[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[John Buehler]

Matt Mihaly writes:

> I must agree with you here, Richard. Considering that John is very
> intent on not encouraging addictive gaming, what's the big deal if
> you can't play for a few days? Given his goals, I'd expect that most
> players probably wouldn't be addicted enough to even log in every
> day. Missing a few days isn't going to kill them.

> Time-outs only matter if the person _really_ cares about missing
> what he's missing (ie he's addicted) and you seem to want to avoid
> having players care too much about your product, John.

I don't want time outs to matter all that much.  And I don't want
players caring too much about my product.  I want them coming back
enough to play it every now and again.  From a business standpoint,
I'll have a lighter per player load on my infrastructure while still
charging players a very modest fee for holding onto their characters.
The balance point is the one where players come back at their liesure
and enjoy their time in the game world, but don't feel compelled to go
back because of the money they're paying.  Compulsion leads to
hardcore attitudes.

Social cohesion tends to be a bit of a problem when the same players
don't go into the game at the same time day in and day out.  Then
again, if players occasionally visit the same venue casually over a
period of time, they will have a less-intense social connection to the
playerbase - which is also desireable.  One of the compulsions in MUDs
is to keep up with your friends.  So long as movement of characters
isn't essential to finding entertainment, the equation should work
out.

JB


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