[MUD-Dev] Retention without Addiction?

[Matthew Dobervich]

I gleaned that information from the following interview.

  http://www.gamespydaily.com/news/fullstory.asp?id=4264

-quote-
  GameSpy: Tell us what "instancing" is and what advantages it
  offers players. How does it work with the rest of the world?

  Allen Adham, Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard
  Entertainment: An "instance" is a private copy of a section of the
  world. It can be part of a dungeon or part of an outdoor area. No
  other players, unless they are part of your group, can enter your
  instance. By instancing certain areas of the world, we can better
  address issues of overcrowding and mitigate the common problems of
  creature camping and kill stealing. That being said, we are only
  instancing a small portion of the world. Most of the world will
  have all of the community and player interaction that are
  essential to a MMORPG. We want to cater both to players who want a
  more personalized game experience and to players who want a
  massively multiplayer game, and we suspect that most players will
  want a bit of both.  
-quote-

From: Raph Koster

> I hadn't heard that WoW was planning on doing this; I know Anarchy
> Online did it, and I know Tabula Rasa plans to do it.

> And I think it's a terrible idea in all cases. Sure, if what you
> want to make is lobbies for small multiplayer games, great. But ya
> know, i think that you'll end up with a worse shared environment
> than a MUD/MOO, and a worse party-sized adventure experience than
> Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate II, or other games of their ilk
> (no way you'll make enough to match that quantity and quality of
> content AND feed the desires of an online world audience!). On top
> of that, this notion seems to me to miss key elements of what
> makes online worlds appealing.

> Has nobody heard the rants about how AO's self-contained mission
> areas are dull, repetitive, and non-immersive? It is in large part
> BECAUSE they are self-contained, abstracted from the larger
> world. Has nobody read Jonathan Baron's Glory and Shame article
> and realized that part of the attraction of these games is to be
> able to publicly glory in what you accomplished? Hard to do if
> nobody else can SEE it.

> Sure, there's merit to embedding mini-games--and let's not mistake
> it, that's what these are--into online worlds. But to make them
> the primary content seems to me like it's plain old missing the
> point of why make something an online world in the first place.
> The core audience for this genre doesn't want amusement park
> rides. They want to feel like they are THERE.

I will whole heartily agree that the implementation of this idea in
Anarchy Online was terrible and was central in my decision to leave
that world.

I think the important question is the relative size of the lobby as
compared to the game.  In Anarchy Online you were forced to spend
90% of your "leveling" time in these instanced missions.  You were
also forced to do so alone to remain competitive and not "out level"
your income.

My initial gut reaction is that instancing creates more problems in
a persistant world than it attempts to solve.

If there are any PC game developers that could prove me wrong, I
wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard could, and they aren't completely
wet behind the ears when it comes to the challenges of large scale
networked games.

Matthew Dobervich
Lovable Rogue



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev