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

[John Buehler]

J C Lawrence writes:

>> 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.

> Not really.  There are a few hard won lessons in MUDs surrounding
> the grief player phenomena which many of us have battered our heads
> against for long enough ,and in enough forms and forums (Usenet,
> mailing lists, MUDs, bars, work, etc), that we've come to a pretty
> basic set of assumptions:

Yup, and I'm pretty clear on those assumptions, although the list is
appreciated for its clarity.  My concern with having those assumptions
is that it means that designers aren't considering ways of changing
the equation.

> These things are pretty close to being considered incontrovertable
> and absolute laws.  There certainly is a lot of history, encluding
> this list, to support them.

Do you believe that the activities that the game environments
encourage could be contributing to the tendency of players to consider
grief actions when they're bored or done with the game?

> While this may be in error, the impression I get is that you
> question the above observation (which is fair), and present that
> disbelief solely on the basis of, "I think I can manage them by
> XXX," which runs directly counter to our observations, and thus
> gets, umm, aggressively questioned.

Sure, and not having an established track record of pulling off
unexpected results in MUDs hinders me.  I've tried hinting at possible
courses of actions, but generally just get the door slammed on me via
quotes from the grief player assumptions list.

> Little Billy popping up and stating that he thinks the "laws of
> gravity" don't really apply, and that if he just did enough jumping,
> or arm flapping, or something, he'd be able to fly without effort
> and do loop-the-loops in the sky by properly puckering his lips
> might get a somewhat similar reaction, especially from those who
> rather liked Billy and cared about his success and possible
> failures.

> Yeah, we're a hard bitten aggreesive lot that tend to have strong
> beliefs and stick to them.  Its a common trait of war survivors.

I hope your entrenching doesn't cost you access to that holy grail of
casual gamers.

>> 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.

> There are conflicting requirements here:

>   I want to create strong and significant emotional reactions with
>   my players.

>   I don't want my players to have to make any significant investment
>   in my game, at any level.

I don't see the conflict.  I only claim the latter.  I want my players
interested in doing something casual in my game world every now and
again.  I do not want them investing of themselves emotionally in my
playground.  It *is* just a playground after all.

To be clear, my statement should have avoided pronouns and stated "I
believe that one reason that casual players don't play these games is
because the games are so incredibly hardcore".  The 'silly' statement
perhaps should have been 'obvious'.

> Strong emotional reactions largely stem from the player considering
> that something is important (for whatever reason).  If it is not
> needed for the player to make any investments (and thus create value
> which is thus important), then you have to leverage generic shared
> values which you can (safely?) assume the players already have
> before they ever approach your service.

By pursuing many different game experiences, not unlike having many
different types of rides in an amusement park, I hope to use a shotgun
approach to casually attract a number of players.  Once into the
world, the hope is that they will find that it is an environment in
which they can experiment and learn about a number of different real
world activities.

>> 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.

> <bated breath>
>
> I would love to see such an argument successfully made.

Yeah, me too.  I'm assuming that the only argument I'll be able to
offer is: here's how I did it.

> This is a side effect of peerages, assumed orthodoxies, etc.  Its a
> tough thing to kick without abstracting the list into, "Well,
> everything comes down to 'It depends on your circumstances,' and
> thus no decisions ever being made," or balkanising the list into
> armed encampments who violently defend their religions without ever
> daring to open their eyes.

> I don't know that there are any real long term solutions outside of
> periodic gross revolutions.

It's a typical situation when the population of a group stabilizes
and/or the topics being discussed stabilize.

>> How do they collect all the maps?

> Given a couple bot scripts and a little time, it really doesn't take
> much effort.  Its been done so often that its now pretty well an
> assumable.  This extends all the way down to gamers deriving, by
> observation, the formulae and curves used for all your in-game
> computations, publishing their deductions, and thus deriving the
> optimal min-max path, and thus the fastest route to the cheese.

> This is not something to be surprised about.  The only question
> is. "How soon?" not whether.

More stuff for me to take up as challenges.

JB


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