[MUD-Dev2] Community Play (Was: The Great Mud Survey)

[cruise]

Thus spake Dana V. Baldwin...
> I recall Asheron's Call doing this very well with large encounters such
> as the lugian fort. There were many fast spawning mobs of high level in
> various choke points with content between. Players had no need to group
> to enjoy the content as experience was based on the damage you did. It
> was one of the most fun "raid" type of environments because of the
> informality they had designed into the system by not needing to group
> and instead being able to contribute what you could to an encounter. I
> continue to be a huge fan of this design metaphor as it largely removes
> the idea of kill stealing and reinforces community play with groups
> being more of a friends tool and not the decisive success tool.

The only problem with this is in the "experience was based on the damage 
you did" when stereotypical player classes include such things as 
buffers/debuffers who don't directly contribute damage, and would be 
penalised if they were not in a group.

Of course, the answer isn't to require grouping (which is what everyone 
else seems to have done) but fix the current experience point system. 
How to do that has been discussed to death in many other threads before.

This is not too dissimilar to the "constant battle" co-operative style 
of play suggested by one of the other regulars on this list (apologies 
forgetting your name, whoever it was...) - players fight against a near 
constant supply of mobs and success or failure is measured not in 
personal level, but in the position of the frontline, with occasional 
additions to a character's history for being present at certain (either 
pre or post-determined) landmark conflicts.

The more I see suggestions like this, the more I move towards the 
"current MMO's are glorified chat rooms for single player content" camp 
- while they appear massively multiplayer at first, in comparison to 
what they /could/ be, they fall well short.