A Discourse on the Method (Of Exploration)

Atremious

Hello everyone,

I wish to thank all of you for taking time to share feedback with me in the survey I put out and for taking part in the giveaway I hosted. Both were a resounding success. As part of my findings, I am wanting to start a more open discussion about the role of exploration within a multiplayer persistant world environment.

To be clear what I mean by this is an online roleplaying server. So I ask the question: What mechanics, or functions of exploration do you find important? What is the most engaging? What does exploration mean to you? Please share stories if you can as well to explain your points or to give anecdotes from times in NWN or other games where you have felt a real sense of exploration and what it meant to you as a player and how it made you engage with the content and the experience.

I can give a bit more information now. I am a project manager for a Planescape server that is currently in development. We are a team of twenty three individuals including writers, builders, programmers, technical staff, communications, and a composer. There is a lot of work being done, but there is always more room for us to understand what people like and what they think about exploration, especially in the context of NWN.

Thank you in advance!

Zykritch

The prospect of venturing into the unknown and finding something of tangible value, worth, or significance is something that has always appealed to me in RPGs; be it in the classics like Baldur's Gate, or legacy NWN servers amidst their prime and best days.

A few examples of things that fit this description:

- Hidden areas, accessible through trap doors, puzzles, etc.
- Hidden gear shops (especially if epic level). These can hold exclusive or rare scrolls as well.
- Uniquely powerful items, in each level range - not just epic.
- NPCs that unlock certain character paths / storyline paths, or extra class abilities.
- Claimable areas, to be used either as the stronghold for a faction or something as simple as a player home, place of meeting, or even minuscule prisons for those who engage in underhanded acts of subterfuge. (Players should be able to battle over this areas, and they should always be susceptible to change in ownership.)

Hopefully that list sheds some light on what some players may find appealing about exploration, aside from the standard and obvious factor that is simple aesthetic appeal of finding new areas.

It's nice when things are pretty, but appearance in itself doesn't suffice to make exploration all that engaging. If there's genuine incentive to leave the main city on the server (enough so that the mere prospect of exploration can excite a player), then I think you've got a recipe for success.

JoenSo

In Skyrim I both like and dislike the exploration. It's a vast world where you can find all kinds of ruins, caverns, interesting sights and what not, often with a little piece of story attached to it. But when you do venture into these things it becomes just too much meta-gaming for me. Because you always know that there'll be leveled enemies, a chest with loot in the end and a hidden door so you don't have to walk all the way back. And while that has many gameplay advantages it does take away a bit of the joy of exploration for me. I think they just had a hard time to find a balance between the two.

InflatableFriend

For me exploration breaks down into two related types.

1, Exploration of the new.
Pushing away at the black cloud of the fog-of-war, discovering new and interesting places and peoples, seeing which of these want to eat your face or just be friends. Exploration of the new should need forethought, preparation a mix of skills and some plain old dumb luck.

Hiding content behind skill walls is very good, different classes/builds should get a different experience depending on how you build out. The Age of Decadence is a great example of this.

Before Christmas I was racking up the hours in The Curious Expidition, a great game in which you can explore, discover treasure, get statues or just go crazy and eat your dog. It's a great little explore-em-up and if if you can recreate that desperate 'please let me find some rations before our party falls apart and the canabalism starts' feeling then I'm sold.

In NWN the issue is getting enough content built to keep that feeling of new discovery. The long build times and tendency toward high level spread often mean that each CR band only ends up with one or two dungeons which quickly get overly familiar. Instancing or randomly created zones are your friend, but they only tend to function well for certain playstyles.

It's a shame that NWNs hostility system is so binary, I'd love diplomacy and politics to play a larger mechanical part of exploration or intrigue without requiring a DM to be involved.

2, Exploration of the known.
Poking about in zones that you know should also have an element of exploration, like going through the places you live and really looking about for stuff you've not seen before.

This comes down to build quality and having an eye for detail. Including hidden or semi hidden areas, places that only certain skill sets or abilities can have access to. Little out of the way spots where gossip, intrigue and blackmarkets can flourish.

This crosses over with the skill walls mentioned in 1, just as out in the wild your familiar environments shouild feel different for different classes.

MrDamage

I enjoy an area with a good story behind it beyond the simple ‘creature X lives in these caves. Go kill multiple spawns and finally the boss’ New an innovative ways camps and areas are built also peaks my interest rather then ‘Tiles’
I also enjoy a good combat challenge with some tactics. Not just vanilla group spawns. Archers up on a cliff which you need to cut through the fighters to get to and stuff like that.
Finally, worthy loot at the end of it all. One of my favourite reasons to adventure is to find new and better gear that’s USABLE and has a point for my pc. I really hate killing a hard boss only to find they drop a ‘longsword-unenchanted’ to deter power gamers. We are all power gamers at heart to some degree. I mean who enjoys having their ass handed to them In a combat?An old PW I used to play had this high level dungeon complete with a large floor tile puzzle that used to change every visit and killed you if you got it wrong. And it was a weird trickyass symbol and shape type puzzle. Beyond a powerfull creature to defeat that had incredible armour to take.
Things like this I enjoy!

Hope that helps!

voidofopinion

I follow a very simple and old school design philosophy:

Connected large areas create a sense of travel.

Small but detailed areas create a sense of belonging.

Create large areas to connect small but detailed areas and you create a sense of exploration that is both rewarding and emulates the feeling of moving through the world.

Everything else is what I feel like when inspiration strikes.

deltago

I'm going to flip it a bit:

Exploration is more about telling a story than having XXXX amount of areas in a module.

Every area should be important. It should either give insight to the lore and canon of a place, allowing a player to discover that lore or backstory on thier own.

Or the area should help with character growth. This doesn't necessarily mean - insert trash mob here. Growth, especially in a RP centric server could also mean areas where players can gather and tell their own stories. A druid's grove, a thieves hideout, an upscale tavern and inn on a merchant road are all viable places where self discovery, for different classes can happen.

PWs shouldn't be static either. They should be constantly changing as the stories change. If a group of players route out a bandit full of caves one day, those bandits really shouldn't be there the next. Perhaps another creature or groups of creatures claim it for their home now that the threat is gone. Just something as little as this would add more exploration to a server as the players haven't "seen" everything yet and haven't defeated every boss yet and they never will.