[MUD-Dev] Acting casual about casual gamers

[Dan Shiovitz]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, John Buehler wrote:
[..]
> to advance while offline?  I have a big problem with the 50:1 power
> ratios that develop between new arrivals and old hands.  There is
> simply NO reason to have such a huge power differential.  A newbie
> should be just as capable of joining in on that dragon hunt as the
> old hand.  Get 30 newbies with bows and they might very well put an

There certainly is a reason. The reason is the effort->reward
ratio. Compared to a newbie who's been on for five minutes or even five 
days, the old hand has put in at least 50 times as much time and effort
into building up their character. If I spend weeks having my character
travel around the world learning how to be a master sword-swinger and then
I discover that I'm only 10% better than J Random Newbie who started
Thursday, I'm going to be cranky. 

(This is especially true if the mud has player-killing and/or
permanent death. If someone has a grudge against me and is able to create
eight starting characters, run them with triggers and come kick my ass,
that sucks.)

One obvious way of getting around it is to keep the power differential
small and the effort high, but what you gain by experience is it's 
easier for your next character to gain in this skill after this one dies
or retires -- "My momma was a blacksmith and my grandma was a blacksmith
and you can sure as hell bet I was born with a hammer in my hand"

So sure, your warrior can get killed by a pack of newbies, but your next
character is going to get back to that level of fighting ability pretty
quick. And if you want you make this channel characters: so you come from
a long line of mages, if you want to pick up a sword it's going to be
harder than it is for someone with no ancestry pushing on them.

This all assumes character skill is much more important than what items
they have, but we all agree with that, right?

> JB
--
Dan Shiovitz :: dbs at cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW




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