Dynamic World State
Posted On Monday, November 17th, 2008 By Jay
DISCLAIMER: Let’s leave Muds out of the equation. We know MMOs as a genre are catching up to MUD in tech.
DISCLAIMER: DK spoilers
Dynamic character state, or RPG, is easier then dynamic world state. Historically, looking at the amount of MMOs with dynamic character progression is par for the course. World events, that actually change the world, ala Final Fantasy 3, are extremely rare. In addition to rare, they almost never affect the game world in a permanent way.
Imagine my surprise, while firing up a Death Knight that the new phasing technology actually creates the impression of “affect” on the game world. Progressing through the story line began with a town being scouted byt he scourge. Continuing to the final conflict where the town is burned to the ground. This happened while I was playing. Yes, it happened LIVE!
This is fairly significant. And I also realise this happened COMPLETELY under the radar for the average player. No one knows and very few people are talking about it. I wanted to point out that Blizzard has some interesting technology that has the potential to put the player in control of their world.
With a new blizzard MMO around the corner(3-5 years), my hope is that they created a fully character and world dynamic MMO for all to enjoy. Maybe this once, they’ll lead the industry instead of borrowing innovation.
The world didn’t really changed. Instead the zone has several versions, like instances. When you complete some quests your character moves from one version to the next. This new mechanism is used extensively in Northrend.