[MUD-Dev] Community? (Level Grind)

[Malcolm W. Tester II]

Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:

> You make an interesting point, but are these even the same
> audiences? Do people who like hairy great RPGs or beautifully
> finessed control systems (Prince of Persia), really like to play
> Tetris, Solitaire & Civ ad-infinitum. To me your examples ring of
> 'non-gamers games'. Good luck getting them locked into your MMO!

Speaking as a pure gamer: I love text muds with quests first and
foremost.  The better the quest (and by this I mean grammar,
thoughtfulness, planning, creativity...grammar being maybe the most
important), the better I love the mud.  If the quest is one person
only, great!  I can spend some time, get equipped if needed, and go
to it.  If the quest is multi-player, then I am less thrilled
because I am depending on others to step up, and that doesn't always
work out as nicely.  Offline games like the old Final Fantasy,
Dragon Warrior, Zelda, etc, are on my list of favorites as well.
These games can be repetitious...you still have to kill for exp, go
through this seemingly endless loop sometimes of killing and
leveling....in the same respect, I love games like Civ II, Test of
Time (which introduced the fantasy and sci-fi elements), Alpha
Centauri, and other Sid Meier games, along with Solitaire and Free
Cell.  These games also have a certain repetitious aspect to them
(gaining techs, improving things, gaining more techs, etc) as well.
So I am one example of a person who loves both.  However, the caveat
is that I also do not play enough (anymore) to warrant a monthly
subscription for an online game, and I don't care to play graphical
muds.  (I did enjoy Baldur's gate I/II, Diablo I/II, etc immensely
though).

Perhaps the repetition that is in common with both types of games is
what is appealing, as paradoxical as that seems.  We all hate
repetition, but that is what keeps people around.  It's why Matt
Mihaly and others are working on their 5th or 7th character in CoH.
It's why people continue to thrive on the same killing grounds in
thousands of text/graphical muds everywhere.  For me, also, I can't
stand it when I can't seem to solve puzzle number 38267494823 in
Free Cell and so I have to do it again.  And again.  And again.
Until I solve it.  Solomon's Key was another great puzzle game on
the old NES.  I can name a hundred games on various consoles I used
to play and loved to play and still would play if I had time.  But
the one thing they all have in common other than solving things, is
repetition.  We may not love it, but it certainly is a factor of
equivalency in games.

But, perhaps I'm just redundant.

--Malc Malc
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