[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[Daniel James]

Brian Hook wrote:

> > > The direction I would take if doing an MMORPG today would consist of
> > > an unfolding story followed by a "stasis period" where no major
> > > changes would happen. 

Travis Nixon wrote:

> >You WANT the world to become static after a period of dynamicism?

Brian Hook wrote:

> Freezing the "story" isn't something I'd say I WANT, it's just a practical 
> consideration so that your game designers can move onto your next 
> project.  Hopefully by that point the players and volunteers (or whatever 
> they're called after all the lawsuits =/) will be able to drive the world 
> along.
> 
> So another way of putting it is that the first 18 months it's more of a 
> game, driven primarily by the developer.  After that, it's "turned over" to 
> the players so that the developer can concentrate on their next big product.

So, what you really, really want is a stable but dynamic world with
story-creation by the volunteers / players?

That seems to be a worthy goal, but I'd conjecture that it's best served
by building it into the design from scratch, rolling out developer stories
hand-in-hand with your player-driven devices.

I'm a fan of the idea of episodic roll-out of over-arching story, but I'm
not sure that we know how to do it, for the huge audiences that we're
presumably talking about. It's hard enough to do for a small 'personal
contact' MUD. Barring very sophisticated technology, I believe that
introducing atmospheric story probably requires considerable customer
service ('actor') costs, costs that would make the $10/month price
quite unprofitable.

I wonder if AC's game story efforts have caused any noticeable upset in
support costs. Anyone care to comment on how successful they've been here?

A development team will always be necessary for any non-stagnant game
(maybe it's an idea to let the game go stagnant, in order to push people
on to the next game... but I don't like this idea.) Turning the audience
into (at least the majority of) this development team is a challenge that
I'd say is best met head-on, not least because you know it'll be a less
than perfect attempt. That very hand-off you describe will be the doom of
your stasis. The original goals for UO come to mind, and although
NeverWinter Nights will be interesting (particularly for its toolset), 
I fear that it'll be very niche.

If NWN really catches fire, it'll be the Napsterisation of that inadequate
$10/month price. Perhaps I hope that it'll be very niche, so that we can
build a profitable service industry on the backs of cadres of ractors.


aside: Does anyone else remember Quake's original, pre-pre-release
rumoured model as being: charge what you like for playing Quake on your
server/service, just make sure you cut iD a royalty? That, and lots of
stuff about hammers...


Daniel | d at djames.org


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