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

[Damion Schubert]

-----Original Message-----
From: J C Lawrence <claw at under.engr.sgi.com>

>Koster, Raph<rkoster at origin.ea.com> wrote:
>
>> It's sort of bizarre for me now to see UO as such a touchstone on
>> the list...
>
>Its probably worth examining why:
>
>  1) UOL has a large active player base
>  2) UOL is well documented on the web etc.
>  3) UOL attempted a number of "experiments" which while not unusual
>in MUDdom, had never successfully been applied to large sets of
>onconstrained players, and not all at once.
>  4) We happen to have UOL insiders on the list.


I think there are a couple more reasons, one is that it is commercial,
another is that it has the mass market as opposed to the hobbyist
MUD market.  However, I think the most important thing is that
UO has proven to us mud fanatics that a large-scale graphical MUD
is not only financially possible, but can be successful, too.  Hey, this
is great news!

>> Yeah, it was designed as much MORE of a "sandbox" than many other
>> muds, I suppose. But I am sure that there must be text muds out
>> there with less controls on PK, in a far more gaming oriented
>> environment. (Aren't there?)
>
>Of a surety.  However they don't have the player bases or the level of
>documentation _by_the_players_ of wht's happening there.
>
>A more interesting question is why M59, which does have the player
>base and does have the online documentation, has rarely been
>comparitively mentioned on the list, and almost never as a touchstone.
>I'd suggest that #2 (level of experimentation) is/was lacking in M59.


I suspect it's largely because its less visible.  We all know Meridian is
there, but most UO players don't.  We hear UO in the news all the time.
Meridian, not so much.  This is largely because Origin is a big company, 
and UO is controversial.  Extremely so.  Despite the hell that Raph must
go through every day, I think the controversy does a good job of keeping
UO in the limelight.  

Also, Raph has more time to post than us m59 alumni. =)

That being said, there is an awful lot of experimentation in M59. 
However, it takes a very different road than that took in UO.  I was 
less concerned with trying to simulate a dynamic ecology and economy,
and thinking more and more about how to encourage and, at the same
time, control, player competition and conflict, particularly later in
the project.  I found some interesting things.  One of the more interesting
things I found was that, if you have two shades of death, a greater death
(which sends you to hell) and a lesser death (which sends you to the Inn,
lets say), players are a lot more eager to  take chances which result in 
the lesser death.  I used this principle with some success in getting 
players to take part in many 'games within games' - such as assassin 
scenarios, rather than PK randomly.

--damion