[MUD-Dev] character transfer in EQ

[Michael Tresca]

On Monday, July 23, 2001 7:43 AM S. Patrick Gallaty posted:

> When money enters the picture, lots of other more delicate things
> exit without a trace.  All hope of a player community with
> compassion, cooperation, fairness, dignity.. and even respect are
> gone.  What you have (and had) was a large number of players being
> pushed about quite harshly by a significant minority to whom this
> was a business.  If that business meant training (dragging
> monsters onto players to kill them), kill-stealing, causing zones
> to crash, causing players to crash, harassing, badmouthing, what
> have you.. it was justified to them if it made turning product
> over faster.

> When the items in the game became product and commodity, all
> arguments about 'play' became moot.  It was disastrously ugly,
> exceedingly unpleasant and the result of a spectacularly failed
> design.  Like the automobile however, there are plenty of people
> ready to point out that it's turning a buck.

Well said!

This is the difference between game design and business model.  You
should have an even-handed mix between the two, with one concern
balanced against the other.  All too often, and perhaps this is an
American bias, the assumption that "if they paid for it, let them do
what they want" ultimately harms the game in the long term.

I know this is an unpopular opinion.  But I really do believe it's
the coding staff's responsibility to not just keep the system
running, but to keep it cohesive, balanced, equitable, fair, and
challenging.  Fairly impossible to do for every player, but if the
staff makes the effort, it's ten times better off than games that
don't.  Creating a virtual universe and then letting people run wild
in it is ultimately irresponsible -- but then, you could still make
a quick buck that way and thereby "justify" that method.

Greed never makes for good game design.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien

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