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

[Koster, Raph]

John Buehler wrote:

> The denial of service that this brings to mind is mana.  When a
> mana class has consumed its mana pool, that class is out of
> action. That's denial of service.  It's taking away the very
> entertainment that the players are paying for.  It's a flaw in the
> way that magic has been introduced into the game.

This is crazily reductionist. When a piece has been taken out in a
chess match, that's a denial of service. I wanted to use my queen,
dammit!  It's taking away the entertainment I expected, and it'as
flaw in the way chess is designed.

Ahem.

Managing limited resources (including time) is an important
ingredient of gamepay, and making this a blanket principle is
ridiculous.

The snowed in pass CAN be a fun and compelling gameplay experience,
clearly. I'll even accept the principle of orthogonality you imply
when you say "make it only matter to people who consider the pass a
resource to manage" such as people with heavy carts (though it open
all kinds of doors for exploits).

But the general case, sorry, I can't buy it.

-Raph
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