FW: [MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Study of MMORPG/MUD friendliness

[Vincent Archer]

According to Lisa Galarneau:

> Speaking as a player here, I would argue that UI makes a huge
> difference.  CoH's team seek and find member functions are so
> simple and well-integrated that the temptation to use them is
> tremendous.  Having to broadcast LFG on a chat channel (even a
> dedicated one like WoW) is messy, annoying to listen to, and easy
> to miss.  And in SWG, I find that

Seconded.

The LFG tool for Everquest was simple and easy. The LFP (looking for
players) for groups wasn't quite right, and never used.

It suffered from two major handicaps: it came after 4 years of game
without a LFG tool, and it required an expansion pack: if you didn't
have Legacy of Ykesha enabled, you could not bring the LFG panel,
and had to plod thru endless lines of "/who lfg 65" that were
truncated when they got too large.

What doomed it was really the 3+ years of habits from players who
were used to go to places and /ooc (and not /shout, because /ooc was
in green and thus softer color - people hated /shout's red text).


My own idea is to stop having a LFG tool, and have a SFP tool. SFP
stands for "Searching For Players" that is completely unified. In
this day and age of internet search engines, people are used to plug
a couple criteria, and be presented with a list of possibilities,
from "best" to "worst".

So a SFP tool wouldn't list people, it would search them, and sort
them for suitability for your purpose.

Take a look at a World of Warcraft. A SFP-enabled WoW would have a
proheminent button "LFG" (because people are used to call it LFG),
which would open a small window. The window offers you the following
areas:

  - I can play for (choose one)
    [ ] Less than an hour
    [ ] An hour to one and a half
    [ ] 90mn to 2 hours
    [ ] 2 to 3 hours
    [ ] Over 3 hours
    [ ] A very long time
  - I prefer (check all that apply)
    [ ] Outdoors
    [ ] Dungeons
    [ ] Instanced dungeons
  - I'm looking to (check all that apply)
    [ ] XP
    [ ] Explore
    [ ] Advance my quests
    [ ] Help quests
    [ ] Cash and items
    [ ] PvP
    [ ] Raid

The first can be pre-filled by the game client. After all, the game
client can have stats about how long on average you play, and find
out that you play 138mn on the average, and you've already been
online for 34 of them, so third choice looks the best. The other
rubriques can be prefilled from your last choices.

With that, the game can simply score all the LFG players. Better
match if the time to play coincides. Better match if you prefer the
same settings. If you're looking to advance quests, each quest in
common in your log increases the score. Want to explore? The more
areas not displayed on both your maps, the bigger the bonus.

You can also add minor bonuses ("player is in the same guild? +X"
"player is on your ignore list? -Much").

You also give bonuses to people of different classes. You're a
warrior, the LFG tool will rank higher healers and DPS classes than
another tank.

Minor points also to distance (the healer in Westfall will rank much
lower than the one in Loch Modan)

But the goal of the list is to rank high all the people who are
looking to play like you are, and will fit well: same play time,
same objectives, close levels, classes that complement.

If you're already building a group, the matching can even take into
account the current group members instead of merely the leader's
preference.

That's a lot more expensive, CPU-wise, than merely a list of binary
"LFG" flagged people with a simple level exclusion criteria. After
all, that type of LFG makes people do the scoring above by hand,
once they've sent a message to the player to ask them for their
preferences (or usually, to propose them some goals).

--
	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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