[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock
> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 3:41 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

> 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.

One of my teammates (who is on this list somewhere lurking) is a
pretty goal-oriented player who has recently gotten addicted to
Sojourn 3. He cited a very low percentage too, when asked the
question. He decided to run an experiment with a pair of timers
whilst playing a typical session. He was a group leader and he was
hack n slashing his way through the mud with abandon. He didn't
count stuff like "OK, go west then headbutt" as social interaction.

Turned out that his actual time spent socializing was 25-30% even
though he THOUGHT it was 10%.

> If the MUD is roleplay-based

And if the mud is attempting to get that balanced state suggested by
Bartle's paper as the ideal for retention?

  (((BTW, anyone noticed that the top muds based on # of respondents
  on the andreasen.org test all come out as this:

    44-51 Achiever
    46-56 Socializer
    34-45 Killer
    56-68 Explorer

  Is the ideal mix 48 Achiever, 50 Socializer, 40 Killer, 62
  Explorer? :)

  I assume the test self-selects somewhat to explorers. Be nice to
  get an analysis of this crossreferenced with playerbase size.)))
  
>> 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*. ;)

See my reply to Jeff Freeman for that... By definition, if you'r
enot in the game, you're in an activity trough for the game; you're
not even on the graph. For that matter, someone who is logged in but
not "playing the game," defined as engaging in the activity that
provokes a reward mechanism or response from the game, isn't on the
graph either.

>>  Many different answers >> came up--what sort of organization or
>>  community do you see [towns] >> 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.

Interesting; I wonder how much of that is scale. I can think of MANY
occasions where I have done lots of socializing in airport
terminals, bus terminals, waiting for a haircut, or while on a bus
or plane or train.

>> 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.

Sounds like it was socializtion but not a crowd you liked. ;)

>> 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. [snip] 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. [snip]

Yikes. Those both seems amazingly ancillary reasons for recovery
areas to me.

> 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.

That suggests that you had the recovery areas before you had these
stopgap measures; what were they for before you had these two pieces
of functionality grafted on?

-Raph
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