[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[jolson at micron.net]

> Damion Schubert once said to me, "I want a newbie to see the 
> coolest thing
> the game has to offer in the first session. Imagine if they saw a 
> dragon and
> helped kill it on the first day." (Very rough paraphrase here). 

Sounds like a shortcut to boredom, which is one of the reasons I think 
institutionalized twinking needs to be combined with controls, like 
level limits on equipment or geography.  A significant portion of the 
player populace thrives on the continual discovery of new sights, new 
feats, and new abilities - show them the dragon on day one and you've 
effectively said, "no matter how well you do, this is the coolest thing 
you'll ever see."  To an Explorer, that's death.

I think it's better to show them things slightly over their heads and 
just hint at the dragon's existence.  The anticipation is what makes 
the experience exciting - delayed gratification and whatnot.  

> Above all, it cannot be humiliating (cf Jonathan Baron's "Glory 
> and Shame").
> Killing rats is humiliating.

Being killed by rats is humiliating.  :)

> (Remember, we are speaking of averages here... our anecdotal
> perspectives on these things are colored by the extremely visible 
> dinos...it's very hard to gather decent data for a text mud where 
> "departure date"
> is so unclear. But a commercial mud can and should mine all of these
> numbers.)

I'd be interested in the numbers of people who don't extend their 
subscriptions beyond the trial period.  

I'd offer that there is a third barrier point: the point where 
the "romance period," the time during which a player's interest is 
sustained simply by the newness of the environment, ends.  At that 
point the player has a good feel for the features and problems of the 
overall game and is no longer impressed by glitz and glitter as only a 
newbie can be.  I'd further offer that the romance period generally 
lasts only a matter of weeks - usually enough time to make a decision 
about subscription renewal.  

> Institutionalized twinking would be a system whereby elder players are
> incentivized to help newbies in this manner because they need them 
> for their
> own purposes. By all accounts, the old Kesmai Multiplayer 
> Battletech did an
> excellent job at this. The modern example to point at is Turbine's 
> Asheron'sCall. In both cases, the institutionalized twinking is 
> done via hierarchical
> social structures. 

Friends are a resource too.  Because not everyone is adept at making 
them, a social structure that encourages players to help their juniors 
is a necessary ingredient.

Asheron's Call seems to have done well at simultaneously encouraging 
twinking with socio-political structures and limiting its effectiveness 
with skill limits on equipment.  I believe the skill limits are 
critical to the success of this system, because they eliminate the 
resentment of "have-nots" in mostly-uncontrolled systems like 
EverQuest.  In AC there will always be a player who's gotten better 
twinking than you, but it won't be so much better that his abilities 
are radically different than yours.

In addition to social structures and level/skill limits though, there 
is a lot that could be done to aid not only the newbie in finding a 
mentor, but the mentor in finding a newbie.  Things like guild halls, 
message boards, even character flags ("Newbiticus, level 2 enchanter, 
seeking an apprenticeship") would facilitate what can be a frustrating 
and variably-rewarding exercise.

> Mathematically, I'm pretty sure that the number of people you get 
> past that
> inflection point leads to more revenue/lifespan than the loss that 
> resultsfrom the shortened lifespan of a twinked character--
> especially if the maxxed
> out twinked character then chooses to do it over again "on their 
> own" for
> the challenge of it.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  Balance the environment from day one 
with twinking in mind.  Slide the difficulty curve up a notch with the 
assumption that the average newbie will immediately receive a +1 
OrcSquisher from a more experienced player.  Then just make sure that 
experienced players will want to give out +1 OrcSquishers.  :)

-Josh Olson






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