[MUD-Dev] Is content on demand bad?

[Jaycen Rigger]

Quick intro:

  RPG player/game master for 15 years.

  Got involved in UO 6 yrs ago as a player and became a game master.
  Learned what I hated about on-line gaming in the first 6 months
  and began the journey to creating my own world.

  Currently, scripting/developing a free UO server.

  I ran across Raph Koster's website about 5 months ago and
  downloaded all the pages and links.  I've been consuming
  everything I can on the subject since then and I go back and
  re-read sections of the original website every few weeks or so, or
  when I'm concerned I'm caught in a trap.

  I intended to observe here a while before trying to contribute,
  but it's killing me to talk about some of these issues with people
  who have so much experience.  If I'm out of line or to tangenty,
  just let me know.

Ola wrote:

> What kind of the design would be optimal? I'd propose a two-phased
> iterative design:

>   A. Week-day play involves preparation, socialization and
>   planning for events.

>   B. Week-end play involves executing the event.

As game masters on a free UO server, my wife and I took a server
with a solid player-base (predominantly 20-somethings who'd had some
pen & paper experience, i.e. mature and relaxed) and doubled the
nightly on-line peak numbers within a couple of weeks.  We ran
several nightly "mini-quests" and about once a week (sometimes twice
when work would allow) we'd run a scheduled event for the long-term
plot line.

Our style was to broadcast server-wide messages a few minutes prior
to the event (giving people time to prep who weren't aware of it, or
contact buddies to draw bigger crowds, etc.), then after the event,
we'd pop in as our GM characters as the after play role-playing
wound down.  Appearing and walking off the scene allowed players
immersed in the contextual afterglow to continue "in-character"
discussions, but others would see a game master and come over to
chat about what just happened.  Newbies found this time especially
useful as they always had questions about some of the less well
defined "house rules" of the server.

The mini-quests certainly helped nightly numbers, but I think you're
right about the "big event" at the end of the week in terms of
satisfaction of human-interaction needs.  Even players who typically
spent late nights on the server would log within an hour of
finishing a big quest event.  In fact, it always bothered me that
after this kind of event, the server seemed to become somewhat of a
ghost town.  Players were by no means complaining, and they always
came for the next event, but I couldn't explain it.  Maybe this
does.

It's immenently more satisfying to be part of an event with 3 or 4
well prepared and coordinated game masters acting as various NPCs
along with the typical ai monsters to kill.  Player tactics become
more developed over time (smarter tactics on the part of the
gamemaster-placed and possessed ai) and player interaction over the
course of the storyline went up on a huge scale.  Not just in
in-game terms, either.  The "roleplay" discussion boards for the
server actually flared to life as people related their experiences.

In fact, the real reason I've been so amped to find this particular
discussion forum is related to this topic.  I'll start a seperate
thread for that, though.

Thanks,

Jaycen Rigger
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