[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Douglas Goodall]

Michael Hartman wrote:

> As to the main topic, MMORPGs are hurt if you eliminate travel
> time completely. Huge, painful amounts of travel time are bad. But
> 5 or 10 minutes here or there actually encourage socialization.

> A lot of conversations took place in DAoC while sitting on the
> transport pad or while riding a boat in the Trials of Atlantis.

Anecdotally, I tried the 14 day "come back to Camelot" offer (lots
of great improvements, by the way, just not in the areas that matter
to me such as travel speed). Waiting for a boat did not offend me,
as it took only a minute or two (unlike requiring 2+ people to pilot
a personal boat or waiting 10+ minutes for a spaceship in SWG), but
I never had any conversations on board. I rode the Vision of
Atlantis (or whatever) 6 times. 3 times I was alone. 2 times no one
said anything. 1 time I asked where to buy water breathing potions
and was ignored. I even asked politely. In character. On a roleplay
server. During prime time.

I rarely chatted on a horse in DAoC. I usually went AFK (unless I
had to jump off in the middle of the horse route, which is a whole
'nother realm of complaint). Ditto for the teleport pad. I usually
read a book while waiting for the teleport sound. There were a few
conversations on the teleport pad, mostly game info. "So-and-so
LFG." "Any forts under siege?" "Anyone want a duel?" "Make sure you
have your necklace on." Etc. I can't say I ever witnessed permanent
social bonds being formed.

All my long-term in-game friendships started in a purely social
setting, not during "downtime." All my social ties to games started
with voluntary associations, not forced ones.

I am increasingly unconvinced by the argument that forced idleness
and forced grouping are good for communities. My own experience is
opposite from how it's supposed to work. CoH has almost no forced
teaming or timesinks, but the players are friendly, I can always
find people to chat/team/roleplay with whenever I want, travelling
takes less time than content, and at the end of the first month, I
was looking forward to a long-term subscription. SWG has a
ridiculous degree of forced interaction and timesinks, but the
players were self-absorbed (at best), I spent more time travelling
than on content, I never ran into another roleplayer, never
developed any social ties, wasted about 6 hours watching macro-bot
(or perhaps stoically silent) "players" do interpretive dance, and
didn't outlast the trial period.

Is it a good design to put fast-spawning aggressive mobs in a dance
club in order to force roleplayers to hunt? If not, why is it good
to interrupt achiever gameplay? Is it good to force players to idle
in a single player game? If not, why does every bizarre timesink
receive praise in on-line games? Would our community benefit if
Micheal Moore and Rush Limbaugh had to cooperate on their
"documentaries" and "excellence in broadcasting"? As tempting as
that idea may be, if it does not help the community, why is it good
to force players with even stronger views to interact (or worse:
forcing them not just to interact, but to act, to temporarily adopt
gameplay they dislike)?

I know many developers believe that forced idleness and forced
grouping are good for the community, but what's the evidence for
this? I used to be more tolerant of this belief since the game with
the fewest timesinks (AO) was among the least popular. But the
success of CoH (and "community building" measures damaging AO's
community) has made me question the subscription evidence.

Sometimes I want to level. Sometimes I want to chat. Sometimes I
want to team. Sometimes I want to solo. Sometimes I want to Walk the
Earth. Sometimes I want to test a new skill or reverse-engineer game
formulas. City of Heroes lets me do all these things, but does not
force me to do anything I didn't log on to do. For once, I am
grateful.
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