[MUD-Dev] Selling training

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
 
> On 09 March 2001 09:19, the_logos at www.achaea.com wrote
>> On Thu, 8 Mar 2001 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

>>> I actually think selling items to players is a pretty horrible
>>> thing to do in an online world as it means that financially well
>>> off end up with all the toys. I guess it stems from the fact that
>>> I'd never pay money for these things, but it puts me off a game
>>> when I know that people will have an advantage if they are
>>> *foolish* (my perspective!) enough to spend substantial amounts of
>>> real money on a virtual item. I don't have a problem with the guy
>>> offering real world training in the game if thats what they want,
>>> but to actually sell in game currency for real money just seems
>>> wrong.

>> Shrug. It's no more foolish than paying Verant $10/month to play
>> Everquest. You get something you want either way, in return for
>> money. It happens every day and it's called commerce. You sound
>> like one of those people from Usenet in 1993 talking about how
>> charging for muds was evil, because "Muds were meant to be free
>> man. People who charge for anything on the internet are the devil! 
>> Peace out." (Nevermind that they weren't, or that what they were
>> meant to be is entirely irrelevant.)

> Well with respect to paying Verant 10 dollars a month, and everyone
> getting a level playing field, yes I do think its preferable. Surely
> you can see the difference. Painting me as an internet peacenic
> doesn't really support your argument, you are simply being rude.

Yeah, I was being rude. I felt it was called for given your rudeness
in telling me that the work I've spent the last few years doing is
wrong in some ethical sense.

As for supporting my argument, I don't have to defend what I do as
right or wrong. I see the difference between forcing someone to pay to
use your content and making it optional. I just don't see one as being
ethically superior.

Look, you can either play Achaea or not. Likewise with Everquest. I
don't bitch that Everquest rewards people with lots of free time do I? 
Fact is, I've never seen a MUD in which real life factors were not the
determing factor in your success. Usually that factor is time. In
Achaea, it happens to be a pretty equal combination of time and
ability, with money being slightly less important though still a
factor.

Tell you what, log into Achaea sometime and ask the people who can't
afford credits, but still want to play, if they'd prefer it if I
banned them from playing by imposing a monthly fee that they couldn't
afford.


>> Clearly, I am of the people and for the people. I am a populist. I
>> believe in equal rights for all. I believe that no man has the
>> right to tell me I can't buy a virtual item if I darn well please! 
>> Virtual items are soothing to the soul. They are islands of sanity
>> in times that lack it. In today's hurly burly world, can we really
>> afford to deny people the simple pleasure of purchasing a magical
>> flowerpot and tending to your tiger lilies, or Scorpion's Tail and
>> stinging the living hell out of your enemies?

>> I don't think so, and those who deny the Rightness of selling
>> virtual items will suffer the same eternal fate that awaits mimes,
>> communists, and that banal idiot who writes Family Circus.

> I feel like I've just been ranted at by a TV evangelist. I didn't
> tell you that you couldn't sell them. Merely that its something I
> find distasteful /shrug.

You said it was wrong and used it in some ethical sense. Perhaps I
misunderstood you. (And anyway, you were supposed to feel like you
were ranted at by a TV evangelist. I was being pretty tongue in cheek
there. I mean, I don't really believe Bil Keane is as bad as a
mime. ;)


> I was more interested in a response explaining how the game is
> balanced when people can buy success. Can you be as effective as a
> warrior if you don't buy equipment? If not, how do you think this
> would impact a game with more users/wider recognition - does it only
> work because you are small?

Well, I've talked about this a number of times here before, but in
keeping with the TV evangelist theme, I'm happy to express myself
again. *waves his fingers at you hypnotically.* You will be convinced.

Ok, now, first of all, your question presumes that the only thing that
is of importance is GoP play. People will pay for things besides just
utility. For instance, for about $25, Achaea will take an existing
weapon/armour/clothing/jewelry/whatever, and alter the description to
anything else appropriate.

But as a better example (and I hope you don't mind me using this as an
example, Dr. Cat), I'm currently helping Dr. Cat's Furcadia out a bit
by assisting them in identifying ways to make money, specifically by
selling things. They're adamantly opposed to monthly fees, and since
users can create pretty much whatever they want, and since there is no
supported combat system or any other 'gameplay' elements, there's no
way to sell someone something that gives them an advantage.

Currently though, they are deriving revenue from selling wings and
dragons. Wings are merely graphical additions to your sprite
character. They don't do anything at all. They just look cool. When
you buy a dragon, you get to change into a dragon. You look cool as a
dragon. What can you actually do? Nothing, except for breathing a
breath spray full of little hearts and sparkles (Dr. Cat showed me how
to impale yourself with your breath too. It's funny.) Now, eventually,
they have plans to make things that can be triggered by the breath
spray, so you could have dragon-only areas, etc. But right now, it
does nothing practical.

I suppose you could say that customizations like this give people an
advantage in that there is an unspoken race to be as 'cool' as
possible, and custom items and races help with that, but I think that
might be stretching the definition of utility a little past its point
of utility.

Now, I can tell you utility, at least in my experience, tends to
seriously outweigh the value put on uniqueness by players. I cannot
see anyone paying $700 for a pair of wings that don't do anything (we
have two classes of wings you can buy. The more expensive pair is
$700). These items definitely do give people an advantage. But it's
not an overwhelming one. For instance, the vorpal sword, which costs
about $250 (and the people for which they have the most utility would
almost certainly want two of them), increases the strength, speed, and
hitting probability of the sword by 15%. That's not directly
equivalent to increasing the actual damage, recovery time, and hitting
probability by 15%. 15% isn't massive, but it does give you an
edge. There's no question that two otherwise equal fighters will be
unbalanced by artifacts.

But such is the price of earning money. I'm sure the players would
prefer it if we gave them these things for free. On the other hand,
unlike in most games, you can have pretty much whatever you want in
Achaea, for a price. You simply can't get many things done in other
MUDs, because it is considered too much work to 'waste' on a single
player.

Further, Achaea's combat system depends more on your ability as a
player than anything else. If you are incompetent, then it's not going
to matter what skills and artifacts you have. The analogy I like to
use is that I can go out and buy the most expensive set of golf clubs
in the world, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be beating Tiger
Woods.

> What happens if you introduce an item into the game, sell it for
> 500USD, then realise its unbalanced and nerf it? What happens if
> your database crashes and you lose player data how do you cover
> that? What happens if you decide you want to stop running the game?

If we nerf an item, we simply offer a refund to the owners. No one's
actually taken us up on it yet. We also keep our items pretty
restrained, as I explained. A world like Achaea doesn't work if the
power differential between players is anywhere near as extreme as
Everquests's.

As to losing items, I don't see how it's any different from any MUD in
which there are characters. What happens if Everquest loses player
data? We have backups and transaction records to compare against. I'm
sure they do too.

Deciding to stop running the game is an interesting question. I
haven't thought about that at all. However, the only reason we'd stop
running the world would be because it wasn't making enough money to
support itself anymore (even if it couldn't support me, I'd run it as
a hobby provided it could at least pay for bandwidth and hosting
costs, which would be puny if it didn't have enough players to make
money.) If that was the case, we'd just fold the company I suppose. I
see no reason, though, why Achaea won't still be around in 20
years. Text MUDs aren't going away, even if they seem destined for
niche-hood. And, unlike graphical MUDs, presenting information in
written form has not changed a lot in the last few thousand years, so
technological changes don't affect us as much.

--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev