[MUD-Dev] Permadeath and fun

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Dr. Cat" wrote:

> On the other hand, if you want to get out of the niche market of
> "boys bashing things with sticks", I think the number one validation
> mechanism of human beings in general is "the attention of other
> players".  The usual quote I hope to be remembered for after I'm
> dead, "Attention is the currency of the future" and all that.  All
> of our major validation mechanisms in Furcadia will tend to be based
> around attention.  Just opening a place, letting people connect to
> it and do a little stuff, they've made attention ALREADY be the main
> validation there, just as people in real world social circles do.

Acceptance among your peers (confirmation of self) is really the only
mechanism that MUDs in general have managed to be successful at.  For
that to work you need to provide "ways" for players to break down the
world into subgroups (your ingroup and the outgroups).  In level based
systems players seem to act as if they are "related" to players at
their own level, just like we relate to people at our own age?  Then
you have other breakdowns like races, professions, cheaters, helpers
and interaction patterns...

I think what you are implying is that MUD designers have completely
failed to provide worlds that are interesting as a piece of work/art
and that they have failed to create an inherently enjoyable and
replayable experience. Over focusing on "attention" will bring you
down the same alley as all the powerlevelling systems. Won't it?

If starting over from scratch does not provide an interesting
experience, then players probably don't really play because they have
fun NOW, HERE, but because they have expectancies about the future?
Maybe developers should address that?

Anyway, I see players that look forward to a player wipe, the
reestablishment of a fair level playground. Maybe permadeath works
best with a reset based system. And maybe there is too much "attention
based" motivation designed into the systems...??!

Some players laugh when they die (by the hand of NPCs), others yell at
others for "not healing them", maybe that is not just because of
personality differences, but because they play for different reasons?
Maybe one can influence the "perceived reasons" to play by careful
design?

If MUDs were actually fun, and not just static manipulative social
comparison systems, then maybe permadeath (or any kind of real penalty
death (loosing 24+ hours of achievement)) would work for others than
the hard core gamer types. There is no doubt that the more static,
limited and repetitive world provides for less exhilarating, intense
and "real" experiences. If you overfocus on "attention" and play down
"experience", "interaction" and "construction" then you are bound to
end up in the same mud as everybody else.

(Commercial) MUDs are way too static and one-dimensional to provide a
rich and interesting experience... (They would probably be more
interesting if the bashing/levelling was only one smaller profession
within the game, that would be needed to make travelling safe for
other players for instance. IMO.)  I doubt that this will change
anytime soon..

> It's what people want most once they've got food, shelter, and maybe
> sex and fancy clothes.  Although when you get down to it, sex is a
> form of attention, and fancy clothes are a tool for getting
> attention.  :X)

I don't think we want attention, that is way too simplistic, we want
confirmation of our self, our identity, that our existence is
valid. We want to get confirmed that our identity is somehow related
to and matters in the context which we experience. (Whether that is a
game, family, or a spiritual "imagined" world.)

Social comparison is important, but when it becomes the prime activity
then you've got a long term problem. MUDs should try to provide
activities that are experienced as productive and inherently
interesting...

Ola
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