[MUD-Dev] On grouping, thoughts

[John Buehler]

Douglas Goodall writes:
> Jeff Freeman wrote:

>> There is a basic assumption that newbies ­ true newbies ­ login
>> to the game world for the first time /and they don't have any
>> friends/.

> I think there's an equal assumption that experienced players tend
> to move with their friends. However, players like myself who have
> been playing on-line games as long as a mere decade can find
> friends in almost any game. The on-line gaming community is always
> getting larger, but the internal links are increasing as
> well. I've run into alot of old friends in WoW, even though I
> didn't go to a particular server with a pre-planned group of
> friends. Since I can find (old and new) friends in any game, I'm
> less tied to particular games or to a single "group" of friends.

> One thing I would find very useful, if there was some way to
> ensure it's accuracy, is a "directory" of avatars--the games they
> used to play and where they are playing now. That way, if I wanted
> to find a particular friend or group of friends on-line, I could
> do so more easily than running into them by accident. The scary
> thing is that I probably run into people I've played with alot
> more often, but simply don't recognize them. It's only through
> chance conversation that I recognize many old friends. Someone
> makes an obscure joke about, say, AberMUD and through the
> following conversation I realize that I'm playing with someone I
> first "met" over 10 years ago...

Ignoring the use of the term 'friend' in that context, perhaps it
would be helpful if games would finally stop blurring the line
between 'player' and 'character'.  A registry of players would be
handy for those who like the idea of building a persona in a gaming
community.  Nothing more than a chat handle would be needed.
Standardize on Yahoo, or MSN, or AIM - each of which is a name
registry which is independent of any single multiplayer game
community.  Have community web sites also respect those names and
you've got a semi-formal online gaming community.

The use of such a registry would permit me to develop like/dislike
relationships with players instead of characters.  If there are
character like/dislikes, let them be within the context of a given
game.  My character may like one of your characters and dislike
another, but I like you as a player no matter what.

How many times have you encountered a message in a game asking "Is
Boffo online with any character?", where Boffo is the most prominent
character for a certain player in that game context.  Better, I
think, would be if ChicagoAlex were the person that was being
checked on.  All the usual anonymity stuff could be applied to
player identiites, just as character identities can be masked.  But
when ChicagoAlex makes a post on the Vault Network boards, it's the
same ChicagoAlex who is playing Boffo on Anarchy Online.

Tied in with a chat system, it would facilitate cross-game chat.

  "Hi Alex."

  "Hi Tim.  We're over in Asheron's Call, c'mon down."

  "No way, we're assaulting a keep in Camelot.  YOU come here :)"

  "Okay, but I gotta check with the guild.  Dunno how many want to
  leave what we're doing."

And so on.  Actually, why hasn't anyone interfaced their game with
an existing chat system, or integrated a Trillian type system?
Reliability?  Licensing issues?  Technical issues?

JB
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev