is dead.
Well, not necessarily - there are no limitations on the varieties of cruel punishment that a proper game designer can come up with 
After all, one presumes that the proposed game will not have permadeath, so regardless of the game mechanic (cloning, respawning, a bored god living in a nook behind Ten-Forward) you will be continuing to play after death. Therefore, you can have the poor dead schmuck who got ganked in the ship corridor with possibly no actual penalties from the death as opposed to the person who killed him on the ship who may have all of his worldly possessions confiscated by the guard, all of his attributes reset to their starting levels by the ship's geneticist, and an electric punishment chip implanted in his neck that shocks him for 10 hit points of damage on random ticks. Not to be extreme about it or anything...
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Tyche
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#11 id:37114 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 5:16 pm
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ATT_Turan said:
After all, one presumes that the proposed game will not have permadeath, so regardless of the game mechanic (cloning, respawning, a bored god living in a nook behind Ten-Forward) you will be continuing to play after death.
When I kill someone or something, I want them to stay dead. I don't know why everybody wants to design fantasy sci/fi zombie character games. Maybe there's a fear of upsetting the child playing the game with a "Game Over" message? >:->
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For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
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Tonitrus
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#12 id:37118 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 5:35 pm
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Tyche said:When I kill someone or something, I want them to stay dead. I don't know why everybody wants to design fantasy sci/fi zombie character games. Maybe there's a fear of upsetting the child playing the game with a "Game Over" message? >:->
One of my biggest turnoffs when I'm browsing for potential new muds is the lack of permadeath. It should be reasonably rare or avoidable by people with some semblance of sense, but it should be there. Without it, you get stupid things like people removing all of their equipment when they think they're going to die so it doesn't get damaged in the process. If that doesn't make you bang your head on a table for a few seconds, there's something wrong with your brain.
Alternatively, if people aren't going to have permadeath, I wish they'd stop displaying death messages altogether. I toyed with having a "Such and such [runs/teleports/whatever] away in terror!" when I was thinking of building a PK-only mud. All that happens when you die anyway is you teleport somewhere else and lose all of your effects and get a "killed" counter incremented. That, and you drop a corpse object that is generally a nuisance to get back to. (While I'm complaining, I wish people would learn that "irritation" is not the same as "difficulty".)
Death should be one of the worst things that can happen. It should, at the very least, be several orders of magnitude worse than whether or not you scrapped your +9000hp ring.
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[00:01:15] KaVir: That's why I'm always careful to empty my inventory before picking up players.
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ATT_Turan
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#13 id:37123 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 6:13 pm
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Tonitrus said:One of my biggest turnoffs when I'm browsing for potential new muds is the lack of permadeath. It should be reasonably rare or avoidable by people with some semblance of sense, but it should be there. Without it, you get stupid things like people removing all of their equipment when they think they're going to die so it doesn't get damaged in the process. If that doesn't make you bang your head on a table for a few seconds, there's something wrong with your brain.
Alternatively, if people aren't going to have permadeath, I wish they'd stop displaying death messages altogether. I toyed with having a "Such and such [runs/teleports/whatever] away in terror!" when I was thinking of building a PK-only mud. All that happens when you die anyway is you teleport somewhere else and lose all of your effects and get a "killed" counter incremented. That, and you drop a corpse object that is generally a nuisance to get back to. (While I'm complaining, I wish people would learn that "irritation" is not the same as "difficulty".)
Death should be one of the worst things that can happen. It should, at the very least, be several orders of magnitude worse than whether or not you scrapped your +9000hp ring.
I've played a fair number of MUD's and never seen anyone do that - then again, most of those games didn't damage equipment on death. Still, it would be extremely simple to make the unequip command not usable in combat and/or cause the death damage to items in your inventory as well as on your person; I would personally think rather poorly of the coder of a game that bothered to write in a durability system and include death penalties and yet leave such an obvious loophole.
At one point, I was running a GodWars derivative that had permadeath in it. Every time someone was killed by another player, the winning player drained a percentage of the loser's statistics, Highlander-style, and the decapitated player had to (automatically) spend a point of primal energy in order to reform a new body. This gave an in-game reason for both the permadeath and the lack of it (primal energy was your ability to access a portion of your lifeforce that made you more than human), but was still quite rare at beginner levels since it's very cheap to train a single point of primal to keep on-hand. Of course, at higher levels players could gain access to powers that would steal or burn primal energy from their targets...
I think it's mainly a question of intent in design. Most people building MUD's intend for characters to be playable for as long as possible, and come up with ways to make them interesting and complex and viable for long periods of time. People playing on games designed that way will probably feel gypped if they die and the character is gone, as though they've been cheated out of access to content. Then, on the other hand, is the continued popularity of Hardcore mode in Diablo 2 - there's a clearly defined level cap and end of game as well as a time limit for the ladder, which provides a lack of expectations when it comes to lasting power of the character. The point is to get as far as you can on one life and that's it.
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KaVir
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#14 id:37124 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 6:28 pm
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Tonitrus said:One of my biggest turnoffs when I'm browsing for potential new muds is the lack of permadeath.
It's a matter of personal taste - like most design decisions, there's no right or wrong. But you'll find a larger number of people will be turned off by the presence of permadeath than by the lack of it.
Tonitrus said:Without it, you get stupid things like people removing all of their equipment when they think they're going to die so it doesn't get damaged in the process.
No, that's another issue entirely. You get the same thing in muds where certain mobs can destroy equipment during combat, and that would still be the case if the mud had permadeath.
Tonitrus said:Death should be one of the worst things that can happen.
Why? In a futuristic setting death might be little more than an inconvenience, with "lost data" being the only thing people truly fear. The same sort of logic might apply to a high-magic fantasy setting. Permadeath could actually break the immersion, by being an "unrealistic" feature which undermines the theme.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Tonitrus
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#15 id:37128 Posted Nov 4, 2009, 7:12 pm
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KaVir said:Tonitrus said:Death should be one of the worst things that can happen.
Why? In a futuristic setting death might be little more than an inconvenience, with "lost data" being the only thing people truly fear. The same sort of logic might apply to a high-magic fantasy setting. Permadeath could actually break the immersion, by being an "unrealistic" feature which undermines the theme.
(As usual, I didn't really think that last post through before posting. I meant what I said, but I didn't exactly say what I meant. Also, I'm very lazy with quoting. I'd apologize if I had any intention of changing.)
I agree with your comment that the presence or absence of permadeath is a matter of personal taste. To be clear, what I am complaining about here is mainly a presentation issue. If we are playing Highlander immortals, then getting killed 300 times a game and returning to life is perfectly appropriate. (dropping corpses is still retarded)
I was also reading up on Godwars2 yesterday, and typical mud 'reincarnation' did not strike me as inappropriate for the world/theme.
Also, on certain types of muds, having permadeath would be exceedingly difficult. Pk muds for example. You could do it, but it'd require a lot of alterations, because if the only way to defeat a person is to kill them, people will die a lot.
On the other hand, in a system where people are supposed to be "heroic individuals" saving the world from whatever crap is wrong with it this particular week, dying 30 times a day and dropping 30 corpses in the town square is, to me, a bit jarring. Apparently other people are not bothered by this, which I find even more jarring, but whatever.
A random other factoid: Another mud I used to play (and keep wishing I still did) had a limit to the number of times a person reincarnated, so while people could still die a lot, each death was bad, since it counted towards an eventual end.
(regarding the equipment thing, the mud I'm referring to didn't damage equipment on death, but it damaged equipment on nasty hits, and if a mob disarmd you and you got your corpse via a deity, your weapons didn't come, so whenever I would wander into a certain area of certain doom, I'd just remove all of my equipment and eat a horrible death, since that was the easiest way out of the situation. Death was basically inconsequential, having no effect at all aside from the possible loss of items)
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[00:01:15] KaVir: That's why I'm always careful to empty my inventory before picking up players.
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