[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #285 - 32 msgs

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Jake Song
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 3:33 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #285 - 32 msgs
 
> Number of accounts are over 9 million right now because one person
> can make multiple accounts in Internet plazas and we didn't erase
> unused accounts. For active players we are guessing under 1 million.
> We have over 130,000 users playing at any time (including Taiwan).
> I will post more exact numbers as I get the information available.

If you have the same tie ratio as the US games (percentage of active
accounts logged in at peak hours) then at launch you were attracting
around 40% of your active users at peak, falling towards 20% over
time, and then holding steady. That would indicate an active user base
of around 650,000 individuals. However, your tie ratio may be
different, so that number means nothing. :)

> We have 4 different chat commands, tell(") for private message,
> say(') for players in same screen, shout(!) for approximately 3x3
> screen size, and global chat(&) for all in the world. We restricted
> shout with food and global chat with level to avoid spamming.  So
> shouting always makes you hungry without relation to level.

This is a pretty common mud technique, Jeff.

> There are a few something good in Lineage not in UO :) For example
> global chat. In UO you should use another program like IRC to chat
> with all ppl in the shard, don't you?

Yah, one of UO's biggest failings. We thought we were encouraging
roleplaying. Go figure.

> I agree that character stats rolling is boring. There was a debate
> in dev team to change rolling system but we decided to leave it as
> is. Personally I don't care much about my character's stats, so I
> usually accept the reasonable stats in a few rolls. That is more fit
> to the term Role Playing, isn't it?  However this system makes users
> stay more online which means more money to the company. :)

How do you charge, by time played or flat fees for a month? If it's a
flat fee, then you're losing money on that. If it's by time played,
then you're making money...

> I know that in UO you can customize your appearance. But in my
> opinion, it's not enough to differentiate your character from others
> in a glance. Details are different but it looks almost same in
> overall, isn't it?

Not really, once you get into it. And players here at any rate really
really like it.

Jeff Freeman said:

>> Maybe I didn't play long enough to discover the Great Game lurking
>> behind the scenes, though.  The only other person I know that has
>> played Lineage didn't play it long either: She spent a long time
>> looking for arrows, found them, then someone looted one of her
>> kills so she PK'd him, became a murderer and logged out.
 
> I think that's the cultural difference between Korean and
> American(or maybe the rest of world?). In above case most male
> Koreans continue to play the game until he gets enough power to
> overcome the situation. It would be a unique personality of Korean
> or it would be in general ppl in richer countries(US, Japan, Europe,
> etc.)  want to stay in more controlled, stable situation(or
> society).

I visited Taiwan for a couple of days a year ago. Every player I met
was a playerkiller. I met hundreds of them. I talked about it at
length with the local EA distributors out there, and they said that it
was a cultural thing.  (It made hyping UO: Renaissance sort of hard,
since a prime selling point was the addition of large safe areas. The
audience there was very unhappy to hear it).

They also said that 1st person games tended not to do as well, that
3rd person overhead/isometric was what sold. A quick perusal of local
gaming mags revealed literally hundreds of overhead iso RPGs, a
handful of chase cam 3d games, and no 1st person games.

They all played in cybercafes, of course. :)

Oh--and they treated me like a rock star, which was
bewildering. Schoolgirls who had no idea what the game was saw the
crowds at the stores and came in, and would come up to me and ask me
to sign their blouses when they heard I was a game designer. I got
handed boxes of chocolates and paintings and stuff. It was very
strange to me--I'm more used to the US reaction of average people on
the street, which is somewhere between "that sounds like an
interesting job" and "how do you feel about promoting violence and
ruining our children's minds?"

-Raph
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