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

[Mike Rozak]

Here's a different way to look at the experience issue... What is
the design reason to have XP in the first place?

XP has some interesting properties: It's a...

  - A resource that cannot be farmed by macros. (Yes, XP is a
  resource, just like money or iron ore.) Combat, at least for now,
  cannot be played by a macro. I doubt any game hands out general XP
  for something that is macroable.

  - A resource that cannot be readily aquired through
  walkthroughs. (Which is why adventure-game style puzzles in a
  MMORPG can't give out XP (or any other resource) without also
  including lots of combat, because those craving XP would use the
  walkthroughs).

    (Although, I'd submit that if players have a desire to use
    macros to play parts of your game, those parts of your game
    aren't very much fun. I don't see many people using macros to
    watch a movie or read a book for them...)

XP exists to:

  - Provide players with a metric for how well they are doing. This
  includes a sense of accomplishment.

  - Provide players with a resource they can use to "level up" in
  skills or class levels, your choice. See below...

  - Etc. (Add items as you see fit.)

Skills and class levels provide:

  - A metric, again. This includes a sense of accomplishment.

  - A way for the designer to prevent the player from using all the
  content up at once. (IE: You can't go on this quest until you're
  level 100, and you'll have to spend 12 months killing monsters to
  get to that point.)

  - A way for the designer to introduce new physics. This, in turn,
  allows the game's activities to change over time. (When you get to
  level 5 you get to use a fireball spell. When you get to level 10
  you can use the "teleportation" physics.)

  - Etc. (Add items as you see fit.)

Once you have the reasons for XP to exist, you can look for
solutions that fulfill essentially the same design goals, but which
aren't XP.

Not all face-to-face RPG award XP for killing monsters. GURPS
awarded XP for role playing. I think it was 2 XP per session for
most people, 1 if you did a lousy job role playing, or 3 if you did
a good job. Or at least that's what my gaming group did. XP was used
as a tool to encourage role playing EVEN when role playing was
disadvantageous to the character's health and well being. Good role
playing made the game more fun. Killing 10K orcs in a session did
not, and the little bit of combat that existed was fun in
itself. I'm not saying that you have to tie XP to role playing in
your VW, just that there are other solutions.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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