Content Development

adrir

---

Originally posted by: Sinoth
The bad thing about that is someone on the development team has to constantly pump out quests or the game gets old. I don't think that is the right solution... is there any way to make a game continually interesting without the need for constant quest development?

---

*digs through mails and pages*

I have read somewhere that the developers were already in the process of developing content creation software for the game. I remember being told it was supposed to be designed to be a very powerful and user-friendly piece of software so that people without a degree in computer science would be able to use it and create in-game content.

[if anyone knows what i am talking about and has a link to the location this information was published, much appreciated ]

Despite;

I think that introducing regular content to the game in the form of dungeons, scripted quests and other "fun" events and story arcs would be the way to go.

The concept of "pickup mission -> kill spawn of mobs -> rince and repeat" needs to be revised. I would much prefer to see content such as discovering a dungeon through a standard recon mission or exploring (or even while on a caravan as a random event!), then entering to discover fully scripted, engaging and entertaining set of puzzles, combat where appropriate.

Blackmoor

AC1 did a great job with keeping the game new. Every month was soemthing different. Not nessecarily new dungeons , but usually new quests , often new mobs , and of course seasons changing and holidays.

Starting the game development with a world builder is key. Without it you have to build everything from square one. With the world builder you just do the art and animation , add it to the world builder and put it in place when you want. Also you might want to check out some of the things turbine is doing with DDO and LOTR for quests. They created a quest builder where they can just pick an NPC and add in whatever quests they want without having to go through and add it to the code itself each time. There is a huge time and effort savings doing things that way.

As to the every changing world without that ,, have nomads who's location changes , migrations of animals, natural disasters etc. I do think there should be a dev constantly working on content though just to keep new things coming into game. Otherwise you would need an AI to do it , and those aren't quite here yet. Or else have it all scripted and ready to go before launch.

darkaster

Icarus Studios have told us in one official way or another (Might have been a newsletter) that they have developed an extremely easy (to a degree) to use content adding tool, and they have made it so they can add things in real time, meaning updates for non-coding issues would be easy to have frequently.

adrir

Thats the one i was talking about I think , although I cant find any mention of it in the newsletters I still have on my email.