[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article

[Damion Schubert]

>From Marc DM:
> From Sean Kelly:

> Still not so shure about this subjects and how they rellate. I'm
> looking for a way to make learning fun. And I believe that playing
> is the key to make learning fun. And it is our task to make fun
> learning experiences. hm I somehow believe that if people like it
> than it's valuable if they don't then it's not a valuable
> experience to them. But this reasoning doesn't always work. Help
> me!

Well, for starters, I don't think that players percieve 'learning'
as a top-ten reason for why they play ANY game.  Relaxation,
socialization, strategic challenge, need to be antisocial -- sure.
Learning that occurs is usually incidental and, in most cases, is
more likely to be strategic learning than other kinds of learning.

>>> How could I learn through this new medium, online worlds,
>>> something of value to my inhabitants or players. How could I
>>> learn them that 'rascism is no good'?

The games that have come out so far have successfully shown that
racism is annoying.  Ask any Dark Elf in EverQuest who had to go
invis to get by guards.  However, the players despised these
systems, since it made it harder to do what they wanted to do -
socialize.  They could care less about preserving the integrity of
the fiction or learning hard lessons about 'the way it was'.  They
just wanted to express themselves with their character selection,
and play with their friends.

>> And frankly, I'd worry about the state of a world where people
>> had to turn to an ORPG to learn that being a young, struggling
>> parent sucks.
 
> Better to learn it there than to learn it when it's too late.

More to the point, the existing MMORPGs and MUDs have chosen that,
rather than learn from hard and not-fun professions, players choose
to abandon them.  Who can forget UO's early attempts to have players
police the world?  There were plenty of players who tried, who
quickly discovered that sitting around and waiting for something was
no fun, and being surprised, outmanned and outclassed by the bad
guys was also no fun.

So I guess that you could say that players learned about being a
security guard/police officer from the experience.  However, it also
quickly created the need to put in other systems to protect new
players which were less realistic, in order to preserve a sense of
fun for the do-gooders of the world.
 
--d

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