[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Shawn Halpenny]

Adam Wiggins wrote:
> 
> [JK:]
> > Hrm...  the assumptio nhere is that the "goal" is to reach high level.
> > Thats soemthing I disagree with strongly. The "leveling" phenomenon is very
> > very bad IMO, it comrpesses your game to a game of high-levels and people
> > just burning time to GET to high levels.
> 
> Yeah.  It always amazes me how anxious people are to burn through the
> levels, get the kick-ass gear, etc etc.  I always think that the *worst*
> possible thing you can do to a newbie is give them a bunch of great eq.
> Basically, you've just spoiled the game for them.  Now any other item
> they strive to aquire is going to pale in comparisson to what you already
> handed them.

I have no problem with newbies having kick-ass gear as long as there is
something like a puzzle whose solution doesn't involve having kick-ass
gear.  Instead you have to sit down and think about it yourself, get a
few things yourself to solve it, and if someone told you how he did it,
you'd be no further ahead since some aspects of the puzzle are different
every time it's done.  This is all more work, but it means one doesn't
care if there are a bunch of clownchildren all brandishing Ray Guns of
Subatomic Disruption after 20 minutes of newbie play, and (IMO) makes
for a more fun game experience.

(And "levels" as most people recognize them are bad constructs to begin
with).
 
> > In my current projectw e are purposefully designing it so tehre are
> > inetrsting things for ALL levels to do, and "maxing" will be EXTREMELY
> > difficult.  Our goal is to encourage the expereinced character to have at
> > least 3 characters at any time, one "high" one "moid" and one "low", so
> > that they can particpate in teh entire game.
> 
> This is common, on good muds.  In fact, I usually tend to think that
> the mid-levels are the funnest time on a level-based mud.  At low level
> things are just too hard (you can't walk more than 10 ft without collapsing
> from exhaustion, you're constantly droping your weapon in combat, you get
> the hell beat out of you by squirrel and fidos).  At high level everything
> gets competative; you've got everything to loose and very little to gain.
> At mid-levels you can actually do things and be relaxed in the meantime.
> I don't see any reason why *any* mud, level-based or not, would make
> any part of the game not be fun.  As near as I can tell, the attitude is
> that you have to 'work' for a while (low levels) before you get to 'enjoy'
> the fun parts of the mud (mid and high levels).  Yeah, whatever.
> 
> Our goal is to make a mud where you can do whatever you like, and you'll
> get exactly what's coming to you.  If you want to be an all-powerful mage,
> you're going to have to work *hard* at it, people are probably going to
> be constantly coming after you...etc etc.  If you want to socialize, explore
> a bit, maybe even get into an occasional fight...you can do that too.
> Sure you'll never be as powerful.  Likely you'll live longer, too.
> I guess our whole philosophy is that we'll just design a world full of
> interesting and engaging stuff to do and see and visist and be.  What you
> as a player want to do with that is completely up to you - there's no
> default "game", persay.

This I like and plan to have something embodying the same concepts.  You
can pretty much do whatever you like, become whatever you want.  There's
a large amount of freedom in that:  you're not forcing someone to play
your game, but instead are giving them the means to (in a sense) create
their own game as they go along.  Much more enriching and fun, methinks.

--
Shawn Halpenny

"Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris"
                            - Latin for All Occasions