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

[P J]

Mike Rozak <Mike at mxac.com.au> wrote:

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

> first place?

Been following this discussion and it's provided a very good look at
the reasons dev's still use the level/skillup system.  Milestones
are important to players, but everything suggested so far has been a
very linear 'gain power' approach. I'd love to see the xp point
really and truly removed.

Please be gentle, this is my first attempt at contributing here.

What if you looked at it from a more natural organic viewpoint?

One part about being a newbie is that you are a child, your skills
and powers aren't complete yet.  Personally, I've always looked at
the 'skill gain' portion of a game as what I have to go thru to 'get
to the game', as such -- while I'm not a powergamer -- I do
powergame thru that portion of the process, and it's not much fun to
me personally.

What happens if you either had a singleplayer portion of the game --
the 'tutorial' that stepped people thru what they needed to know on
game mechanics and world rules and then introduced them full grown
into the multiplayer environment?

I'll grant a lot of players will find this concept foreign, they are
looking for the 'game' in the game.  The game at the point becomes
what you give them to do and the community that they form. All
players eventually get to this point anyway.  Once
skillgain/leveling is out of the way, many players have focused so
much on that AS the game they are at a loss.  IMO, in the long run,
that does more harm than good to developing long running goals and
continued interest.

Another organic element that has always been missing is aging and
eventual retirement or death.  This would very handily replace the
milestones that you lose in the xp grind.  You are born with X
number of life credits and activities, injury and time eventually
whittle that down so you aren't as effective.  Look at it as a
backwards instead of a forwards counter.  You are born, you have so
much time to accomplish great deeds, and then you retire or could
die if you participated in very risky events.  While I'd make great
death possible in heroic circumstances, it wouldn't be something
that could just happen without the player specifically volunteering
for the risk. If training other skills took life credits you could
virtually allow anyone to do anything but they simply don't have
enough 'time' to do everything and still be effective.

The most common problem with permadeath is -- 'Well, I don't want to
play my character for 9 months and DIE!... That's absolutely a
problem, but using another natural and organic mechanism this can
actually be used to advantage.

One of the chief complaints MMO players have -- it's nearly
impossible to make any kind of mark on the world.  If during the
player's lifetime they have children, which they pay to have
trained, raised, clothed -- yadda yadda yadda -- not only are they
an immediate set of goals -- but also long-term, never ending goals.
Players could have families, one of which would be their next
playable character.  If the rest went into local pools from which
NPCs in an area are drawn -- you then have mechanisms of influence
over an area. Personal factions which are inherited are possible and
you have multigenerational goals instead of first person immortal
player goals which always eventually end.

Guilds are good but the primary social unit of humanity is
family. Guilds, religion and national affiliations all come
secondary but should not be ignored. The 'other' is very important
in MMOs, family introduces another 'other'. Twinking is a natural
human impulse that has no 'good' outlet (from balance standpoints)
at the moment -- but would not only be accepted but encouraged under
this system.

If the playing character is head of a family, while I wouldn't
recommend letting them play the auxiliary family members directly --
I would let them have a great deal of influence on them when they
popped up in the world as selected townsfolk.

There are infinite possibilities for family reputation, family
influence, family wealth as counters once a system such as this is
established.  This would put away all the 'grind' that many players
find tedious and focus on the world.

If families share reputations and these are tracked by account, it's
also a way to put teeth into player justice and discourage griefing.
Player justice cannot work unless the player actually has sufficient
recourse to the offender. Reputation and family factions are active
and tracked by account -- not just player character so what you do
DOES matter and it affects the world directly. Someone being a real
putz would soon find that he cannot buy bread or armor or weapons in
an area because none of the child NPCs serving duty as shopkeeps
will deal with him. The guards would be hostile and the healers
won't heal him. His grandchildren might be able to migrate back to
the area -- but only if they've changed their ways.  Someone being
enough of an arse might find that their children all changed their
name and fled home to escape the shame and won't deal with him
either. While an extreme case -- they've effectively banned
themselves by their own actions.

It's been my personal opinion for quite a few years that as long as
the immortal viewpoint is used, MMOs won't progress to their true
form and potential and that a large percentage of the problems
players have with them just won't be solvable.

If the pressure to constantly balance and rebalance “power' is
removed, wouldn't that free up a heck of a lot of time for content
and expansion of the actual world? If you aren't constantly fighting
the battles of tacking on power goals to retain players, wouldn't
that free up creativity to develop 'fun' goals that aren't as likely
to create the mudflation and elder gentrification problems, painting
yourself into a corner?
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev