[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[JC Lawrence]

On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 11:55:29 PST8PDT 
Marian Griffith<gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:
> On Wed 24 Dec, JC Lawrence wrote:
>> On Fri, 19 Dec 1997 00:33:48 PST8PDT Jon A
>> Lambert<jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>>> Full agreement with this critical use of food.  I'd call it
>>> adventuring logistics.  Now it does pose some interesting
>>> difficulties in a mud that has the following feature/lack of
>>> features:

>> As discussed before there is a wary line that has to be tread here.
>> On one side collecting the necessary resources for an endeavour can
>> be "fun" and can become an adventure in its own right.  On the
>> other, always ensuring that you have the appropriate resources for
>> your next activity, when you full well know exactly what they area
>> and how to obtain them, can easily become drudgery and
>> thus"boring".

> The same can be said for other simple goals.  If you know which
> monster to kill and how to do it then ordinary muds can be
> considered drudgery and boring too. In fact I guess they are. The
> trick is to create a game that has something of all this.

Agreed, and to me this is the great weakness of the various SimCity
etc games.  The problem is that it very quickly becomes apparent to me
in playing them that underlieing the game world is a rote equation,
and if I can merely find and stay on the sweet spot I can build
whatever I want (and that I have a feel for what that balance is).
Instantly the game becomes mechanical and loses all charm and almost
all of its interest.  Now its just a mechanical resource balance game:
not too much of this, not too little of that, make sure we copy the
game designer's ideas of how it should be and we'll "win".

Boring.

There's a reason my main game in SimCity quickly became trying to find
the quickest route to making a prosperous and thriving city
sself-destruct -- its the only thing I could find which wasn't so
strictly mechanical.  


> [scenario snipped, sorry]

<sob>.

>> The difficult as always would be to retain the players for the
>> gradually expiring party.  Many/some may (I have no experience in
>> the RP values used here) bow out early rather than continue with an
>> apparently doomed campaign.

> In a game where the example could take place it should be clear that
> there is no easy way to escape an adventure.  When you join a party
> you are in it until you die or you achieve your goal and escape. The
> game would not make sense otherwise.

Agreed.  The problem is not that this in't made clear, but that many
would rather suicide and start again than continue playing out a
likely no-win scenario.  _Something_ has to convince them than playing
out the hand was an enjoyable value greater than the unpleasantness of
knowing you are doomed.

>> > Personally I like the idea that this _could_ happen within a mud
>> > world and find it interesting.

>> Agreed.  The problem is in retaining this in a game context such
>> that it is enjoyable at the micro minute to minute level, as well
>> the macro character-life/game-life level.

> That is where the variety of minor goals come into the
> game. Travelling across the plains could in itself be an adventure
> even if it is only a minor part in overthrowing the evil sorceror of
> the mountains of doom.  And of course some other players could be
> minions of said sorceror and try to prevent the party from achieving
> their goal.

The more critical point of what the dead players do now that is
enjoyable comes to light.

Some of you may be familiar with the board game "Risk".  For those
unfamiliar, Risk is a board game where the board is a crude map of the
world, divided into continents and territories, and players control
armies and attempt to take over the world by battling for ownership of
all the territories.

We play a lot of it at my house.  My nieces and nephews are ardent
fans, as are many of our friends.  Its fairly common for a weekend
night to end with a few games.

However, we don't play world domination Risk for a specific reason.
World Domination takes hours to play, and for tha majority of that
time most of the player aren't playing any more as they've been
"killed" and are thus out of the game.  The result is that two or
three players fight to the bitter end while the other four sit on the
side lines doing nothing.  Not good.  Not fun.

Instead we play a variation called Mission Risk, and changed a few of
the key rules.  The result is that games typically last about 45
minutes and are fast, hard, and furious.  More importantly, if anybody
is killed, they won't be unable to play for long -- another game will
start soon.

For those interested: We play standard missions (deal all the risk
cards out first to assign territories etc, standard number of starting
armies), but changed the fortify rules so that at the end of a move a
player may move as many armies among as many territories as his wishes
as long as they are connected by territories he owns (as many moves as
he wants).  The result is that the game becomes much more fluid as
players can better protect their advantages and wins, and can also
take better advantage of their opportunities

I don't see that the game you describe is "fun" for a player whose
character dies early on in the campaign.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
                                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
----------(*)                        Internet: jc.lawrence at sun.com
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...