[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Timothy O'Neill Dang]

Raph Koster sez:

> Why do I ask this? Because we have contradictory goals for the
> game. We want to reduce downtime. But people get to know people
> during downtime. That's when they socialize. That's when they make
> friends. In fact, I'd go so far as to state that it is a Law of
> Online World Design: Socialization Requires Downtime. The less
> downtime, the less social your game will be.

This reminds me of the arguments I've made for not making
super-efficient game economies. I'm completely socialized to the
American model of commer ce where I find someone who's selling what
I want cheap, and pay their poste d price. These days occassionally
I'll take part in an auction. That's all pretty efficient, but very
impersonal. I don't get to know anything about the person I'm
trading with. My wife lived for a couple years in Benin, where every
purhase at the market was a social experience in haggling. We
economists lean towards believing haggling is inefficient both in
the tim e and economic senses, though I don't know of empirical
research on this.  Nonetheless, in some contexts (particularly in
MUDs), the tradeoff of ine fficiency is likely worthwhile.

My question about this is, is goal-oriented interaction or idle
interacti on a better experience, or better for society-building? 
There certainly need s to be time to talk, because very little can
be communicated via short tac tical commands during combat. But, is
pure, undirected "downtime" most promisin g for interaction? This is
probably different for different kinds of people , but I often find
that I socialize best when there is a context for the so
cialization.  This is more true with folks I don't already know
well.

You get some of this goal-oriented interaction from haggling, and
you're likely to get it at safe zones, where people can talk tactics
in a more relaxed environment. I'm not sure if it has anything to do
with happy smi thy experiences in UO.

------------------------------
Timothy O'Neill Dang / Cretog8
520-884-7261
One monkey don't stop no show.


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