[MUD-Dev] Reward system for social gaming?

[Scott Jennings]

"Sean Howard" <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

> There's a lot of behavior that is possible in these games which
> screw over other players - not NPCs. In WoW, it's possible for a
> large enough force (in a PvP setting) to actually take and hold a
> low level area of the opposing team. You could grab a few hundred
> level 60 Alliance guys (most servers are 2-1 in favor, and some
> are as much as 5-1) and just take over the Barrens, for example,
> and really make it impossible for any Horde character to level
> past 15. It sounds really cool, but it is literally racist
> oppression. The barrens would become a virtual concentration camp
> - because the gameplay encourages segregation (Alliance and Horde
> can't trade or even communicate with each other) and racism.

Wow, a virtual concentration camp. That sounds horrible. It's a
shame lowbie areas like the Barrens aren't PvP-off even on PvP
servers, and that players aren't penalized for killing important
NPCs in those zones.

Oh, wait. They ARE PvP- (unless the poor oppressed Horde in this
example attack first) and the NPCs DO penalize their attacker.

Allowing for new player levelling in these games is a fairly basic
requirement, and I can't think of a game other than Asheron's Call
that didn't have protected new player areas. Otherwise you are able
to do what I sometimes did in Tradewars 2002 - post unbelievable
numbers of fighters in every sector leading out of the 10 or so
"Fedspace" sectors, making the game completely unplayable for new
players. (Although they could read the mocking messages I left,
stating that I had renamed the game "Tradewars 10".)

---
Scott Jennings
Programmer
Mythic Entertainment
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