[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies -No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[Richard A. Bartle]

On 5th November, 2004, Ola Fosheim Grostad wrote:

> I think what is missing here is that MMOs hardly seems to be
> designed for newbies at all.

I wasn't saying they were designed FOR newbies; I was saying they
were being designed BY newbies. Basically, newbies introduce market
pressures that promote poor game design to the disadvantage of
exlcusively good game design.

> I am not sure if it is wise to dismiss their a priori preferences
> as irrelevant.

Just as well I didn't, then.

>>  Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major
>>  feature they don't like.

> I don't think this holds. They might be less inclined to play a
> virtual world that has a major feature that affects them
> negatively, but that is not the same thing.

It was a soapbox column, not an academic paper.  That said, I think
I say the same thing in the academic version..!

It's a general point, though, summarising the situation I'd already
explained. Like all general points, it's basically true but you
should read what it summarised if you want to quibble with the
details.

>>  Players spend considerably less time in their second virtual
>>  world than they do in their first. Why is this?

> Possible explanations:

>  1. there were more attractive worlds to choose from at that point
>  in time so they left earlier.

This has been the case right from the beginning. People who played
SHADES who switched to GODS spent less time in GODS than people who
played GODS fromt the start (and voce versa).

>  2. they had more skills when playing their second one.

This is possible if the games are sufficiently similar, although the
degree of difference in time spent on later games is quite a lot
more than I'd expect if that were the only explanation.

>>  They will demand that features from their first world be added
>>  to their current world, even if those very features were partly
>>  responsible for why they left the first

> Are you sure they do?

Yes, I'm sure. When AOL closed down NWN, its players flocked to M59
and demanded the inclusion of every NWN feature they could
remember. It happens a lot with text MUDs, too.

> are you really sure that all players who have played EQ demand
> their next game to be EQ? That is not my experience.

They don't demand it to be EQ, but what they do demand is coloured
by their EQ experience such that the closer it is to being EQ (while
remaining visibly not-EQ) then the happier they'll be.

>>  Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are
>>  good.

> Often because they are good, for them. :-)

Yes, but some are only good in the short term.

> This makes no sense to me...  Where are these games that don't
> loose players?

It's not that they don't lose players; it's that they don't lose
players to other virtual worlds. The player bases of the
Simutronics, Skotos and Iron Realms text-based worlds don't leave in
frustration at poor gameplay; they do leave, but usually for
real-world reasons.

> The idea that PD in general promotes role-play is rather suspect.

Why do you think that?

> Game mechanics of raid-type activities can benefit greatly from
> instancing. Instancing can be done in a non-intrusive way.

I don't care about the intrusiveness so much as I care about the
antisocialness.

>>  The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore.

> And the MMO market isn't?

No, it isn't.

> Considering that it is near impossible to play a MMO wihout being
> hardcore that seems a bid odd.

Well if you want to say that newbies are hardcore, I guess I can't
argue with that.

> Game designers copies features from the biggest successes, so do
> MMO designers. Where is the core difference here?

They don't copy the features that cause the success, they just copy
the features.

> Get over it. If there was a market that was easy to address then
> people would go over board to play single user text adventure
> games too.

Maybe 50 years from now that's exactly what they'll be doing.  I
doubt it, but who knows?

Richard
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