[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Fri, 08 Jun 2001 09:09:55 -0400, Travis Casey
<efindel at earthlink.net> wrote:

> In the same way, you can play a game where you'll eventually lose
> your character for fun -- and if you know you want to play for a
> certain amount of time, you can ration your risk.

It's still not a fair comparison.

> All I'm saying is that the consequences of character death are
> acceptable to some players.  Indeed, some players will tell you,
> and honestly believe, that the game is less fun without the
> possibility of losing their character.

Yes, that's true. And there are people who jump out of helicopters
on mountain bikes, too. That doesn't mean you can run an effective
business that drops people on mountain bikes out of helicopters.

>>  This may be offset almost completely with a PERMANENT character
>>  identification, separate from the character's name.
 
> Which already exists -- the player's real name and background
> info.

Which is none of anyone's business.

> Not true.  In Galaga, you could gain the second ship and keep it
> -- making your character more powerful.  Across the genre as a
> whole, many video games have "powerups" of various sorts.

All of which are lost in a matter of minutes. It's a false
comparison: a game which is designed to be played for a few minutes
is not the same as a game designed to be played for several weeks.

> Further, one could say the same of some muds -- in a MOO-style
> mud, for example, there's often no character advancement of any
> kind.

And generally no death, either. Once again, false comparison.

> Permadeath does not leave out the possibility of multiple lives --
> it only implies that a final death is possible.

Actually, it IMPLIES that a final death is LIKELY. It outright
*states* that they're possible.

> Paper D&D, for example, has the ability for characters to come
> back from the dead, but also has permanent death.

...and a human being in charge of keeping things "fair". False
comparison.

>>  , and gameplay is a single skill which is easily learned.
 
> One could argue that the same thing is true in many RPGs, and even
> moreso in many muds.  Your knowledge of what works well and where
> things are doesn't go away because your character died.

But the availability of those things often does. I may know that I
can kill the dragon with the green sword, and that the green sword
is on the top floor of the ruined tower, but without the ability to
climb the tower that information is effectively useless.

>>  Furthermore, the ONLY way you could lose a life would be if YOU
>>  made a mistake.
 
> Supposing a perfect environment, yes.  In the real world, though,
> I've often lost lives in video games because someone bumped me, or
> I suddenly had to sneeze or cough, or a loud noise distracted me
> for a second. These sorts of things are part of why many people
> don't like "twitch games".

These sorts of things are also "mistakes". They can be guarded
against and usually prevented.

> For that matter, in some games, it's possible to get into
> situations where it's simply not possible to survive.

Also a mistake. Avoid the situation.

> As I mentioned above, permadeath does not have to mean that there
> is *no* access to resurrection, just that it isn't automatic.  The
> fact that your character *can* die permanently doesn't mean that
> *every* death has to be permanent.

Then it's not really death, is it?

>>  and that character can be trashed forever by a single bad result
>>  from a random number generator.
 
> Not likely, unless you're wandering into very high-danger areas.
> And, as noted above, that's possible in some video games as well.

Most games *force* you into high-danger areas at higher levels. It's
like a constant "double or nothing" bet.

> IMHO, the problem here is not the possibility of permadeath --
> it's the setup of the mud.

See your "Galaga" example.

> Why do all these things have to be done?

It's an example, not the law. The *law* is "address them". The *way*
you address them is entirely up to you. That was just how *I* would
address them.

> I think you're presuming that a permadeath mud would have to have
> the same emphasis on lethal combat that current muds do.  If
> lethal combat is more rare, than permadeath would be easier to
> deal with.

That's true! If the chance of dying was one in a million, I'd be
perfectly willing to accept that death was irreversible.

>>>  You have won something -- the ability to say that you were good
>>>  enough to get to where you could kill the dragon.
 
>>  Then why do it? Why not just look at the dragon, say "I could
>>  kill the dragon", and keep walking?
 
> Because then you have no proof that you could.  Is the idea of
> wanting to prove your ability so foreign to you?

No. But I can prove it to myself without running out and showing
people.  If the dragon has 48 hit points and I do 12 points of
damage per strike, while I have 96 hit points and the dragon does 8
points of damage per strike -- I'd say the proof is there. I know
the answer, so I don't have to go do it unless I have a better
reason.

> Sometimes success can be its own reward.  And one of the good
> points of having a community in a game is that the game doesn't
> have to provide all the rewards -- the community can provide some.

But if the community MUST provide the rewards, the game is
incomplete and fundamentally flawed. Communities are never what you
thought they would be.

> Maybe that's your contract with a mud, but it's not mine.  Mine is
> more like:
 
>   I will have fun playing this game.

That's what I said. I think what I described is fun. If I can't do
that on a MUD, it's not a MUD I want to play.

> I can have fun playing in a game even with the possibility of
> losing my character permanently.  Maybe it's the fact that I
> played paper RPGs for twelve years before my first mud, and
> permadeath was possible in all of those.

How many of them were run by a computer?

>>  If you die in a game of Galaga, you lose a quarter and ten
>>  minutes.
 
> I haven't lost anything.  I paid a quarter to be entertained for
> ten minutes.

Perhaps I should say "spend" instead of "lose". Yes, you get
something for what you spend, just like you get the fun of playing
blackjack or whatever when you lose in Vegas. But it's still a
question of *degree*.  When I make a large investment, I expect a
large return. That's why I play MUDs instead of Quake in the first
place.

>>  If you die permanently on a pay-for-play MUD, you lose something
>>  more like sixty bucks and 120 hours (assuming an average of two
>>  hours play each day for two months at $30 a month).

> Again, I haven't lost anything.  I paid that money for
> entertainment, and I was entertained.

But the entertainment has to remain entertaining. Most MUDs are
BORING AS HELL until you get to a certain level. Then they become
fun. Then you get to another level, and they become BORING AS
HELL. Then you go find another game. If you die while the game is
fun, you go back to BORING AS HELL, and that's not
entertaining. Many MUDs also force you to advance into new areas by
ensuring each section *becomes* boring. Then the WHOLE GAME is
boring as hell if you start over.

> Now, this isn't *exactly* like a saved single-player game,

My point exactly.

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