[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 25th February, 2001, John Buehler wrote:

>> As a rule of thumb, if someone dies at level X it should take them
>> half as long to get back to level X as it did to reach it in the
>> first place.

> That's an odd statement to make.

What's odd about it?

It doesn't apply once players approach the maximum skill level
possible, obviously, but other than that I've found it to work well
from empirical observations of players in my own MUD.

> Why remove an accomplishment from a player when the reason that they're
> playing the game is to accomplish things?

Because the accomplishment is meaningless otherwise?

> If an achiever reaches a certain point in the game, and having reached
> that point in the game permits them to get involved with new and
> different entertainment, why in Heaven's name would you have a
> mechanism to take that achievement away?

Well at that particular critical point I probably wouldn't. That
doesn't mean I wouldn't do it at other points, though.

> The only thing that will happen is that the player will 'work'
> intensively to get that achievement back.  This produces the
> powergaming effect.

Alternatively, they may take the opportunity to make a fresh start and
set about playing a new character in an entirely different way. If a
player feels that the game is getting stale, or samey, then rather
than carry on in the same rut until they get bored and leave they
might relish the chance to start anew. It's very unlikely they'll
enjoy the process by which they came to get to that stage, but once
they're at it it gives them a fresh start. It's only unidimensional,
friendless achievers who powergame themselves back to where they were.

> If achieving is the entertainment, then the doing typically isn't all
> that entertaining.

On the other hand, if anyone can achieve then the achieving isn't,
ither...

> The maze isn't fun, just getting the cheese.  If the maze wasn't fun
> the first time, and the cheese is the same, the player isn't going
> to derive much of any entertainment in repeating what they did.

No, but they can do the maze twice as quick if they know the route,
and the cheese tastes better if not everyone gets to eat it.

> In such a world, death can be avoided if you're willing to *not* push
> things to the absolute limit (and the gain is modest in any case).
> But if you push too hard, your character dies.

I covered this in the article.

The issue is, whether there are some things you can only get if you DO
risk death, or whether risking death just gives you the same thing
that you could get without risking it, only quicker.

> When it dies, it drops where it is and cannot be played for some
> number of days.  No penalties, no resurrections, no jumping off to a
> temple, nothing.

And how exactly is this any more fun than having them spend that
period playing their character back up from nothing?

For a skilled player, being killed is quite a lot like this, in that
it really only just delays them a while until they're back where they
were before. They'll probably be a better player for it, though, and
perhaps develop a more suitable persona, too.

For an unskilled player, it would take a while longer to get back
where they were - indeed, they may never really get much further
because they've reached their limit playing in that particular style
and get killed again. They might be better off trying a different
career path instead.

Your approach introduces an inconvenient delay, but that's all it
does.  I suppose people may be encouraged to spend the time playing up
some secondary character which they eventually prefer over their
erstwhile main one, which is good, but in terms of making the game
more exciting, or of stopping it getting packed with high-level
characters, or of making achievement have value, it does nothing.

> Temporary permadeath.

That would be tempdeath, then <grin>.

> I am only suspending entertainment through that one character, but I am
> doing it for some number of days in order to serve as a reminder that the
> player is doing something that is particularly hazardous.

What's hazardous about it? The worst that can happen is you can't play
for a few days. Big deal.

> Central to this idea is that death is not a deterrent to achievement.

It shouldn't be a deterrent to achievement, it should be a celebration
of it. It's one of the few ways in a combat-oriented game to make
achievement meaningful. Your skills are proven, your rank means
something, people respect you for what you've really done, not what
the game makes out you've done.

The problem with permanent death is that it's perceived (often with
justification) as a deterrent to playing at all.

> Want to go on a dragon hunt?  That's inherently dangerous and your
> character could die.

Not in your scheme. In your scheme, you character could disappear from
the planet for 5 days and then reappear right as rain. It couldn't
die.

> You don't get thousands of gold pieces from the kill, nor do you get the
> Sword of Doom.

Never mind, I'm sure you can try again later.

The point about permanent death isn't to punish the people who die
(not that "you can't have what you were expecting to get right now" is
much of a punishment).

The point about permanent death is to validate the measures by which
people are judged. If everyone at level X has had to risk their
existence to get there, it says a lot more about them than if people
just board the level X express and step off when they reach there.

You can't give people the choice. You can't say, "for those of you who
want to reach level X and feel you've overcome real obstacles that
could have stopped you ever getting here, do it like this; for those
of you who would rather get there without there ever being any real
doubt you would, do it like this". The latter completely undermines
the former. For people to feel they have achieved, they really HAVE to
have achieved.  Otherwise, it's all just a sham.

> You get to go on a dragon hunt.  The unique nature of the entertainment
> is the draw.

There'd better be more to it than mere uniqueness.

> But in that particular scenario, there is a strong possibility of
> death.

I'd have thought so, yes, but in your scheme there isn't. You're
calling it death, but that doesn't mean it is death. Death is oblivion
(or, if you're religious, eternal life but you never get to live on
the same planet as you were before while retaining any memory of
having been there earlier). Throwing someone into a stasis chamber is
not death.

> Why have this type of death at all, you might ask.  So that the
> illusion of lethal activities remains

But it's just that - an illusion.

Of course, the entire game world is just an illusion, but this
definition of death is an illusion within an illusion.

		Richard

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