[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[John Buehler]

Richard A. Bartle writes:

>> Predicating a game world on a single set of rules seems so
>> all-or-nothing with respect to the success of the game.

> The game IS all run to one set of rules, of course - the program
> that underlies it. From the players' point of view, though, I guess
> it could perhaps look like there were several different sets of
> distinct rules.

Yeah, that was my point.  The 'single experience is undesireable'
notion.

>> Or who like to practice diving off the nearby cliffs into the
>> ocean.  They do it just because they're amused by it.

> I've no objection to players doing that kind of thing, either. I
> just don't see how having PD elsewhere in the game would somehow
> stop them from doing it.

If I'm offering such simple entertainment, I don't consider it a good
thing to go off and then make the entertainment so intense that I can
lose everything that I've invested in my character.  In another
thread, I've suggested that character knowledge could be played up.
This covers a variety of aspects of character development, but means
that there are many orthogonal ways to 'improve' a character.  None of
them extreme, but they tend to accumulate.  The loss of that entire
body of capabilities would detract from future gameplay.  I don't see
permanent character death offering much more than a way to make lethal
activities more intensely emotional.  I'm not interested in that much
excitement from the game world, as I've suggested to Raph in another
thread.

>> The point of the example was to suggest the damage done to context
>> when out-of-context activities are presented.

> Like getting up sraight away after having been "killed"?

That would be a stretch.  My own death model pursues a means where the
character stays down for some number of days, preferably as few as 1
or 2.  That satisfies the need of most lethal scenarios, particularly
combat.  The character is out of the action for the duration of the
battle or even a good chunk of the war.  I don't want to push players
too far away from the entertainment that they were after.  Nor do I
want to make it too intense.

>> > And I've mentioned before that it doesn't if you have PD.  Could
>> you repeat the rationale?  Power levels seem to produce social
>> stratificiation, and reseting a player's character to newbie power
>> wouldn't seem to affect that structure.

> I believe it would have that effect. It would blur the strata.

I realize that you believe that, but I'm not getting why the strata of
power are blurred.  I see it as climbing up a ladder and getting
knocked off.  Repeat.

>> I'm working up my first time character, experiencing the world.
>> But if I'm travelling with a player who has already developed an
>> advanced character and he's now running his second newbie
>> character, his character already knows all the answers - despite
>> the fact that the character shouldn't know them.

> OK, well if you're deeply into role-playing then you would shy away
> from such people, yes. However, if you're just a newbie exploring
> the game then getting a bit of help from someone who already knows
> some of it doesn't seem to me to be a bad thing. Indeed, this is how
> the "culture" of a game develops.

This is not a roleplaying issue.  This is an issue of deriving
entertainment from a game fiction.  As an explorer, having a tourguide
is no fun.  But having someone with me to enjoy discoveries *is* fun.

As for getting help, I can get help from an experienced player through
their experienced character just as I can get help from an experienced
player through their newbie character.  From a game fiction standpoint
(which you seem to interpret as 'roleplaying'), it doesn't make sense
that my fellow newbie knows about the inner workings of the the royal
court.  So I prefer to encounter experienced players through their
experienced character.  Permadeath just turns the entire game into one
where newbies only act like newbies if the player is a newbie.  Again,
I'm not a roleplayer, but I'd like the game fiction to be tolerably
consistent.

Perhaps I subscribe to the 'no negative roleplaying' world as opposed
to the 'positive roleplaying' world.

>> When someone screws me up, is that because of what I did or because
>> of what they did?

> Yes.

>> When the game screws me up, is that because of what I did or
>> because of what the game did?

> Yes.

> However, if the game screws you up, it's not because of what someone
> else did.

LOL

>> Entertainment need not be mindless.  If I permit all characters to
>> possess all skills simultaneously, then I have given them exactly
>> one set of entertainment.

> Surely you've given them a huge range of entertainments? Just
> because they CAN permit all skills simultaneously, that doesn't mean
> they have to.  Even if they do have them, it doesn't mean they have
> to play the same way.

If all characters can have all skills, then they will simply continue
to accumulate lots of skills over time.  This means that I will have a
kind of skill stratification in my society.  People will seek
companions who have a select 8 skills to master level.  Because they
are more valuable to a group than a character who has mastery (or
less) of only one pertinent skill.  The stratification will be based
on time played in a character, just as EverQuest's culture is.

I want players to be able to move their character to an interesting
point on the skill map and then play the game from that location.  In
fact that map is multidimensional and permits selection of a
pretty-much arbitrary point on each dimension.  But you have to pick a
rough spot and play from there.  If you dislike that specific
location, you tune it towards something that looks more interesting.

I predicate much of my entertainment in permutations of scenarios.
It's a great contributor to the volume that I'll need.  I'm not going
to be able to support that goal by having 'master of all' characters.
All scenarios start to degrade to a single scenario.

>> By saying that only some subset of skills can be accumulated at any
>> given time, players will slowly experience the game from a variety
>> of angles.

> But there are so many angles they CAN'T experience, because you
> limit the number fof skills they can have simultaneously.

Yup.  Feature.  It means that they have something to look forward to
for another time.  Further, I get my phenomenon of permutations of
characters interacting.

>> Do you have a hobby that you return to every now and again?  The
>> hobby mentality is the one I'm trying to focus on.

> I do, but not one that I'd want to pay $10 a month for just in case
> 3 months from now I do.

I'm going for a little more frequent interaction than that...  Not to
the point of every day for 5 hours, however.

>> I want no addictive elements to my game.

> So you'll be stopping people from communicating with one another,
> then? That's the most addictive element of all.

The social effects are a strong draw, and I'm fine with that.  There's
a difference between how I'd pursue the social element versus how a
game like EverQuest pursues it.  EverQuest is predicated on 'play or
lose your social group'.  That's far more 'addictive' than 'play
because you want to check up on your buddies'.

>> Yeah, but you want it for the exact reasons that I don't.  It makes
>> in-game activities more valuable to the players.

> Only to the players who rate those activities as important. It
> doesn't to the other players, but they aren't going to risk being
> PKed anyway.

And I don't want to draw in players in that way.  I don't want a GAME
being that important to them.

>> I'm all for dumping the fixed structure of games along the lines of
>> classes and races.

> But doesn't that run counter to your earlier argument about
> encouraging diversity? Limiting the number of skills that players
> can have is just classes and races through the back door.

Classes don't encourage diversity.  They encourage restarting the
game.  Races appear to do the same thing.  Both approaches constitute
irrevocable decisions on the part of a player.  When the player
decides to change their entertainment, they typically have to discard
their character and start over.

I'll encourage diversity by providing many different avenues of
entertainment, along with a skill system that won't let you know all
skills to mastery level.  Many different ways of going through the
world.

>> New exploration experiences can be handled through automated
>> content creation

> Er, are you sure this is going to make for content that's remotely
> entertaining?

That's the challenge.  Remember that my entertainment isn't supposed
to be as grand, immersive and addictive as the intense single-player
games provide.

>> I have a terrain generator for a planet the size of the moon

> Yeah, I wrote one of those a while back too.

I doubt we built the same thing.  And that's kinda the point.  I'm
approaching these games differently from the way that you are.  That
would seem to suggest that the way I'd implement them will be
different as well.

>> I'm not worried about that case.  I'm worried about the case of
>> people who don't deserve it, but get whacked anyway.  I identify
>> with them because I fall into that category.

> Is it really for you to say whether you deserve to get whacked or
> not?  No-one really thinks they deserve to get whacked, but as some
> people do deserve to get whacked, well, those people are labouring
> under a misapprehension.

Is it for me to say?  What an odd concept.  I'll cite my own
experience in Ultima Online.  I ran a ranger for two weeks.  Two other
players decided that I needed to be whacked.  I didn't think so.  The
revenue that Ultima Online could have garnered from me vanished.  Of
course it's for me to say.

>> I like competition, but I don't like winning and losing.

> Er, so what DO you like about competition then? Participating? But
> if there's no sense in which any competitor can be said to have won
> or lost the competition, it doesn't matter what you do. Indeed, you
> can't actually tell you ARE competing can you?

Many people derive a sense of self-worth from their ability to win
competitions.  I prefer not to feed that unhealthy behavior either by
beating them or by losing to them.  When I win, I really couldn't care
less.  When I lose, I feel pretty much the same way.  So long as I
applied my skills as well as I could have, I'm happy.  There's always
somebody better than you, unless you're the single best competitor in
a field.  I'm only bothered by winning or losing when the other guy
gets bent about the outcome.  Especially when it's a game.

>> Have you ever thought of assembling a full design statement of your
>> world?

> Rather more often than anyone has ever thought of paying me for the
> months it would take to do it.

Consider it a hobby.

>> I'm getting more and more to the point where I think everyone who
>> posts here needs to make such a document available before opening
>> their mouths here :)

> I've had to write 20 times the original length of my article in Edge
> Online to follow it up. If I were to put together a design document,
> the very last thing I would do with it is show it to anyone else!

LOL Good point :)

JB

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