[MUD-Dev] Morphable worlds, Reset based systems revisited

[Mark Eaton]

On Saturday, November 2, 2002, at 11:27  AM, Dave Rickey wrote:
> From: "shren" <shren at io.com>

>>   First off.  My objective is to keep someone from winning
>>   (conquering the whole world), not to keep someone from losing
>>   (losing all provinces).  I don't mind Omega getting it's ass
>>   kicked right off the map, out of it's home, chased across the
>>   map, whatever.  I mind Alpha killing everyone and ruling the
>>   map for the rest of eternity.  If Alpha wants to take Omega's
>>   land, absorb his empire, and crush Omega's capital under his
>>   heel, that's fine with me.  I just see it as important to
>>   prevent Alpha from doing that to everyone, thus, the limitation
>>   on the productiveness of territory.

>>   Second.  I like interesting tectical situations.  If Alpha has
>>   an unbeatable, stable home, and Omega has an unbeatable, stable
>>   home, then in the long run the 'story' has all of the
>>   dynamicism of a TV sitcom.  Nothing ever really changes.

> On the other hand, if Alpha can crush Omega under their bootheels,
> why will Omega continue to log in and play?  This is the potential
> trap of "meaningful PvP", when it is no longer possible for the
> losers to have fun while and after losing.  Although the rise of
> empires is fun, their fall is not.  >

Is this only true when winning and losing are measured only in
geographical terms? Kill or be killed.

For instance, in the Civilization board game its considered
foolhardy to pursue a purely militaristic conquest of ones
neighbors. Doing so means that one is neglecting the other elements
of the game - trading and collecting civilization cards, which to be
successful at require that the player invest heavily in city
building at the expense of building armies.

If in the original scenario, Alpha is fully capable of pursuing a
campaign of conquest against Omega but the cost of doing so causes
great loss in some other way(s), then the threat exists (and thus
pvp is 'meaningful') but is rarely/never fully realized. No player
would enjoy being completely wiped out of the game but the threat
(however remote) adds a sense of risk.

This implies that for a game to have 'meaningful pvp' it must have
outlets for players' energies that is mutually exclusive with
pvp. Or maybe a better way to put it is that there needs to be a way
to succeed using a defensive strategy. If crushing Omega is the only
option Alpha is given in order to 'win', then of course Alpha will
pursue that goal. If Alpha can 'win' without ever needing to crush
Omega under its bootheel, then wasting the energy of doing so would
be considered a 'losing' strategy, even when the disparity in power
between Alpha and Omega are very large.

This isn't necessarily true of pvp between individuals in an RPG
where motivations can be more personal. It would be more applicable
to player run organizations (guilds, realms, associations, etc.)

An ideal environment for an MMORPG would be a positive sum game
where its in the interests of one guild to see another guild
succeed, purely out of enlightened self interest. Having strong
peers gives the guild a viable trading partner, or an ally in
dealing with a mutual foe, or what have you. This works even better
when there are multiple types of player run organizations (kingdoms,
merchant guilds, wizard enclaves, etc. etc.) such that one style
organization benefits from being allied with the others. Sort of a
class interdependency at the guild level.

At that point the game is more of a cross of RPG and strategy
game. Something that I think players would find very compelling,
even if its RPG elements are less pure.


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