[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric]

At 09:43 PM 13/06/01 -0700, Raph Koster wrote:

> How much time do you think you should spend socializing? And
> where?  When does convenience become dehumanization? And
> fundamentally, just how much downtime are you willing to take? 
> Because it's evident that some needs to be there.

While I have no pretensions of being a designer, my long-ago
training as a psychologist leads me to ask if it isn't more
important to look at a higher-level question.  It seems to me that
the assumption underlying them is that socializing promotes
"community" which in turn promotes retention.  If so, the key
question would seem to be how to promote and reward socializing.

It seems to me that there's relatively little focus on the latter
part of this question; it's just assumed that social activity is
self-rewarding.  But what if there were more direct rewards?  While
this does bring up the need to define what qualifies as social
activity and to decide how to reward it, I would guess that it will
be desirable if not necessary to move in that direction at some
point anyway, perhaps relatively soon if The Sims Online or some
other more socially-oriented game really takes off.

<returns to lurk mode>

Richard Aihoshi - "Jonric"
RPG Vault, IGN Vault Network

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