[MUD-Dev] Game Design Issues (Was: Re: let's call it a spel

[Michael.Willey at abnamro.com]

     ____________________Reply Separator____________________
     Subject:  [MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft
     Author:   mud-dev at kanga.nu ("S. Patrick Gallaty" <choke at sirius.com>)
     Date:          9/25/98 5:55 PM

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael.Willey at abnamro.com <Michael.Willey at abnamro.com>
>To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
>Date: Friday, 25 September, 1998 09:51
>Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft
>>So I'm trying to develop a game system along completely
>>different assumptions.  Allowing characters to begin
>>with professional level skills, assuming that players
>
>This is a flawed precept, IMO.  Taking away the newbie
>stage has two effects.  One it thrusts the new player into
>a complex situation (already developed skills) and secondly
>it robs the mud of that initiation phase where new players
>have to struggle and adapt.

The newbie stage won't be eliminated, but it will become
a period of learning about the system and the worlds,
rather than just increasing numbers.  Struggling and
adapting remain, but in different forms.  Having the
skills and learning to use them effectively are two
separate things - see any paper RPG where characters
begin at a "professional" or equivalent level: Shadowrun,
Hero, Gurps, WoD, Amber, etc.  Even AD&D holds the
concept that "adventurers" are basically more competent
than normal people.

>>may spend 8 or more hours a day for years advancing
>>these abilities, and trying to take the focus away from
>>the whole "leveling" concept, as starters.
>
>Stop!
>The 'leveling' concept amonst adventuring muds is a
>tried and true concept.  You are doing what UO did, imo
>which is to confuse playability.  There's a very good reason
>why levels and level concepts work, and that simply is
>because it's an unambiguous marker of accomplishment.

It's only one scale of accomplishment.  XP is just a
number.  There are other ways, and there are better ways.
There will still be measures of accomplishment over the
system expressed in numbers (or adjectives), and there
will be measures of accomplishment expressed more subtly,
in terms of adventures lived, stories told, bottoms kicked.

In my view, these are a better and more meaningful
measure of accomplishment than getting another experience
point.  There's still a great deal of gain - even in
the system now, learning another point of Spectrum magic
causes infinitely more excitement than getting more XP.
Finding Bob the Golem for the first time is cause for
real celebration.  Leveling isn't gone, but it's changed.
It may even take a bit of a back seat to other elements.

>Whenever you are thinking of designing a satisfying game
>system you have to remember the three elements.
>    1) Suspension of disbelief
>    2) Progress related to effort
>    3) Goal and reward

My goal is not to eliminate #3, but to change it.  In
doing so, I wouldn't mind if it lost some of it's dominance
over the other two elements as well.

[snip]
>I might make a suggestion here -
>The goal to give players after they have conquered the
>game system is to become something more than just a player -
>in the old days we made them wizards.  That was the #3
>element.  Now in the days of all these (grrr) Dikumuds
>players don't have this objective.  This sort of attitude
>as bled over into other muds as well, where there's no
>'goal' to advancement.
>This is a failure of game design IMO.  Lack of goal
>is a major problem, and screws up the player experience
>at the top end.

Remembering quite fondly the "good old days" of play-
to-wiz LP's scattered across the landscape, I can't agree
that changing that goal was a bad idea.  The skills that
make a good player differ quite a bit from the skills
that make a good staff member.  DS's first design decision
was to remove play-to-wiz (way back in '91, when that
was a radical concept in LP-dom), and we've never regretted
it.  That was the beginning of our entire administration
philosophy, which is very businesslike in nature.

>If you don't want to let players become wizards, let
>them become something else - let them become in-game
>demigods or heroes, through quests and *cooperation
>of other players.*
[SNIP]
>My point is that this is a multi-player game.  Leverage
>and maximize that multi-player aspect.. use it to your
>advantage and you have a whole new dimension to pursue.

Although becoming demigods wouldn't mesh well with our
background, I do understand and agree with your point
on goals.  But I want a system where there isn't a defined
and limited set of goals to choose from.  I see mastering
the system as a worthwhile goal, but I'd like that to
be more than just maximizing some numbers.  I see building
a power base with which to steer the lives of other mortals
as a worthwhile goal, but I want as many methods of doing
that as you can think up.  Mostly, the stated goal of the
game is "have fun".

>The solution is not throw away the basic elements of
>successful game design.  That won't get you anything
>but frustrated players and more ambiguous problems.

I'm not throwing away basic elements of successful game
design.  I'm letting an already successful game evolve
into the next level of it's design.  Most of the concepts
I'm working on for DS2 aren't new at all, simply refinements
and continuations of what we already have.  We've always
been a bit different from the pack, and there's more
than enough room out there for a few muds.  I think
being different is a selling point.  Our design
team's goal is to take our current system and place it
in a crucible, refine it down to the purest essence
of Dreamshadow, and build from that.