[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #163 - 25 msgs

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Miller <gmiller at classic-games.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Monday, July 17, 2000 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #163 - 25 msgs


>  Dave Rickey wrote:
>
>>      The point of all of this is that I'm not asking "What do Socializers
>> *do* in these games?", I'm asking "How do Socializers *play* these
games?"
>> In-game message-boards, player-to-player mail, yes, these are tools for
the
>> Socializer, but they all amount to saying "Socializers chat a lot, so how
>> can we give them more ways to chat?"  The real question should be "How do
we
>> give them something meaningful to chat *about*, give other players
incentive
>> to chat *with* them, and reward the Socializers in the game context?"
>
>Absolutely. This is one thing I like a lot about handing mud government
>over to the players. Politics gives people a chance to do something of
>significance to the game world that focuses around socialization.

    IMHO, politics is where the Killer comes into his own, it gives him the
opportunity to *constructively* control his fellow players.
>
>As for economics, I think Tradewars is a good demonstration of how
>enthusiastically achiever types react to this sort of thing. It's not
>only the socializers who benefit here, and the non-grief pkillers would
>enjoy other opportunities to compete as well.
>
    Everyone stands to benefit from well-designed, self-balancing economies.
It just happens that the big 3 haven't had them (UO tried, EQ and AC were
doomed to inflate).  Inflation undercuts the whole Achiever gameplay model,
what was a major prize for someone getting it in the first three months
becomes mundane in the next three, and in the end is just trash.  EQ is
suffering the effects of this bigtime, with each round of expansion whole
new levels of toys have been added, completely eclipsing their
predeccessors, because the earlier toys had simply become too common.
There's not much room left for that, 1 or 2 more "expansions" and EQ will be
in advanced Monty Haul necrosis.

--Dave Rickey




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