[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 21:43:21 -0700, "Koster, Raph"
<rkoster at verant.com> wrote:

> How much time do you think the average player should spend
> socializing in SWG?  Meaning, as opposed to "playing" however you
> define that--killing things, crafting, whatever. Chatting while
> recovering from a fight counts; chatting while forming a group
> counts too.

I would expect that the player "should" socialise however much he
WANTS to socialise.

In short, it depends on the game. On the average Diku-style MUD, I'm
a 3% person. On the average StoryTeller-system MUD, it's more like
80%. It depends on how much I feel I have in common with the other
players. On a Diku, that commonality is extremely low -- what I want
out of the game is generally not what other people want out of the
game. I want to explore new areas and find interesting things, and
they want to kill more mobs and find more EQ. In an ST environment,
however, the commonality is high; we all want to meet new people and
have interesting interactions with them.

The average MMORPG falls into the low end of that range. I don't
mind being there on occasion, but I refuse to pay for it -- so I'm
not on any of the major pay systems. In other words, my perception
of MUDs does not account for the culture of those systems, which is
undoubtedly very different and probably unique.

> I flat out don't *believe* the 3% people--that's a total of a few
> seconds every HOUR spent chatting with people, on *average*. My
> take--nuh-uh, no way.

On the average combat-oriented MUD, I have absolutely no interest in
talking to anyone. I will help people who ask for it, but I will not
wander around looking for people to help, so very few people ask. I
turn most if not all of the chat channels off. I do not group with
people, I do not hang around looking for people to talk to, and when
people try to talk with me I generally look for an excuse to
leave. If you don't address me directly, character to character,
chances are I will not talk to you.

If the MUD is roleplay-based, however, I have a great interest in
learning about you, the player. If I know what you want out of the
game, I can more readily provide it, and vice-versa. The social
aspect matters greatly, because there's an implied contract with the
other players: I will try not to get in the way of your fun. Since
virtually nothing is RP-based any more, however, I generally
couldn't care less what you're doing here. You probably don't care
why I'm there, either.

> 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.

Depends on how you define "downtime". If the MUD is down, the
players certainly aren't socialising with one another *there*. ;)

> A second key philosophical question--I asked the team, once we'd
> argued these points for a couple of hours, what their preferred
> metaphor was for a town in the game--player-run or not, really,
> though we focused mostly on player-run.  Many different answers
> came up--what sort of organization or community do you see that
> feature of the game as being most like?

A bus terminal. Most of what you need can be found there, but it's
crowded and annoying and chances are you can probably get a better
version of it somewhere else. Nobody really *wants* to be there, so
they aren't generally very friendly, and those who hang out there
all the time are probably mentally ill or otherwise undesirable.

> I have many fond memories of hanging out at town fountains in Diku
> muds.

I detest town fountains on Dikus. That's where I first learned that
most people on Dikus find any attempt at actual RP annoying and
weird. It's also where I hear the most discussion of game mechanics,
which I find offensive.

> Here's a third touchstone question that emerged. Recovery
> areas--what are they FOR? Think hard.

Control. Forcing the player to come to location X obviates the need
to send announcements to the whole MUD; you just stick it in
location X, and people will see it. It also provides a convenient
spot for time-consuming validation checks -- in my system, it is
possible for any number of things to go "wrong" in a player's
record, purely in terms of efficiency. All of these things can be
handled, but that handling degrades system performance. So whenever
the player enters certain specific locations, his in-game record is
"optimised" to increase performance elsewhere. Without such an area,
all player records would eventually become and remain a total mess
unless the *player* understood what to do and how to do it.

Basically, as a developer, I see these areas as convenient places to
add things which address oversights in design. While it would be
optimal to repair the problem throughout the system, a stopgap
measure is usually helpful. It's also a good place to look for
potential problems, and to evaluate test features. I can add
something invisible to the game, and compile statistics through
these areas; this can locate severe problems in game balance which
might otherwise make it into actual "production" characters.

> And that brings us to a fourth touchstone question. Do you think
> you will play mostly with friends you make BEFORE the game, or
> friends you make IN the game, or with strangers?

Primarily, strangers. I play less often but longer than most. I
generally stay on the same MUD for two to three years, playing on
rare occasions but for extended periods of ten or more hours. I'll
play one or two MUDs per day, one or two days per week, but visiting
each MUD only every month or two. So I'm "on" about a dozen MUDs,
but... not so you'd really notice. Since I'm not around enough from
day to day, I don't make many ongoing friends -- but since I'm
around for a long time, I'm generally recognised by people who have
played for a while whether they've actually played with me or
not. I'm also commonly pointed out by MUD staff to newbies, since
the staff usually know I've been around a long-ass time and will
happily assist anyone who actually walks up and asks. I generally
drop off the MUD when I try to log in and discover that my
character's been purged, which usually indicates that the game was
no longer interesting me anyway.

In short, I'm probably exactly the kind of player most MMORPGs want,
from a business perspective. I'll pay my $30 a month for two or
three years, but I'll only spend a couple days a month playing. With
a playerbase full of people like me, you can have a lot of money
coming in with very few system resources actually being used. Since
you probably wouldn't delete the character till I stopped *paying*,
I'd probably stay as long as the game was up.

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