[MUD-Dev] Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server

[Sasha Hart]

[Amanda Walker]

> More generally, why should it be a problem that people with
> different amounts of time invested end up with different
> experiences an abilities?

A lot of it is probably envy. It's up to you how much you want to do
to manage player envy. Certainly it seems it'll be hard to
obliterate it while maintaining much of a game. And not many people
would blame you for not caring that one person is envious of another
for no good reason.

However, the 'experiences' and 'abilities' in THESE games are quite
frequently not literally experiences and abilities, but scores with
game, social and emotional effects: the fictive importance
attributed to what you do in the game (you're in a simplistic sewer
busting rats until level 10). Your scope and freedom. Your caste,
how pathetic and insignificant and unworthy of any attention you
are. Tools for abuse of other players.  Design decisions determine
which of these the scores are, and what determines the scores.

Does this explain why sometimes it will be a problem that people
with different amounts of time invested end up with different
'experience' and 'ability' scores? Don't mistake me - I personally
rarely take these games that seriously; I just appreciate that it is
not always contemptible to desire some parity of 'experiences' and
'abilities,' or at least the very valuable things, like protection
from the abuse of others, which these things give in these games.

Sasha




















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