[MUD-Dev] Structured Social Play

[Matt Mihaly]

On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, Tom Hubina wrote:

> There's a double-edged sword here, that stems entirely from the
> involvement of other people in the game. You see, it's important
> to hang out with other people and really kick butt against
> incredible odds. How many times have you heard people say, "Wow! 
> If that AI Enchanter hadn't really been playing like a god we
> would have been wiped out for sure!". How many stories would you
> tell around the campfire about how you killed this really gnarly
> dragon after a fifteen minute fight where 30 AI players were just
> doing what they do every other fight?

I don't really see players kicking butt against incredible odds in
PvE games. Players win 99% of the time. Not exactly bad odds.

 
> The vast majority of EQ players fall into #1 and #2. To me, the
> casual gamer is someone that doesn't play that much and is looking
> for some low-key involvement game that they could play once in a
> while, but doesn't really matter to them. Once they become
> "addicted", then will often move into either the first or second
> groups. Very few people actually keep playing the game for a long
> time if they are truly casual as the game simply doesn't cater to
> them. I don't think these type of people are ever going to be very
> interested in a Role Playing Game, since it takes a lot of time
> and dedication to really get enjoyment out it (this is something
> we can argue about if you want .. heh)

Yeah, I'll certainly take issue with that. If it takes time and
dedication to get enjoyment out of it, that's entirely because of
decisions the designers made. There's nothing inherent about RPGs
that limits the ability of people to play for 20 minutes at a time.
 
--matt

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