[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[S. Patrick Gallaty]

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoffrey Z. <gzatkin at verant.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking


>On Tue, 18 Apr 2000, 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.
>
>
>The general problem I have with twinking is that it can create a
>disproportionate expectation for a newbie. By general human nature in a
game
>which items determine the power of your character, once you have item A,
you
>then want item B (which is presumably "better" in some way). Once you get
>item B, you then want item C. Giving a newbie item X or Y (using the
>alphabet as a linear power description - the sword of ultimate slaying or
>some such) to start the game with puts them in a situation where no matter
>what they do, the player can never achieve their reward (getting a better
>item) - there is no carrot leading them on. There is nothing they can
>achieve on their own (or with a party their own level) that can possibly
>equal the item they have been twinked.
>


[ ,,, ]

In everquest especially this is the downfall of players who started with an
'easy' class, and then had the items and resources to 'twink' a not so
easy class.

Several of the easiest classes to 'win' the game with are casters, and with
these high level casters a player will go harvest some midlevel melee items
and start a melee character (often a rogue, one of the more difficult melee
classes to succeed with.)

They have a disproportionate effectiveness advantage early on, and then
after a moderate investment of time and effort slowly see their character's
effectiveness taper off as their level catches up with the items they
twinked
onto the character at which point they generally become discouraged and
give up.

The problem comes in when the player who is playing the twinked class
doesn't have other characters to retreat to.  A player who gets to the
middle levels twinked heavily (especially in eq) and becomes frustrated
with the game not meeting their unrealistic expectations is more likely
to give up on the game.  Thus we have the problem point, new players
who never get to appreciate the learning curve and end up frustrated and
quitting.





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