[MUD-Dev] Better Combat

[Michael Hartman]

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...

For the love of god. How much more narrowly are we going to define
casual play?

Another few months and "casual play" will be someone who can only
login for 30 seconds.

15 minutes???????? If someone can only play games 15 minutes at a
time, they need to buy a GameBoy Advance.

I really do not think casual play is defined as someone who can only
play 15-30 minutes. I think it is more a matter of the total number
of hours per week they can play, while still playing at least 1 or 2
hours in a session.

> 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.

If socialization goes, then there's no longer any point to it being
an MMORPG.

As both a developer and a player, I think game created "dead time"
where the players' hands are free enough to chat is absolutely
vital. If you don't have this, the game will take on a go-go-go-go
feeling and you'll have virtually zero socialization.

CoH is a perfect example of this. It is the quietest most dead
feeling MMORPG I've ever played. Groups are silent. Areas are
silent. There's no time to chat because you never have to rest (not
even for a minute) and what little travel there is requires complete
interaction from the player (instead of like other games, where
everyone /sticks to the leader and thus everyone but the leader can
easily chat).  The end result is that CoH feels like Diablo 2 to
me. It plays like a single player game with some multiplayer co-op
options.

But to return to the general rather than the specific, players
should never be trusted by developers as an absolute source of
accurate feedback. Players will frequently ask for things that will
actually make for a worse game. That is why players play and
developers develop.
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