[MUD-Dev] XP as gift (was: Attractive Grouping)

[John Buehler]

Eli Stevens writes:
> John Buehler wrote:

>> I think that such a technique would certainly be a workable
>> mechanism for a certain group of players.  It just happens that
>> those aren't the players that I postulate designs for.  So this
>> is one of those cases where we have similar goals, but use rather
>> different means to reach them.

> I am curious what you see as the defining difference between that
> certain group of players and the ones that you postulate designs
> for. I've followed your posts to the list, so I think I am
> familiar with your general direction; just wondering.  :)

Oh shoot.  I'm not building a product, so the audience is kinda
vague.

The world I live in is full of church-going, right wing conservative
types.  Those are the people I know and care most about.  Those are
the people who serve as my benchmark for good entertainment.  So if
you want a catch phrase, I want to entertain the religious right.
Naturally, I don't actually think of it that way, but for a bunch of
people, it would probably be viewed that way.  And from now on, I'm
sure I'll be pegged that way :)

In the same way that people might have a bridge night or a movie
night, I'd like them to have an MMORPG night.  It's supposed to be a
virtual place to go where they can grab their action figure, trot it
out to the field of combat and battle the bad guys.  It's fun.  It's
paintball with a twist.  It's funny to see my action figure get
knocked into next week by the tree-limb-wielding ogre because it's
almost comical.  It's not me.  It's my action figure.

Maybe it's not an ogre, but instead some weird robotic opponent in a
futuristic setting.

In the same way that a father and son might go hunting deer
together, they could go online and do that hunting there.  But hunt
T. rex instead of deer.  Or instead of building a birdhouse in the
basement, they could help build a cathedral in the virtual, using
all the techniques of the medieval builders.

What does that have to do with the religious right?  I don't want to
suck my friends into addictive or frustrating games.  I found
MMORPGs to be both of those things.  They were occasionally fun, but
mostly addictive and frustrating.  When I visit Disneyworld, I have
fun.  I don't feel frustrated, and I don't have a sense of wanting
to spend my life there.  I just go, enjoy it for what it is, and
leave.

There's also the bent social order of MMORPGs.  Children wielding
more power than adults, and wielding it OVER adults.  That's just
wrong, and it's something that a game with mixed members should
address.  A game for kids should have the kids being entertained in
ways appropriate to kids.  The players that I'd like to attract
would be drawn to that.  I figure there's a vast untapped market of
such people.  Families.

JB
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