[MUD-Dev2] [REPOST] Soapbox: World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things by David Sirlin

[Joh Nicholas Hines]

Nick Koranda wrote:
> ********************************************************************
> *  REPOST
> *
> * Original Poster:  David Love
> * dlove at nighton.net
> *
> * 2/22/2006 2:09 PM
> *
> ********************************************************************
>
> There's an excellent rant focusing on the lessons of World of Warcraft
> (as in, what is it teaching people?) by David Sirlin an Gamasutra.
> Everyone who likes to implement forced-grouping mechanics in their
> engines would do very well to read this carefully. 
> http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin_01.shtml
>
> In classic mud-dev style, here it is in plain text:
>
>          Soapbox: World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things 

I think there is an explanation of time/senority systems missing from
this article. David Love may know this explanation, of course, but he
didn't mention it.

Senority systems are about the playing community vs. the non-playing
community. By automatically measuring and rewarding degrees of
insidership, your community can compete better against other
communities that might want people's attention.

This is not an excuse or justification for time/senority systems - I'm
not trying to say that they make the game a better game. However,
reading this article, one may wonder "Blizzard is not stupid - why did
they emphasize senority over skill to such an extent? David Love says
it lowers the quality of the game!".

Quality is one technique to increase customer base. It may make
business sense to use other techniques to increase customer base, even
if it lowers the quality of the game.

Johnicholas

p.s. Am I wrong or are there vastly more regular WoW players than
regular SF tournament-goers?