[MUD-Dev] (no title) Time limits?

[Justin McKinnerney]

I agree that mud addicts, espicially when they're good to start with, can
pose a problem. ESPICIALLY on a PK Mud. However, there are a couple of ways
I tend to deal with this, depending on the situation.

The first, and most common for any out-of-the-box mud, is to make some of
the areas level restricted. This is an easy change to make with some of the
out-of-the-box muds, and tends to work rather well. This way, as a PCs level
increases, they are restricted to the tougher areas, which means it will
primarily be those to their level and under (assuming the underlings decide
to try or choose to adventure with upper-level characters), but can keep the
more dangerous characters from being a threat to them. I've found this
method works really well as the lower level people tend to keep to their
areas unless adventuring with a higher level character.

The second, and my favorite, but not very practical for any of the
out-of-the-box systems I know, is to make game balance work so that player's
skills increase but their 'power' does not. The easiest example of this I
could give an example of is Magic the Gathering. One player could easily
play hours every day of the week, while another may only play a single hour
a week. However, this does not mean the first player would beat the second
at all. Even if the first has bought more cards than the second, the second
could be more cunning in devising the deck out of the cards they have.

Generally, in a mud, the second concept relies on the concept of 'counters'
and 'effects' that can be gained in other ways than simple experience. But I
like the system that way as it allows people who are addicts to play as much
as they like without being too much of a threat to those who don't have the
option to play so much.

Of course, even in such a system, a 'Newbie' area is still a good idea. To
teach players the system and give them time to prepare before entering the
big, bad world.

	- Justin -

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev [mailto:mud-dev at null.net]On Behalf Of
> s001gmu at nova.wright.edu
> Sent: Friday, March 13, 1998 3:42 PM
> To: mud-dev at null.net
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] (no title) Time limits?
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Mar 1998 mud-dev at null.net wrote:
>
> <just a note to the list owner... this arrived kinda strange... addressed
> to just me and the one other guy on the list at my site.  99+% of all
> messages arrive tagged to the mud-dev list, not me personally.  Just
> letting ya know.  :)  >
>
> > From: cimri <cimri1 at gte.net>
> > Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
> > Subject: Varying Time Commitment Levels: what's an admin to do?
> > Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:27:33 -0800
> >
> > Hey all,
>
> Hi.  Welcome aboard.
>
> > What do you do, or should you do, if anything, about the people who
> > can play 10-15 hours every day vs those who can spend maybe 1-2 hours
> > a day playing your MUD?
>
> A must under-pondered dilema.  :)  Most solutions I hear of are similar
> to:
>
> *shrug*  who cares?
>
> ;)
>
> [...]
>
> > Anyway, I'm throwing the general questions out to the group, with my
> > own preliminary thoughts:
> >
> > 1. muds tend to reward activity of some kind with something (exp,
> > levels, eq, knowledge, powers, skills, whatever)
>
> How else can you run a game?  Reward intention?
>
> > 2. generally speaking, the more time you spend, the more of these
> >    goodies you get
> > 3. so, people who play more often, or longer get more goodies
>
> True and True.
>
> > Now this is, in and of itself, not necessarily a problem, but
>
> Very true.
>
> [meany with time vs cool ppl w/o ... ]
>
> > Okay, I hope that illustrates the situation, be it a real or
> > imagined problem.  I've recently read something which brought
> > to mind a very simple resolution:
>
> mayhaps a little over-simple...
>
> > Why not have a couple of different muds with different time limits
> > on them?  I mean, the 'hour a day' mud and the '20 hour a week' mud
> > and the 'all-out frequent-flyer get a life? mudding IS life!' mud.
> > Players could play in any they wished, but would be restricted to
> > total time spent in the first two muds.  Then if you don't like the
> > idea of bonehead the mudder somehow 'getting ahead' of you by
> > playing all day and night, then you go into the hour a day or
> > other limited mud.
>
> I don't think I would want to tax my server by putting up 3 muds, or 5 or
> however many you end up with (why 3? :)
>
> My oppinions tend towards the, "when it becomes a problem, I'll deal with
> it."  One simple solution is to make a large part of the game very
> difficult to do solo.  This GREATLY cuts down on the frequent-fliers, as
> the odds that all their buds can be on 15+ a day gets slimmer and slimmer
> the more ppl you add.
>
> Several of my good friends are not frequent fliers, but they certainly
> more than make up for it with skill.  In most muds that I know of, raw
> time commitment may get you up faster, but in the end, skill pays off.  It
> may take a little longer, but the skilled players get up to the high
> levels too, and then they generally kick the butts of all the
> frequent-fliers.
>
> The people to be truely feared are those with skill AND a piss-load of
> time.  >-)
>
> -Greg
>
>
>