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

[Sasha Hart]

[Ted Chen]

> A lot of people in the world don't like change.  Whether those
> people are the types that play MUDs, I'm not entirely sure of.
> But judging by MOG forums where people gripe about the latest nerf
> or new feature, I'd say we still got a good sizable representation
> of that world populace.

I'm not picking on Ted in particular, because I keep seeing this
statement (and close relatives) a great deal, these days.

But there are a lot of reasons to wonder whether it is really true
that "players don't want change" (paraphrase, mangling, not what Ted
said, etc.).

  1. Players who like what's happening may not be as likely to post
  saying they dig it as they would be if they were complaining. Of
  course, from a beleaguered admin's perspective, three people
  sending angry mail might be worth worrying about. From an EQ's
  perspective, 1% of many thousands may be a big deal worth worrying
  about. Even worse, the other 99% may be equally sensitive to
  decisions as the 1%, but since they don't report, there is not any
  a priori reason to give them even as much weight as the 1%.  (I
  won't say it's not a tough situation, but obviously reliable
  information is going to strengthen decision making no matter the
  scale).

  2. Players who have access to and actively read the forums are
  probably different in many ways from those who do not. They may be
  the users who live in the game the most, they may tend to be more
  dissatisfied with the game already, etc. Some forums have levels
  of involvement much higher than what most people get out of games
  anyway (I'd place them, speculatively, in the neighborhood of
  established, diehard IRC channels or social MUDs).

  3. Everquest players are likely to be a distinct breed from
  players of other games. Everquest has been around a long time,
  with a lot of opportunity for its unique history to affect its
  players, as well as a ton of opoortunity for its players to affect
  each other.  The terminology is the same. I think if you went
  through and analyzed the content of the complaints across games,
  you'd see differences that had a lot to do with degree of contact
  among player populations.

  4. Pay vs. not-for-pay is, I suspect (admittedly thin evidence) a
  very substantial dimension in how people deal with change. Given
  that I don't think everyone reacts to changes the same way, or
  even that all changes are the same, the fact that you're paying
  may contribute to an interpretation of changes as breach of
  contract (e.g., "The New York Times only covers domestic news
  now?? I paid for this subscription!")

In short: I suspect that the bitching produced on EQ forums is a
unique artifact of the forum (and its population), EQ (and its
population) and the pay model.

Not to mention the specific nature of the change!!

But it's not like I *know* that. I *guess* it's possible that
players want everything to be as static as possible, regardless of
who they are, their history, what the changes are, how controllable
(e.g., democratic) they are, how predictable they are, etc.

Sasha.


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