K.G. has a solid point, as usual. The way a common player looks at it is - if a commercial gamedev studio comes up with a title, reminescent of an earlier success, he starts asking for stuff like !multiplayerer! or !my_favourite_class_char! - because it’s a particular improvement over his entertainment routine. Most of us found out about CataDDA through regular RL channels online, which at most times borders on classic and arcade gaming practices; singleplayer or co-op to the very core. Again, a seasoned CataDDA player is always itching for more, even if it means explicitly dismantling the whole on_keypress system only to bring some much needed dynamics in the console-driven world.
Just thinking here, MMO experience wouldn’t grant that much of a punch to this branch of Cataclysm. Sure, it would be nice to meet everyone in game and discuss playing styles; even better if there should be a safezone for trading, sharing much wanted artefacts. Linking to the tavern/forum games section as the most prized asset of it all, of course. The shortcoming of having to treat time as a variable completely different when switching between on and off in safemode is an entirely different bland from today’s CataDDA. I really think of classic adventure-ish games when typing about this (realtime or AP-based travel, and classic RL encounters). Even though I cannot simulate the issues here nor, perhaps, ask the right questions all at once - I can see the classic online multiplayer as the only viable way; and that is, my good friends, a game-mode for two, eventually up to four players in a leaderless party-type game.
Still, if you amass enough patience to mod this, our Cataclysm into a can-a-whopass-4all, you’ll get a biiig \o// from me.
