[MUD-Dev] Powergaming (was Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character perserver)

[Paul Schwanz]

Damion Schubert wrote:

> From Kwon Ekstrom

>> I agree that powergaming is fun (being a powergamer myself), and
>> as an admin I like to encourage it, while making it difficult.
>> It's nice to see someone who shares that viewpoint on this list,
>> it seems lately that everyone is aiming toward perfect balance
>> and catering toward the casual players.  There is alot of fun to
>> be had with equal but unbalanced powers.  There should be no
>> single "do this and you win" set, but there should be plenty of
>> opportunities for a smart player to use knowledge and skill to
>> rise above the "average" player.

> I think my current obstinance on the matter comes from watching
> too many recent games who think that "Easy" is equivalent to "Fun"
> in the eyes of the mass market.  "Easy" is in fact, one step away
> from "boring".  The most addictive non-MMP games, on the other
> hand, make the player feel either clever (Civ, Solitaire, Myst) or
> talented (Quake, Tetris).

I quite agree.  I think the reason I don't like the whole treadmill
thing in the first place is that it is too easy.  I'm looking for
interesting decisions and don't typically find easy decisions to be
all that interesting.  But the decisions don't get any more
interesting by spreading them across 40 hours instead of 40 minutes.
So the question then becomes what it is that is making the game not
easy.  If the game is challenging based on the wealth of interesting
and difficult decisions, then I find that fun.  On the other hand,
if it is challenging based on the ability to endure a dearth of
interesting decisions over long periods of time, then in this case,
please give me easy.

--Phin


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