[MUD-Dev] trade skill idea

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Koster, Raph wrote:

> > From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> > [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> > Josh Olson
> > Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 6:16 PM
> > To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> > Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] trade skill idea
> >  
> > Perhaps, but I don't think it would capture interest for as long.  Marking
> > your environment and displaying your originality is much more appealing an
> > an already-interesting context.
> 
> Pretty big presupposition there--to have an interesting context, you have to
> include a grand adventure? Sorry, but to that I say pfft. :)

I don't think anyone is going to say you have to include a grand
adventure. I do, however, feel fairly safe in saying that the biggest
successes will have a grand adventure. I really want to agree with you,
Raph, that the masses will be satisfied with non-epic games, because I'm
increasingly finding the idea of tight design, unobscured by any
grandiosity, very appealing, but I think epicness is what is popular, with
the general masses (and not just of gamers).

Look at what the top movies are, in terms of adjusted North American
gross:
   Gone With The Wind (epic)
   Star Wars (epic)
   Sound of Music (semi-epic)
   E.T. (epic just on a smaller scale)
   Titanic (epic)
   The Ten Commandments (epic. The bible..also epical..also happens to be
the best selling book of all time, of course. =)
   Jaws (though not epic in terms of time, distance, or power, I'd still
say it qualifies as an epic.
   Doctor Zhivago (epic)
   The Jungle Book (epic)
   Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (epic)

Frankly, I could go on down the list...Ben-Hur, 101 Dalmatians, Empire
Strikes Back, Phantom Menace, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Jurassic Park, Lion King, Independence Day, etc etc etc.

What are the most popular books? I don't have the info on best-selling
books of all time, but amazon.com users voted Lord of the Rings the best
book of the century (or was it millenium...I'm not sure. Ridiculous
obviously, but it's what the masses want). Harry Pottery is quite popular
too I hear, and it's definitely epic, if watered-down for
as-mass-as-possible consumption. As mentioned earlier...the Bible. Stephen
King, Tom Clancy, endless romance novels that draw the ordinary in epic
proportions.

In the end, I think while non-epic games certainly have a large audience,
epicness will always capture the largest audience over time.
--matt




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