[MUD-Dev] Mudding and impact on academic grades

[Anderson]

From: Acius [mailto:acius at nigel.simud.org]

> 1. Reward time away from the game.

>  In an MMORPG, you could have "craftsmen" players be working on
>  crafted items during the time that they're not logged on. To make
>  sure that the player still logs in at least once a day, though,
>  you could have them quit crafting after 18 hours -- after that,
>  they need to log in again and resume their crafting where they
>  left off.

Fine idea, but the problem is that if you allow multiple characters,
they'll probably end up with every single one of their characters
working on something at the same time.  I wouldn't stop playing for
18 hours, I'd just flip to my craftsmen alt, make something, and
then flip back to another character of mine.

And of course if you didn't allow alts, I wouldn't buy the game.

> 2. Remove incentives beyond a certain playtime.
 
>   Your player "needs to rest," because you have been adventuring
>   for more than 2 hours now. For the third hour, he gains
>   experience at half the rate, and heals half as fast. Beyond the
>   third hour, he doesn't gain any experience, and heals at a
>   fourth his normal rate. The downtime needs to be more than a
>   quick login and logoff -- the penalties only disappear after
>   staying away for "long enough for him to sleep" (say, 2 hours at
>   least). Basically the idea is to implement the law of
>   diminishing returns with respect to playing time.

I play a mud 10 hours straight every single day, then a 1 hour
break, and then I play another 2 or so hours.  This is work, plus
some time after work.  I'd get pretty upset if after a few hours at
work, I stopped getting any benefit from my playing.  If you allowed
alts, I'd just flip between them, but I think that would make this
just a source of frustration, but no benefits.

> 3. Rewards for logging in after a break
 
>   Certain powerful abilities might only have 20 or 30 uses per
>   login. This might be compared to the D&D "memorized spellbook." 
>   After you've used up all of these abilities, you have to log off
>   for 2 hours before they're recharged. Powerful spells,
>   teleportation abilities, extremely powerful damaging moves from
>   warriors, etc., could all make use of a system like this.

That'd be fine, but once again, if you allowed alts, I'd just be
flipping them all the time, and if you didn't, I wouldn't play ever.

Basically, forcing people to log off to give your servers a break is
pretty cheap, get better servers.  If you want them to log off so
that they don't ruin their lives, stop butting in.  I am a
successful business man, I'd rather not be forced to do anything.
If little kids ruin their grades, that's their problem, not yours.
Part of growing up is learning when to quit playing a game.  I was
addicted to reading as a kid, they didn't make the books
automatically close after 6 straight hours of reading.

Dave
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