[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Michael Tresca]

On Thursday, June 14, 2001 12:43 AM Raph Koster posted:

> Even our recovery areas suffer from this. Yes, we pretty much make
> you go to cantinas and taverns, because you need to heal
> wounds. But that means that the only people whom you will meet in
> cantinas are wounded people and healers. And maybe a
> bartender. That leaves out a lot of types of player--the
> politicians, the crafters, the farmers and the animal trainers.

RetroMUD faces this dilemma.  We have over six different kinds of
channels for players to talk to each other from anywhere else.  We
have news posts.  We have guild boards.  They can send tells to each
other.  They can speak out loud.  They can whisper.  AND we have
inns and taverns.

You can sit down at a tavern.  NPCs will sit there too.  You can
chat with them.  You can order drinks, buy food, listen to rumors.
It reproduces, quite nicely, the effect of the WEB (World's End Bar,
if I remember correctly) from AmberMUSH.  Only on a MUD.

And as you can probably guess, no player is interested in sitting at
the tavern at all.  Why?

You don't get healing from taverns, so there's no real reason to go.
You can get drunk, but that doesn't necessarily help you (GOPers see
this as just plain stupid).  Players are only a channel away.
Taverns are supposed to serve the same purpose as they would in real
life -- a social setting (presumably, to swap adventure stories, to
get together to party, etc.).  But they don't.

Instead, they gather outside of "North Gate" of Keystone City.
That's the launching pad for parties.  But that's not always a safe
place to be.  Because players can build their own castles, they
decided to build something called the "Chat Tower."  Chat Tower is
where everyone goes if they only want to chat, in person, and be
safe from wandering monsters.

So I guess I'm coming to some conclusions here as to what we need to
do to make taverns valid places for players to gather:

  1) Make it safe.  This is the same purpose the Chat Tower serves
  -- you won't be ambushed.

  2) Make it accessible.  If it's near an area of adventure, it's
  more likely to be utilized (GOPers will count the distance
  precisely to see what's the best place to start from too).

  3) Make it useful.  If the tavern doesn't provide a tangible use
  to GOPers, they won't go there.  Maybe we can make our quest
  system part of the taverns, so you have to go to a tavern to learn
  about a quest.

Originally, my first reaction was we should reduce the use of
channels.  But at least one channel, in my opinion, is necessary --
else you have people using ICQ anyway.  Tabletop, OOC discussions
will always be obligatory IMO.

The problem, and I imagine this is an issue with science fiction
games more than fantasy, is that RetroMUD consists of six worlds.
It's very difficult to reinforce the feel of SIX separate worlds,
each with its own terrain, creatures, equipment, theme, areas (30+
each) when you have so many means of communicating with each other.
Ideally, we want the folks on Sosel to meet in a tavern on Sosel and
go adventuring there.

But that requires having a lot of players.  Although we average 60+
on good days, that's still not enough to isolate players and assume
they will find each other across six worlds.

  EXAMPLE: It was a cyberpunk MUD, I don't recall the name.  I
  wanted to play with my friend (there's one of your answers Raph, I
  play almost exclusively with people I know beforehand, not after).
  We both logged into the game and promptly discovered it was based
  on a introduction system, no "who" command, no means of easily
  finding other players.

RetroMUD has an introduction function too.  It provides the detailed
background of your character to someone else.  But we don't hide
their names, and we don't hide who they are, because otherwise, this
happens:

  I couldn't FIND anybody!  After about a half hour of wandering
  around, without the means of finding other players (including my
  friend), I quit and never looked back.

Communities will always be built where there are large groups of
people, outside the game.  You can't control it, but you can
certainly support it with a system that allows players to chat with
each other without having to be deeply immersed.  If you don't do it
in the game, definitely make sure you create a separate support for
it on the Web (a Yahoo club, chat rooms, message boards, etc.).

Socialization in the game is something different.  That seems to
happen when the area meets the three criteria I mentioned above.

There is a fine line between encouraging socialization IN game and
OUT of game.  Determining how much is appropriate for any particular
game is the challenge.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org

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