[MUD-Dev] Homogeneity and choice (Was DESIGN: Why do people likeweather in MMORPGs?)

[Damion Schubert]

Mike Rozak wrote:

> Weather turns into a topic about artistic freedom/license... Do I
> create weather effects that I would like to experience and tell
> those players who don't like it to go elsewhere? Or do I cater to
> the masses and have weatherless weather? Or someplace in-between?
> (This topic has undoubtedly been discussed to death.)

The key to the issue to is to quite simply, ensure that you know
what your players find fun and/or challenging and to be sure that
you're not 'ant farming'.  Ant Farming is a term I throw around any
time someone designs a feature that is more interesting for
designers to observe than players to play.  The democracy of the
market will always ensure that players will reject the ant farm game
for the one that's more fun.

> While I don't know which side of the fence I fall on with respenct
> to the mountain-pass scenario, the snow-covered pass raises issues
> that I dislike about some of the MMORPGs I've played: (Which I
> plan to rectify in my world(s).)

>   1) Homogeneity - In a MMORPG, one point in space is pretty much
>   the same as any other point in space, other than differently
>   shaped trees or differently shaped monsters. The same can be
>   said for time, where day = night, except that night is a shade
>   darker. Or of races, and often of classes. Homogenaity is
>   further bolstered by instantaneous world-wide chat, world-wide
>   teleportation, and world-wide item markets.

>   Taking homogeneity to extremes produces a world with instant
>   teleportation anywhere, being able to talk to anyone any time
>   you want, etc. It's a 0-sized world, which isn't a world. It's
>   more of a Yahoo Games website where users get to choose which
>   monster they want to fight and when, or which mineral they want
>   to mine now, of who they wish to talk to at any particular
>   moment, etc.

Incidentally, I agree with this one hundred percent.  The flip side
of it is, of course, players have a limited patience with being
-between- moments of fun.  The journey is only the reward the first
time you go someplace.  After that, it's tedium.

>   Potentially contentious issue: I see a virtual world as a
>   platform upon which sub-games (like combat, spaceship flying,
>   crafting, or chat) are based. Yahoo games is the same thing,
>   except that it has no spatial component. The less "spatial" a
>   MMORPG is, the more it competes against Yahoo Games or any of
>   the other zillions of free web-games...

>   I feel that space and time should subtly (or obviously) change
>   the behavior of each sub-game. If I engage in combat on an ice
>   field, my character should be more likely to fall (unless he's
>   very dextrous). If I engage in combat in a dungeon corridore, my
>   2 handed sword shouldn't work. If I engage in combat standing
>   near a boiling bit of lava, my armor metal should overheat,
>   benefiting characters with leather armor. Etc. If I go fishing
>   in ice I catch trout (or other fish that feed in cold water). If
>   I go fishing in a dungeon corridore I catch eyeless fish. If I
>   go fishing in a boiling pit of lava I have to buy a new lure.

This can be doable, but its a matter of setting expectations, and
not always making it feel like a penalty.  For example, in Final
Fantasy Tactics, one of the key game features is the notion that
different battlefields have different rules.  "Magic is half as
effective here- which army units do you want to bring into battle?"

I do believe this can work in an MMO, so long as players have an
opportunity to make a choice to mitigate or work with the effect.
If they can even find a way to turn it to their advantage (Tundra
areas cause snow damage, but a ranger can tame a snow leopard that
can ignore this penalty), you'll find players will even embrace the
notion of different rules.  If, however, there's no way to mitigate
the penalty, you'll just end up driving players away from a huge wad
of your content.

Over and over, I see MUDs make identical monsters with identical hit
points, identical damage, identical experience -- but one monster
has a poison attack or a nasty stun.  Over and over, I see players
avoid the nasty poisoner in favor of the 'less special' monster that
doesn't do anything special.  Even if you have 'cure poison', why
deal with that level of risk and/or inconvenience if you don't have
to?  The same is true with different battlefield rules.

>   2) Choices - Interactivity requires that the player makes
>   choices. For a choice to be meaningful to a player, it must have
>   consequences, some of which adversely affect the player. Asking
>   a player to choose between door A or door B is worthless and
>   deceitful if they both have the same results. (Also: It's bad
>   design if door A and door B look the same and give no inkling as
>   to the results of the choice. If door A is almost always a
>   better experience then door B, then the choice is likewise bad.)

...

> I know which way mass-markets tend to go: You can find McDonalds
> almost everyplace in the world (homogeneity), and the choices
> provided by mass-market systems are fairly weak (Do you want your
> sandwich to be called a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder? Do you want
> fries or a hash-brown with that? Will that be Coke or Sprite?).

There's a large swath of people (myself included - when I'm a
player, not a designer) that tend to see choices as 'denied
content'.  I have to see all three endings to a video game.  This
isn't so bad in an offline game when it's only got 10 hours of
gameplay to get there, or I can do some artful gamesave loading to
see the alternate content.  In an MMO, this is a lot more
frustrating.

--d
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