[MUD-Dev] Casual player socialization (was: Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server)

[Ted L. Chen]

John Buehler wrote:

> Random comment time, I guess.

Random comments are fun! :)

> Casual players are those that spend a modest amount of time
> playing a game.  Typically, games don't leave characters available
> for interaction while the players are inactive.  I've been
> wondering whether socialization would be improved for casual
> players if they were able to do the equivalent of email through
> characters.

> But I'm assuming that if Andy says something to Bob, then you
> should receive that message as a kind of 'offline message' - to
> take from Yahoo IM's terminology (and perhaps chat systems in
> general).

> Given such an implementation, casual players are able to
> socialize, but at a far slower pace.

If I get you right, would something along the lines of buffered chat
do?  AO does this and allows for you to message anyone at anytime,
online or not.

However, from my personal experience (i.e. highly anecdotal), I
don't think it actually promotes that much extra socialization since
you tend to want to keep buffered messages short.  It's partially
due to the implementation - too much and it floods the screen - and
possibly also in part to the fact that its so juxtaposed to live
chat conversation.  In essence, most buffered chat messages turn out
to be of the 'ping: I need to talk to you.  Let me know when you're
on.' variety.  Much like a beeper or short voice-mail message.

Mind you, I do think something like this should be a minimum
requirement in any system; sometimes a beeper-style message like the
above is enough.  However, it doesn't really solve the problem of
making that initial contact.  At least, a strong enough contact that
you would send such a terse message to.

> If Bob is a crafter and Andy needs some item, that request can be
> made, even when you aren't controlling Bob.  When you come back
> online, the request for the item will appear and you can decide
> whether to make the item.  If you make it, it's certainly within
> the realm of reason to permit Bob to turn that item over to Andy
> for a sum of money without you actively controlling Bob.

Pesky problems with interfaces aside, this is something I would have
loved as a shopkeeper.  Built-in FedExing ;)

> But I'm digressing as usual.  The base notion is to keep all
> characters in the game world all the time and to let what is said
> to a character of an absentee player reach that player when they
> return to the game software (or possibly just receive regular
> emails).  The goal is to enhance the sense of community for casual
> players.

You don't necessarily need to keep the character physically in-game
all the time.  But I guess you could have meant it metaphysically,
as in keeping characters reachable at all times.  Going bluesky
myself, I might also throw in a suggestion for a daily-digest of
messages sent to the player's email box if they choose so.  Here's
hoping for the MMOG that no one ever needs to log into ;)

TLC


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