[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[msew]

At 09:30 10/06/00 +0000, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
>In the end, I think while non-epic games certainly have a large audience,
>epicness will always capture the largest audience over time.
>--matt


Yes, epicness, how famous you are, how you saved the world from the 
ultimate destruction are all vital. To a degree.

The issue is that this gets WAY fricking boring***.  On some of the muds I 
have played to maxLevel on I would not even bother going on the most recent 
"save the world quest" because it was boring to me.  And I would watch like 
the 2nd or 3rd tier players attempt to fight the uber bad guy and just get 
whacked.  And my guild/friends and I would just sit there laughing to 
ourselves thinking: "I wonder what great NPC hero the gods will bring in 
this time to beat the uber evil overlord this time."  In EQ the epicness of 
going to kill the gods or dragons has totally lost it's glimmer and those 
mobs are just viewed the same as a kobold for me; set up shop and whack 
them, loot corpse, NEXT!

[
***I don't want to the point of making tradeskills more complex to be 
equated with that will extend the game for people.  I think it adds more 
goals for people to accomplish but I do not believe that adding more goals 
to accomplish is the correct methodology for making the life of a game longer.
]


If you had to watch star wars EVERY week on TV you would get bored with it 
very quickly.  Now compare that to the various sitcoms: simpsons and 
seinfled are a key example that another reader (jszeder at roshambo.net
) brought up.  They are funny not so much for what the end result of the 
conflict is but HOW they overcome the conflict and how the characters react 
in the face of the conflict.


One of the reasons is that "epicness" has been seemingly always been 
defined as:  the darkness/event cometh and the world as we know it / out 
way of life / etc etc  is going to be extinguished if the heros don't rise 
up and stop it.  We ALL know that the "good" guys are going to win.  That 
is how theses things turn out.  But it is HOW / the PROCESS of how they go 
about winning that is interesting.  The stories one can write and tell 
about the process the heros went through to vanquish the bad guys / event.


These epic battles usually have lots of parts and battles and information 
that must be uncovered to complete them.  Those are the interesting parts 
of the quests (and if they aren't then you are doing quests incorrectly to 
have long term questing stay vibrant in your world).  It is not stand in 
the middle of the town and click the "do epic quest button" and have some % 
chance of being the big hero!


Heck, even on Everquest you are having some EPIC event occurring and of the 
2000 people on the server only about 100 show up for big event.  Certainly 
this is because you get 40+ people in close proximity and the frame rate 
just drops.  But it is also a symptom of:  while epicness is interesting it 
is not the end all be all.  Epicness might be fun but making bread can be / 
should be JUST as fun!


Imagine if you will:

----------------------

The entire kingdom is under siege!  The all encompassing evil is on the 
horizon!  The dark clouds of doom are here!   The call goes out!   The 
trumpets sound!!!

"Heros!  Heros!  Come to the town square!!!  We must save our kingdom!!!"


The heros all arrive.  They form a mile long line.  The king sits upon his 
throne in the middle of the town square.   The aged king calls for his 
sorcerer to "Give us the Epic Quest!"

The sorcerer raises his hands and with a grand gesture the Giant Red Button 
labeled "Complete Epic Quest" appears!!!!!!!!!!


Ooooohhhs  and Ahhhhss from the crowd!  "The eepppiiccccc  qquueeessttttttt"


The king stands up raising his hands for silence!  "Adventurer number one 
come forth!"


 From the mile long line of adventurers the fight mighty warrior steps 
forth!  He is bristling in armor, his muscle bulging, his magical FLAMING 
SWORD OF DOOM in his hands!!!


The crowd is quiet but you can hear the murmurs:  "FrazzleFoo has a 96% 
skill rating in Epic Quests!!"  "FrazzleFoo will save us!"  "Where did he 
get that sword!  That's new!"


FrazzleFoo reaches out his hand and the crowd is silent!  You can cut the 
tension with a knife!!  His hand comes in contact with the floating button!


--> You're attempt at the Epic Quest has resulted in failure.


The crowd begins to weep. The king jumps to his feet!  "Never fear my 
kingdom!!  We have 200 more heros with 90+ probability of success!  We are 
assured to defeat this threat to our kingdom!!!!"

Cheers emanate from the crowd!


"Adventurer two come forth!"




Years later the mighty adventurers are retelling their tales.  "Yeah I 
stood in line for 2 hours before I got to touch the button.  I failed 
sadly.  And you know what, it was the best thing that ever happened to 
me.  I went back and practiced "epic quest" skill and now I almost never fail!"


----------------------


Someone else has brought up this same point.  Combat / action oriented / 
_exciting_ things are not single button click based.   There is some human 
investment and skill thrown into the mix.


I see ZERO evidence why baking can not be turned into an epic-ness 
equivalent to the heros that go out and kick the dragon's ass.

In all of these "epic" examples that our society has grown to be addicted 
to are of the form:


the world is going to end  ...... unless something happens.



What that "something happens" consists of is what we, as 
designers/admins/wizzes, can make to what ever we want!!!  We often define 
it as:  bad guy must be killed, or key strategic point in the bad guys's 
uber plan must be stopped / destroyed.


I ask the question of:  why can't that strategic point be:


The kingdom is under attack.  Your heros have a good chance of being able 
to stop it.  But you are not certain.   The ancient Hung-Su warriors could 
stop the bad guys for certain!  Interestingly enough the Hung-Su value the 
taste of food over all else in their life.  They battle and fight for the 
RIGHT to dine on the finest BREAD!!!    If you want to get the Hung-Su to 
stop the bad guys you must make the UBER-raisin bread for their emperor!!!!

Now you have that "simple???" breadmaker be able to be vaulted up to the 
"epic ness" level.  His skill at baking bread is ANOTHER way (maybe the 
only way) for your kingdom to be saved.  Perhaps the Hung-Su will give you 
a number of shock troops based on how tasty your bread is.


Imagine if you had the above scenario with the Hung-Su ready to help for 
the raisin bread and all you had to do is click the button to make it.  And 
making some quest to get the uber raisin bread from the Chefs of Cobal is 
not the same as the sudden realization that you need to take the wussy 
Breadbaker deep into the maw of hell itself to find an oven that is hot 
enough to make the uber raisin bread.



I think people REALLY REALLY REALLY under estimate what people find 
valuable.  On EQ people are paying like 5k platinum+ for a picture of their 
character to be drawn by Raene ( http://2amstudios.com/eq/portraits.htm 
).  She has SOO much demand for her picts that she can't meet supply. 
(currently RL came back in but throughout her portrait creation time 
she  could never meet demand)


In games right now, tradeskills are just a button.  Click and combine 
baby.  Certain people (not characters but irl humans) should be BETTER at 
breadbaking than others.  They should be the people that make the 
uber-raisin bread.  The bread that dragons will stop attacking the kingdom 
for!   The bread that will reduce a year off your life because it is soooo 
damn good.


Just because we as admins/gods/wizzes don't see ANY value in the raisin 
bread does not mean the players will MAKE it valuable.   Either as a status 
symbol, or excess material goods or some crazy cult of the raisin bread 
that ONLY will eat raisin bread.


In both UO and EQ it has come up time and time again about how much CRAP 
people keep in their banks/houses.  Why do people keep that crap?  It is 
not worth anything in game or on ebay.  But yet I have EVERY single robe my 
necromancer on everquest has gotten.  Why me, a consummate powergamer, 
would ever do such a thing?  I have no idea it just happened.  And now all 
my high lvl friends and I all have the gossimer white robe and we wear them 
for fun.





msew









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