[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[Chris Duesing]

John Buehler wrote:

> The goal of a game is to entertain.  It's the reason that when a
> character is killed, it is recovered in some way so that it can be
> used again.  That doesn't match expectations, but it sure is
> entertaining.

I would argue that typical MUD insta reincarnation does not exist
for entertainment purposes, but for psychological ones. If a player
has invested time and energy into a character they do not want to
just 'lose' them.

> By the same metric, I don't believe that it's going to match
> players' desires to atrophy all accumulated skills while only one
> or two are employed.  Because it doesn't match their desires, and
> because there is nothing inherently entertaining about losing
> skills.  A conscious tradeoff?  Sure. But a lack of control over
> which skills are sacrificed? No.

Many of the arguments against skill decay in this thread have made
the assumption that they will be implemented like past systems, even
when the original author gave evidence his system would be more
complex. In my opinion skill decay at a slow rate is fine as long as
there is no overall cap and no tradeoffs of gain a skill here, lose
one there.

> I'm perfectly content in letting a player create the toughest,
> meanest swordsman in the game with the touch of a button (and a
> 7-day waiting period).  After all, he paid his money. He should be
> able to experience all that the game has to offer.  If he wants to
> go up against another perfect warrior, then it'll be a case of
> their skills as players instead of who plays more or who spend
> more money on equipment.

I think the kind of system you envision is more reminiscent of
classic video games rather than the typical MUD/MMO genre. Not that
there is anything wrong with that, but I am guessing most of the
posters here are making some basic assumptions about the kind of
games they are hypothesizing. Skills, classes and levels are all
just dressings on a system that is more of a reality replacement
than it is an entertaining escape. It is a somewhat subtle
distinction, but think long term interactive experience where you
develop a bond with an avatar you create in a virtual world, rather
than something you do to kill some time and have fun. By exposing a
player to all of your content right off the bat you are robbing them
of the long term character building experience. I am not saying
someone would not get attached to their character in your system,
simply that in most MUDs it is all about working to perfect your
creation. Hence there being no way to 'win' in a MUD, it is about
the journey rather than the destination. I think the heart of this
whole thread is how to make that experience feel even more like real
life, where we do not have little messages pop up in our field of
vision when we learn something new and we do not have hard limits on
how much we can learn.

> The compulsion aspect might be natural for a lot of gamers today.
> I choose to try to eliminate it.  I want players to come back and
> play my game because they enjoy it, not because they're afraid
> they'll lose the race to get their skills up.

This is an unfortunate, but probably somewhat unavoidable side
effect of any system with advancement. People will naturally compete
to advance more quickly than others. It is yet another means to
judge their progress. This happens in real life all of the time. I
would love to see a game where people could advance simply for the
pleasure of doing so, but I suspect they would have to be
reprogrammed in real life rather than in the game.

> How would you tackle magical spells?  Or are you relying on the
> fact that players already expect to have to learn the "magic
> system" as they do in other games?

I agree that any system that is complicated to learn can be a
barrier, but if the UI is good enough and the system intuitive
enough then the learning process can be part of the fun.

> Well, kinda sorta.  The atrophy process isn't how stuff works in
> real life.  Once we learn something and then stop using it, we get
> rusty, but the ability doesn't fade.  The next time we approach
> the skill, we recover the expertise very rapidly.

I agree, but you are assuiming the original poster wont implement it
this way. Nothing to say we cant make 'relearning' a skill much
easier.

Chris
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