[MUD-Dev] Elder Games

[B. Scott Boding]

"Matthew D. Fuller" wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 08:11:15AM -0800, a little birdie told me
> that B. Scott Boding remarked
> >"Koster, Raph" wrote:
> > >
> > > This still, btw, only postpones the inevitable exhaustion of all the game's
> > > mechanics.
> > >
> >
> > I've seen situations where the only way to become certain classes is to reach a
> > certain level and then abandon all exp and start at level 1 again. The new class
> > had additional qualities though that made it more powerful.
> 
> The only clean way to avoid this that's easy to do is to keep the power
> differentials so small as to be trivial, which won't work because then
> people won't go for it.  And to keep the game open ended, you have to
> keep adding more and more, meaning that the people who play 18 hours a
> day will soon be able to sit at level 1 and slaughter all the new level
> 2000's.
> 

What if instead of trying to reduce the power differential, you splintered your
game world in such a way that once you "evolve" into this new form you can't
enter certain areas but you can enter new areas? Kind of like having a portion
of the mud world that was exclusive to these higher-beings. Depending on how you
did it, this could even go so far as being a completely seperate realm of the
mud and no longer had the capacity to go to the lower realms.

Another option would be that the lower forms/classes/guilds are less detailed
that the higher ones. It wouldn't necessarily mean more power to advance, but it
would mean more playability. I can fondly remember muds where one guild was just
more fun that another simply due to all the details it contained. You can even
use that complexity to justify more powerful forms if you want. Advance from an
novice mage to an adept and suddenly you have more powerful spells, but you need
to collect reagents and do more pre-combat preparation to be powerful.

--
B. Scott Boding          |  "Woah! Is my hair out?"
FCI Communications       |     Hades, Lord of the Dead
(408) 947-1014           |       from Disney's Hercules



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