[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Michael Tresca]

Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com posted on Thursday, January 03,
2002 9:07 AM

> My anonymity has nothing to do with my tolerance for player
> generated pablum (I like that word! Thanks Raph). I find trite
> roleplay intolerable. As has been mentioned before, just because a
> game is large doesn't mean that you regularly interract with more
> than a small group. A large number of people find role play boring
> but enjoy these games. The role players need to have their
> expectations managed if they are expecting table top games but
> better.

See my previous response to Raph and my belief that role-playing
content is merely "richer" content.  If you can role-play in it, it
is a very content-rich environment.  If you can't, no role-players
should be playing your game.

But if you don't have a target audience, maybe role-players ARE your
target audience.

Obviously, someone feels role-players are worth attracting to their
games since some MMORPGs have a server for precisely such pablum.

<snip>

> Nevertheless, I imagine the point is more directed at topics such
> as perma-life, respawning creatures, level progression et al.

This goes back to my belief that fictional consistency is a
content-rich environment.

> > Number 3.  Yeah, that'd be role-players.  And MUDders.

> and people who like novels, cinema, plays...

> A sparrow is a bird. All birds aren't sparrows.

What?

> As you say, its self-selecting. Even in these games you can choose
> your peer group, one really doesn't have to spend time around
> Buttcheex if you don't want to. Frankly I'd rather be around him

Oh really?

When I was on Ultima Online, my character was tracked down by a
group of fellows I'd never seen before.  Beyond the briefly
interesting, desperate struggle (and unintentional comedy) of me
clicking to close a door and they opening it...over and over, for a
few heart stopping moments, they were decidedly incapable of being
ignored.  After they killed my character, they killed him five or
six more times when he came back to the same location, just to be
sure.

When I was on Asheron's Call, my character ended up halfway across
the continent in the desert.  After dying to a green flying
dragonfly thingy (which, I learned, were BAD), I ran back to find
people standing around looting his corpse.  I asked them politely
about my equipment but for the most part they ran off, except for
the occasional, "Stupid f&*king newbies."

On Sierra's game (The Quest?), I made a rhyming troll.  People
thought he was hysterical.  Some of them came up to him and asked,
"What are you screwed up, how come you rhyme?  Talk normal dude."

All of these people were CONTENT.  They were part of the game. And
they were not easily ignored.

> Anyway, what the hell is a role-player and why would he want to
> play a computer game? Surely RP is about human interaction, and
> the computer isn't really a great tool for that. I wonder if these
> disgruntled role-players aren't expecting other players to be
> literary genious, veritable Tolkeins arrayed to place them as
> heroes and villains within a magnificently scripted plot.

I suppose you think communication can't happen unless it's
face-to-face too, huh. Communication IS part of role-playing, and
role-playing is part of communication. Human interaction can happen
on a variety of levels, it's just the "media-richness" of the
channel that's used that varies.  The Internet was low on
media-richness, but that's changing daily.

Ever gotten angry at a vending machine, kicked your car, or cursed
at a slow elevator?  You just role-played with an inanimate object.
People do it all the time.

The disgruntled role-players ARE expecting literary genius.  They've
played lots of games and they want deeper, richer content.  Best of
all, they make a significant social investment in their characters
that keeps them in the long term.  That means more money for your
game in the long term.

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


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