[MUD-Dev] No Exp? (was: Exploration Exp)

[John Buehler]

> Michael Tresca

>> Eliminate increasing personal power and increasing hit points.  If
>> this isn't done, then don't bother with the above reward systems.

> Untrue I say!  The problem is that you essentially have several
> different types of gamer types.  If you expect them to all play the
> same MUD, they will need to have some common measurement that
> advances them.

If you want all your players to be achievers then, yes, this is a good
thing.  Personally, I don't want to require that all my players be
achievers.  I want the explorers to go exploring and get good at that.
I want the killers to go off hunting and killing and getting good at
that.  The fact that they are getting good at it derives a quiet sense
of accomplishment for the player (because they are not primarily an
achiever), but the real value of getting good is to open up new venues
of entertainment for them.  The explorer has higher quality mental
maps, an infallible sense of direction and can innately tell whether
water is nearby.  These aren't accomplishments.  They just let the
player (through its character) enjoy exploring more than before.

> Or one group will immediately dominate the other.

This is a social observation rooted in the notion that the world
social order is a Lord of the Flies mentality, where the most powerful
individuals control situations.  And that's why I insist that
individual power cannot accumulate significantly.  The current
assumption that this is part and parcel of this genre must be dumped.

> To create a challenge of any sort requires some sort of
> measurement system, and by collapsing it all under experience points,
> it's a convenient and easy means of quantifying "success."

Achievers require challenges, measurements and 'success'.  Explorers,
socializers and killers do not, except in that no player is purely one
of the four types.  We all have the achiever in us, just as we all
have each of the four types in us.  But I don't believe for a second
that it's necessary for players to have to achieve success in order to
be entertained.  Ever visit Disneyworld?  You don't achieve success
there, but you certainly are entertained.  Go to a movie?  No
achievements, but entertainment is there.  Have any hobbies?  Watch a
sunset?  Go on a hike?  Talk to a friend?  No successes, but
definitely entertainment.

This is the point I'm trying to get across.  Achieving goals is only
one element of entertainment for players.

JB


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