When game cyclic events get larger and closer to real life cyclic events

How do you find a picture for cyclic events?
Who knows!? So here's a cool witchhunter from warhammer online!

From an interview on guild wars 2

It’s important to clarify that the event system is cyclical in nature. Events will occur again in the game world; they go in cycles where chains of events cascade out based on decisions and actions taken by the players. These events change the world when they occur, but it isn’t a change that lasts forever in the persistent world, it’s a change that lasts as long as the event chains in the area continue along that path until they cycle around into other events, all driven by player actions.

 Now, part of my intellectual mind says to me this is effectively simply another scale of orcs standing around, picking dasies. Something the guild wars guys aren't fond of

You then get a quest which says, "Kill 0/10 ogres" and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you!

I mean, aren't the orcs dynamic? Can't you interact with them, kill them, and hey they are cyclical dynamic events too - coming back in one minute. Aren't they just as much dynamic events, simply at a smaller scale (side note: Actually reading this again it looks like the GW2 guys primary concern is that the orcs aren't attacking the farm, but nm)

But the funny thing is, real life is a set of cyclic events which are at a larger scale. Go hunt and kill a rabit - another rabit will 'respawn' over time, after the others have had babies. Whether from day to day, or the seasons, are cyclic events. Forests regrowing after being cut down is a cyclic event. All of these happen at a much larger, more complicated scale and longer time span. But they too are cyclic.

So I think that's why GW2's dynamic events have appeal (atleast to me), as opposed to the "over the standing there doing nothing and comes back in a minute orc" from above.

Although perhaps no one else see's the orc and GW2 dynamic events as merely the same thing but at different scales, so I'm arguing about something I just see. Oh well.

I'm thinking of writing up some stuff on more naturalistic cyclic events - where monsters respawn by the old fashioned way - breeding and rearing young, and such (remember how you imagined monsters before they just appeared outta thin air)

Guild Wars 2: One step forward...now how about the other foot as well?

Care Bear Stare!

Some press release on guild wars 2 over here at mmocrunch

Taking a quote from it

Johanson spots another flaw in the basic quest design used in traditional MMO’s, “what the quest text tells you is happening in a quest is not actually what is happening in the world.” Johanson mentions that often times the events you are supposed to alter, say slaying a group of goblins that are attacking someone’s farmstead, actually don’t effect the game environment. By slaying your 20 goblins you are supposed to kill, you won’t actually save the farmer’s home, those same goblins will simply respawn, ready for the next adventurer to take the quest, thus, in the game world, perpetually putting the farmstead in danger. Johanson says that this is an unacceptable form of questing. With the new Dynamic Events System, if you don’t stop those 20 goblins, they will destroy the farmer’s house, or oppositely, if you defeat them, they will be gone and the farm will truly be saved.

However, look into this further information and you find things are actually cyclical

I wrote the following comment at mmocrunch and thought it'd make a good post here, starting with quotes from the press releases:

“if you don’t stop those 20 goblins, they will destroy the farmer’s house, or oppositely, if you defeat them, they will be gone and the farm will truly be saved.”

“These events change the world when they occur, but it isn’t a change that lasts forever in the persistent world”

So the farm is saved for twenty minutes, or half an hour, or something?

And their example of Skritt? It makes it sound like you have to go through Skritt, somehow, to get to the ending. Like it’s B in A, B, C and D, where D is the game end. In other words, the bigger picture is linear, no matter how many ways you can approach Skritt.

That said, even with that critique, they still seem to be taking a giant stride ahead of other mmorpgs!

And the non subscription plan seals it for me – I’ll buy it. But I really think this is just a giant stride ahead. In the end, that farm is still put back into danger.

If they could procedurally generate new farms, or have player built ones somehow, and after being saved X number of times that particular version of a farm is permanently saved, that’d be taking the next big step.

The step to actual world persistancy.

But beyond dismantling their missuse of the word 'persistancy', it sounds fun in itself and buying it will help fund actual development of mmo's into something new. Unlike a certain company who, from the millions they make each month after expenses, developed a...sparkle pony. And needed $25 from millions of customers to recoup the massive R&D involved, of course. The guild wars team seem slightly more ambitious than that...bless 'em!