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

[Harrok]

John Buehler said:

> I've been wondering whether socialization would be improved for
> casual players if they were able to do the equivalent of email
> through characters.

Curiously, this was a feature of the old BBS door games that
predated text MUDS. I'm thinking specifically here about Legends of
the Red Dragon, which was a turn-based roleplaying game. Players
received a certain number of turns each day, which could be set by
the sysop, so it was highly unlikely that more than a couple of
people would ever be online at a time.

It achieved character interaction through:

  -- the ability to post messages in various places throughout the
  game, including "writing in the dirt" at one spot and the ability
  to carve notches in the table of one of the taverns.

  -- the ability to marry other players and so on.

  -- the ability to fight players who were offline; there were very
  primitive AI routines to handle the non-active character.

It was all rather addictive, although you couldn't play it for four
or five hours at a time without becoming utterly bored. It worked
well because you could only play it for a few moments at a time, and
left wanting more.

Anyway, just another random thought.

Bill



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