[MUD-Dev] Alternatives to PvP for sustainable fiction?

[Brian Hook]

At 09:26 AM 6/12/01 -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:

> topic that concerns me, which is how can a MMORPG maintain a
> sufficient level of new content without PvP?

Autogenerated/procedurally generated content and user generated
content both come to mind.  Both, however, have their own set of
serious perils.

> This carries over fairly well into MUDs because the population
> densitity stays sufficiently low that the illusion that each party
> is exploring an area pretty much on their own is never violated.

Absolutely.  Back in The Day, if you were a party of friends on the
Test Server in EQ you truly felt like you were the brave adventurers
in a cruel world.  Awesome experience.

> While many players seemed to enjoy this, it left me with a feeling
> of "why bother, the bad guy doesn't stay dead, the world doesn't
> stay saved."

This is probably one of the biggest MMRPG bugaboos out there.  How
do you let a single player affect the world without A.) affecting
all the other players and B.) having the world mutate in an
uncontrolled form?

> Resetting dungeons may provide entertainment for more players but
> they do so at the expense of purpose.

Depends on whether your purpose is entertain more players or not.

> Why play a MM online game if all the content is designed for a
> single small group of adventurers?

Because you can meet new people and develop new friendships that you
can't do by just finding your same old friends and playing a single
game all the way through?  BG2 is fun for multiplayer (when it
works), but it ends after about 100 hours of play.  Then what?

> In a MM world, not everyone can be heroes or adventurers.  There
> will never be enough dungeons and the exceptional people are
> hardly exceptional if every person in the game is just as
> exceptional.

This depends on whether you're comparing yourself to every other
player or to the NPCs.  By and large I would argue that your
rationale holds true for certain extreme cases, e.g. I don't think a
superhero MMPG is possible, but in EQ there is a definite feeling of
evolution and advancement vs. the world even without other players
around.

> just as brave standing there with you?  There is some fact of
> psychology where the more people who are present when something
> horrible happens, the less likely any of them are to help.
> "Someone else will handle it."  Heroes are made by being the only
> ones suitable for a task.  Not a face in the crowd.

This is the difference of being heroic by nature and being heroic by
circumstance.  I would argue that the hero that steps to the front
when there are many others willing to help is a "truer" hero (or a
publicity hound =) ) than the one that steps up because he has no
choice (the proverbial reluctant hero).

> masses, but there is a strong potential for a vast array of small
> personal worlds instead of a single (or multiple) large
> interconnected pieces.

That's the problem with a network of small scale operations -- you
don't get a feeling of vastness.  You have this with Quake servers
-- there are many running, yet very few have players on them,
because you need a critical mass to get interest (no one wants to be
the one player standing there like a dork).

Having a single large world really helps bind a community together.

Brian Hook

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