[MUD-Dev2] [REPOST] Value

[Vincent Archer]

According to John MacQueen:
> Traditionally content has been gated by level in one way or another,
> providing both a sense of achievement at reaching that level and
> setting a rate at which content can be consumed or a limit on how
> fast it can be consumed by players.

Level serves both as a limiter on access to content, and a metric of
achievement. Level is the big fluorescent orange carrot dangled in
front of the player.

> I also dislike the dilemna of needing to tune a game to the power
> players, as in a level based system you always have to keep adding
> higher and higher levels and it seems basically flawed. I believe

In any system that has achievements, no matter what form it takes,
you run in the problem of people having "finished" the game. All the
carrots are eaten and strewn in the ground behind them. When "enough"
of them (depending on your budgets) come and ask "what now", you
have to provide new carrots, or run the risk of seeing the players
start to leave - which in a subscription-based game is anathema.

> it could be avoided by avoiding the level based system and using
> alternate ways of controlling content consumption, or just not
> controlling it at all.

Not controlling "requires" a virtual world, rather than a MMO. If you
have a virtual world, typically players create in a way their own
content. What you need to provide them aren't carrots, but variety.
New vistas, new locations, new critters, more funky buildings, and
so on. Without a carrot, there's less a race to eat the content, and
thus less a race to produce.

--Vincent Archer