[MUD-Dev] ghost mode (was Re: SW:G)

[Mike Shaver]

On Sep 10, Vladimir Cole wrote:

> Ghost mode in Everquest would speed guild advancement at an
> incredible rate. Game encounters are designed with built-in wipes
> that help designers pace the consumption of content.

Personally, I don't care about that at all.  If a designer is trying
to avoid people copying successful approaches in order to improve
their own success, they need to do more than just hope that people
won't talk.  Some people might not (see below), but in many cases
people will talk.  There's often more achievement -- especially in
terms of achievement recognized by the community -- in writing a
good walkthrough than in finishing a quest.

Asheron's Call tried to discourage this sort of sharing through a
simple and naive-in-hindsight mechanism of tying the player actions
required for certain spells to something that varied between
players.  (Unfortunately, it was a simple function that took as its
sole input a number that was exposed to the players, so it was a
very short time before the "taper system" was broken.  Much hue and
cry over the "proper way" to play the game ensued.)

Actually, AC also tried to discourage spell sharing through its
"spell economy", whereby frequently used spells would diminish in
power.  That part worked, as I recall, but players didn't want to
have an optimal strategy become non-optimal over time.  There might
be a correlation between that distaste and the fact that many of the
activities were essentially repetitive, and you have to have a very
specific mindset to enjoy having to find a new way to kill drudges
15000-16000 because the spell you like using got gimped by the
economy.  There's probably also, however, a strong element of simple
change aversion, and a perception that they were being made weaker,
rather than that it was just a normal part of the game.  Debuff
spells and the like, even hugely bugged ones that last for weeks
without CSR intervention, as were seen in the SB beta, are not
usually met with such hostility.  Maybe there's a need for more
design-spin?

(I generally don't believe in the idea of 'pacing of content', but
then I like to turn down the difficulty on some games so that I can
see what's after some insoluble-to-me boss.  Maybe making
advancement, which is usually some barely-dampened function of 'time
spent in game', the sole meaningful basis for inter-player
competition isn't such a great idea after all.)

> Ghost mode would be devastating to top guilds because it would
> expose tactics and information that they had sole access to
> previously.

If you make information valuable within the game -- allow people to
trade location data, mob tactics, "replays" within the framework of
the economy, for in-game currency or other recognition -- then you
need to be concerned about these things, certainly.  (And then you
let the relative knowledge of the guilds affect their in-game power
directly, rather than having a large part of your political game be
played out on forums and whatnot.  Maybe I'm just a control freak,
but that sounds like a much better scenario for designers.)

Mike
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