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I have thoroughly enjoyed the two roleplaying-required MUDs that I have played primarily. The reason I enjoyed them was because they offered a dedicated player base, a brilliantly detailed world, and a polished presentation of the English language (remarkably free of typos and incorrect grammar). The two games that I mention are Threshold and New Worlds.

Yet, as I continue to play them there is a game which does not exist for which I long. This is only personal preference, and I hold the previously mentioned games up as wonderful. This is not an appeal to change them. I am only curious to see if I am alone in a vision for a new kind of RPI MUD. Or perhaps one exists with which I am unfamiliar.

I dream about a game where the only way to advance the power of your character is through your own intelligence, creativity, and intimate knowledge of the world. While you should certainly be able to kill creatures of all shapes and sizes, why is this the chosen currency of bettering a character in every sphere?

I dream about a game where knowledge about how the world works, found through exploration and experimentation are of higher value than any special piece of armor or weapon. Also, where exploration doesn't mean using the "search" command in every room, but where noticing the little things in a description gives you an advantage.

Really, what I want to get away from is the idea of character advancement by unrelated repetition. Why should killing enough NPCs, or farming enough vegetables, or any other repetitive task give your character new skills/spells/abilities?

My solution isn't new, but I have yet to see it well-implemented. An open skill tree with no classes and no experience points. The only way you can learn a skill is by having it taught to you. You can improve the skill by practice, observation of those more skilled, and further teaching.

Let's throw out stats like Intelligence, Wisdom, and Luck. The human being playing the game should bring the intelligence and wisdom to their character.

Strength and Dexterity are valid, but should be a product of how a character acts in the game. If they are regularly doing physical tasks like moving heavy objects, swinging heavy weapons, or otherwise physically exerting themselves they should gain strength, while the character who chats in the tavern all the time should have less strength.

This is not to say that the character in the tavern is not as powerful. There is always a trade-off. Where the strong person is able to move heavy things. The socialite may have spent his time making friends who will help him move heavy things.

Any improvement to the ability of the character to act in the world should come from an action that would logically end in this improvement. There might be many ways to get there. For instance, say your character enjoys killing things. Well, you could pummel an NPC into submission until they teach you that new skill. But perhaps you could also pay him with money that you have accumulated from killing random travelers. Or perhaps you could trade favors by convincing the local girl-next-door to go out with him on Friday night by threatening physical violence to her father. No matter the way, you have not just been given a skill for killing x amount of NPCs, but have been rewarded for a logical action. Not only that, but even finding the NPC can be an adventure.

The more valuable the skill, the more difficult to find the teacher. Ah, but here is the dilemma. Difficulty should not mean mindless repetition. It should mean requiring intelligence and creativity of the player. This might include needing more than one player to cooperate in order to reach a teacher.

Also, skills become a valuable form of currency. Perhaps skills that have been sufficiently used and mastered can be taught by one player to another. Then it is up to the player to decide how much teaching that skill is worth. Skills become secrets that are taught strategically to allies and guarded from adversaries. Or perhaps traded only for material gain. The RP possibilities!! New skills are a reward gained by intelligent strategy instead of unrelated mindless repetition.

This is really only an introduction to a larger picture, but the foundational idea is that I am bored with mindless repetition. Challenge my creativity and intellect instead of my ability to wait for vegetables to grow or hit points to return so I can do it all over again. Force me to interact with others in order to advance. Force me to alienate myself from others in order to advance so that I have to make difficult choices.

I have never built or coded on a MUD, and I am sure that the kind of game that I am describing would be much more difficult to build than the traditional set up, but the rewards for the individual player, the playing community, and the RP environment would make for a breathtaking experience.

This game already exists. Pretty old, too.

Yep, definitely already exists.

Part of the issue with this type of game is that creativity on behalf of the player must already be thought of by the programmers. It seems like you're asking for a complete, realistic AI within the game. This is, to put it simply, not possible (in this day and age). All the complexities of the real world cannot be captured via a program (game, MUD, simulation), let alone in real-time.

What it would break down to is players being creative within the limits the programmer(s) have set up. This is very similar to many current combat systems. You choose from your practiced skills (where accuracy may or may not be based on how much you have already used them) and have to be creative in terms of what the best path is to achieve your goal. Same goes for wandering around the game (walk, portal, summon), getting materials to craft with (harvest, steal/kill, purchase, friends), and all of the other "mindless repetition" that is in the game(s) of your choice.

I'm not saying the concept isn't amazing... just that a game is a simulation of someone's vision of a world. There are shortcuts taken, as there are with any simulation, that clamp the limits of the virtual reality.

I guess what you're looking for is a system without a set goal that is given to the player, but one where there are a multitude of these systems all designed for. It used to be just combat and movement, and then quests were introduced. Later it was crafting. You're just looking for a lot more... social combat has been tossed around as an idea a few times, but I haven't seen it done well in a free manner yet. (Free manner meaning without set dialogue choices, etc.)

(Comment added by Mangan on Sun Jul 3 11:47:06 2011)

I don't mean to dissuade you from looking for better. Just trying to point out that there will always be these limits, and that the programming involved is not trivial.

It seems to me that the best way to get what you want involves less, not more, code. Of course, I'm prejudiced that way.

Just started playing Skyrim. It is truly remarkable. Halfway to what I was
envisioning, except I would love text description that you can fill in with
imagination instead of graphics. So much freedom and world complexity.
Although making it multiplayer would raise that complexity exponentially. I
know this is an old post, but was just excited to see that the gaming community
is pushing the envelope in this direction.