SmartMonsters

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Zaroff Park

A new Zone in progress, Zaroff Park, begins as a simple hack-and-slash opportunity for Blowing Crap Up. Go there, kill bad guys, or good guys depending. Take out your shitty day on game critters rather than your real life landlady. Like the Spider Forest, Zaroff Park is intended to present compelling challenges to lone players, unlike say the Tree of Wealth which emphatically requires groups.

The thematics are more interesting than this bald description may suggest. The NPCs available for destruction are condemned slaves. They're too old to work, or they've behaved rebelliously, or displeased their masters for some other reason. Their masters have sent them to Zaroff Park, where they'll be hunted for sport Most Dangerous Game-style by big-game types bored with tigers. Players who want to kill things are welcome.

And so are NPCs who want to kill things. Warriors looking for practice; Bounty Hunters honing their skills; bored nannies looking for diversion: NPCs from all over the game world will come here to hunt and kill other NPCs.

So that, if you're a Liberator, say, or some other NorthWestern anti-slavery do-gooder, you may want to go there to prevent the hunters from succeeding. Choose the method that suits you.

Equally, NPCs who are Liberators or etc. may go there for similar purposes.

Meaning we've got NPCs hunting NPCs who are hunting NPCs, and of course there'll be yet other NPCs who'll be interested in hunting those hunting NPCs, and you'll see how this all gets pretty convoluted pretty quick.

Fun, huh?

Zaroff Park is part of a larger complex of blood sports arenas in the neighborhood surrounding the Circus Maximus, NorthEastern Third, natch. It's online now if you want to check it out. Hunter and hunted NPCs will be undergoing refinement for a few days yet. Watch the MOTD for the formals.

Robert Natkin abstract

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