[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[John Buehler]

Madrona Tree writes:
> From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>

>> I have no idea for a single character. The play patterns for
>> players with multiple characters are something I should look into
>> more. Do people tend to have a "favorite" and how much more play
>> time does it get versus others? How many play multiples, and how
>> many of those multiples are rarely played?  Hmm.

> That would be REALLY interesting data.  It may help solve the "one
> character slot per server" debate.  However, I don't think you
> could use the data from EQ and apply it to Star Wars, for example.
> In EQ you are essentially "punished" for playing an Alternate (not
> Multiple, btw ;)), as any time you spend playing Alts, while your
> main is less than level 60 is semi-discouraged by peers... and
> pretty much completely discouraged by Verant, who designs the game
> in a fairly linear "gold at the end of the rainbow" path.  If you
> veer off, the gold is that much further away.  Of course, this is
> unattractive, even to the most casual player.

> What I mean is... be sure you are comparing Oranges to Oranges.
> But I am fairly certain that even in UO and non-level-treadmill
> games, people have a "favorite" ... and dabble in other things
> just to dabble in other things.  Except for the people who play
> 24/7 -- they just have multiple favorites.  :)

And don't forget that multiple characters can also be a facilitator
to accessing more of the game entertainment, such as it is.  In
EverQuest, Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot, the creation of
alternates is a means of being able to access other ways of playing
the game.  My primary has typically been a rangery-type, and then I
create alternates to dink around with the magic stuff and any other
classes that seem to be interesting constructs.

Eliminate classes and let a single character train and retrain in
whatever they want and you've taken away some incentive for
alternates.  Make the world small so that the player can get that
single character to whatever they want to relatively quickly and
you've taken away more.  And so on.  A character is a tool for
triggering entertainment in the game world.  Not unlike a complex
mouse cursor.  If your PC mouse could only click on the right side
of the screen and there were interesting things to click on on the
left side of the screen, you'd get a right and left mouse.

I tend to focus more on the socialization side of things in these
games.  So where advancement is the prerequisite to socializing, I
advance.  When that prerequisite fades or vanishes, I can fool
around with alternates more.  If the use of alternates leads to
socialization, I'll start to favor those that lead to the most
enjoyable socialization.  As Madrona suggests, players will follow
the gold.  For me, the gold is primarily socialization and
exploration.

JB

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