[MUD-Dev] New Skill System

[John Buehler]

Koster, Raph writes:

> > John Buehler
>
>> Game designers seem to be very American in their thinking: you must
>> achieve the ultimate end as defined by the world.
>
> Most games, after all, are set up that way (as opposed to open-ended
> "play.")

Right.  Things labelled 'game' typically work that way.  Games
traditionally take place in a limited timeframe.  Organizers gather
the participants and then they interact following the rules of the
game to their conclusion and then the participants depart.  That model
really doesn't apply to these virtual world thingies.

Perhaps 'hobby' is a more appropriate way of thinking about what I'm
after.  One of my hobbies is dancing.  Another is model wooden ships.
I do both of them simply because doing them is fun.  The ship I've
been working on has been under construction for years.  I dabble in it
when I feel like working with some wood.

I'd like to pursue an adventuring hobby.  When I feel like
adventuring, I hop into one of these virtual worlds and experience
things that I wouldn't normally experience (visually and audially
only, unfortunately).  There wasn't much to the experiences of the
three graphical games that I played.  Kill stuff, get better, get
items, kill stuff.  I always feel like I'm in downtown New York (rush,
rush, rush).

>> Some achievement, some success, some item, some action.  What ever
>> happened to "It's not the destination that counts, but the
>> journey"?
>
> Ask the players. At least half of 'em don't play that way even when
> given ample opportunity to do so.

I'd be very interested in hearing examples of the opportunities that
they have been given.  In the case of EverQuest, players were given
the opportunity to crawl through dungeons, yet the fundamental design
of the game experience encouraged players to pull the monsters to a
carefully-picked location for ambush - camping.

JB


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