[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[Amanda Walker]

On Apr 22, 2004, at 8:42 AM, Threshold RPG wrote:

> Level based systems certainly have plenty of real life
> analogues. Ranks in the military are very much like "levels." The
> same goes for hierarchies in the workplace, school, sports teams,
> etc.

Indeed.  And one of the factors, I think, that plays into
"levelling" discussions on both "for" and "against" sides is that
the level hierarchy in a game is not correlated with any other
hierarchies the player may belong to in other contexts.

For example, people arguing both for and against "buying levels" are
often arguing based on hierarchy membership: "I have money--that
should mean something" vs. "I don't have money--that shouldn't mean
anything." Also its converse: "I have time--that should mean
something" vs. "I don't have time--that shouldn't mean anything".
People who are used to getting leverage out of money, status, age,
etc. have reasonable expectations of doing so with gaming
companies--business is business, after all.  Often the people who
are most adamant that "RL advantages have no place in the game" are
the ones most hung up on keeping score in the game.

I find it interesting that on many issues, people on *all* sides
view themselves as arguing for increased fairness.  They just have
very differing views of what constitutes "fair" in context.

Amanda Walker
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