[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Koster, Raph [mailto:rkoster at verant.com]

> 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.  And we ran headlong
> into this while discussing interfaces for common municipal
> structures.

I've run into this reduced downtime feature first hand in both AC,
and even more so in Anarchy Online. It sounds like a wonderful
panacea at first, but I'm definitely questioning it now. In AO, at
level 10, I can increase my run speed magically, heal my character
out of combat quickly, regain 'mana(nanos)' quickly out of combat,
buff my combat skills and all this as a martial artist. I'm
completely self-sustaining. In addition, I don't ever have to stop
and chat because there are always auto-generated missions
available. It dawned on me last night that I was effectively playing
a sub-standard version of Diablo 2...

I just didn't meet people, you'd see someone else outside the same
cave as you trying to zone in, but when you both succeeded, you were
in different caves completing your own quests. Sure you might have
stood their bitching about the zoning not working too well at the
moment, but it was just in passing.

There really is no reason to ever pause and get to know
people. Maybe I've been conditioned into 'maximise your xp at all
opportunities' mindset by EQ which makes me unsuited to the game?

It seems ironic, that a game is here offering everything people are
asking for, and the likelihood is, that people are going to get
bored of it very quickly.

For me, the most effective 'get to know people time' in EQ, was
always when I was in a group with them. Sitting at a safe point
looking for a group was never much good for it really. If a game
allows soloing, as both AC and AO seem to, I have a feeling it
completely undermines any compelling reason to interact. Perhaps the
ideal is to mandate grouping, but design it so that you don't have
the 'necessary classes' problem that EQ does. Its an interesting
balancing act, and probably hinges on there being less class unique
skills.

Dan
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