[MUD-Dev] Re: Ghost Mode

[Pat Ditterline]

Amanda Walker <amanda at alfar.com> wrote:

> You're implicitly linking "motivation to pay" to "being able to
> see/do more parts of the game."  I don't think those are
> necessarily the same.  With a quick trip to google, anyone can see
> (and get precise recipes for how to do) any content (that's been
> discovered) in any game, generally an hour or so after it's
> released to the public.  And yet people do pay month after month,
> despite the fact that walkthroughs and "cheat sheets" are one of
> the most popular types of player-generated content around.

> Perhaps peoples' motivation is not where you think it is.

Reading about how something is accomplished and accomplishing it
yourself are very different things.  For that matter, reading about
*how* to accomplish something and actually succeeding at it are very
different.  Acheivers play to accomplish something, and knowing how
to do it ahead of time just reduces their odds of failure, it
doesn't necessarily decrease their desire to play.  But, if you play
to unlock new content and find that other people are already there
without having gone through the work that you went through, it
cheapens your accomplishment.

(combining a couple messages..)

>> 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.

> Indeed.  And I gave up on EQ after about 3 months because that
> pace was way too slow for the aspects of content that interested
> me.  I've been playing There since January--it has no pre-scripted
> content at all, and geography updates are paced quite slowly.
> Draw your own conclusions.

And what are the comparative subscription numbers?  I'm quite sure
EQ has There beat hands down, even if you take the numbers at EQ's
launch compared to current There numbers.  The fact that someone
personally likes one type of content and other players like another
doesn't mean either is wrong or right.  The games (or worlds) are
designed for different groups.  Maybe a ghost mode is detrimental to
some games but not others.

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

> I'm sorry, I find this terribly funny.  "Secret knowledge" in a
> game?  "Top guilds?"  This doesn't sound like a virtual world, it
> sounds like high school cliques.

Yes, it does, but it's the case, so it has to be taken into
consideration.  People operate this way.  It is to a guild's benefit
to hide information that would benefit other guilds.  It does get
out eventually, but if you are incapable of hiding it the choice has
been taken from you.  Virtual worlds they may be, but they're also
virtual communities, and communities will form cliques.  Even if
it's only for a short period of time that the information is hidden,
this does occur.

Ask any regular player of EQ who the top guilds on their server are,
and I bet they not only know, but they know the top few in order of
power.  People enjoy glory and fame, and they like to rank
themselves, and all these things will occur in a community.  Even a
community of adults.

>> In Everquest, the list of ghost restrictions would have to be
>> extreme in order to protect designer and player interests.

> Perhaps, then, the content itself is structured to encourage
> "grind through it so you can check it off your list" playstyles.
> If you structure your game around grinding for xp, it should not
> then be a surprise when people do so.

Or, perhaps, some people *want* to check it off, and therefore they
grind to get there even though you wanted them to slowly accomplish
the goals and made it difficult to do so for that reason.  Some
people will always want to find a fast way to do things, and they
will grind if grinding is an option.  Grinding isn't "necessary" at
all, it's a choice of the player that they feel pressured to do in
order to keep up with friends or experience new content.

Part of creating a game that will appeal to an acheiver is giving
them acheivements that cannot be robbed from them by other players.
If unlocking content is an acheivement, being able to get to that
content without work is robbing acheivers of their glory.  If you
don't want them to have that as a goal, fine.  But there are
definitely valid reasons for why you would want to limit peoples'
ability to reach an area.  You can give explorers something to do
without giving them unlimited control... hopefully by tossing in a
challenge or two for them to overcome.
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