Hiding the Numbers (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.)

[Derek Licciardi]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kwon Ekstrom
> Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 1:06 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: Hiding the Numbers (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.)

> From: "Travis Nixon" <tnixon at avalanchesoftware.com>
>> From: "Alex Kay" <yak2 at iprimus.com.au>

>>> It's interesting. I remember when I started playing EQ and there
>>> was alot of talk on whineplay to show all the numbers. I was in
>>> favour of this at the time, finding some of the vagueness
>>> annoying, and falling into the trap of playing the stats game.

[snip]

> As a player, I prefer to have as much information as possible, but
> am admittedly a power gamer.  As an admin, I understand that some
> things should be hidden from the player for the sake of balance.

IMHO there is a reason behind this issue that I haven't seen
mentioned.  It seems that the debate centers around the eternal 'to
show or not to show your game mechanics'.  I like to start with a
couple of assumptions.

Games are played to win.(ie keep score in some way to determine a
winner(extremely loosly defined here), be they points, items, skills,
or whatnot.)

Online games have a social aspect to them and in the real world we
constantly compare ourselves and our things to everyone and everything
else.(If you say that you don't you're lying to yourself)

This same social phenomenon happens in the virtual world of MUDs and
MMORPGs.

Given those assumptions, you can find a different meaning for stats,
items, skills, and in general character advancement.  They become the
score that each player has attained and one of the most important
things to do with that score is compare yourself with others. (be it
for external purposes or internal purposes) PvP centers around the
external aspect, where as games with stature, power, position, and
social class center around you figuring out where you stand for your
own use and not to determine if you can kill or steal from someone.

If all of this is true, then the natural behavior that a player will
display is the tendency to try to measure himself and assess those
measurements against other people.  When choosing to display or not to
display a stat/game mechanic, one must determine if it will help or
hinder the players from expressing their relative value to others or
assessing the value of someone to themselves.  In a MUD/MMORPG where
one can not compare themselves efficiently to their peers, the players
will often time find a system with or without the designers approval.
The more information that you release to your player base, the more
apt they are to use your game system to describe themselves.  This
also leads to power gaming as soon as a Stratics.com site opens up and
graphs, charts, regresses, and analyzes every combination of every
thing in your world.  On the flip side, releasing no information that
is usefull, causes people to not be able to identify themselves to
others, much in the same way as few character advancement choices
limits individuality.  This happens because no one can measure beyond
a reasonable doubt that they are more or less valuable than someone
else.  Unfortunately this problem causes players to run endless
simulations and use a slightly more sophisticated level of statistics
to analyze your game system and build the same Stratics site.

The question that I have been struggling with for over two years now,
is where is the balance?  The best conclusion that I could come up
with is that it is up to the admins and the style of MUD they would
prefer to host.  Both 'hide it all' and 'show it all' solutions have
drawbacks that directly affect gameplay and fun.

I believe the answer lies in the middle somewhere.  I define that
middle as a place where outside statistical simulations are not
necessary to compare yourself with someone else because the game
mechanics make that comparison reasonably accurate and readily
available to you when you need it.  I also define it as not giving the
complete powergamer access to the entire engine workings.  For those
that like to analyze down to the smallest pound, strength point, etc.,
etc., I believe that a little randomness or ambiguity goes a long way
towards leaving just enough doubt in the comparison to require
intuition.  As I write this, I guess my better definition would be
that this design decision lies at the point where intuition intersects
logic with respect to in-game comparisons.  The point where your
comparison can be based upon guts and/or logic and the outcome has
nearly the same probability
of being accurate.

Derek

ps I hope this isn't too physcho-philosophical.  It presents a
framework for me to base decisions from and is not intended to be a
Frazier Crane's view of player motivations.  Comments would be
appreciated.

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