[MUD-Dev] Time Limits?

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 16 Mar 98 at 16:12, J C Lawrence wrote:
> > From: cimri <cimri1 at gte.net> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
> > Subject: Varying Time Commitment Levels: what's an admin to do?
> 
> > 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?
> 
> Nothing.
>

If you are a commercial server, you might want to encourage this. 
Perhaps reduce rates slightly for longer sessions.  ("Honey, look how 
much I saved you by staying on longer")   

> > I've been thinking about this for some time, as I would bet many of
> > the thoughtful post-ers have in this group.  A recent posting by
> > "Matt" <mcowley at netutah.net> reminded me of this.  He wanted to be
> > able to play sometimes in an environment where a full-time
> > commitment was not required to enjoy his mudding experience, though
> > he had played several places where it WAS required, and it took a
> > lot out of him, etc.
> 
> There are several separate but hidden questions here:
> 
>   1) How dependant is enjoyable game play dependent on up-to-date
> (and presumably extensive) knowledge of the game?  The sub-question
> of course is how rapidly could that data be acquired by an expert
> player joining the game after an extended absence.

I'll pass on this one. 

>   2) How dependent is enjoyable game play on general expertise which
> is re-usable from session to session if if widely spread in time? 
> The sub-question is how long is required of any single playing
> session to acquire the necessary expertise for the current
> game/character/play level (ie a base game time granularity).
>
 
If economy and resource management are involved, offline mechanisms
for prolonged survival might be required.  Especially if characters
are locked in-game ala TradeWars.  Why remove characters from a 
game even in the HnS or Adventure-type games.  Let the game 
provide mechanisms for players to direct characters for offline 
time. (Defensive scripts, castle stewards duties, shopkeeper duty, 
wizard research, body training, etc.) 

>   3) How dependent is enjoyable game play on comparative progress
> (assuming a goal-based game) with other players who started at
> similar times to you?  (eg directly competitive)
> 
> Note: This entire area of question would seem inapplicable for
> non-goal-based games.  Perhaps our RP contingent <kof> could
> comment?
>

<splurgh hack kof>  Yes and no.  While the goals are totally very 
different, there is a tendency for any player with more time to 
establish more player-player relationships (friendships?) in a game.  
Of course this would work against a player, if they're intrinsic 
nature is an obnoxious butthead.  And one with more time and 
friendly contacts might find themselves involved in many more plots 
and storylines.  Thus influencing the direction of the game much more 
than the occasional or infrequent player.

> > 1. muds tend to reward activity of some kind with something (exp,
> > levels, eq, knowledge, powers, skills, whatever) 
> 
> Note: You are assuming goal-oriented games.
>

Yeah.  How dare you.  I consider this mailing list to be a 
turned-based social mud.  This might provide some insight into JCL's 
question #1 above as it is hard to follow the gist of threads when 
you haven't read or posted in awhile. ;)   

> > 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.  Were this not to be true, the ROI (Return-On-Investment) for
> time would be missing.  
> 
> Certainly a game could be crafted which mandated a maximum gain per
> X units of RL time (eg levels gained per day or some such).  But
> this enforced granularity really doesn't change the equation or the
> perceived problem.  It merely spreads it over time, and makes the
> "enjoyable" time requirement mechanically predictable which latter
> is likely a Bad Thing:
>

Exactly.  What should we call this phenom?  How about EUL? or 
Expected User Lifetime.  Every concept deserves a confusing acronym.  
Increasing the EUL seems to be a HnS and Adventure game conundrum.
In many implementations it requires a constant feeding of ever more 
races and class, more potent equipment and monsters.  More lands and 
puzzles.  More levels , more skills, more , more, more.  Sorry I 
lost my mind for a moment.

> > 4. what about the disaffection that results when one maladroit /
> > misanthrope plays 15+ hours a day and attains to a certain power and
> > influence which s/he uses maliciously to make other players feel
> > unpleasant, or inadequate, or whatever?
> 
> It is easy to tag the faults of the unsocial player on the lack of
> time scaling of the game play.  I don't see that the two are
> causally or logically related, let alone relevant to each other.
>

I see this as a likely problem for games whose playerbase tends 
to favor puzzle-solving, adventure games (strong in Spades, 
Zork-like).  On some of these muds, group-play and even 
communication is actively discouraged and monitored so nobody spills 
the beans about solutions.

That's all for now...   The gates of the silver key beckon me.

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