[MUD-Dev] Re: MMO Communities

[Randolf Richardson]

[I'm mostly a casual reader of this mailing list...]

olag at ifi.uio.no wrote:
> "Michael Sellers" <mike at onlinealchemy.com> writes:

>> Raph can certainly speak for himself, but I suspect that his
>> empirically founded argument will point out that you're talking
>> relative numbers: for every one person you alienate with a
>> requirement for cooperative team play, you retain some multiple
>> number of people who really like it and are more likely to stick
>> around because of it.

> Hm. Not sure why you want to require cooperative team play. I am
> not at all certain that intrusive designs is what most casual
> players

I agree that requiring this is only going to be attractive to a
smaller audience.  A better solution might be to support both team
and non-team oriented play at the same time.

One game I looked at recently for a relative's young daughter (she's
9 years old) to play is called FairyLand, and it has a feature to me
which seems unattractive (but the young girls seem to really like
it) is that every player raises pets.  The pet becomes an essential
part of the game later on, and so players who just want to play and
not have to worry about feeding and caring for their pets (like me)
find that the game wastes a lot of time this way.  As a result, I
don't have a character in the game and was content just watching my
relative play for 15~20 minutes.

FairyLand is a good example of a game that focuses on a specific
market (in this case, those who like to raise and care for pets in a
virtual world).

> would crave for. The better solution is to design the reward
> systems so that solo-play is a valid activity while looking for
> interesting people to team up with and make substantial pay-offs
> for teaming up (40% more XP for all, or something similar).

Actually, I think 40% is rather high and could create an unfair
balance from the perspective of those who don't participate in team
playing at all [no matter what their reason(s)] -- it almost seems
like casual players who wish to increase their levels quickly still
have to get involved in team playing to keep up, and that could be
discouraging to such a player.

I also wouldn't be suprised if casual players began building teams
with the sole intention of gaining these experience points and then
disbanding the team once they no longer needed it, thus the team
system is sort of being circumvented and not being used for what was
obviously intended -- true team playing between players who really
want to participate in a game in this way (at least I'm assuming
that's why someone would go to all the trouble of setting up a team-
based environment).

I think that if teams are going to be implemented, there should be
alternative non-team options for those who prefer to proceed as
"independents."  Obviously some things will only be possible to
experience as a team, and that's okay because many players probably
don't experience every aspect of a virtual world anyway, but a good
game in my opinion will have enough variety to make it more
interesting for many different types of players.  From a business
perspective this is probably better for maintaining a larger overall
player base anyway.

> This is way different from people waiting for a team to assemble,
> which I suspect most casual players would find annoying. Remember
> there are two types of hobbyists: casual dablers and serious
> competitors. MUDs tend to favour the latter group, but most
> players, even on a golf course probably belong to the
> former... You should be allowed to have fun with your golf-club
> without being dependant on other players.

I think the 3D games are more likely attract both types these days
(depending on their implementation of course), but I'd certainly
agree with you regarding the text-based MUDs, and possibly the 2D
tiled systems as well.

Randolf Richardson - rr at 8x.ca
Inter-Corporate Computer & Network Services, Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
http://www.8x.ca/

"Growing old is mandatory, growing wise is optional."
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