[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

> From: Sean Kelly [mailto:sean at ffwd.cx]

> One thing that's kind of surprised me is that none of the MMORPGs
> I've played had any facility for sending messages to players who
> aren't currently online (mail).  I grant that it has definate
> impact on disk space, but arranging meetings and adventures with
> friends invariably requires tracking that person down, and this is
> much easier if you can leave a note for them to meet you somewhere
> at such-and-such a time.  I would think that this would be one
> very easy way to convenience players and help keep socialization
> more game-centric.

One of AOs best features is that it buffers messages to players who
aren't online. All games should do this in some manner.

> Regarding Anarchy Online... I didn't get in until the open beta a
> few days ago... what stuck me about the game was how isolated I
> felt.  Much more so once I left the newbie area and got into town.
> No one was talking to anyone else and the city I was in was so
> randomly arranged that I don't see much of a social flow forming.
> Also, the shops have mostly been replaced by rooms full of
> personal terminals and I can just picture the hordes jockying for
> position much like the supply stations in Tribes.  I guess we'll
> see how things turn out once the game goes into production, but
> Ralh's statements about how world design affects the socialization
> dynamic was very apparent when contrasting AO with AC and UO.

You have to bare in mind that the towns are so laggy that everyone
is doing their best to escape. Contrary to my initial experience, I
found getting a group very easy this weekend, although dependent on
heading out to the correct areas. Whether or not this was down to
beta dynamics, and the mindset of those playing I don't know. People
always say that games are 'nicer' in beta. I was surprised how much
grouping was rewarded too; in a full group killing reds, I was
getting as much as 500xp a mob as opposed to 200 or so solo on mobs
I could handle alone (in the mid-teens, it takes about 8k xp to
level).

AO has many other problems however, most of them interface based
(fov needs to be wider). It will be interesting to see if they can
fix some of the dupe and vendor errors before release - currency may
well become irrelevent otherwise.

Dan

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