[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[Raph Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> jolson at micron.net
> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 7:43 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking
>
>
> > 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 don't think it's death until the Explorer has figured out how to do it on
their own--all the explorer types I know would certainly immediately start
working ont hat problem. But you're right that I did overstate. I should
have said, "a really damn cool thing" rather than "the coolest thing."

I dislike level limits on equipment for other reasons--they always feel
artificial, like bandages on something else broken... but I definitely agree
that limits on twinking is a good thing. Teach a man to fish, all that.

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

Well, I can't give you those numbers, particularly since I don't work for
Origin anymore. :) Suffice it to say that if they don't quit in the first
two weeks (well before the free period expires), we generally keep 'em for a
LOOONG time. On UO anyway.

> 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.

Gordon Walton, in his talk at GDC, identified around 5 inflection points...
only the first two were relevant to the twinking discussion though. He had
names for 'em and everything, but I can't recall them. It was something
like: scratch n sniff (30 seconds-5 minutes), first impression (5 minutes-2
hours), discovery (2 hours-game dependent), mastery (where you know
everything about the game that you care to - for UO this was about three
months), and community ties only (can last many moons). Each of these is a
"gate" that players do not pass through. The purpose of expansions is to
push people back on the scale.

> 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.

Jonathan Baron tells me that this is what Multiplayer Battletech did so
well. There are many opssible tactics, I agree, and many of them have to do
with just good map design. Has anyone else here read "A Pattern Language"?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195019199/o/qid=956113191/sr=8-1/ref
=aps_sr_b_1_1/002-6667192-0689808

-Raph





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