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1. In your last post, I think you made a typo. You actually mean “I hearby WoW to post more” since looks like that is what you are going to post for 2009.

   Not to try convince you anything about UO anymore, but I have instanced dungeon on my previous server, same to the WoW’s instanced dungeon. And although technically it requires a lot of work, I don’t see what you just described, phasing, is not doable in UO; In UO, what a player sees on the client side is what the server send to him. The server script can be modified to have items and mobs in the same area, but tagged differently, either with tag associated with a particular player or group, or a common tag for all. Then when the server delivers the packet of game content around a player to his client side, the server could choose to deliver only those of common tag or his (group’s) own tag. Another caution is area spell or operations, that need to be tag specific. I discussed that idea with someone in 2006, though eventually settled on implementing the simpler idea, the instanced dungeon. But the concept of your so-called “phasing” is rather simple and completely doable.

   Comment by Rocko — December 17, 2008 @ 1:39 pm

2. Heh, possibly. I never said I’d post interesting things – just that I’d post I actually did write a post between this one and the last, one, though, but I couldn’t put it up (yet) as its about something I bought my mom for Christmas. She’s barely aware of my site’s existence – she only ever looked at it once, back when I had some kitten photos up – but I know KNOW that if I’d put it up, it would be the one day that she randomly decided to check it out…

   True, some basic phasing can be done in UO (at least using RunUO. Unless POL has had a rather major overhaul in how it handles things since I last looked at it, I’m not really sure if it would be able to.) WoW also does some more advanced phasing events, such as changing entire areas as you do quests in them. In one rather impressive event, for example, completing a quest triggers a movie in which dragons burn down an area, after which the military fortifications that had been there are left in ruins.

   I think that’s sort of pushing the boundary of what’s appropriate to do in phasing, though. Going too far kind of breaks the whole multiplayer aspect of the game. Its at least a decent workaround to the eternal problem of having a story in a multiplayer game.

   That’s really the one thing I miss about WoD (aside from the players, I mean. Well, SOME of the players ) – the ability to do quests that actually changed things. Phasing can at least make it LOOK like you made a few changes to the game world, but that’s still not the same thing as being able to have a permanent effect. It is, at least, a stopgap solution, and is still a rather major advancement in how MMORPGs work.

   Comment by Drocket — December 17, 2008 @ 3:28 pm

3. That does sound very cool. Again I am sure they are the richest game developers in the world now, so they should produce something of that quality to match the money they hoarded.

   Regarding what you said about WoD, “the ability to do quests that actually change things”, were you referring to seer run quests, you know, all the notes players found in loot and the spawns created for them?

   I think UO’s OSI shard had some collective quest events that can change the look of the world and they are probably keep producing some shard scale at times. One example is the swamp in Yew, on some shards players were able to get rid of the swamp by saving enough yew trees, on some other shards where players did less, the swamp stayed.

   I think I understand what you mean about what is appropriate. If every player or small group have the capability to change the appearance of a common game world by a quest that does not require a large amount of players’s collective effort, it does seem to be a little too chaotic for everyone else who are not involved.

   Comment by Rocko — December 17, 2008 @ 6:33 pm

4. Yeah, I meant the seer-run quests. We did a number of quest chains that actually affected the world. Of course, there were a lot of limitations on what we could do there, since modifying the client was such a massive pain, plus every time we made a change of any meaningful size, there was always a contingent of players who would be unhappy about it (“What do you mean Vesper has been overrun by vampires? I live in Vesper! I don’t WANT to fight vampires!”)

   You’re right that OSI did a few events of that sort. From what I read about UO now and then, it seems that they still continue to do those sort of things. That’s a good thing. To a large degree, I think they’re able to do those sorts of things because they’ve become such a marginal player in the MMORPG market. That and player housing is really about the only things they have left that make them at all unique. As long as they keep that up, they probably will have a small but loyal fanbase to keep them alive.

   By appropriate, I meant with regards to phasing. A permanent world-changing event is one thing (and WoW has actually done one of those – the opening of the AQ dungeon gates, an event that required massive server-wide work to do. Because they made a few missteps in how they ran it, though, they seem to regard it as a failure, which really disappoints me because I consider it one of the best things WoW has ever done.)

   Um, back on topic: with phasing, you have two players who see two different things. If its a minor change (player A rescued an NPC from a dungeon and now sees them in town, but they’re not there for player B), its not really important. The bigger the change, though, the more likely it is to cause problems. Imagine if player A triggers a massive town invasion. Player B hasn’t gotten to that stage yet. Players A and B really can’t cooperatively do things together anymore, at least in that area of the world. If player A needs help with a quest, player B can’t help them.

   The more and bigger the phasing you do, the bigger the problem becomes. Player A hasn’t started the invasion yet. Player B did, so can’t count on player A. Player C moved past that and cleared the invasion, so they can’t help player B either. Player D triggered a different phasing event, so he’s off in yet another mini-universe. The more phasing events you add, the more you break the player base down into more and more groups who can’t interact.

   Hmm, can I consider this my resolution obligated post for the day?

   Comment by Drocket — December 17, 2008 @ 11:00 pm

5. Oh yeah surely you can. At least you clearly made a few points in this last post.

   I certainly agree with you on the what’s being appropriate and what may not. For a small quest like rescue a NPC, single player phasing certainly sounds attractive and reasonable, it wouldn’t really affect how the player interact with other people. For a massive scale phasing though, I would only see it as appropriate if it is through collective effort from a decent sized group of players. Otherwise it sounds crazy that someone is bashing or running away from a group of invasion mobs, while in the same location someone else is taking a nap, being unaffected.

   “Hey, dude what you are doing there? You are hacking in the air and running in circles”…

   “Oh no WTF you just got completely ignored by these orcs?”

   Comment by Rocko — December 18, 2008 @ 2:25 pm

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