[MUD-Dev] Commercial value of RP

[Mike Sellers]

At 07:20 PM 1/9/98 PST8PDT, JC Lawrence wrote:
>On Thu, 8 Jan 1998 06:37:38 PST8PDT 
>Mike Sellers<mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
>> There's little diku influence in M59, at least not intentional
>> influence.  There have been two pretty distinct groups who play
>> though; some come to kill things, others to socialize (many in both
>> groups have never played muds or RPGs before).  The interesting
>> thing is that both groups tend to cross-over, having found the joys
>> of the others' activities.  As for real role-playing, well... that's
>> a rare thing, I'm afraid.  The designers' fault as much as the
>> players, if not more.  :-/
>
>Which again begs the question I asked a short while back:
>
>  Why do you specifically decry the loss of RP on M59, or find it a
>fault that it has little RP?
>
>Is this because it is your own preferred playing style, as part of the
>game definition or goals, or some other perhaps commercial reason?

It's difficult for me to answer this question, for a variety of reasons.
It comes down to the fact that I believe M59 could have been much more than
it was/is -- it could have been a much more engaging and satisfying
experience all around, not limited to the largely derivative hack-n-slash
elements that are there now.  I was not as successful in bringing this
vision to the rest of the team, and having it survive the corporate
process, as I would have liked.  

It was a good first step, and I'm proud of it for that, but I guess you
could say I've still got a lot of unresolved issues with the genre (and
with online entertainment in general), and that I'm still more than a
little frustrated at not having been more successful at bringing these to
fruition the first time around.  Time to move on though...


--

Mike Sellers   Chief Alchemist -- Online Alchemy   mike at online-alchemy.com

"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others 
may despise it, is the invention of good games.  And it cannot be done 
by men out of touch with their instinctive values."  - Carl Jung