[MUD-Dev] Removing the almighty experience point...

[Vincent Archer]

According to zgj22 at drexel.edu:
> Quoth Devin Smoth on Wednesday, September 15, 2004 11:22 PM:

>> Wow, this is revolutionary. I was wondering about the same thing,
>> but I have never actually put it into words, even in my own
>> head. Was there some way to encourage people to get out of the
>> easy arena and make them want to go and complete high quests etc?
>> This is a fantastic way to do that.

> It does seem to tie in to a few of the other threads running right
> now in the list. (Creating a Player Narritive)

Yeah.

It is relatively impossible, in the context of a MMO, to have
"epicness". You can't have 1000 people save the world.

It is, however, possible to get "heroism". You can't brag about how
you saved the realm ("yeah, and so did I"). You can brag about you
saved your group from the brink of defeat, placing a root spell
which lasted just long enough to allow your priest to regenerate
enough mana to heal the warrior, to...

Usually, the game penalises those hairy situations. Hairy situations
require long recovery times, whether or not you fail or win. With
interchangeable XP, it's far more rewarding to keep on killing easy
stuff with the lowest downtime, rather than attempt things that are
difficult.

If the game recognises feats, and rewards these, then the player is
encouraged to attempt feats, and, when he succeeds, feel heroic.

You don't even need a skinnerian "ding" sound to announce a reward :
the player knows indeed he has earned a reward.

> At that point, however, it may be in your best interests to move
> away from leveling at all, towards more of a skill-based
> system. That way, you could remove the grind entirely. If I were

Level is a good measure of player achievment. It's far easier, for
players, to get a good idea of what a player can do, to look at a
global metric, and see "Soandso is a level 30 warrior, so he can
come with our group because we're going into a level 30 area" rather
than asking "hmm, you got what talents? 10th defense?  and 7th
parry... do you think you can tackle Big Worgs in the North Wilds?"

This is a problem with Everquest right now, for example. In year
2000, you could look at a level 60 player, and expect more or less
the same capacities from another equally skilled level 60 of the
same class. Today, the disparity between the level 65 (soon to be
70) player with 200 days of /played in a raid guild and the level 65
player with 30 days of /played and bazaar-brought stuff is enormous.

We're talking double the amount of hit points, for example.  As a
cleric, I couldn't take a random level 65 warrior, and know how well
he would fare against a mini boss in Bastion of Thunder. I had to
see what happened in easier fights, and try to adjust, if
possible. Looking at the level of the warrior isn't enough to give
me an opinion on what he can fight.

The axis of progress in game has moved steadily away from the level,
and further into the realm of abilities (AA) and equipment.  Right
now, the best way to gauge what a character can do is...  to look at
his guild tag.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)
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