Rif. : RE: [MUD-Dev] Mass customization in MM*** s

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

From: John Buehler [mailto:johnbue at msn.com]
> Daniel Harman writes:
>> From: Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca [mailto:Yannick.Jean at csst.qc.ca]
>>> From: Raph Koster
 
>> I disagree intensely. When your recommendation is implemented,
>> you end up with the Anarchy Online feel and a million players (ok
>> thats optimistic...)  who don't talk to each other, or feel any
>> real compulsion to do so. If people don't need to group to make
>> progress, they won't - however easy you try to make forming a
>> group, its always going to take longer than soloing.

> Recall that we have a pretty ugly barrier to entry for
> socialization - the inability to talk.  I don't know what Koreans
> use to talk to each other, but I suspect that it's either painful
> to enter it as text or they use English.  That is, their barrier
> may be greater than in cultures that fit the ISO-LATIN 1
> 'culture'.
 
> For the record, I think that forcing social interaction is silly,
> but that there are a number of legitimate reasons that can be used
> to naturally bring players into interaction.  If players are
> averse to it, they'll skip it.  Most will interact because it is
> natural to do so.  But again, the inability to speak is an
> unnatural barrier which makes almost all interactions impossible
> to be 'natural to do'.

Well I'm still not sure what people get from these games if they
don't want to/can't communicate. Its certainly not evolved game
play, polished quests and wonderful gfx...

I can't really comment on the Korean aspect, although I had been
under the impression they could speak using the Latin set (they seem
to communicate ok in the games I've played with any Korean
population of note).

I suppose what it comes down to, is ones definition of 'forcing
social interaction'. Some people would claim they are forced to
interact if progressing in the game was more efficient as a group. I
wouldn't really agree with them, but the games people complain about
forced grouping in, normally have solo routes which people seem to
overlook when bitching about being coerced into interactions.

Anyway, when I'm feeling antisocial I just boot up a good quality
one player game.

Dan

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