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Dynamic, is it really possible to have an uncontrolled world in an MMO?
Distopia
Member EpicPosts: 21,183
A lot of devs have used the word dynamic to describe content they are creating. Is this truly possible in an MMO environment? Doesn't there have to be a level a staticity in content therein? Sure they can add variables that essentially randomize themselves, however, these things have to be controlled in an MMO, if only to avoid chaos.
Now with Dynamic events, how is it truly possible to have them in an MMO? Without creating chaos, also, if they are confined to a radius, is this not staticity? I guess you could look at it like a snow globe where chaos can be created inside a bubble, it becomes essentially a static object though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
They are scripted, but they are scripted in a way that makes them happen without being predictable by the players (unless they require player interaction to start). They are not static because that would mean nothing would happen without player interaction and they would never change.
Yeah man, ANet never claimed their dymanic events were uncontrolled. They call it dynamic because it replaces all their quests and it branches off into a large number of different possibilities for each event. Thus making the content extremely different through each play through, it's not just repeating itself. (It is in a sense, but not just going over and over again. They're triggered by different things and depending if you fail or succeed the event, its outcomes are different)
I look at dynamic content as instance dungeon content that is carried over into the open world. It can can activate over and over, it just needs to be activated. In GW2's case it is activated my the players and in Rift it is activated by the server for the most part. What you see today will pop tomorrow and so on.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Thanks for the link, hadn't watched this. So, it is essentially a snow globe that shakes itself. I was just wondering how they planned on or were containing them.
It could be interesting if they had went a route with roaming "dynamic" content. However controlling such a thing I'd figure a nightmare to attempt.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Look at it this way,
Think Dynamic Events as Quest with a twist.
They have spawn spots, and they don't require a player to accept the quest to spawn
So basically what happens now is that we have a event that plays out a quest, but the quest is design to continue even if the player is unable to complete the quest, fundamentally they have write a quest with two outcomes, one is when players succeed in completing the event, and one is when player fail to complete the quest.
It basically is those events system in normal MMO but instead of some festival events, these ones tells a story and are more in depth. It is just an iterative design of what had been done before, but is layout and design to be so much better.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
The best dynamic events in the past were run by the players themselves, in my opinion.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
To be truely dynamic is to gives every single NPC in-game a mind of their own. That would be fantastic!
Truer words were never spoken.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That would be total chaos and poor game design.
Seconded!!
Didn't City of Heroes have player created mission? Didn't seem too big on it =
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
Instead of MOB camping from the past, now we'd have NPC camping while people wait for their quest giver to respawn lol.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I'm looking at it in more of a SWG, UO way. Where players organized the gameplay for the night themselves.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The players were making scripted instances in CoH, as far as I know. A far cry from the dynamic events that took place before instances ever existed.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I think it would neat as well. I remember Dungeon Masters used to play the role of the NPCs and monsters in the tabletop RPGs. Of course those were on a much smaller scale. Perhaps unrealistic at this time, but there is always the holodeck to look forward to
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Didn't City of Heroes have player created mission? Didn't seem too big on it =
I'm looking at it in more of a SWG, UO way. Where players organized the gameplay for the night themselves.
Oh man SWG back in the day nailed this perfectly. I remember going to a wedding that was being held at an Imperial stronghold city (player city), well about halfway through the reception, word got out that one of the Rebel strongholds was about to get raided. Some of us in the wedding party were rebel and when we heard the news, we scrambled to get our armor and weapons ready. The bride and groom had to call a temporary truce before all hell broke loose and we ended up getting a 15 min headstart before the town mayor declared us as intruders. We all ended up joining the fight at the reb stronghold and we all roleplayed the entire event from start to finish. Prob one of my favorite gaming moments of all time.
The developers gave us the tools to create our own content and we took it and ran with it. THAT is a true Dynamic Event.
OK...so...basically what you have here is a mix of open world PvP (which GW2 doesn't have), RPing (which GW hasn't really had at all, and 2 factions (which GW2 doesn't have).
The reason for the lack of factions and open world PvP has been explained before (you are supposed to be the hero in a game that promotes cooperation with actual players), and the lack of RPing is really a product of having a heavily instanced game. basically, what i am trying to say is that without PvP in open world, these things just aren't going to happen.
Now, more important to why Dynamic events are the way they are, each one helps describe whats going on in the world, connecting players to the story by familiarizing them with the different elements of the world. For example a bunch of pirates are trying to burn a town, and you see the fire and decide to help out (because, if you don't, you won't be able to get stuff from that village until the pirates have been defeated and because this kind of content is supposed to be fun). You are introduced to one element of the world, being pirates, and afterwards you chill out in the town and talk with the townsfolk and see whats going on with the world (with VO content abound), and helping out where you see fit.
They are called "dynamic" not just because the activate at unpredictable times, but also because the outcome of each event (pass or fail) leads to the world being effected in a myriad of different ways, triggering other events and creating a game state that is always in flux and usually different each time you go to any given area.
To answer the original question, yes, and in GW2, DEs basically create that randomness by allowing players every opportunity to change whats going to happen next. its out of the devs hands and in the hands of players.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I think you oversimplified it juuuust a bit
yeah, but what I was trying to say is that with some games, the elements of player run events just aren't there.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Eh creativity is all that needs to be challenged to really make something seem dynamic. Static control or coded chaos both can be reigned in with proper design.
We'll see. It may seem static after awhile, but for a cog based progression system affecting an entire area and all the players- becoming the "norm" is what the King desires.
I think GW2 will put in to practice an acceptable alpha version of this system. Similar to the dev promises of the now long since dead "Hero's Journey".
Real change will come when it inspires stronger innovation.
GW2 is taking a nice controlled step in the right direction, and I bet ArenaNet manages well enough to push it further as time passes by.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cloudsol/
What exactly did he over-simplify? Aren't those the tools you need to have such a player driven/created event?
This is not a game.
Rift already answered thsio question... Dynamic is a marketing ploy and nothing more until proven otherwise... Dynamic means could happen anywhere IE rifts... but it doesnt make the Rifts more enjoyable as they are all 1 of 10-15 variations if not less. So... it's not possible but I believe Arena Net will try really hard to do a better system than Rift.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
No, those were the tools to have that specific player driven event. You don't need to have 2 factions, RP and PVP to create a story. You can make player driven events based on any context within the game world.
The major limiting factor is how much time players are willing to invest in creating them. Being a GM and doing events requires a lot of resources. Most people are more interested in just being a player, not a GM.