Re: Rewarding for Exploring
I once created a system where NPCs that hadn't been killed for a while gave more experience. I think it's preferable to reward the result of exploration (knowing a large variety of NPCs that you can kill for a certain level), rather than the actual exploration. This approach can be extended to resource gathering, the amount of money NPCs drop, and quest rewards (as some quests are more popular than others). These systems won't work too well on MUDs with cheap instantaneous travel.
Area based quests are another way to encourage exploration, especially if various clues are given in room descriptions. People will create walkthroughs, but it's fairly effective to ban sharing quest knowledge on a small MUD. Randomization will help a little as well.
|