[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Jeff Freeman wrote:

> Matt Mihaly wrote:
> > And if I want a castle and don't feel like defending it, because having a
> > castle is fun and defending it is not fun? (a reference to your argument
> > that everything players have to do in games should be fun)
> 
> Ideally, defending it is the whole point of having a castle.  If you don't
> want to defend it, then you don't want one.

Surely though the whole point of having a castle is whatever the players
decide the point of having a castle is, and inevitably, some are going to
decide that they want a castle for reason X, but don't want the bother of
having to defend it. 

 
> > Seems like a winning solution to me, from the game companies point of
> > view. Player X will pay you to NOT use their bandwidth.
> 
> Of course.  Yet I wonder, Matt, do you purposely design your world so that a
> majority of players want X and yet the route to achieve it is so incredibly
> un-fun that they are willing to simply PAY some other player so they can
> skip it?

Yes, I should have said the big games companies. Personally, I like my
players to play to their heart's content. I love 12-hour-a-day players.
They make me feel good about having designed such a compelling world. But
then, my bandwidth is basically free, so I don't worry about such things.

But you know, I was talking to someone today about muds, and stated that I
purposely make methods of getting gold, for example, tedious and boring,
because I want there to be a cost involved. If it's really fun to earn
gold, then gold becomes less valuable because more people will do
<whatever> to earn gold, not for the sake of the gold alone, but for the
sake of the activity involved with gaining gold.

I guess my point is that while every moment in a _game_ should, ideally,
be fun, I'm not interested in designing mere games (not that I don't have
tons of respect for pure game designers, mind you). I want a virtual world
with game-like aspects to it, and in a virtual world, I don't think that
attempting to entertain someone constantly is going to work, nor is it
particularly desireable. No one can be on an emotional high for 7000 hours
of playing time (and if you are, let me in on the secret please).

> I never got the impression that your MUD involved a lot of mindless camping.
> Holding out on us?

Camping? I don't think there are any camping problems in Achaea or at
least, very minor ones at most, as no one's ever complained about camping.
It's not even a word in the Achaean vocabulary.

--matt




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