[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard A. Bartle <richard at mud.co.uk>

>On 23rd February, 2001, Dave Rickey wrote:
>> I believe that's about as ambitious an experiment as the market is
>> for, both in terms of the state of design and player state of mind.

> I agree, the market it not yet ready for anything much more radical.
> In part, though, this is because of the conditioning by early
> success games such as EQ, which have let to a climate where
> decisions taken quickly under pressure are now virtually industry
> standard.

No, I think that's way too cavalier an answer, we wound up where we
are because we never answered the essential dilemna of a fully PvP
enabled world: How to make it possible for the "bad guys" to lose.

By this, I mean that the "good guys", ordinary players who want to
make the game world a "better place", have an emotional investment in
winning or losing their "war", and the "bad guys", players who just
want to fight, don't.  So the "good guys" can win 9 out of 10 battles,
or 99 out of 100, and they'll lose the "war".  The "bad guys" don't
mind losing, as long as the fight was fun, the "good guys" are
fighting to defend something in particular, and when they lose they
stop having any fun.  Some quit, the next fight is tilted more in
favor of the "bad guys", more quit, and a nice vicious cycle sets in,
that was broken in UO only by creating a mirror where the "bad guys"
couldn't win because they couldn't fight.

Now, in theory, I can agree that PD closes that circle, if the "bad
guys" can lose their character permanently, they've got an investment
at stake and they can lose.  This assumes, of course, that a
combat-ready character requires a non-trivial investment of time.

But if you pitch such a concept, nobody will invest.  If you promote
it online, few will take it seriously.  And if you put it on the
shelves, few will buy it.  All a potential player sees is that the
"bad guys" can permanently destroy *their* character.  And he's not
going to accept that, in most cases.

Until the market is large enough and fragmented enough that "few"
translates into "several tens of thousands", it's just not feasible.

--Dave Rickey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev