[MUD-Dev] Retention without Addiction?

[Paul Schwanz]

Acius wrote:

> Paul's idea is very good -- attach some value to offline time.

Thanks, but offline activity certainly isn't exclusively my idea.  Mark
Wells lobbied for characters that were more persistent (when players
were not) many years ago on the Middle-Earth Online forums.  Delusion
also proposed offline activity a couple of years ago in his essay,
Thinking Bigger: Rate = Distance over Time.

http://www.unhelpful.org/ltm/rdot.html

I doubt they were the first to consider it either, and, although I
disagree with some of their points and resons, reading what others have
written has certainly encouraged me to see this issue from a different
perspective.

> And, to encourage player regularity, the offline time only remains
> valuable for the 24 hours following your last login (or some other,
> fixed period).

I'm not sure I'd use a fixed amount of time.  Again, some players simply
won't be able to log in within the allotted time, and removing the
incentive at that point just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
Instead, as your character continues to work offline, I'd like to see
the incentives accumulate.  The longer you stay away, the longer the
list of goodies gets.  The game can check your favorite times to log in
and send you a very timely email giving you just enough information
about that list of goodies to inspire your curiosity and get you
thinking about the possibilities for gameplay.  You'll be back. ;)

> You could do it something like this:
>
>   - Provide in your game-world a series of "quit" points. These
>   could be martial arts studios, magic schools, craft shops, or
>   whatever.

Even better if you design your "quit" points to occur at moments of high
suspense or anticipation.

>   - When the character quits, have the character sign up for an
>   offline activity, which they'll do while the player's
>   away. Courses to improve skills could be paid for with money
>   earned while online; alternately, you can offer to work in the
>   stables while offline, which doesn't give you any skills, but
>   would let you earn a little money. Great for newbies.

I've always liked the concept of a "day planner" sort of interface.
People are quite familiar with the concept of scheduling their time.  In
addtion to scheduling personal meetings on your Palm Pilot, perhaps you
will use it to schedule your character's day as well.

>   - Players could check on their character's progress from a web
>   page, or they can log in and see how things are going. I'm not
>   sure if it's better to enforce a fixed course time, or allow the
>   course to be interruptable (so you can leave the school and start
>   playing whenever you want, without hurting your progress in
>   offline activities).

Yep.  I also like the idea of using a web page to interface with
character management.  However, I do wonder whether having too many
people using web pages will mean that the game world becomes a lonely
place.  I think it would be very important to have that web page also
offers several methods to communicate with other game subscribers, both
in the game and interfacing with the game through their own web page.
Even so, the social and community aspects of the game might need to be
cranked even higher to keep strong social bonds where player persistence
is lessened.

--Phin


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