[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Dan Shiovitz]

On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> 
> URL:http://www.wired.com/wired/6.05/ultima.html
> 
> Killers Have More Fun
[..]
> As it happens, this is consistent with Garriott's original vision for
> online gaming.  "When we first launched UO, we set out to create a
> world that supported the evil player as a legitimate role," he
> says. Outlaws and monsters are simply two different types of
> carnivores, all part of one continuous organic system. "Players who
> choose the life of an outlaw," he explains, "essentially become
> powerful and intelligent monsters - akin to other monsters in the
> world, but even more sophisticated and interesting, because they're
> real human players."
[..]
> When Garriott was asked to respond to disillusioned Ultima fans, it
> was Lord British who answered. Perhaps he was talking as much about
> all of cyberspace as about Ultima when he gravely proclaimed: "Those
> who have truly learned the lessons of the Ultima games should cease
> their complaining, rise to the challenge, and make Britannia into the
> place they want it to be."
[..]

I think this is the wrong way to go about things. Saying, essentially,
"the world is a chaotic and lawless place and any order must be
imposed by the players" is putting a major burden on people. It's
especially hard for the people that want to play in a lawful world,
but don't want to play a lawbringer: that is to say, they want to be
tailors or farmers, not sheriffs. I think the correct model to create
a lawful system is one where the world starts out lawful, at least in
some places: there's a city or state or country that's large and
*safe*, where players can have the expectation that justice is
done. Furthermore, this lawful system ought to run itself if players
don't step in. Just putting bounties that you expect players to
collect isn't going to work; there's no expectation of a lawful,
working system so no one (or not enough someones) is going to make it
happen. It's cool to have outlaws and player killers and stuff running
around outside the safe zone, but I don't think societies are going to
form ex nihilo, there's got to be some structure that gives them a
chance to get going.

I had this other idea for fostering groupthink: WolfWorld. With most
dikus (which is where my playing experience is, but I expect this is
similar for lps also), there are distinct zones you can go to that
match your power level. If you're a newbie, there are "newbie zones"
that it's safe to get to (from the starting city) and safe to wander
around it, assuming you're reasonably cautious. The idea, of course,
is you start with safe zones and move to harder and harder ones as you
get more skilled. But what if we assume a very small city (or town, or
village, or whatever) in the center of a massively hostile world? I'm
imagining a base in the middle of frozen wolf-infested tundra, but
there are other lots of other variants: SwampWorld, OuterSpaceWorld
(don't forget your space suit!), etc. The similarity between all these
"massively hostile" worlds is that newbies that go out alone
die. Furthermore, even staying inside the city isn't going to save
you, because there are regular attacks by the outside world against
the city (orc invasions, starving wolves breaking down the gates,
whatever), and if you don't defend the city, its walls will be
breached and everyone will die. Eventually, the hope is that the brave
inhabitants will manage to clear enough area around the city to make
it relatively safe. Of course, the bulging population will make
resources scarcer and scarcer, and eventually it'll be time to set off
on a dangerous caravan trip across the demon plains in the hopes of
making a new colony someplace else. If you survive the trip, that is. 

The idea here, of course, is to attempt to unify the players by
creating a constant threat that they can't overcome individually. 
Furthermore, everyone is needed: the brave high level characters can't
be in two places at once, and if they're out doing patrols sweeping
the plains, and they miss a small tribe of orcs heading straight for
the city, your mid level character may be the only one who can stop them. 
And not just warriors, neither. There's an obvious need for healers,
tailors, blacksmiths, and so on, because someone's got to repair the
swords and heal the wounded. 

WolfWorld isn't for everyone: I'm not sure exactly how much I'd like
it myself. It seems to me like it requires a few changes from the
standard diku model (but not stuff we haven't discussed already):
relatively small distinctions between high and low level characters,
lack of truly epic powers, no Big Magic, and, I suspect, a fairly grim
feel, especially in the beginning (but possibly after a while, you can
play nice 'n easy adventurers in the big city that was the original
colony, or go out to one of the new outposts if you're feeling
dangerous (oh, and outposts provide a convenient thing to do with
playerkillers: exile the buggers))

Has something like this been discussed before? I know there's been
some talk about unifying players by giving them a task that has to be
worked out together, but I haven't seen anything about doing it on a
large scale.

Oh, and one more while I'm at it. Anyone thought about doing arc games
that it's possible to win? F'instance, the point of the game is to
defeat the Dread Lord Bob. When he's dead, or has taken control of the
world, the game is over. Before that, presumably, the players are
fighting his minions as he gathers his armies in preparation for the
final clash. There might be some trouble introducing newbies to this
sort of storyline halfway along: you have to make sure not to increase
the worldwide threat level to more than they can survive right off,
but I think it could work.

And this should be enough to restart some discussion.

--
Dan Shiovitz || dbs at cs.wisc.edu || http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~dbs 
"...Incensed by some crack he had made about modern enlightened
thought, modern enlightened thought being practically a personal buddy
of hers, Florence gave him the swift heave-ho and--much against my
will, but she seemed to wish it--became betrothed to me." - PGW, J.a.t.F.S.