[MUD-Dev] Questions for User Surveys

[lynx at lynx.purrsia.com]

On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, shren wrote:

> Is there any reason other than realism why we don't just let
> people wind back thier character levels?  If I have a 50th level
> character and I have a friend who is 15th level, why not just let
> me roll my character back to 15th level for a short period of
> time?  Being 50th level should have few drawbacks, and right now
> the drawback "I can only play in the highest levels of content and
> not be bored" is a drawback.

Could be done if the only variable on a character was the level
counter, but what if the player can, say, add to an attribute like
'constitution' that might have a per-level hitpoint modifier?  Then
if constitution wasn't reset at the time of the rollback, this could
be used to get extra hitpoints for the character by the time the
character maxed again.

What about equipment?  There might be a significant difference
between a 'twink' and a 'no-twink' 15th-level character.

What about if the character made skill choices from points allocated
per skill level?  It might not be posible to inversely determine
what skills a character had at a given level without storing a
character sheet for the character at that level.

Do you save the character state at the beginning or end of a level?
If there are 60 levels in the game, do you then have 60 copies of a
character?

Not that this isn't a bad idea, but maybe what is really wanted here
is 'feign being 15th level', which you could opt out of any time you
wanted, and which would simply produce some reasonable simulacrum of
your character's experience as a low-level type.

But if your friend knows you're only feigning being 15th level, or
temporarily being 15th level, is it the same experience?

For me, it's somewhat more meaningful to explore the game together
and know that you're both seeing something for the first time.  If
you get somewhere and your friend starts telling you all the spoiler
information for the area, or acts in a way inconsistent with
encountering it for the first time, you're bound to think 'So much
for the thrill of discovery'.

Sadly, 'rollback player knowledge of game' doesn't seem like all
that feasible a game function.

-- Conrad


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