[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #271 - 30 msgs

[Kevin Littlejohn]

"Richard A. Bartle" wrote
> On 8th March, 2001, Kevin Littlejohn wrote:

>> I'd say the same thing for muds - reaching high levels is an
>> achievement, even if I know anyone with time and/or money can get
>> there, because it _takes_ time and/or money.

> so you'd be happy if people could go to Verant and say, "it would
> take me 12 months to work up a level 50 character. How about I give
> you $120 for my 12 month's play and you just give me one now."?

s/Verant/E-Bay/ - you think it doesn't happen already?

I'd be counting said people as twinks, and I'd not be paying them any
attention - no, it wouldn't impact my enjoyment of the game notably.
But then, my SO and I play together, for ourselves.

Your point is taken, but I still don't believe you _need_ PD for
reaching high levels to be an achievement.  I think you'd find that
any distinguishing mark between players and buyers at high levels
would become a mark of distinction amongst others - and for people
such as ourselves, it's the trip to high levels that makes the
achievement.  So I still feel I've achieved something, despite knowing
people buy and sell their chars (note: massive retention rate but low
number of people reaching high levels - something doesn't fit here...)

Note here, we came away impressed with what we'd done the other night
because we made it to the Mill in the Lake of Ill Omen (we're Iksar
shaman, that zone starts out a newbie zone right next to town and gets
progressively harder).  The place was swarming with high-level elves
and similar who'd probably done a much harder trek than we had - and I
know in a few more levels we'll be classing this trip as a waste of
time - but we did it, despite near-overwhelming odds (well, alright, I
exaggerate a touch - the worst that would have happened is we'd have
to retrieve our corpses and start again).  No risk of PD, not even a
particularly tough thing to have done, no-one else would find it the
slightest bit impressive, but still a sense of achievement - wierd,
huh? :)

I see players shouting that'd they'd managed to kill creatures I know
are level 3 or 4 difficulty, and getting congratulated for it, all the
time - despite being in the newbie area near the gates for an easy
corpse retrieval, _and_ being below level 5 themselves so the penalty
for death is insignificant.  They feel a sense of achievement.

PD is not necessary for players to feel they've achieved something.
Not even sufficient, I'd say - something else is going on there.

>> Maybe you'd count lack of interest as another form of PD?

> I might argue that if there were PD (done right) then the interest
> wouldn't wane so quickly.

You might.  In truth, my interest would probably have waned already
(especially after last night, when some moron pulled a high-level
critter onto us whilst we were mid-fight by jumping off the nearby
balcony).

The response, of course, is that PD should be massively less likely -
which means the only time you should ever really die is when something
really stupid happens (like the next moron with the next big mob, or
being grouped with idiots, or whatever) - which I'm not seeing as a
way to make me happy about said death ;) I'm willing to allow that PD
could work, but I don't believe it's a magic bullet - in particular, I
think it'll create as many problems as it solves (hence, I'm neutral
about it's application).  You're just shifting things around, you're
not solving things, particularly - that's true for most of the
macro-management stuff.

>> To them, the game component aspect wasn't so important, it was
>> having the cards that counted.  I think "being a game" being the
>> foundation of the CCG's is a very brave call :)

> Uh? I thought it was almost axiomatic! The genius of M:TG was that
> it was actually just a regular collect-a-card system, like
> collecting stickers for sports, that people have been doing for
> decades. However, by dressing it up as a game - and a not-bad one at
> that - they managed to lure in all kinds of people who would never
> have been remotely interested in it otherwise.

The game aspect may have made people consider it to begin with, but it
wasn't what held people's attention, on the whole.  Again, witness the
fact that there were so many "better" games out there - Legend of the
Five Rings, to point out a non-Garfield example that gets lauded for
gameplay and world structure - that simply haven't taken off.  You may
be right that "the game" drew people in, but it falls far short of
explaining people's behaviour once they started collecting.  I still
believe the game aspect of M:tG (and other CCG's) is secondary to the
social/collectible/standing/etc. aspects of the whole thing.
Certainly, I wouldn't class it as "the foundation of the whole
enterprise" as you did - unless you're only concerned with the
"dressing up"/ veneer over what's actually happening.

KevinL

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