[MUD-Dev] Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server

[Michael Tresca]

Marc Fielding posted on Saturday, December 14, 2002 6:27 PM

> In the following link, Raph defends Sony's limitation of "one
> character per server per account":

>   http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/088000.html

> While there are secondary design motivations behind the
> limitation, the cost of storing a potentially immense amount of
> character data is the primary factor. Yet even though I find his
> description of the problem to be quite understandable and his
> solution fairly reasonable, I'd like to propose a slight
> modification:

BRAVO!

On RetroMUD, muling is a serious offense.  It's a serious offense
for all the reasons listed by Raph.  I was shocked and horrified to
discover just how casual muling happens on MMORPGs and how players
have begun to see it as a right.

Mules disgust me on a lot of levels, not the least of which is its a
blatant abuse of a game's mechanic.  If the game were designed for
multiple characters, the system should provide for it (something
along the line of the Dark Sun RPG, with character trees).  Most of
the MMORPGs I've encountered were all so obviously designed for one
player = one character, and yet by playing more than one character
the player had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

It's about time a MMORPG took its theme and setting seriously.  And
by that I mean it's about bloody time a MMORPG started trying to be
about its immersive universe, and not a crowded room crammed to the
gills with people/avatars all chatting about football.  I don't want
to play that.  I can go to the local bar if I want that.  I want to
play Star Wars, and I don't want some idiot with lots of time
puppeteering five different characters talking, all of them
expecting me to treat them with the same respect and reaction
because they're played by Bob.

I won't even bother to list all the reasons why mules suck -- Raph
covered them in extreme detail already.  I will say it's gotten so
bad that players now consider it a right, and I'm glad to see one of
the major new MMORPGs take a stand on it other than turning a blind
eye.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien


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