[MUD-Dev] It's just a game (?)

[Trump]

Greg Munt wrote:

> I am of the opinion that cancelling your account has a number of
> parallels to suicide. Those that deny this are "trivializing" the
> online experience.

I propose that the desire to keep playing a game just to keep your
ingame friendships alive is certainly an extrememely powerful factor
in your FIRST game.  In your second game you will run into many of the
same people.  If you are in a guild it's likely that many of the
others will also jump games.  If your guild has a WWW board you wont
even need to be playing a game to still hang out with those people.
Your ICQ contacts will still be there.

When you realize that much of the community will move with you those
in game social ties weaken tenfold.  Older players in older guilds
tend to see this.  They become much harder to retain.  If you have
jumped from Muds to NWN to DSO to M59 to UO to AC to EQ your idea in
your head of your character is much more important that the stats of
the avatar in EQ.  You probably have guildmates or friends from some
or all of those previous games, and you look forward to newer or
better games to come along so you can move on.

Once you leave your first game the in-game community will take second
fiddle to the meta-game community.  I suggest anyone that doubts this
should vivist the websites of any guild that has been around for 5+
years.  Ask them why they are playing whatever game they are playing.
The answer, almost universally, will be some varient of "It's the best
thing available now.  If something with better gameplay comes along we
will switch without hesitation."

While this firstgame attachment will always be a force to consider
(there are always new players and young people with lots of free time
are the best customers) I think it's exagerated now because the recent
crop of graphical games has drawn in people who would not have been
interested in text Muds.  I'm willing to bet Star Wars will also bring
in more new players, but after that a large percentage of the players
in any new game will be jumpers.

When the novelty wears off, when you are a part of the meta-community
what matters is the quality of gameplay.

Azeraab at dies-irae.org


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