[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[Justin Lockshaw]

: > Raph Koster wrote:
: > TWINKING: the act of assisting a lower level player to
: > advance in the game at a much faster rate than they would
: > be able to achieve on their own, via
: > the giving of experience (often via XP split systems 
: > inherent in grouping systems), items, goods, or money.
:
: Geoffrey Z. wrote:
: 
: The general problem I have with twinking is that it can create a
: disproportionate expectation for a newbie. 

[Snip comments about acquiring item progression]

: In my general experience, the optimal path for twinking is to 
: give a newbie
: one good item, or several OK items. This hooks them - giving 
: them more power
: then the design intended and letting them feel like they are 
: accomplishing
: something while still leaving room to grow. Overtwinking, 
: similar to an
: initial "bad play experience" both lead to shorter then 
: desired play time
: experiences.

Speaking only of EQ as I have yet to play another game in which items were
not restricted by or dependant on character level, I can say that I find
Twinking to be quite frustrating to me as a player. 

I have just recently started playing EQ. I began playing on the PvP server
and began to learn value, both game and monetary, of certain items. After
playing for a while I decided to join a non PvP server (E'ci) that my
co-workers had began playing on. Soon after I started playing I received
what in my opinion was a decent weapon for a low level character, given to
me by a higher level character who decided to be spontaneously generous. I
was thankful for the gift and merrily went on my way doing visibly more
damage than I was before, being a warrior this was very important to me.
After spending my time recovering from an illness online, I achieved a good
number of levels in a short amount of time and began to group with others
around my level. I started to become very disappointed with my character at
this point. 

I found that when I was grouping I was the least effective character in the
group. At first glance I thought it was my class, or perhaps my class/race
combination and began to reevaluate my choice. Looking deeper into why I was
not effective I was finding that nearly all of the characters I was grouping
with did more damage and had more hitpoints than I, the melee class, did.
Inquiring as to why this is I was told that each of them had 1 more very
high level characters that outfitted the character I was currently grouped
with. This appeared to be the case with nearly everyone I spoke with.
Essentially they were all very Twinked. I shrugged this off thinking that if
I bothered to spend that much time playing I'd be able to get some decent
stuff myself. 

After a while I really started seeing the affects of the mass twinking that
goes on on this (if not most/all) servers. Items that appear to be, from a
game design position, targeted for the low-mid level characters I found to
be nearly worthless. Only the best mid level items seem to find their way
onto newbie characters while most newbies seem to be outfitted with high
level items and perhaps one extremely powerful item. Aside from the game
play issues economy also suffers from this mass Twinking. Almost every day
you can find someone selling the "best" weapons/armor that can be sold for
some extraordinary amount of money. I am told this is mainly because a group
of high level characters attempts camp all of the most powerful or hard to
get items. It quickly occurred to me that I would not, seemingly ever, be
able to acquire items for myself in any way other than buying them form
higher level players. This led me to the idea of turning my efforts to
making money. 

I thought maybe I could raise enough money to buy some decent items for
myself and begin to play item-catch-up that way. I soon found that I would
not be able to make any substantial income for myself unless I spent hours
ravaging the newbie areas for items that were relatively rare spawns in
higher levels zones. I then turned to the idea that I might be able to go
against my grain a little and try to get a high level character to take me
under their wing and help me out. Figuring the high level characters could
mostly likely toss me a decent mid level item without a problem, I asked
someone that I had been grouping with for a while. Had I known there had
been an anti-newbie uprising going on I wouldn't have minded getting
completely flamed on the public channels for it but as it was I became
rather irked. "Deal with it we have all been through it. damn newbies" were
one of the softer comments directed towards me.

I soon tired of this and stopped playing there and reverted back to the PvP
server where severe twinking of a newbie would be like handing those nice
items over to the first few mobs of people near your level that walked by.
Although I can not say that I have had a lot of experience with twinking I
feel that I got a good look at the extreme. All I can say is "What a mess"
and make sure to keep this in mind when designing my own games.

.DL.
--------
When you think about quitting, it's already over.



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