Friday, October 28, 2005

Dynamic Abstract

I just wrote up the 'abstract' portion of the dynamic specification... or in other words a summary. Its still basicly unofficial but might give some of you people new to the project a better idea of what im trying to accomplish:



Dynamic Mud is my attempt at a better MUD. I realized that static zones can get quite boring. Game politics in MUDs I have played in the past became a big issue and the worst part was loosing friends and getting in fights. My intention is to create a game where player politics are part of the game. Where people will enjoy interacting with each other both cooperatively and competitively to change a world in their favor. In MUDs like Medievia for example it is hard to detach yourself from the game. It becomes a career and players ‘retire’ when they want to stop playing.

Dynamic’s Real Death System will allow players a more fluid connection to the game. It will become easier to come and go, and players will be able to learn not to become overly attached to their characters as they would in a game where characters last forever. This will also give players a chance to fade in and out, and become someone new. It also will prevent problems caused by all the power gamers ganging up on the smaller players.

Dynamic will be entirely free, it will pay for itself in various means such as advertisements on it’s game generated web-site and various merchandise sales online.

Everything in Dynamic will change from day to day, and even hour by hour. If one watches the map they will see the rise and fall of empires, battlefields, villages and other various changing features. The ability of players to change their landscape ads a whole new dimension of fun. Players will also interact with the occasional planned scripted event. Attacks from the underworld and afar as well as various player driven wars and campaigns. Creatures will also help dictate the landscape as players fight to protect their homes from monsters and dragons.

The game will include no levels, all skills and attributes will grow as they are used. The complete lack of visibly scoring of players will make it hard to judge who is stronger then you and who is not.

The mapping system will provide for much more interesting engagements. Other MUDs have maps but none that I know of have player highlighting on the maps. This system will display player locations in your vicinity, even representing battle lines in large engagements.

The combat system will be innovative with its lack of a combat locking mechanism, allowing for larger swirling melee environments. Ranged weapons and heavy weapons will also add an entirely new strategic element. AI driven beings will add to the scale of conflicts and the scale of the world as well.

The ships system will provide a means for players to travel far and wide across oceans and to battle in a completely different environment.

Dynamic will also include player grown and harvested foods, player created items and a limited resource model.
The coolest thing left to note is the plan to publish books each year that will detail the events of the year, provide maps and figures based on what players did. Players will be able to see their names written in a book when they help keep the world safe, or lead their empire to dominate the world.


Please comment if you would like to, I would enjoy some feedback.

-Toraux

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