[MUD-Dev] PvP Systems

[Jon Lambert]

John Buehler wrote:
 
> You speak as if roleplaying is the highest form of game play.

Well it is of course.  :-)

> Roleplaying is one way that a player enjoys the game experience.  My
> use of NPC props - and they assuredly are props - is to provide
> players with a constant reminder of the fact that this genre works a
> certain way and that the mood of the town is angry or joyous or
> opressed, whatever.

What do you do when players' characters act joyous in an angry town.
Oppress them?  Seriously though, if players are coming to play a
*game* you will get GoPers.  GoPers simply do not care about
atmosphere other than... "Hey that's cool, can I get any cheese from
that?  No? Let's move on then!".

> If I want my gamemasters to run a story and provide entertainment to
> my players, I'd have to convince and/or recruit roleplayers to play
> the parts that I need.  That's no way to run a business where I'm
> providing a paid entertainment experience to my customers.

Are you sure about that?  I'm convinced that people will pay money for
just about anything.

> Player to player interaction takes place independent of the NPCs.
> For example, the assault on the orc village.  Players roleplay and
> plot and plan and then assault the village, hopefully for
> roleplaying reasons (although we know it'll be "for the hell of
> it").

Yes but why "hopefully"?  Is this just a game where role-playing is
not supported, yet not discouraged.

> The NPC wrangler who runs that area of the world will cause the orcs
> to react in some way so that there is an element of real
> intelligence in the encounter, not just mindless force on force.
> I'm primarily concerned with consistent quality of service, and
> roleplayers don't provide it.

Employee NPC wranglers are not going to any more consistent about
quality than dedicated player/volunteers.  I think the employee
vs. volunteer topic was probably discussed to death in all it's many
angles.  That's my 2 cents.

> Second, I very definitely want players to react to the world.  Many
> folks are far more interested in having the players control the
> world.

This is true.  I don't think reaction is enough for immersion.
Players want to affect the world.  Players want "attention". This is
true of most players regardless of their style.

> That only works for a limited population of players who are of a
> like mind.  I'm after a paradigm that works for massive playerbases
> (tens of thousands).  It's a far more vanilla experience than most
> roleplaying enthusiasts will be interested in.
 
Certainly there are tens of thousands of role-players out there.
Prolly quite a bit more that aren't mudding.  Where are your 10000
coming from, and what happens happens if only 100 players show up?

> I really think that some game publisher needs to hire roleplayers to
> actually run NPCs at minimum wage or some such thing.  That's really
> what roleplayers want to do.  They want to *act*.
 
Bingo.  There you go.  They even do it for free. ;-)

> I don't want my players to roleplay beyond functional roleplaying.
> I want them to enjoy the world.  What I want to avoid is players who
> do things that are very counter to the atmosphere of the game world.

There are a lot of goals that are at odds here.  You want immersion in
the world and then you want casual gamers.  You want to encourage
roleplaying via atmosphere, though I cannot figure out quite why you
don't want to provide any in-game support for it.  Role-players are by
their very nature not only actors, but are content creators.  In order
to establish a game conducive to role-play, it must be participatory,
not passive and reactive.  So you just want functional roleplay from
players merely in order not to disturb the atmosphere and theme of the
game?

Now I've seen such games.  What you get is players whispering to each
other in hushed tones and offline about how to game the game.  It's
sort of like a guy who designs a model train layout, shows it off to
people, and says "Don't touch anything".

> The NPCs serve as a reminder that your character is in a medieval
> town.  Or in a futuristic town.  Whatever.  Non-roleplayers need the
> props as reminders.  A cast of extras to run the NPCs would be
> great, but I'd never rely on a cadre of volunteers.  I'd have to
> produce high level scripts and have the actors figure out how to
> present that script.  I'd have terrible security problems of keeping
> any information about the script secret, etc.  Blech.

Ok this is like putting on a show.  Once players realize their
participation is limited to being an audience member this will get old
real fast.  This extends to both GoPers and RPers.

>> Of course not.  But the purpose of role-play is to entertain other
>> players.  It requires 2 or more humans, not a human and a machine.
>> Now a game where the vasy majority of players _are_ role-players is
>> almost guaranteed to be entertaining and atmospheric regardless of
>> the presence of props.
 
> Yup.  Where ya gonna find the roleplayers that are willing to
> provide consistent quality of service to the rest of the playerbase?

Well there does exist troupes of experienced role-players that
actually run games and scenes for cash.

>> The functional/immersive style of roleplay is well illustrated by
>> Armageddon and Threshold, and is done pretty well there.  :-) The
>> other styles are not represented on this list.  The best way to
>> illustrate these other styles is to go out and play those games,
>> Cajun Nights, Chiba City, Children of the Moon, OtherSpace, etc.
>> There are dozens more.
 
> What is the size of the player base of some of those games?

Well I know Children of the Moon is around 2500 or so they claim.  I
believe Cajun Nights may be larger.  Does it really matter?  None of
them are commercial ventures so there really isn't any marketing going
on.  Therefore there isn't any real way a measuring their viability or
potential success as a business.  It's my theory that a few thousand
well-placed dollars will buy you 500 players even if you are selling
crap.

--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD        Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://tychomud.home.netcom.com> *--
--* If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.*--
 

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