[MUD-Dev] Kaczynski's Law

[cruise]

Freeman, Jeff wrote:

> Quoting once more:

>   "The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut
>   of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone
>   needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs
>   to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth
>   element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for
>   everyone. We call it autonomy..."

I've always used the terms "stability" (anything that is routine,
familiar, or at least predictable) and "novelty" (experimentation,
surprise and risk). Hopefully the parallels are clear.

Everyone needs some of each, but the relative proportions vary widly
for different people - as can be seen quite clearly in
real-life. It's only natural that such diversity is present in
gaming prefrences also.

The recognition of this can be seen in the increasing mixture of
both in games. Morrowind coupled the typical story-centric RPG with
a sandbox world, whereas X2 coupled the typical do-what-you-want
Elite style world with a story.

My own preferences are evident in that I have never completed a
single story mission in Morrowind, despite having the game since
it's release... :P

>   "But most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in
>   working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on
>   their own initiative and must be under their own direction and
>   control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative,
>   direction and control as single individuals. It is usually
>   enough to act as a member of a SMALL group. Thus if half a dozen
>   people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful
>   joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power
>   process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders
>   handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous
>   decision and initiative, then their need for the power process
>   will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on
>   a collective bases if the group making the collective decision
>   is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant."

This is perhaps somewhat unrelated, but I've been wondering recently
whether it would make sense to limit guild sizes. From the
complaints of "uberguilds" swamping everyone (eg. shadowbane) or
simply the headaches from trying to sensibly run a larger guild
(eg. some of the tales of woe on Yee's site), it seems smaller
guilds would lead to better enjoyment all-round. The above passage
only seems to add more reason for this.

I can't really see a reason not to do this, to be honest? Any
contrary thoughts?

> But there are elements of the social profession (autonomy!) that
> more combat-oriented players, playing combat-only professions,
> would enjoy, and need. And conversely there are elements of the
> combat professions (goal, effort, attainment) that are desirable
> and necessary for all players. A player focusing on your social
> (autonomous, sandboxy) profession would miss-out on the
> directed-experience, that sort of gameplay, and would not be as
> satisfied with their experience as they would have been otherwise.

This is perhaps another argument for dropping the old class-based
style of play. I've always found it unnaturally limiting ("you can't
wear this armour because you're a thief"). If players can mix social
skills with combat skills (or any other goal-orientated abilities)
then each player can develop their character to be the perfect mix
of stability and novelty for their tastes.

> This is not to say that people will play an un-fun game so long as
> it satisfies the power-process. Rather, it does suggest that if a
> game fails to satisfy the power-process, it probably won't be fun,
> either.  More likely, it will be boring, tedious, repetitive or
> frustrating: Because it fails to provide goals, the goals are too
> easily attained. Or the goals are too difficult to attain. Or
> because the game doesn't offer the player any freedom or choices
> to make.

Or there are too few goals, and repeating the same ones reduces the
acheivement in completing them. Hence the recent discussion on
fed-ex quests.

--
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]
   "quantam sufficit"
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