[MUD-Dev] DGN: Mudflation as antibody of a "stain development"

[HRose]

This is something I wrote on my website. I just decide to "expose"
it here so that it won't get engulfed with all the rest I write. As
always I'm glad if it gets read and considered and the questions
answered in the case it's considered interesting. If not let it rest
here in peace :)

Sorry also if I begin from far away, but I was trying to explain my
approach and, after that, the reasoning goes in a general sense that
can be applied to the whole genre.

--__--

As an observer in this industry my duty is to analyze what happens
from a personal point of view, that is equal to my sensibility and
limited knowledge, and underline the tendencies. So that I'm able to
anticipate if something is supposed to go in a good or wrong
direction. This is the direct reason why I often play to foresee the
future and predict how things will go. Peoples usually mock me
(rightfully) at this point. In most of the cases what I repeat is
glaring obvious as predicting that the sun will rise the next
day. Now the point is that I'm still an observer, till the game
companies will keep doing obvious mistakes I'll have to keep
predicting the obvious.

The fact that "the servers will crash" isn't obvious till I won't
see the problems addressed at best. So I'll keep underline it. How
am I supposed to know what is "at best"? It's simple. In the case of
World of Warcraft I preached since August that their choice to
divide the servers by timezones would make the overcrowding problems
more serious. This problem isn't trivial as it seems, there are a
large number of implications. What was the result? The result was
that what I predicted was ignored till Blizzard got swamped in the
problem and had to start to suggest the players to log in servers
that do not correspond to their timezone and relative peak times,
disrupting directly their plan and even a few important design
implications, like the 24h clock, GM support and scheduled
downtimes. A couple of weeks later they released an emergency patch
to remove from the UI the timezones.

Again, it was obvious. Again, it was ignored. Now let's move on. The
game is now released and we hit another prediction I made. Blizzard
is not correctly prepared to sustain the scope of this project. They
somewhat admitted it and I don't have the knowledge to judge if what
they are doing is the best possible or if they are committing errors
in the process. But I can still observe the game and understand what
it needs. The direction that will help it to improve and not just
decline as all mmorpgs are supposed to with the passing of time.

Maybe, they aren't committed enough to this game. Maybe they are
moving the focus on other projects, leaving only a small, not
adequate, team on this one. The reasons and the choices depend on
elements that I don't know and I cannot control so the best I can do
is to point out a doubt and the reasons of this doubt. And I move
forward of another step.

This another step is about a "direction". The game needs work. As I
often state the release is just the beginning for a mmorpg, the real
development and challenge (with yourself, not with the competition)
start now. But what is the best direction to move to? What will
damage the game? What will improve it? These are the topics of this
new step. Peoples everywhere claim for "content" but this path isn't
that obvious. I believe that one of the worst things that may happen
to World of Warcraft is a rise of the level cap. If everyone reaches
level 60 and starts to whine because they reached an endgame that
sounds like a "game over", the most direct solution is to push
forward the finishing line. Let's move the cap to level 70 or more.

This is a common process that can be assimilated to the concept of
"mudflation". The keypoint here is that the term defines in
particular those games that are generally considered
"content-intensive", EverQuest for example. You aren't supposed to
complain about the lack of content in a world like EverQuest but the
fact is that, concretely, the lack of content is its main
problem. And here I said once again an heresy. The reason comes
exactly from the meaning of the world "mudflation". Its meaning is
about an "erosion" of content. The mudflation is an active process
*on the content*. It means that the elements in a game are replaced
and made obsolete by something new. It's true that *apparently*
there's load of content, but this content is actively eroded and
forgotten.

Why does this process exist? Because it's a recursive process. You
cannot stretch too much the treadmills or you shatter the
community. If the whole development is about adding terrain for the
treadmill, it will become increasing hard for the new players to
join the game and integrate themselves. The space between the first
levels and the last increases exponentially representing an unending
ladder to climb just so that you are supposed to join your friends
and their activities. These treadmills are barriers between the
players. They do not work by definition because they break the
accessibility and uncover the true, emptied nature of the model. The
mudflation is a process that exists to solve this situation. The
mudflation is a positive "antibody" developed directly by the game
itself to survive. It's the only way for the game to remain
cohesive, to not finish fragmented into too many pieces.

So there are two elements to consider here. The first is that the
mudflation is a direct, positive consequence to fight back a process
that was started "outside". It's an auto-defence of the game. It's
"wrong" only because it is reacting to a damage from the
outside. The players still need a communal ground where to
meet. Communal goals to achieve. Too much content would actively
shatter this. Spreading all the players everywhere without them
joining to reach their objectives. This would produce a dispersion,
a desert. The mudflation is the consequence of a *problem*. This is
the second point to consider. The problem is elsewhere, in a broken
model of development. To excuse this development only new goals to
achieve are added. These goals, to be considered worthy, need to
become bigger rewards. The development model here is the one of a
stain. The original release of a game is the center, then the
developers keep adding stuff (areas, monsters, items) around it,
like a stain that is slowly enlarging.

The mudflation is an antibody to this model. It's an attempt to keep
everything together. The erosion of content is needed to sustain the
expansion. An expansion that isn't mirrored by the expansion of a
server. The players become just drifting ships on this stain. The
more the time passes the more the ships will crowd the borders of
the stain (the end-levels). As new content is released the stain
will expand again and the ships blocked on the border will drift
once again till the new border. This while the center is
exsiccating. Noone looks the center anymore. Even if the center is
the game. The center is the heart and, still, it's ignored because
all the ships are on the border, not anymore in the center.

Soon this heart will die but noone can see this because there are
still the boys surfing on the borders. Where the game seems still
full of life. The mudflation is a desperate attempt to counterattack
this unexcused expansion process. To keep its heart alive this
growing stain tries to cut away what it can. The less important
parts are abandoned so that the life sources can still be focused
elsewhere and sustain the unending, pointless and foolish
enlargement.

At the end the moral is that this cannot be an optimal
process. There must be something better. The games modeled on a
stain give only the illusion of content because the truth is that
they are kept alive thanks to the mudflation. The truth is that the
erosion, so the loss of content, is the reason why they still
survive. This rings a bell? How it is possible that an old game can
only survive by a loss of content when that content is supposed to
be its main strength? How it's possible that this loss underlines a
quality (and probably the only one they have)?

Those are the questions that is useful to answer. If they will
remain unanswered the unacceptable and inexplicable destiny of these
games will remain the same: die of age.

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