[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Phillip Lenhardt]

On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 03:01:06PM -0000, Richard A. Bartle wrote:
> On 2nd March, 2001, John Buehler wrote:

>> I don't think I get your point at all.  Having someone in a hurry
>> go rushing past me doesn't enhance my experience.

> And how does it degrade your experience?

I'm curious about this too. If your audience is casual gamers playing
quietly by themselves and not depending on others for entertainment,
why would they expect any other player to be a "hardcore" newbie
helper?

>> Yes, I've noticed this 'evil' pattern thing too.  Kids all want to
>> be bandit kings or thieves.  My big concern here is that they might
>> be in a world that doesn't structure things such that being a
>> bandit or thief isn't very rewarding.

> I share that concern. Even if the long term effect of being "evil"
> in a game is failure, it only takes a few high-profile examples of
> success to tempt a generation of newbies to try it out.

Teens need to rebel; it's human nature, not something to be concerned
about. If you don't want them to play your game, make your game appear
boring, lame and common to them.

>> The most popular entertainment in existence is passive.

> Sex is passive?!

Were you being facetious? If not, I think you two are confusing two
senses of the word "popular". If by popular you mean "most time spent
engaging in", I think television wins, hands down. If you mean "most
enjoyed", that might be sex, though I'm a big fan of sleeping,
myself. :)

>> I want a character to be developing a mental map of the world as it
>> experiences it.

> What if the player already has a mental map from having played the
> game before? Would you insist on the character learning everything
> as if it knew nothing (which is the purer solution) or allow the
> player to use their mental map (which isn't so pure).

> Example: every time the thief goes near the market, he sees a set of
> dangerous warding spells on a nearby doorway. He isn't going to know
> what's behind the door until he has the power to remove the
> wards. The player, though, used to run a wizard. He knows that the
> wards aren't as dangerous as they look, and that behind the gate is
> a wise old man who will teach you how to make dangerous-looking
> wards. So rather than waiting until his thief has the skill to
> recognise the wards to be safe, the player just sends the thief
> through the door, sets off a couple of minor dizziness spells or
> something, and now has free rein of the area beyond.

> It's OK saying that you want a game where characters have knowledge,
> but how (or should?) you remove the knowledge that the players have?

I'd solve this by not presenting the character with the option to go
through the door or by rejecting attempts to do so. But I think in a
non-goal-oriented game this would be a non-issue, since by definition
there is nothing behind the wards worth the effort of penetrating them
(or, alternately, the rest of the world is equally as interesting and
valuable and thus a player won't feel compelled to use ooc knowledge).
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