[MUD-Dev] Acting casual about casual gamers

[John Buehler]

Dan Shiovitz
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2000 12:47 AM

>> 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. 

  That crankiness is borne of existing game systems that inordinately
reward those who play those games.  I believe that the downside to
such incredible advancement rates far outweighs the upside of rewarding
effort.  There are other ways of recognizing effort and accomplishment
than boosting your ability to take damage by a multiple of 50.

>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"

  I believe in the small power differential and a certain level of
effort, although I'm not sure that I know where 'high' would actually
be.  I know I want players to have a sense of accomplishment as they
master a variety of skills that they want to have in order to be more
effective in their chosen pursuits.  I believe that the lack of
available 'pursuits' is the real problem.  All we really have to focus
on is advancement for the sake of advancement.

  As for permadeath, I'm not really a believer in it because of the
loss of investment that it represents.  My version of death is pretty
lightweight, involving the character dropping in place when it dies,
the player following the character's spirit into limbo where it sits
for a period of time, then back to the body to begin physical recovery.
No being flung back to a safe point or temple, no new bodies, no corpse
recoveries, etc.  It says that if you get into a bind with your
character, you're going to have to deal with it.  There are a number
of aspects to this, such as the penalty when dying and how physical
recovery works.

  Besides, the permadeath approach that you describe isn't quite
permadeath because something of the prior character survives.  I'm
not harping on your selection of words, only pointing out that you
probably don't really go for true permadeath either.

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

  Agreed.  Items are enablers more than anything else.  It's kinda
hard to get into a swordfight with empty hands  :)

JB




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