Dynamic Character Missions

[thelopez]

In the MORPG that I want to design I want to include missions that characters can attempt. There are several problems, IMHO, with the mission systems that have been implemented by other MMORPGs, CRPGs, etc. In particular, two stand out in my mind,

1. Most MMORPGs, CRPGs, etc only have a finite set of missions that players can complete. There might be a few hundred but that is still a finite number of missions. Having a finite set of missions could cause players to become disinterested in the game at some point in time.

2. The missions that are implemented can be repeated once, twice, a hundred times, a thousand times, etc. Missions that reward the player with money, resources, weapons, armor, etc. can be exploited by players resulting in hyper-inflation of those reward types.


How can a mission system be implemented that:
1. Is dynamic, allowing for an infinite amount of missions?
2. Provides non-repeatable, unique missions that reward the player without creating the hyper-inflation problem?


I have some preliminary design ideas and here they are:

Animal/monster/humanoid Persistence
Animals/monsters/humanoids have to be persistent in the game world. This means is that after a player-VS-animal/monster/humanoids encounter where the animal/monster/humanoids survived the encounter that animal/monster/humanoids doesn't just disappear never to be encountered again by a player. Instead they are left in the game world by the system to possibly encounter other players, NPCs, or animal/monsters/humanoids. This allows for the animal/monster/humanoids to grow in levels, power, attributes, etc.

Animal/monster/humanoid Persistence Conversion to NPC
After a level/experience threshold is passed the animal/monster/humanoid can now be considered an NPC. When they become an NPC the animal/monster/humanoids is given:
-   A small attribute boost - maybe about 5%
-   A name
-   Maybe a layer for the NPC animal/monster/humanoid could be created and added to a region making it the home region for the NPC animal/monster/humanoid
-   Maybe a special item. The special item would be dependant on the type, level, etc of the animal/monster/humanoid. The special item could be used to identify that the player actually completed the mission.

Dynamic Mission Creation
If that new NPC animal/monster/humanoid then encounters a NPC and either kills the NPC or the NPC runs away, a point value is added to the new NPC animal/monster/humanoid mission trigger point pool. If by adding a point to the NPC animals/monsters/humanoids mission trigger point pool pushes it past a threshold, a mission is created and added to the nearest town. The reward for that mission depends on the level of the NPC animal/monster/humanoid and how tough it is attribute wise. There are two mission types that could be created(I haven't had a chance to think of any more mission types yet):

Killing the NPC animal/monster/humanoid
This mission type would require the player to kill the NPC animal/monster/humanoid and bring back proof that the deed was done. The proof could be the skin of the NPC animal/monster, the ear, head, etc. of the NPC animal/monster/humanoid.

Capturing the NPC humanoid
The other mission type would require the player to capture instead of killing the NPC humanoid. This type of mission would require the player character to have a certain set of skills like trap or knockout and some special equipment like handcuffs.

Mission Resolution
Players can then go to the town and look at the available missions and accept a mission if they want. At this point in time the player has a set amount of time in which to complete the mission (I haven't figured out exactly how much time yet). If the player successfully completes the mission, they take the NPC humanoid or proof that they killed the NPC animal/monster/humanoid back to the town where they accepted the mission and collect their reward. The player can fail the mission in many ways, by:
-   Dying
-   Not killing the NPC animal/monster/humanoid in the time allowed
-   The NPC animal/monster/humanoid being killed by another NPC animal/monster/humanoid or player
If the player failed to complete the mission then they lose some of their prestige, which is measured by (something that I haven't figured out yet). The amount of prestige lost depends on why they failed the mission.

Recording of Successful Player Missions
By having this feature the player could go back and see a synopsis, who/what/where, of the missions that they have accomplished. This information could live in a monastery outside of the town. When the player successfully completes a mission a "monk" from the local monastery would record the information about that mission. At any point in time the player could go and view their tome of missions for a nominal fee. At any point in time any player could view the tome of another player for a nominal fee higher than the nominal fee for viewing their tome. The nominal fee would go to the upkeep of the tome and for the time that it took to find the tome itself.

This feature accomplishes several things:
1.   Explains why the "monk" class exists in the game world.
2.   Provides a place to warehouse the information.
3.   Provides another money sink in the game.


So what do you guys think? Please feel free to ask "pointed" questions, point out weaknesses, etc.

[Peter Nordstrand]

Hi,

What is a MORPG?

/Peter N

[thelopez]

Hi,

What is a MORPG?

/Peter N

A MORPG is a Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. This is different than a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) because it tries to target a smaller audience rather than a huge audience.

Does that answer your question?

[Christopher Weeks]

How can a mission system be implemented that:
1. Is dynamic, allowing for an infinite amount of missions?
2. Provides non-repeatable, unique missions that reward the player without creating the hyper-inflation problem?

You could have all missions be hosted by PCs who want to pay an amount for some kind of result.  These could still take the classic forms of: find a place that matches these criteria, find a source of a resource, bring me this many units of this resource, kill (or capture) this particular entity, kill this many of this type of entity, entertain at my party, craft this kind of good for me using either your materials or those from my stores, work for me in any capacity, promote my faction/guild/government by doing this, etc.

If you can design a sophisticated economy (which I think you're unlikely to do by leaving it open) and minimize the amount that NPC machinations are running the show, the players will take care of the rest through the wonders of the marketplace.  You'd just want to design a flexible contractual or legal interface for the players to exploit.

my $.02,

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

What's the point of the monks? Why not have some mechanical effect of their work? For instance, if the monks make copies that are circulated around the game world, then they could be said to be increasing the character's reputation - which could have mechanical effects in gaining more important missions later.

There was a PBEM from Lucky Llama games (now defunct, I think) called something cliche.... can't remember. But many missions simply existed to enable you to do more important missions. So, killing monster X might get you no rewards except for the friendship of the duke who sent you. Which means that he'd then trust you to do more important things.

Didn't Elder Scroll (sp?) have some sort of method for coming up with infinite new misisons? I remember that being pretty OK.

The point is that you can have rewards that are less direct, less tangible than cash or power. I think a lot of it hinges on coming up with good NPC motivations and intelligence (or having GM backup to this). And, then at some point, as Chris says, you want to have the players being the ones calling for missions.

This has it's own known problems, however, which have to be solved by having other levels of goals. At some point the player has to stop being interested in going around solo and improving his character, and find something in the community to invest in.

I'm wondering what effect children would have on such a game (and I almost shudder to think about it).

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

This has it's own known problems, however, which have to be solved by having other levels of goals. At some point the player has to stop being interested in going around solo and improving his character, and find something in the community to invest in.

These two recent CRPG/MMORPG threads got me thinking about stats and community in an MMORPG.  I really think that the whole levelling treadmill is inane and the very benefits of the process destructive.  So I've been wondering what would happen if every PC had ten social bonds that they could reallocate at will, essentially as a reward or homage, to connect them to another PC.  Then, your stats (or something) would be based on the number of these connections that pointed to you.  I haven't ground through an actual systemic example yet, but I think it's a neat germ of an idea.

I'm wondering what effect children would have on such a game (and I almost shudder to think about it).

You mean, bearing offspring in the game?  What are you envisioning as the results?

Chris

[thelopez]

I'm wondering what effect children would have on such a game (and I almost shudder to think about it).

You mean, bearing offspring in the game?  What are you envisioning as the results?

Chris

Hmmm... Having children in a game... Wouldn't that be an interesting way to handle character deaths?

[Mike Holmes]

What, the player takes over one of his children? Kinda like happens sometimes in Aria? Not really what I was thinking.

What I'm getting at is linking the characters to the setting. As I'm fond of saying 72.4% of all RPG characters are orphans (making one wonder what horrible event could have caused that in a MMORPG). Often the problem with player behavior is that the only counteractive motive that they respect at all is force. That is the only reason not to steal things is if there's a chance that the character will end up in jail.

But what if the character had children? Or other family. People who might become dissapointed by the character should be do somthing wrong. Havingt this sort of thing creates all sorts of new goals for characters. Why kill monsters if it means no treasure? Why, to make the world a better place for your children, of course.

The thing is, what I worry about is that children might just get "gamed" as much as any other commodity. You'd have to be careful, or some players would find a way to turn reproduction into a goldmine, cranking out as many children as possible, and selling them for slave labor or the like. Ick.

The point is that there are no real social consequences in these games. So it's hard to create goals that relate to anything other than power. So what I'm advocating is looking at systems like heroquest, and altering the game to have abilities like relationships. Then the entire game could be spent by people trying to do good and polish their reputations so that they'll be more socially acceptable. And if some player does go off to play a sociopath, then at least he'll be a villain worth knocking off by the good guys.

Again, make the game more realistic, in this case socially, and the rest falls into place.

Mike

[Tavish]

There have been some very interesting discussions about quest systems on MUD-DEV.  A few links you might want to pursue can be found http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=quest+site%3Akanga.nu>here.

The main point behind the discussed systems is that it is nearly impossible to create a code-driven quest system that will produce infinite yet unique scenarios. The best target to aim for is one that at least produces enough variety within each design to keep the players interested.
It is linked (in no small way) to the inherent problems of persistent worlds. Players will eat content faster than it can be produced. It is the same problem that confronts non-persistent worlds as well, only they have greater leeway to prepare. Even then, given enough time spent in a world the quests will begin to repeat.
The closest I think you can get to your intended system is to rely more upon player created content. The quest system I am currently implementing is a crossbreed of the two. Players can produce quests for other players (crafters requesting raw materials, merchants requesting protection, etc.) and the code fills in the slow times with random tasks. The more awe inspiring "epic" quests are reserved for "sweeps week" and are driven by the staff.

[Doctor Xero]

What I'm getting at is linking the characters to the setting. As I'm fond of saying 72.4% of all RPG characters are orphans (making one wonder what horrible event could have caused that in a MMORPG).

I agree about the effect a family link can have on a player who is interested in characterization.

I once ran a game in which each player-character interacted with his/her parents and sibilings as part of the very first game (said family played by other players as well as game master and based on the player's description of his/her character's family).  The campaign involved a rite of passage quest, and so each player-character also ended up with affectionate farewells, minor gifts, and parental pressure to succeed.  Although the family NPCs never showed up again in game, ever, the players through their characters constantly referred back to them and to making them proud, etc.  When a threat to their home village was later uncovered, the players through their characters were eager to stop the threat not because it was "evil" but because they had through roleplaying created a genuine interest in the well-being of their homeland.  The players through their characters consistently placed the welfare of the home village over a player-character's personal accumulation and profit.  Not bad for a single roleplayed experience!

Doctor Xero