[MUD-Dev] Attractive Grouping (Was: Focus vs. Scope)

[Hulbert, Leland]

I've been wondering about a new experience point system, based on
"experiences."  A system where each person receives points for doing
something new.  Killing an orc gives you XP.  Killing another
doesn't, because it's not new.  Maybe killing an orc with a sword
will give you XP, and you can get more by killing an orc with a
club.  Depends on how low level you want to go...but...  Entering
the Ghostly Forest for the first time would give you XP.  Or the
Deadly Tombs.  Perhaps other events, like seeing a sunrise from the
top of Mount Doom. Or sailing the coast of the Pirate Isles.  Each
piece of XP becomes itself a mini-quest.  XP becomes not a measure
of how long you've played the game, or how many times you've
clicked; but instead a measure of how much of the content you've
actually used.

Couple this idea with a group reward.  Maybe you get an XP bonus if
you are grouped with someone else who is getting XP.  If killing
your first orc nets you 100 XP, maybe you get 10 for being grouped
with a guy who just killed HIS first orc.  If the sunrise on Mount
Doom is worth 2000 XP, maybe you can bump it to 4000 by taking a
group of 10 first timers to the top and spending the night
waiting. This also gives a de-facto bonus for newbie helping.

You could even track XP at the account level, instead of the
character level.  Joe the barbarian may have killed every monster
there is, and reached an XP plateau.  But Joe the Wizard hasn't even
started on casting all the spells that are out there, so there's XP
to be had.

You'd have to somehow de-couple the XP from combat prowess.  Maybe
having different buckets for different types of experience.  Orc
killing is combat XP, sunrises are art XP, and spell casting is
magic XP.  I don't know.  The implementation seems difficult to me,
and I have no idea how to do it well.  But the promise of the system
in variety and usefulness for something other than combat seems
worth the trouble of figuring it out.
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