[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Dave Rickey]

From: Michael Tresca <talien at toast.net> 

> Fundamentally, I believe that you cannot code "problem people" out
> of the system.  It requires a rational human being who works
> within a set of guidelines but attempts to adhere to the spirit,
> not the law, of the rules set out for that particular game.  Ban
> certain names and you reduce your global appeal to international
> gamers.  Ban certain activities and players find another way to do
> it.  Ensure that the culture that starts on your game doesn't
> tolerate that sort of behavior.  Some games get lucky.  Others are
> not so lucky.  And it's entirely possible that over time there's
> an entropic decay that eats away at it.  Which means you can never
> let the game just run by itself.
 
> This approach, this personal touch, is what's at the bottom of
> everything I've said about MMORPGs.  Massive, but not personal, is
> not necessarily a good game -- good money, but not a good game.

There can be entropic decay, and there is a very real potential trap
of allowing your most dedicated players to define your game to
better suit their own playstyle and strengthen their subcommunity.
If they do so, the resulting game can be very hostile to newbies.
 
> I don't disagree.  I fail to see how this makes MMORPGs appealing.
> If the target audience is clearly defined, why are two very
> different gaming styles indistinguishable from each other?
 
> I don't feel MMORPGs are defining their target audience.  I think
> they take the money and don't look back.  I think that will change
> @though.

There are two schools of thought on this:

  1) That the MMOG market is going to repeatedly fracture as newer
  entrants carve out pieces of the pie by more effectively appealing
  to niches that feel underserved by existing offerings.

  2) That the "big tent" approach will manage to fully integrate
  multiple play modes into the same games, either through subgames
  or through alternate rulesets.  In that case, there are
  (theoretically) no underserved niches.

Myself, I think the result is going to be a mixture, that there will
be 3 or so major products for each major game type (fantasy RPG,
Space Sim, FPS, for a guess, but I think we're going to have to
redefine what we mean by "genre"), in the 250K+ range, and a
spectrum of smaller offerings running all the way from 50-100K
"niche" games through 1000-5000 player "boutique" games down to a
mish-mash of "free, and mostly worth what you paid for it" games
inspired by the MUD model (many of which will *be* MUD's).

--Dave

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