[MUD-Dev] The Player Wimping Guidebook

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Matthew Mihaly
> Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2000 1:15 AM
> To: 'mud-dev at kanga.nu'
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] The Player Wimping Guidebook
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2 Aug 2000, Koster, Raph wrote:
> 
>  
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> > > [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> > > Matthew Mihaly
> > > Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 12:45 AM
> > > To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> > > Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] The Player Wimping Guidebook
> > > 
> > In any case, my point was better expressed by another 
> poster. It's all about
> > the emotional investment. Either way, we are talking about removing
> > something players are emotionally invested in. So we're 
> arguing about how
> > much we can hurt someone's feelings before they quit. The 
> answer will vary
> > by player. The better answer is where the average breaking 
> point lies for
> > your playerbase.
> 
> Well, putting it that objectively (and I agree), it then 
> behooves you to
> make your game as addictive as possible so that the average breaking
> point is raised. (Bandwidth issues aside of course.)

It also behooves you to make the changes you make not cause net reductions
in playerbase, unless you don't care about playerbase. But by and large for
most mud admins, it's a decent metric. From the perspective of trying to
keep players happy, they (in the aggregate, examined as player statistics)
know what a good change is better than you do.

An example--often I've seen changes made to the MMORPGs that were loudly and
publicly decried and resulted in a flood of threatened departures. But the
playerbase (and acquisition rate) rose. The playerbase knows what a good
change (or a smooth one, at least) is, even if invididual players do not. 

-Raph



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