[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Koster, Raph]

Yannick Jean wrote:
> Quoting Michael Hartman:

>> Down time and travel time are both excellent opportunities for
>> socializing. The importance of this should not be underestimated.

> Tell that to the guy who can only play for 15-30 mins sessions
> here and there...

> Repeating myself here, but it must said again: If you want casual
> players in your game, downtime and travel time as mean of
> encouraging socializatrion must go.

The logic goes like this:

  - some players will socialize as long as they are capable of doing
  so

  - some players will simply "chase the pellet" and not bother to
  pause

  - downtime provides opportunities for socialization for players
  who otherwise might not take the time themselves

    -- corollary: some games may have a fast enough pace that nobody
    has the opportunity within the bounds of the game

  - socialization leads to increased bonds with other players

  - increased bonds with other players leads to greater retention as
  long as those bonds are not overly easily migrated out of the game

There's numerous assertions to attack within that chain of logic, if
you like. For example, it is implied that friendships in FPS games,
which develop almost exclusively on message boards and other
channels external to the game, are very easily migrated from game to
game.

If the chain of logic holds any water at all, though, it must also
be asserted that casual players are unlikely to stick in the first
place. Downtime is indeed a barrier to them. A more interesting
question is whether it is a larger barrier than the fact that they
are less likely to form any ties within the game in the first place
(and ergo, less likely to stick).

It must be noted that the original post from which I extracted that
law was significantly more complex than the reductionist phrase that
is in the Laws. It touches on good forms of downtime and bad forms
of downtime; the fact that downtime is opportunity and that
socialziation requires opportunity; the fact that downtime may occur
in really very small slices and still be viable opportunity...

  http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/socialization.html

-Raph
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