[MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"

[PLAGNAL XAVIER]

I answer a bit late to this topic.
Sorry about that.

 "Paul Schwanz - say's :

> Mike Sellers said:
> > At the same time I think it's a good point that players *do* have this
crazy
> > expectation that they should be able to do something that's fun.
Watching
> > your business go down the tubes because you invested in
breastplate-making
> > like everyone else doesn't sound like much fun.  If nothing else, every
> > failure state (like making too many of some commodity) needs to have a
> > potential out, so the player doesn't feel like they've wasted their
time.
> >
>
> While I understand your point, I think that strictly limiting the game so
that
> _everything_ must be fun might end up taking as much from the game as it
gives.
> It's no fun to have your character killed, so should we make this
impossible?
> If we do this, we take away the fun of having your character's life
challenged,
> but overcoming the challenge.  Thrill seekers like doing dangerous things
> precisely because it _is_ possible to be killed.  Having negative
consequences
> for failure may seem like a downer, but not having them makes success
> meaningless.  In my opionion, a game in which it is impossible not to
succeed is
> not much better than a game in which it is impossible not to fail.  But
you are
> right that success and failure needs to be temporary.

It is the exact difference between games and simulations.
Games have to be fun to play, with hard moments the player will have to
handle and a reward proportionnal to the chalenge.
Simulations just try to be realistic, but reality is boring sometimes.
There is some moments interresting in the real life (hopfully P) but there
are a lot of boring moments too.
I think that a game have to minimize the boring moments and maximize the
funy moments.

The best exemple of boring moments in Online Games is the skill practice in
UO and Everquest.
You have to perform the same action a lot of time to increase your skill.
The point is that the number of tries is too important and the gameplay of
the practice is not very fun.
So the player is a bit frustrated to spend so much time in doing something
not fun.
Paper roleplaying games had good solutions for this :
An exemple is the cross-in-the-skill system.
When you success in a skill, you put a cross next to it on your caracter
sheet.
After the adventure you are able to distribute experience points earned in
the crossed skills.
Another good system is to learn with masters.
In Daggerfall I loved to spend money to increase or learn new skills.
If a master player is able to teach a skill, it increase interraction
between players.
Combined with the Everquest system (Skill are maxed for a guiven level of
the caracter) it prevent player to cheat and become masters at level 1.


> Additionally, I think you are right that the player should not feel like
they've
> wasted their time.  But I don't think that the answer is to take away from
the
> game an economic system in which there is the possibility of failure.
Rather,
> the trick would be to design the game so that the _character_ has wasted
time,
> but the _player_ has not.  I may be wrong, but I think that the player
becomes
> frustrated because from his perspective, he's used up his _own_
game/recreation
> time (that he's *paid* for) as a player to do some often very repetetive
and
> boring activity.  He feels that he has _personally_ sacrificed and expects
to
> see something come of it.  I think that if you lessen the personal
sacrifice
> required, you will automatically lessen the expectation.  I'm becoming
more
> convinced that how a game handles _time_ is key to the success of its
economic
> engine.  Here are some of the possibilities that I've heard regarding the
time
> issue.

Definitly yep.
As a European player I have to pay for my communications (2$/Hour). So the
cost to play Online games is very expensive.
And it is very frustrating to spend time and money doing something not fun.

> 1)  Give each character a certain number of time units.  When the time
units are
> gone, the character suffers permanent death.  The character can use these
time
> units to perform time intesive tasks such as research, travel, skilling,
> creating items, etc.  The task will be accomplished immediately, so the
player
> is not penalized time-wise, but the character is.  --Proposed by
silky at webtoys,
> a regular contributor to X-Roads and better half to Lum the Mad.
>
> 2)  Have an offline scheduler to simulate characters performing certain
tasks
> while the player is offline.  --Proposed by Delusion at X-Roads.  for
details,
> see:
>
> http://lum.xrgaming.net/rdot.html

I think that if we want to create mass-market Online Games it is a solution
to use.
Only a hard-core gamer (like most of us probably) can spend 5 hours a day to
play.
But the occasionnal players (30min/day) should progress as the others.
If we guive them the possibility to schedule some simple tasks and let the
game perform them offline, they will enjoy it.


Xavier







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