[MUD-Dev] Acting casual about casual gamers

[Michael Tresca]

On Jun 26, 2000, Spin wrote:

> Nearly every player is
> striving to be the "hero/arch-villian" in the storybook of the mud
> they are playing. Given that "heroes" are a one in a thousand find,
> this requires a thousand "peasants" happy to plod along in their
> daily grind, to support this hero. To put it another way,
> "You need a lot of ordinary to make the extraordinary".

I agree.  Except nobody wants to be a peasant.

There's a significant difference between Fantasy and Heroic Fantasy. A
heroic fantasy theme implies that there is some heroism taking place, and
presumably, you play the role of a heroic character (or perhaps, an
anti-hero).  In any case, that hero is not saving an entire population of
heroes from certain doom.  It's people who are not as unique, the faceless
masses, who need defending, protecting, saving, etc.

One major difference between multi-user games and role-playing games is that
the role-playing game is insulated from the rest of the universe by the
Gamemaster.  The Gamemaster can therefore cast first level characters as
heroes in their universe, and surreptitiously up the stakes as they gain in
power without making the characters seem unheroically weak from the start.

With multi-user games, characters all exist in a shared universe, all of
them in the role of heroes.  This generates a pecking order of sorts.  The
situation isn't helped by level systems, wherein players often associate
social status with level.

This mindset gets carried over to game designers who played those games.
New players aren't just new to the game, they're weak, because they're not
as heroic as the 100th level guy.  In fact, if they're first level, not only
are they not as heroic, the 100th level guy is ONE HUNDRED TIMES MORE heroic
than they are.

Game designers who cater to this mindset give players demeaning tasks.
Newbies, who are really only new players, are transformed into children.
They are given simple tasks, they are told to kill "easy things" like
chickens, cows, and butterflies.  Everything they do is made out to be
insignificant, weak, and ultimately, a little ridiculous if you consider the
context of a heroic fantasy (or heroic whatever) game.  Not a lot of heroism
to go around when new players start the game.  Worse, large-volume
level-based systems compensate for the belief that first level is bad by
making new players fourth, fifth, or higher level (like Dark Sun did).

It's easy to get caught up in the Create For The Highest Level Character
rut.  Designers are likely to be pressured by the people who have played
longer and are subsequently more powerful.  Those are the long-term
customers, after all.

I submit that new players should NOT be treated this way.  New players
should kill dragons, battle fierce demons, perform heroic quests, and they
should be able to do it all at first level.  So what if the dragon dies in
five blows instead of 30?  If the player can't see the statistics of the
dragon, and if he or she is new, that person will feel just as much of an
achievement. And the higher level folks?  Those players who are going to
play for a longer period of time can still be challenged -- now they have to
kill the Dragon King instead of a Dragon Lord -- without new players being
demeaned.

This is the fallacy of Newbie Schools. The last thing anybody wants is to
log into a multi-user game and find out that they are being sent back to
school to learn how to play a supposedly fun game.  Sometimes, the most
difficult obstacles in gaining new players who aren't gamers by nature is
the nature of the game itself.

Michael "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org
telnet://retromud.org 3000






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