RE: [MUD-Dev] Next gen MUD wishlist

["Sellers, Michael" <MSellers#maxis,com>]

Adam wrote:
> Which begs the question, of course: what really IS the next 
> generation?
> 
> Is it simply more scalability, so that instead of 500 people online we go
> to 500,000?
> 
> Is it more immersive worlds via graphics and sound?
> 
> Is it more malleable worlds, with more 'realistic' entity interactions,
and
> especially more complex player<->world interactions?
> 
> Is it better tools for organizing societies within the mud world, so that
> players can better interact with each other?
> 
> Is it enhanced building/scripting tools so that huge, complex, dynamic
worlds
> can be created without requiring thousands of work-hours of effort?
> 
> These are not retorical questions.  I'm wondering what really IS important
> to both players and developers.  And these are high-level questions:
> answers like "cross-platform migratable server processes" or "an
arbitrarily
> large, spinlockable disk-based DB" are not what I have in mind.  These
> are simply methods to achieve a goal - what is that goal, for the people
> on this list?

I think the answers to these questions are going to vary by developer.  For
myself, I'd say the answer to the above questions are "yes."  Of course,
YMMV.  

One other thought: I haven't seen the new NeverWinter Nights so I don't know
what they actually have... but maybe the next-next-generation of MUDs will
allow developers to finally ignore the low-level questions (e.g.,
"spinlockable disk-based DBs") and focus on the game itself.  What if you
had usable tools that enabled you to put together something like a subset of
Asheron's Call, but using your own system, locations, NPCs, and story arcs?
*That* IMO will be seriously cool.  Dunno how long it'll take us to get
there though.  

Mike Sellers



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