dynamic world ecosystem

[Zarcath]

please, from the start, lets implement a dynamic world ecosystem. I recall a small indie MMO of recent that was doing this, don't remember who.

A Dynamic World Ecosystem meaning Wolves eat Rabbits, if players kill off all the wolves the rabbits population goes out of control, if players kill off all the rabbits the wolves start attacking towns/humans.

And please, items that cycle and have limited existance. In old MUDs I liked that items I bought today may not be available months down the road. Makes you feel special for being there and having that item. Creates a rarity system. Even if the item is a piece of shit sock with -10 armor on it, if you're the only one with it in the game, makes it so much sweeter.

My biggest gripe with MMOs today is they claim they're dynamic, but they're only dynamic going forward. Sure they add new content, but everything they put in from Day 1 is more or less the same on Day 20678. I don't call that dynamic.

It's not as difficult to achieve if we build a system like this from the get go. All it would involve is a large database of checks/balances and different rule/data sets.

[Faille]

Feel free to make a start on it 8)


As is mentioned in the mission statement, this project is about implementing your own ideas.

This one certainly sounds like a good one though and wouldn't mind seeing it in action in some form.

[Tuco]

Yeah this sounds like a good idea.

[Zarcath]

Another thing I'd like to incorporate is "expanding cities". Something like how Civ4 cities expand through culture and such.

The more quests players complete in the city, the more prestigious it becomes. You have to help the city build certain amenities.

Lets say the city needs a blacksmith. You have to go to another city or find an NPC that'll do it. Escort him to the city, then help him get the tools he needs and help "build" the structure. Collect/craft building materials, go off and slay a goblin to get a special hammer that gives the blacksmith a lower repair ratio. All of the "buildables" should be destroyable too. Maybe under constant attack by wild animals if it's a fringe city. If players don't do kill quests or don't help gather repair materials, the building is at risk of being destroyed. Or even major cities under attack by crime syndicates. If players ignore or don't complete enough anti-syndicate quests, or complete a lot of pro-syndicate quests, the city is taken over by them or even destroyed.

[Mist]

You might want to stick with ideas that you can actually code.

[Tuco]

I could code something like that, there's no real barrier to it. The hardest part would be the AI that would determine the buildings and laying of new groundwork for them, which certainly isn't new to the field of computer science.

It would be more accurate to say that you should stick to something that's likely to be implemented well enough anytime soon, but this forum isn't just for "What's the next step in Uberworlds?", it's also for far reaching ideas like these.

[Moontayle]

Didn't AC2 have an expanding city type of thing going for it? I remember reading about it but I had no interest in the game so I never followed up on it.

[Braen]

we could do the same things with sentient mobs.

Say orc are in a certain area, if left alone orcs will start gathering and form a village of some sort. They will add sentries/patrols and start taking resources from the local area to start building into a bigger, more organized village/city.

[Faille]

Similar to Braen's idea, I like to have it when you kill a boss mob, a grunt respawns. after x amount of time, he depops and a better mob spawns. So on and so until you get back to the boss mob. So players have a choice of grabbing the less good loot quicker, or waiting for the real boss for the real loot, combined with the conflict between 2 seperate groups of players.

[Braen]

Awesome idea. And if there is a group of those "grunts" anyone of them can randomly become the "Grunt+1" so you never know who that "PH" is.

I would also like to see an expansion on the EQ1 ideas of NPC wars with factions. Where players can help in dynamically changing which NPCs control what parts of the zone.

If I knew stuff about coding.. I would be working on a dynamic questing system to take advantage of this. Or even have dev/GMs that drive the content themselves.

Another thing, if we create the world we need solid Lore. We need something people can latch onto and believe. I like how WoW has basically one guy that responsible for their Lore and takes the heat when something is missed (hello Draeni and Lord Kazzak)

I love to be in the active part of designing this world. I am tired of having/seeing good ideas and just wondering what it would be like. I would like players and like minded people to get this going.

[Tuco]

The coding part for upgrading NPCs wouldn't be overly complicated. You'd simply have a time calibration set where every set amount of time the zone would iterate through the available mobs and upgrade them randomly by a calibrated amount. It'd be a serverside thing.

The biggest issue code wise would be getting the function into the server code to do a live update of a MOB. Doing an iteration every hour would just be incorporated into the main loop of the game server.

Doing a city building or having orcs create outposts would be much more difficult because you'd need to do a lot of error checking with where the orcs were creating outposts. The easy way to do it is set the positions the orcs can create outposts.

[Moontayle]

Originally Posted by Braen

Another thing, if we create the world we need solid Lore. We need something people can latch onto and believe. I like how WoW has basically one guy that responsible for their Lore and takes the heat when something is missed (hello Draeni and Lord Kazzak)

While my creative writing skills aren't making me any money (yet), I've written three novels (unsold), numerous short stories including several which were used by a webgame author for his game (CastleQuest 2), and a novel-length Star Wars fan fiction which was published at SWGVault. I can provide samples, if needed. Given that there isn't a chance in hell of me going to school for design or programming at this stage of my life, writing Lore is the best I can offer. Plus, writing is what I ultimately want to end up doing for a living.

[Vatoreus]

I'm currently attending The Art Institute for Graphic Design, but only going to be in that program until I put together my portfolio and then going to be entering into the Game Art and Design program. I'm currently teaching myself 3ds Max and Maya, so eventually, I can start working on the art and animation.

[Tuco]

Depending on how far you are in your education with Maya/3dsmax, you may want to look into how difficult it is to import content into the multiverse editor.

If you plan on developing art for 3d games for a career, learning how to deal with what is probably a very immature tool will be great experience.

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by Tuco

The biggest issue code wise would be getting the function into the server code to do a live update of a MOB. Doing an iteration every hour would just be incorporated into the main loop of the game server.

Easy. Changing of the Guard.

Another thing I'd like to work on is non-static city environments. NPCs that have places to go and things to do. Give them daily lives or schedules.

For all Guard-type npcs, give them a "home base/barracks" that they return to/rotate out from every 10-12hours(+/- variable). If Guard10 has x amount of time counters on him upon entering the barracks, the world spawns a promoted unit and cycles it into the guard. Just have to do a simple check to make sure you don't get a ton of named mobs up.

If mob = 10x TimeCounter // check guard-cycle1 // if promotion1 = no, promote mob

then it just keeps going up. Day 1 is all grunts and the main boss. Few days later a grunt is promoted to guard captain, if he's undefeated, he goes up to commander. Once he vacates the guard captain position, the next most senior grunt is able to advance and take his place.

A changing of the guard could serve for gameplay purposes as well. Maybe players will wait until the guards are rotated out to try and sneak in? And the timecounter could be redistributed to a new grunt instead of attached to a certain one, so players can't leave 1 alone and come back in a week to kill him.