[MUD-Dev] Structured Social Play

[shren]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Vincent Archer wrote:
> According to Tom Hubina:

>> The first thing that comes to mind is improving travel times to
>> the point where people can get together in a matter of a few
>> minutes. Of course if you can't find someone, maybe the game
>> could give you some AI players to help you out. Then when you go
>> to a dungeon, have the game automatically spin off a clean
>> version just for you. Now you can drop in and be playing in a
>> matter of minutes, and everyone's happy right? Wrong. Even though
>> players often suggest some, or all, of these ideas, they would
>> really ruin the game since you've just totally removed the whole
>> reason for grouping with other people and developing the social
>> aspect of a game. Why is it even a multiplayer game?

> You are describing Anarchy On-line :)

> The game which, in my opinion, fails to satisfy explorers, fails
> in a large part to satisfy achievers, fails to push a social
> dimension, but lets people one-shot kill others. :)

This is more of a response to Archer than Hubina - I missed the
Hubina comment the first time around.  First, because they sell like
hotcakes.  Second, however, moreso, let me relate something from my
D2 experience.  There are lots and lots of people who play on the
realms (online with persistant characters), but never have played
with another person - they make private games and *stay* there.

If they intended to always game alone, you'd think that they'd just
play offline.  It's the same game without the lag.  These people
continue to play online, however, for various reasons which I'll try
to guess at:

  1) Acknowledged Achievement : my Hardcore Amazon is currently
  ranked in the top 200 Amazons on US East Hardcore (Advena).  Even
  if I never played with anyone else, that'd be neat to look at and
  see my name.  Even if I wern't ladder ranked, having those big
  characters sitting around in an account somewhere that I made all
  by myself is something like a gaming equivellant of "street cred".

  2) Being a part of something bigger.  I have not the words to
  describe it, but it's there.  More people play UO than UO clone
  shards, even though the support is often better because it's
  volunteer, and you can find special communities like shards
  devoted to monster hunting and shards devoted to roleplay if you
  look.  I don't think the only reason for this is that the UO
  client defaults to it's own servers.

  3) Potential.  It's nice to be able to play with thousands of
  people across the world - even if I choose not to.

--
  You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth!   - George Carlin

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