[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] MMO's are for Newbies

[John Buehler]

Richard A. Bartle writes:

> >Based on your logic and your use of terms such as
> >"virtual world", I get the impression that you want to be able to wander
> >around Middle Earth for real.
>
>         Well, for virtual. If it were for real, that wouldn't be a
> virtual world any more.

Is the classic Star Trek holodeck style experience "virtual" enough?  Where
is the line drawn between reality and virtual?

> >Or some other fantasy environment that
> >someone could build, complete with every bit of reality that can be
> >produced.
>
>         Real physics are useful in virtual worlds because they enable
> you to anticipate what's going to happen without having to think
> about it. If I jump off the cliff, I'll fall down, not sideways.
> You notice when something doesn't work properly, and that makes it
> harder to become immersed in the world. It doesn't make it impossible,
> just harder.
>         Virtual worlds need to reflect reality only insofar as they
> don't jar on the way you'd expect reality to work. I don't think that
> the ultimate aim of a virtual world is to create something that's
> a simulacrum of the real world.

So ultimately, everyone wants their own "right amount of realism" to
facilitate an experience that they find entertaining.  Given that the masses
aren't that interested in realistic social mechanisms, the big graphical
games don't provide you with an experience that you find entertaining.  I'm
not attempting to trivialize your interests, only to encapsulate them in
some basic way for the purposes of discussion.

The "right amount of realism" that I'm looking for is the complexity of
interaction with the NPCs.  NPCs are currently dumb as a post and, for the
most part, rely on being chock full of hit points in order to make a combat
encounter "entertaining".  I want to flank and be flanked, to be able to
talk down an aggressive NPC, to be faced with using my brain to solve NPC
encounters with other players because each encounter is different.  I want
big NPCs to be more physically powerful than small ones and so on.  Those
are the rules of reality that I find to be mandatory.  Your soapbox post is
pointing to the aspects of reality that you find entertaining.

The masses, on the other hand, seem to find the accrual of power to be the
part of reality that is entertaining.  The grind is just a way of making
that accrual meaningful to them.

> > My summary response is that the reason that current games are so
> > frustrating
> > to the virtual world enthusiasts is because the current games
> cater to the
> > masses - who are not drawn to virtual worlds.
>
>         It's not the current worlds that bother me, it's the ones we're
> going to get following on from them...

If games cater to the bits and pieces of reality that people find
entertaining, and given your profession, how do you believe the next crop of
games will attempt to entertain us?

JB