[MUD-Dev] Retention without Addiction?

[Koster]

From: bradley newton haug
> Sacha wrote:
 
>> This issue sticks out like a sore thumb - if you've worked
>> through a full design of a MUD for anyone in the solar system,
>> you can't miss it.
 
> Indeed, it's a full level of organization/abstraction, accounts
> containing characters or accounts being characters.  It's a design
> decision that comes in pretty early in any 'mudlib' (or equiv).
> Early... which brings me to my next point..

FYI, the servers support an arbitrary number of characters per
account, and have always supported an arbitrary number of characters
per account.

>> If SCS is the only thing standing between you and a really good
>> setup, I say go for it.
 
> It is my opinion that there wasn't a single design reason for it,
> only shiny objects to distract from the real issue of poor
> planning. It is my belief that it isn't a feature; it's a last
> minute hack.  If it really was a design decision there would have
> been no need for the snowstorm and the laughable 'out here in the
> real world we have to pay bills so you just shut up and give us
> money because we know what you want' PR joke.

I must say that it is refreshing to see a conspiracy theory that
doesn't make us out to be evil scheming geniuses. Usually conspiracy
theories give us far too much credit. So this is delightful, a
theory that assumes us to be complete idiots instead.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that this was purely a
design decision. I know you disagree, but we're speaking
hypothetically here, so humor me. It's a design decision. What
exactly do you say or do differently?  Do you anticipate that the
future playerbase will react in any way differently? Why exactly do
you think they would? Would their reasons for preferring single
character servers or multiple character servers change one iota? 
Would their arguments differ to any significant degree, solely on
the basis of why we chose the way we did?

Or perhaps are you arguing that if it were a design decision, we
would not have felt obligated to explain anything, and would have
simply stated "STFU, this is our Vision, deal with it?"

I happen to believe that you treat customers and potential customers
with respect and give them as many of the facts as you are allowed
to do.  Therefore, we did exactly that. I've found it to be a much
more successful route of community management than any form of
concealment. Concelament gets found out as you trip yourself up, and
then you end up with a far worse problem. Nothing is as
self-consistent as the truth.

I've also found that generally, an issue like this cannot be pinned
down to solely one causal factor. There are so many different
reasons to go one route or the other that saying that it's simply
because of X or Y is reductionist. In other words, all issues with
muds are design decisions. And all design decisions are also
business decisions, audience decisions, technical decisions, and so
on. To fail to understand the impact of a design decision on all the
possible areas of a game is to be ignorant of how muds actually play
out.

To be fair, nobody knows how a design decision impacts all areas of
a mud.  Therefore, I firmly believe that we're all ignorant of how
muds actually play out given any arbitrary design decision, barring
some of the most obvious and frequently repeated bad decisions.

-Raph

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