[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[John Buehler]

Justin Hooper writes:

> But it's still just a cave, and just a maze, and entertainment falls
> upon the viewer's purvue of interaction.  Basically, people get out
> of things what they want to get out of it.  You've done nothing by
> making the maze that makes it better or worse for providing
> "entertainment".  Instead, you've limited your examples to only
> those people who are likely to be inherently entertained by such a
> construct.  What does the powerleveller get out of your caves, for
> example?  What about the loot monger?  How about the baker?

They don't get anything out of my caves.  As they shouldn't, according
to my rules of entertainment.  Fortunately, my world isn't just a
world of caves.  I have entertainment for the baker.  I don't have
entertainment for the powerleveller or the loot monger.  I don't cater
to player entertainment that I believe caters to hardcore gamers.

> The problem is that for you, that may be entertainment.  For others,
> it may not be.  It's all well and good to say players should be able
> to find entertainment when they want it, but what if some players
> want to sit and whittle, some want a hearty conversation with the
> farmer, some want to kill the farmer to see if he's got any
> treasures hidden in the bottom of his cellar, and some want to
> slaughter the entire population to prove their battle prowess?  How
> do you determine whose entertainment takes precedence?

Exactly.  What is a viable construct for gameplay for the style of
entertainment you're trying to provide?  I have been postulating
'nice' systems so that players who aren't as hardcore as those on this
list can find some entertainment.  I may be slanting the systems
towards exploration, but I'm assuredly getting my teeth kicked in here
by those who both dislike my approach and wouldn't want to play my
game anyway.

> If you're railing against the prevalance of nonstop carnage as the
> sole means of entertainment, I'm with you.  It's tiresome, and
> generally not satisfying to me either.  But you can't cover ALL the
> bases.  You can't even begin to.  And the simple fact of the matter
> is that carnage is a lot easier to create than compelling
> entertainment of most other forms.

Yup.  That was an early realization for me.  Sex and violence are the
way American society produces its popular entertainment because it's
easy.  The human mind reacts strongly to both, so it draws people to
it.

Creating entertainment that is more mild - my example is a hobby - is
possible to do, but the depth of the experience as presented by the
game itself has to be considerable.  Present a certain shape and the
human mind says "sex", and the human imagination locks onto it and
runs with it.  Very satisfying.  Present some clashing noises or words
and the human mind says "danger", and the human imagination locks onto
it and runs with it.

> Me, I long for political intrigue and plots that go bump in the
> night.. of course, that's very hard to do.. and I don't think player
> run power structures are likely to get it right anytime soon (if
> ever).

And I think that suspense is a popular entertainment style, but is it
something for a casual player?  I believe that one reason that casual
players don't play these games is because they're so incredibly
hardcore.  Hmmm.  That's a silly statement.  They don't play them
because they attempt to evoke such strong emotional responses from
their players.  And they demand so much invovlement to play them.
Lots of imagination, or lots of time, or lots of planning and
forethought.  Or a high threshhold for PvP.  And so on.  The comment
of being uninterested in 'pretty pictures' pops up here from time to
time.  The 'pretty pictures' environments are the ones that I claim
casual players will visit.

Next, I have to come up with an argument that will convince people
that grief players are not a necessary outcome of running an online
community.  At least, rampant presence of grief players.  It may be
the only argument that will convince anyone is coming out with an
experience that works the way I claim it can.  Which is why I'm not
replying much to grief player arguments.

A note to JC: the reason that the list appeared to be drifting into
homogenaeity is that those who disagree with the commonly-held views
in this list are generally 'argued into the ground'.  So the only
topics that tend to be discussed are ones that fall into the category
of angels dancing on the head of a pin.  They don't have answers, so
everyone speculates and it gives the brain something to toy with.
With MUD-Dev, you really have to be ready for some serious PvP,
because agreement is generally not bothered with.

>> Other areas of the world are given to more sedate pursuits, such as
>> the cities that are ruled by benevolent potentates.  In those
>> cities, you can whittle your flute without worrying about being
>> interrupted.

> But what's in those cities for the players who crave danger as
> entertainment?  If you effectively segregate the two, aren't you
> throwing out a whole sub-classification which might arise from the
> mixing of the two?  (After all, if you really just want to weave
> baskets in peace, why would you EVER do so when not in an inherently
> peaceful locale?)

Weaving near the dangerous place gives you better access to that
lucrative warrior basket market.

> One element of any good adventure that I've ever read is the ability
> of the hero to react heroically when beset.  I'd argue that complete
> safety inherently implies the lack of being able to be beset, and
> thus the lack of being able to react (or act) heroically.  Whether
> this safety comes from a safe base of operations, or superior
> firepower, is relatively moot.

This is the 'casual' player problem.  A casual player doesn't care
about being beset or of being a hero.  Only the generally hardcore
gamers are interested in such things.  I'm of the opinion that, in a
massively multiplayer game, the best way to tackle things is to
present a fairly mundane, entertaining experience.  Simutronics is
talking about a future game called "Hero's Journey".  I'd build
"Peasant's Journey".

> Rather than saying you can't be bothered, wouldn't it be more
> satisfying to say you won't "likely" be bothered?  (Of course, this
> is programmatically MUCH harder to do.)

For *you*, that would be satisfying.  I'm a horse of a different
color, and I'm simply not interested in having somebody that I don't
know start beating on me.  I don't have the energy for that this week.
Or this month.  I *do* have the energy to do that whittling or basket
weaving or just hanging out in the tavern and listen to a roleplayer
tell everyone about their exploits.  How would you like it if you were
sitting in a movie theatre, watching the movie and somebody started
playing with the focus, or dropped out the sound or pulled a fire
alarm?  You would get to chase them down and take them to the police,
right?  Most people aren't interested in going through the hassle.
They just wanted to watch the movie?  Why?  Because that's what they
went out and *did*.  If they wanted to hunt down spoiler moviegoers,
they'd be doing that instead.

> Realism != entertainment.  Sustainable disbelief of reality (IMO) ==
> entertainment.  If I want realism, I'll shut the computer off and go
> pay my bills.

This reaction to reality always confuses me.  There's plenty of
entertainment in reality.  Those things in reality that are not
entertaining shouldn't be incorporated into an entertainment venu.
When the entertainment draws very little of its structure from reality
(seemingly a common pursuit among MUDs from what I've seen), it
alienates those who don't have the energy to imagine, solve and wonder
what the heck is going on.  Imagination is a very subjective thing,
even arbitrary at times.  The science fiction and fantasy that I
enjoyed most (back when I read it) was the stuff that presented a
sense of reality, but doing things that seemed like they would be
entertaining to do or even to just witness.  And most people in the
world don't even bother with that much science fiction and fantasy.

I wonder if a pure reality medieval world, or a pure reality colonial
america world wouldn't be more amenable to large scale use than the
fantasy genre.

>> If every map was guaranteed to lead to treasure, then finding one
>> would immediately let you sell the map for a fraction of the value
>> of the treasure at the other end.  This is like selling quest items
>> in EverQuest, and I want to avoid guaranteed results.  It makes the
>> world more gameable.

> How does this desire interact with the "uber" model, wherein a quick
> rise to power of a small clique of players would then go out,
> collecting all possible maps (or a substantial fraction thereof) in
> order to try and collect all the treasures?  This WILL happen,
> unless the treasure is so undervalued as to be relatively worthless.

How do they collect all the maps?

> If this is the case, though, your whole quest structure loses
> compulsion.  Given a choice of entertainment without the frustration
> of following the available quest path, or entertainment with it,
> without the lure of some reasonable reward at the end, why would
> anyone choose the latter?

I'm having difficulty understanding that last sentence, but it's an
important one.  Could you explain it?

I *think* you're contrasting

  A. Having an entertaining way of getting to the treasure, but the
  treasure isn't much to write home about.

  B. Having a non-entertaining way of getting to the treasure, but the
  treasure is well worth the pursuit.

But I don't want to reply until I'm sure that this is what you're
saying.

JB


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