[MUD-Dev] Enforced log out aka "real sleep"

[Michelle Elbert]

From: "Brian Hook" <brianhook at pyrogon.com>

> As you can see a big part of the balance between werewolves and
> vampires is that vampires just can't do anything particularly
> interesting for huge chunks of time.  So werewolves (the mortal
> enemies of vampires) gain a significant advantage for this reason.

> Now, take this and stick it straight into an on-line game and you
> have a problem.  Vampire characters aren't going to want to be
> limited to the hours they can play.  So do you just give up on the
> concept, come up with some hacky work around, or do you pretend it
> really IS a World of Darkness and thus daylight never comes into
> play?  Mandatory log out seems like a really bad idea though, but
> in this particular case, it's what's necessary (hell, I'm not sure
> how a mixed werewolf/vampire PnP session would handle this).

> Related to this is the idea that characters must "sleep" in-game
> in order to avoid fatigue.  In a single player RPG, this is
> instantaneous (tap the "camp" button, bam, you're good to go for
> another 24 hours).  On-line -- obviously not.  Most games I'm
> aware of just avoid the issue.  So again, I'm curious if anyone
> has come up with something particularly crafty to address this.

I think I see where you're going with the whole Vampire vs. Garou
thing...  But on the other hand, as somebody who used to play lots
and lots amd lots of White Wolf (I lived with the people I was
playing with so an impromptu session could break out at literally
any moment), and has played a mixed Vampire vs. Garou vs. Bunch of
Other Wacky Stuff You Don't Even Want Me To Get Into. . . I want to
point out a whole bunch of stuff where things could and do balance
out between the two.

Seeing as this in not a White Wolf listsrv, I will not do that. :)

I'm curious as to what the motives are for making logout part of
game play.  It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me,
except from the standpoint of something I heard once at the GDC
about MMOG players.  (Something to the effect that the ideal player
for a commercial MMOG was one who would pay the monthly fee but not
spend a lot of time actually playing the game. :) That is to say,
somebody who wouldn't log on very often.)  Not that reminding people
to log off is necessarily a bad thing, I for one would like it if
the MMOGs I play had an alarm clock feature in game.  So I could
tell it I only want to play for an hour (or whatever) and then it
would go off and remind me to log.  (As it is, I keep a kitchen egg
timer on my desk.)

You're right that most games do not have sleep per sae, but they do
have down time.  In most games (EQ, DAoC, Diablo II, etc) you have
to stop running around and killing things at some point to get back
your health, or stamina/endurance, or mana/power, or some such thing
like that.  I think perhaps we've already established in another
thread that players hate down time. (Mostly because they are whiny
B****es who don't want to sacrifice space in their inventories so
they can work on tradeskills while they're
healing... Oh... Sorry... Outside voice... ::blush::)

Making the player stop playing before they decide they want to is
generally bad. (Unless we're talking about server maintenance, then
it's just annoying, but understandable.)  That is one of the biggest
problems that I heard going with Majestic.  When you consider that
suspense was supposed to have been a major theme in that game, down
time is to be expected...  However, from what I hear, they did not
properly manage their suspense...  Episodes were on a monthly basis,
and players could go at their own pace.  So the player would fly
through their allotment of stuff that they could do in, perhaps, a
week or two (in some cases, not even that) and then NOTHING until
next month.

So you want to do characters who only come out at night (vampires),
or characters who only regenerate health when they're in direct
sunlight (Condor Man), or characters who get all furry and
Shakespearean when the moon is full (Skud the Disposable Assassin).

Are we talking about real, real time here?  Even if you are, that
doesn't seem too undoable...

All right, for lack of a better example, let's take your White Wolf
vampire.

A vampire with the willpower and the blood to spare can,
theoretically, stay up during the day without adverse effects if
they stay away from the sun.  (...And all the other stuff that can
kill them.)  The vampire could move around through tunnels, or
vehicles with no windows, or the windows blacked out, with somebody
else driving.  Your average White Wolf Kindred has at least one
Ghoul, which can be contacted and ordered about by phone, computer,
or telepathy.  Staying out of the sun, your Kindred could learn a
new skill or discipline, or improve one they already have, do
research, gather information, play the stock market, start and run a
buisness, paint a picture, lure somebody to where they are and kill
them, knit a shawl, try to take over the world, etc...

So, once again, the question is, as it ever is, what to do with the
"down time".

Making them log off is probably not the answer, but creating
something for them to do that they won't be able to obsessively max
all at once right a-freaking-way, thus leaving them with nothing to
do "during the day" ever again, and still be interesting to do in
spurts . . . that might be difficult.

- Michelle

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