[MUD-Dev] Social Networks

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, Harrok wrote:
> I'll bite on Bruce Mitchener's query:
 
>>     * Cities in games serve different purposes from cities in the
>>     real world.  How much overlap is there between those purposes
>>     and where are those overlaps in areas that are suitable for
>>     some of the ideas that Jacobs supports?  To what extent would
>>     it be valuable to make cities play a more vital role in
>>     online worlds?

> My experience is limited to playing some MUDs, EQ and DAOC, so I
> know a little from the players' POV and nothing at all from the
> point of view of a designer. But my view is that cities in most
> online worlds -- and particularly the MMORPGs I have played --
> simply don't work as places of excitement and vitality.

Agreed, but excitement and vitality doesn't necessarily equate to a
player wanting to spend time there. I like hanging out by a
waterfall for instance. Not very exciting, not a lot of vitality
going on. Relaxing though.
 
> (a) there was something to do in the zone -- low level types could
> fight orcs, higher levels could speculate about whether a griffin
> would be along soon. People had a reason to be there other than
> trading, and in a highly goal-directed game that's vital.  (b)
> there was only one zone there, rather than three.

> So in conclusion to this long and probably naive post: cities in
> MMORPGs will only work, in my view, when they are places where you
> can do things other than train.

Player-run cities are fairly important in Achaea and Aetolia both,
but there isn't much to do in them. You can kill rats, do a small
handful of quests in each city, and if you're involved in the
government, you'll perform most of your duties from within the city.

However, I'm looking at up-to-the-minute stats for Achaea, and
noticing that approximately 40% of our players who are currently
online are in a players player-city. Granted, Achaea is a lot less
goal-oriented than Everquest, but cities don't have to be a wealth
of excitement for them to be attractive to players. They're where
players can go to be somewhat safe from their enemies (some people
almost never leave their city due to the fact that they are trying
to wait out the bloodlust of someone they previously
wronged). They're where a lot of quality roleplaying takes place,
and so on.

--matt



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