I'm quite sure that game programmers are using every undocumented feature and bug they can find to achieve better performance and to allow creating better games, and so they inheritely are fragile. I assume also that situation is getting better as API's are getting better and performance of hardware has increased giving programmers more freedom to produce good code vs fast code.
Makes me wonder why there are not any hybrid mmorpg-games which would have an evolving world and storyline. Make killing that dragon mean something. And while you are at it, add strategic layer(ie. if i capture this town i get 5 tree and 3 iron, which I could use to summon npc-creeps or advance technology) and buff tradeskills to create complete player-to-player economy(ie. eliminate most of npc merchants). Ofcourse the reason for this kind of game not existing is money and the infinite need of content. Creating storylines over several years where half of creating is not controlled by anyone(players) is hard to do, and adding more levels of complexity surely makes it both harder to code and to balance.
I'm quite sure that game programmers are using every undocumented feature and bug they can find to achieve better performance and to allow creating better games, and so they inheritely are fragile. I assume also that situation is getting better as API's are getting better and performance of hardware has increased giving programmers more freedom to produce good code vs fast code.
Makes me wonder why there are not any hybrid mmorpg-games which would have an evolving world and storyline. Make killing that dragon mean something.
And while you are at it, add strategic layer(ie. if i capture this town i get 5 tree and 3 iron, which I could use to summon npc-creeps or advance technology) and buff tradeskills to create complete player-to-player economy(ie. eliminate most of npc merchants).
Ofcourse the reason for this kind of game not existing is money and the infinite need of content. Creating storylines over several years where half of creating is not controlled by anyone(players) is hard to do, and adding more levels of complexity surely makes it both harder to code and to balance.