[MUD-Dev] Re: Removing access to entertainment

[Chanur Silvarian]

From: "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com>

> Say, the developers create an encounter that takes 10 high level
> characters with average gear. The powergamers will take down this
> encounter within a month or two,.  the casual gamers will come so
> much later that the encounter have been given "farm status" by the
> high level crowd and thus the encounter may never be available to
> the casual gamer crowd, which will forever be locked out of the
> Great Cave of Phat Lewts unless they join high level crowd, which
> becomes harder and harder because the high level crowd only wants
> people with the good stuffs from the Great Cave of Phat Lewts.

> So - If the developer do not make it challenging, the power gamers
> will get bored and leave. If they make it too hard for the casual
> gamers, they may create a rift between the two crowds of players
> and eventualy the casual gamers might leave.

This is precisely why I don't think that anything in an MMORPG
should be static.  Once the Great Cave of Phat Lewts has been
conquered all of the Phat Lewts should be randomly instantiated
elsewhere, creating the Wonderous Cave of Phat Lewts.  If you need
to kill a dragon to enter said cave then once the dragon dies it
should be instantiated (spawn) in a random location rather than
right back on the same X, Y, Z coordinate where it can be camped.

Random spawning not only makes it impossible, but also dangerous to
attempt camping.  Random quest locations make the quests fresh and
new for every player that gets them rather than just an activity
that is necessary to get item A. If item A from that quest is random
then it reduces camping because you don't know what you are going to
get and increases the "wow!" factor if you get something really
good.

Within all of this randomness, of course, there should be weighting.
The random spawn should be weighted so the dragon has an extremely
low chance of ending up in a newbie zone (though myself I wouldn't
make it impossible).  The random item should be weighted to skills
the character has and further to skills they have actually built up.

In looking at this from the player types and how they would respond
(this is all subjective opinion of course), the socializer sees
little difference but there is actually an increase in socialization
through trading/selling the randomized rewards.  The explorer now
has MUCH more exploration to do because things always need to be
found again, the explorer could also try to figure out the weighting
system so they know the best places to look for things.  The killer
won't see much difference, they'll still hunt and trade for the best
equipment just as they did before.  The achiever will find it
slightly more challenging to stay ahead of the pack but not greatly
so, but I believe that achievers like a challenge (I may be wrong).

The biggest change is that achievers cannot thwart others who are
trying to achieve and must therefore move themselves forward instead
of holding others back to maintain their superior status.

- Chanur Silvarian -
86% Explorer
60% Socializer
33% Killer
20% Achiever
56.6075% Extreme Geek
(www.andreasen.org/bartle)
(www.innergeek.us)
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