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

[Peter]

>Joe Andrieu wrote:
>Does the importance of available leisure time over financial resources
>"break" the fiction of being an interesting character in a virtual
>world?  Why then would the reverse? Or perhaps more to the point,
>*both* break the fiction in roughly the same way for different people.
>If I'm a poor teenager, I hate rich old guys coming in and getting all
>the good stuff. As a professional with a wife and kids, I hate those
>damn kids who spend all their time playing the game because I can't
>ever be on equal footing with them.

	This really does depend on the game and the fiction surrounding it, but 
you've got a good point. The people who end up short in what it takes to 
succeed in the game end up not succeeding in the game. (Wait, don't slap 
me for defining the obvious, I'm going somewhere with this.) People 
without excellent timing and dexeterity do not become world-renowed 
concert pianists; people without excellent reflexes and the ability to  
understand and integrate multiple three dimensional vectors do not 
survive becoming fighter pilots. It's rare that people who fail at 
something they'd like to do due to a lack of talent enjoy this failure, 
but the people who are talented enjoy their talents.
	I'll bring this back to muds now. The player resources that can be 
brought to bear to succeed at current games are: reflexes, intelligence, 
time, and money. On most games (and I'm explicitly ignoring meta-gaming 
here for the moment) there is only one or two ways to succeed. PvE muds 
reward time primarily and then also intelligence. PvP muds reward 
intelligence and reflexes, in that order. Quake rewards reflexes and 
inelligence, also in that order. RP/Political muds reward intelligence 
and time (not always in that order). When a player lacks the resources 
or abilities to succeed as a character, they generally get bummed about 
it. They'd like to be recogized (or recognized themselves) as good at 
the yardstick of success in the game but cannot.
	The games don't reward the abilities the players posess. PvE muds could 
allow smart players to command their characters to play when they don't 
have the time to play. PvP muds could allow players with time to train 
their characters to automatically respond quickly and intelligently. I'm 
stumped for what political muds could do for players with good reflexes 
(hey, I never claimed to have all the answers) but I'd guess that 
someone more clever than me could come up with something.
	Now I'll get back to meta-gaming. The games reward the players speed, 
smarts, and timespan. Money, however, allows a shortcut. Players can 
give the game's owner or administrator money to have them alter the 
game's engine or condition (eg. code or world) to make up for their lack 
of ability.
	Players who would fail due to a lack of talent can succeed. Players who 
can succeed on their own talents will likely get jealous or angry. The 
game does not need to reward raw talent- the character's ability can be 
completely divorced from the player's abilities. But rarely do people 
enjoy this- it's nice to say "Boffo is good at X", but instead players 
say "My character Boff is good at X". The difference is huge- in the 
first, the player is stating a fact. In the second, the player is 
extolling their virtues. I think this is why players really quickly (and 
occasionally irrationally) form emotional bonds with their characters- 
because the player can be good at all the things they're good at and 
have the game shore them up on what they're not so good at.
	Speaking personally, I'm pretty good talking to other people and making 
good decisions and I'm not good at running around outside waving 
weaponry- but I'd enjoy being good at all of them. So rather than join 
the army or the SCA, I play muds. I'll be pretty grumpy if the game 
fails to recognize my talents, disappointed if it fails to prop up my 
weaknesses, angry if the game penalizes me for my talents, and really 
grumpy if someone with no talents at all gets to succeed more than me. 
I'l turn a blind eye to the game propping me up here and there but when 
I see it doing for someone (including myself) everywhere, that's no fun. 
(As for the "including myself", I don't want a game where I type in my 
name and it returns "You grow from a sickly boy to conquer the world in 
two weeks, the end.") To take a big step, I think it's fair to 
generalize my personal opinion to the majority of players out there 
(but, hey, I could be way off base.)

>Food for thought: Does the size of my allowance/disposable income
>break the fiction of Pokemon or Magic the Gathering?

	What fiction? In these games, the player is the character, and the text 
that accompanies these games is that explicit. You the character is a 
mage/monster collector who attempts to amass a good collection of 
spells/creatures. You the player is a card collector who attempts to 
amass a good collection of cards. As immerion into character gives no 
character reward the line between player and character is merely semantical.





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