[MUD-Dev] Birthday Cake (or Why Large Scale Sometimes Sucks) (long)

[Hess]

On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Matt Mihaly wrote:

> (snipped section about "only TV" commentary)
> What is with this horribly patronizing attitude so many seem to have
> towards the users? People, users ARE NOT IDIOTS. You are NOT
> smarter than they are. You are certainly MUCH less qualified to decide
> what is best for them than they themselves are."

Perhaps, but I think that in any customer service (or mass entertainment)
 job a person tends to notice and have to deal with a percentage of the
population who often reflect badly on the whole.  It is regrettable that
such experiences color perceptions, but its a reality.

In addition, people may not be idiots, but I would like to think that 
after creating a work of art, a game, or a storytelling experience, that
the creator has learned something that a bulk of the populace may not
know.  In that light, there are ways that the "creator" may be able to
enhance the experience of interacting with his creation that the average
"user" will not consider immediately.

Example:  I occasionally run live action games for about 50 people.  It
constantly amazes me that a player will not provide a written background
at any point in the four weeks between games, but will get irritated if the
story does not speak to their vision of the character or their preferences
in stories.  If/when the player criticizes me after a game for not writing 
something directly for them, theres only so much I can do or say, 
especially as the players will do the same thing again, and then make
the same complaint.

> I will never intentionally design a product that requires users to play
for large
> numbers of hours daily, with no end in sight, in order to succeed. I
firmly reject
> the notion that MUDs/MMORGs must be that way. No worries, lots of other
> people will. I'm so glad that not everyone is you, and not everyone is me,
> because if that were the case, the world would be awfully boring wouldn't
it?
> (snip) 

I don't think that games are required to be this way unless the designer is
hoping
to appeal to a large (I'm guessing 300+) playerbase.  After a certain point,
IMHO
the game would have to either support an advancement curve requiring 50+
hours 
a week, or have a mechanism that matched player personality and play style
to one
of several advancement curves.  This way, the 3hr a week casual player and
the
100 hr a week "rabid" player would not be in direct competition.

Ian Hess
-game designer in training






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