[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Shane King]

On Fri, Jun 11, 1999 at 02:04:35AM +0000, Jon A. Lambert did spake thusly:
> On 10 Jun 99,, Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> > Also keep in mind that rarely is any significant segment of the population
> > interested in anything that is significantly ground-breaking (witness the
> > endless parade of movies with the same plots, that still make tons of
> > money, or the popularity of DIKU muds).
> > 
> 
> It has been said that there are really only 36 plots.  And everything 
> else is a remake.  For instance, the original 'Star Wars' was yet another 
> remake of 'Le Morte de Artur'.   
> 
> There is something that is more important than plot, characterization.  
> This might relate to muds.  Where plots are goal systems/game features, 
> and characterizations are user perceptions/social interactions.

IMHO, it's called atmosphere. In muds and in movies, the atmosphere makes
all the difference, no matter what the plot or characterisation is like.
For instance, without wanting to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen
it, the phantom menace is rather predictable in terms of plot, and not
particuarly heavy on characterisation. However, it has the "star wars
magic" of the original movies, thus creating an atmosphere that sucks you
in as a viewer (if you let yourself be - some people refuse to be sucked in
and hence end up hating the movie :P)

The same can be said of many things, including muds - some of the most
popular muds are primative in terms of codebase, unoriginal and uninspired
in terms of areas, are full of people you'd run a mile from if you met in
real life, and seemingly have no redeeming features, other than being
annoyingly addictive. There's something about them, and I reckon it's
atmosphere.

The problem is, you can set out to create an atmosphere, mud it's largely
out of your hands, because it depends as much on the players as the world
you build. And even if the players do their bit, and you do your bit, it's
still quite an elusive thing - it's something spontaneous that either
happens or it doesn't - perhaps to go back to the first paragraph, it
depends largely on whether people want to be sucked in by the particular
atmosphere you have created...

Perhaps another thing to consider is that even if there are only 36 plots,
that is a LOT for muds to work with. While most movie fans see more than 36
movies in their life (or even in a year), most mudders do not play 36 muds,
instead they tend to settle on playing a small number, often only one. So
making an original mud isn't really so important, unless you aim to attract
the very small percentage of mudders who are so widely travelled and jaded
that they're unlikely to be satisfied with ANYTHING you can throw at them.
:)

Sometimes it's better to do an old thing well than a new thing poorly!

- Shane King <thandor at ihug.com.au>     <ICQ#:2492866>
             <http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~thandor/>
--
I know you're mad at me right now, and I'm kinda mad 
too ... I mean, we could sit here and try to figure out 
who forgot to pick up who till the cows come home.  But 
let's just say we're both wrong and that'll be that.

		-- Homer Simpson
		   Brother From The Same Planet



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