[MUD-Dev] Wilderness

[Madrona Tree]

> From: "Freeman, Jeff" <jfreeman at verant.com> 

> Not just speed of travel and size of the world, but also because
> people quite literally had very little concept of where things
> were in relation to other things.  They knew if they traveled from
> "A" to "B" to "C" then they could get to "D".  They didn't know
> where "D" was in relation to "A".

*snip*

> The idea that something might happen to "C" or "B" and therefore
> necessitate the discovery of a new route is something I hadn't
> considered, but I like it.

Practical Use ought to be discussed in here somewhere.  I mean -
randomly generating terrain is a neat theory and everything, but if
it isn't implemented well, all you've got is a big pile of randomly
generated terrain, and that's no fun.  :P


The first thing I thought about was Teleportation.  When we are
discussing terrain we are actually discussing Travel (casue what
good is terrain if nobody travels on it? :)) It occurred to me while
I was reading this, that we were discussing in EQ /gu the other day
how Teleporters have a mussed-up view of geography.  To me, who
plays a druid, Point X is only as far away as the nearest Druid
Circle.  Somtimes -- a lot of times, actually, since I cancelled
before both expansions before and resubscribed (and got my
already-teleporting-everywhere druid back) after Kunark and Velious
came out, the only route to Point X *is* the druid-circle route.

I have no idea how to get from the Swamp of No Hope to Firiona Vie.
A friend asked me how to get from Firiona Vie to Skyfire, and I had
no clue how to do that, either.  Mostly because I just hardly ever
go to Firiona Vie (because, of course, it is not convenient to a
Druid Circle).  They fixed this, a little, with the Dragon Circle
Teeth in Velious -- you pick up a tooth off the ground at the
circle, and you can't port or be ported to that circle without
having this tooth on your person.

But anyway, Teleportation might screw up your whole
wilderness/changing terrains stuff.  If people can just get 'ported
everywhere, nobody will ever see it.

On the other hand, a world without teleportation could really stink.
If one of your goals is to let people be able to be a casual player,
let them explore for 1-2 hours and log out - either in the middle of
the forest - safely - or even better, at some sort of "safe spot"
(villiage, outpost, whatever) where they can log back on and find
new people to make the next leg of their journey.  Lots of times,
casual players will need to make pickup groups, and they will not be
logging in and out at the same time.

Especially if the world is changing, it could be hazardous to log
out in the wilderness.  What about the guy who logs near a river, to
log back in and discover that the river has flooded and become a
lake, and he's underwater?  Or the guy who logs out on a
mountainside, and logs back in a couple days or weeks later to
discover that he was actually on the side of a volcano, and is now
covered in lava?

Might seem like silly concerns, but you get my point.


Madrona Tree.

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