[MUD-Dev] Long-Term Rewards [was: Better Combat]

[cruise]

John Buehler wrote:

> Try removing cumulative rewards.

I more or less agree with most of what you said, but this I
don't. If you're writing a persistant online game, not having
long-term goals seems rather self-defeating.

> Only short-term rewards exist as a result.  And I don't mean
> long-term rewards that erode.  I mean only short-term rewards
> exist.  Win a race?  Cool.  You won a race.  There isn't a ladder
> based on how many races you've won, so the game doesn't inherently
> encourage such treadmill behavior.

I'd go so far as to say it doesn't encourage any kind of behaviour
much at all :P If it makes no difference that you won that race,
then why bother winning it?  Part of the appeal of MMOG's is
undeniably the escapism, the chance to be powerful and famous when
you can't be in real life. Taking that away, so that no matter what
you do you're still just another prole, seems decidedly
unattractive.

> By eliminating cumulative rewards, players start to look at the
> entertainment itself.  If they don't find it entertaining, they
> move on - business suicide.  Because it's difficult to come up
> with basic entertainment, but it's easy to construct a treadmill
> for a particular type of player, game developers build treadmills.

But by eliminating the cumulative rewards, they may as well be
playing a single-player game, for the most part. While, yes, the
level-grind, trying-to-keep-up-with-everyone-else style gameplay is
problematic, having some way to compare yourself, and be /better/
than others, is also a huge part of the draw. Take away these
bragging rights and I think you'll use a lot of your players. No
matter how good the actual game is.

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