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Pete Tyson lets us know that Stratics have written a report about a Dragon Empires tour. Here's a little something:
Graphics are the most immediate of draws to a game, but there needs to be some gameplay behind it, so we next moved to discussing the AI of the monsters in the game. Most MMOGs have a spawn system of some sort and DE is no different. What’s been added, though, is the ability to have the spawn points adjust in position or size over time. For example, a spawn point for a pack of wolves could be set to move east over time to give a migratory route and to expand during the night to give the effect of the wolves sheltering during the day and ranging out to hunt under cover of darkness. Other features include the ability to vary spawning in several areas according to the success achieved by the spawnees so the more kills they get in a particular area will draw more spawns from less successful areas (where they’re getting killed more–-a natural result of over-hunting).
The creatures themselves can be smarter than the average bear. They all have a memory of who’s done what to them and some can have larger memories than others, which should provide for interesting tactics depending on the abilities of the creatures. Not that the memory is purely about who hit them, it also takes into account colours and other stimuli. So if you’re about to wander past a normally quiescent creature you may find that your red armour reminds it of the red armour worn by the person who gave it a near drubbing a few minutes ago and it’ll not be happy to be reminded. The opposite effect offers some intriguing possibilities too-–how do you catch a creature that wants to always run away? Plans for sound and line of sight to be taken into consideration allow that dynamic to be played out as well as, in dungeons, stealthy movement playing a greater part in adventuring. |
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Stratics tours Dragon Empires
