Brand Loyalty (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Requirements for MM(wasCompl exities of MMOG Servers))

[Lars Duening]

Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: Damion Schubert [mailto:damion at zenofdesign.com] 

>> 'Powergaming' is merely a moderately derogatory way of saying
>> 'optimizing one's play experience'.  For many, many people, its
>> not just one way of playing games, its _how_ you play games.  Its
>> _much_ more mass market than its purported MMP opposite
>> roleplaying.

> Its often contended that roleplaying is ruined by power gamers,
> but not vice versa. I'm not convinced this is true. If one accepts
> that roleplaying mandates the sacrifice of 'optimising one's play
> experience' when it conflicts with roleplay, then roleplayers are
> by extension less effective players of the underlying game. For a
> powergamer, being saddled in a group with roleplayers is probably
> just as frustrating as the inverse. He may not appreciate that
> everyone is roleplaying the corpse recovery beautifully ;)

I think the key point is that roleplayer like to play out even the
'ineffective' parts of the game, and power gamers take that away.

Imaginary situation: Fafhnir the Evil Dragon makes its monthly
appearance, and roleplayer Boffo and his fellow heroes are staging
an epic battle. Of course they intend to win eventually, but the
main point is the battle itself. Now for some reason power gamer
Bubba, nominally an old-school barbarian, comes along, sees Boffo's
Heroes taking their time, thinks "Bah, what a waste of time" and
throws the magical tacnuke he picked up somewhere. Bam! the dragon
is dead, and Boffo and his friends have to wait another month to
fight their epic battle.

And then look at it from the other way around: what does roleplayed
corpse recovery take away from the power gamer?

> This list often seems to concentrate on the polarized extremes of
> these play styles, but I've yet to see much evidence that people
> really play that way.

Well, if I were a roleplayer and around powergamers I wouldn't
bother to roleplay either, because there'd be no point in doing so.

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
GPG Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/lars-duening.gpgkey

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev