[MUD-Dev] Reward system for social gaming?

[Lydia Leong]

On Oct 12,  6:05pm, Arnau Josep =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Rossell=F3_Castell=F3?= wrote:
> 08/10/2005 10:40 -0700, Christopher Allen wrote:

>> All the "skills" in the game can only be gained through
>> socializing. All the skills are ranked 0-10. You can't practice a
>> skill to get better, you must find someone better then yourself,
>> persuade them to teach you, and then spend considerable time with
>> them practicing.

> I'm curious but doesn't this lead to "join me in room X in 5 min,
> I'm going to the cinema so I'll leave the teaching on meanwhile"
> and then he and all the others in the room go afk together? If it
> doesn't happen is by mechanism or just the community isn't like
> that?

Christopher is really talking about a different class of games --
games where player-to-player interaction is the point, where people
are there specifically because they like detailed, lengthy
role-playing. (I think it's important to distinguish between game
interaction and personal social interaction, by the way.)

For a roleplayer, the reward is much the same pleasure as reading a
good novel, but it's participatory -- the satisfaction of
imaginatively developing a character, and of cooperatively telling a
good story.  Numbers end up being a way to provide a consistent
basis for telling that story, so players will typically pursue some
activities that increase their character statistics, like
teaching/learning; done well, such pursuits are deliberately crafted
as vehicles for roleplayed interaction. (Purposeful roleplay gives
people something to talk in-character about, other than the
weather.)

In other words: No roleplayed interaction, no actual fun to be had
in the game. So under this kind of construct, players don't go AFK
to "game the system" (usually).

Such games are not people-as-pellet constructs, note.

	-- Lydia
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