FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> John Buehler
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 3:02 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

> Raph Koster writes:

>> This is interesting because it goes so strongly against
>> conventional wisdom in the mud community, which says that most muds
>> don't let players DO anything other than narrowly prescribed
>> activities such as hacking and slashing monsters endlessly. In what
>> ways do you feel that muds have offered the ability to build a
>> really tall house of cards?

> In that they permit players to pursue ambitious goals, investing of
> themselves in their character.  As you seem to desire, that produces
> the emotional ties to the game that brings the player back over and
> over again.  The presence of other players means that a given
> player's ability to pursue those ambitious goals is more or less
> hindered.

Why? Why is it not helped? After all, such goals are almost always
validated by showing off the achievement to another person. It's the
rare person who doesn't celebrate an achievement by mentioning to
someone else that they managed it, in order to receive
congratulations. This mechanic is impossible without other players.

This doesn't even touch on goals which require the presence of other
players, in a more game-mechanical sense.

>> I ask because I agree with the conventional wisdom--muds usually
>> only recognize a very narrow subset of human activity--and even
>> human entertainment. And in fact in your other posts, you have
>> argued for being more entertaining to a larger group of people, not
>> less.

> I'm not trying to promise players the exhiliration of amassing
> power, wealth, items or anything else.

Those are all a very very narrow subset of human entertainment, as I
said.  And I grant the point that thier achievement is in some degree
hindered by the presence of other people.

> I'm trying to come up with lighter, less compelling entertainment,
> but covering a large spectrum of activities.

Are you sure you want to use the term "less compelling"? There are
plenty of light forms of entertainment which are extremely
compelling. Another term for entertainment that is not compelling is
"boring" and I don't think that is what you are shooting for.

> It is geared towards the socializer and explorer, with a lesser
> emphasis on satisfying the killer and achiever.

Socializers are the MOST emotionally invested in your world, though.

> As I claimed in another reply to one of your posts, single player
> games (like books or movies) are well-suited to intense experiences,
> while multiplayer games - particularly those where you don't know
> who you'll be interacting with - are less capable of reliably
> providing such experiences.

Whereas my impression is very much that online games provide
experiences of far greater intensity than single-player games do. I
grant the point that they do so erratically. But if your goal is to
eliminate the erraticism, then the approach should be to make
single-player games. :)

> Because I can't guarantee the way that my players will interact with
> each other, I'm trying to lessen their belief that they will become
> mayors, barons and kings.  Only one guy gets to be a king, and he's
> the most extreme player in the game.

Sure. If what you mean by a house of cards is, don't let players feel
like they have achieved any special rank or role, then I see what you
mean.

On the other hand, I think that this form of entertainment is largely
about persona wish-fulfillment. If you are interested in reaching the
casual gamer, it might be worthwhile to find out what sort of
fantasies they wish to fulfill. Based on the bestselling novels that
hit that audience, it might well be that they all wish to be
wisecracking PIs, spies, and spunky Victorian debutantes.

> My joke is that Simutronics is talking about creating a game called
> "Hero's Journey".  My game is "Peasant's Journey".  Because I figure
> I can have 10,000 peasant players, but not 10,000 hero players.  Not
> in any true sense of the word.  I don't believe that a game world
> can actually deliver on the 'hero' promise.

To everyone, I assume you mean. It certainly can and does deliver on
it to a select few--your argument depends on that fact (the inequity
and therefore inevitable jealousies and complaints).

-Raph
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