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

[Ted L. Chen]

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.

Hey, I like to be picked on!  It would mean that at least someone's
reading my blabberings!!  ;)

> 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).

True enough.  There's no statistical validity to any numbers grabbed
from forums (just like there aren't if you polled the steps of the
Capitol Building in Washington).  My bad if I inferred that.

My original supposition was that whiners were well represented, not
necessarily proportionately represented.  That is, more than two
people ;) In any case, unless there's data to tell me otherwise,
I'll go with the safer assumption that MOG players are no less or no
more better people than those you meet day to day.

And on a highly subjective observation, I contend that most people I
meet day to day are resistant to change.  Maybe not the "I'm joining
Greenpeace" type of resistance, but suggest to them a new way to do
something and they'll more often than not, stick to their old ways.
Some decision facility that ponders the utility and cost of
switching methods is at work.  Anything that requires learning a new
system seems to be weighted heavily on cost.

For nerfs, they require people to abandon their old 'systems' for
little or no improvement in utility.  Some people internalize and go
with the flow (perhaps the cost of protesting is too much).  The
worst possible case is an noticable negative utility for an imposed
new system.

>   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).

Yup.  True enough.  Protesters in RL are a different breed than your
everyday normal person.  Their passions are more extreme than most.
But that neither confirms nor denies that normal folk agree/disagree
with the issues to some extent.

>   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.

AO, despite its short life, has pretty much the same moaning and
complaining found on EQ.  Maybe it's not as eloquently put as some
EQ prose, but it's still there ;) People always complain.  I'm more
interested in why they complain, than what they complain about.  I
can easily dismiss the single post rants to posturing, but it's the
number and occurance of short/concise "me too" posts that interest
me.

>   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.

Interesting idea about Pay vs. not pay.  Perhaps we could extend it
to "investment" which could encompass time as well.  That might
explain why its generally harder for someone to reset an established
game of Civilization, versus one in turn 10.  But this is probably
bleeding into those earlier "community" threads on this list.

> 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.

Heh, I'm in the same boat.  Short of direct mind-reading
capabilities, I'm not sure any of us can do anything more than guess
at what players think.  I error on the side of caution and assume
that players are prone to the seven sins: prominently sloth,
gluttonly, greed, and envy.  (not necessarily in that order ;)

In a way, I do hope I'm wrong.

TLC


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