[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Travis Nixon]

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>

> 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.

But you don't have to mandate grouping to get people to group.  You
just have to make it worthwhile.

For example, if I remember correctly, in Gemstone 3, the system
works something like this: If you kill something by yourself that's
the same level as you, you get 100 experience points.  If you group
up with a friend to kill that very same thing, though, instead of
sharing the 100 points between the two of you, you both get 100
points.

Yes, this means that you got the same amount of experience for a
fight that was half (or less) as hard, but so what?  It really
doesn't get any better than that for encouraging grouping.  It might
not be quite as effective as requiring people to group, but I don't
think that's a good idea anyway.

Now lets contrast this system with the one used in EQ, from the GoP
point of view.  In EQ, a group split the experience gained from
killing a monster.  So, if your primary goal is gaining experience,
anytime somebody else asks if they can join your group, you have
some figuring to do.  What you have to figure out is if that
person's added contribution will allow your current group to kill
enough extra mobs to make up for the share of experience they would
be taking.  They're subtracting from your primary goal, so of course
you want to make sure it will be worth it.  This is exactly the
reason that Verant changed how hybrids shared experience with
groups, because many people felt that their contribution to the
group matched the amount of exp they leeched off.

But if adding that person doesn't take anything away from you, the
decision suddenly becomes a complete no-brainer. :)

Just for the record, I never played this way, and gaining experience
was never my primary goal, but that point of view exists
nonetheless.  And in any game that contains advancement (or at
least, any type of advancement that can be gamed), I believe it will
be a fairly common one.

I don't personally mind a bit of player interdependance.  It's
probably a good thing in the long run.  But one fact remains:
sometimes it's hard to find other people to play with, especially in
a game that's so severely stratified as EQ, where you can only group
with people close to your level.  And sometimes, you don't WANT
other people to play with, which invariably spawns screams of, "This
is a multiplayer game.  If you want to play alone, why aren't you
playing a single-player game?!", to which I can only reply, "Live
and let live."


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