[MUD-Dev2] [Design] [REPOST] Food in MMOs

[John Buehler]

Lachek Butalek writes:

>What is inherently wrong with making player characters more vulnerable
>and helpless? Will it make the game less fun to play if you don't score
>a magical weapon after 30 minutes of play? Will it somehow break the
>fantasy genre mold to have the protagonists be any less than almighty? I
>seriously doubt it.

Some portion of the base of players out there plays the games because they 
can get a magical weapon within 30 minutes.  That's why games hand them out. 
  It's all about entertainment, not realism.  Some folks find realism 
entertaining, while others find it an annoyance.

>So if you're looking to alleviate this problem, what do you do? How
>would you cripple player characters in a way that still enables them to
>play the game - not just sit around waiting to be eaten by the next
>major foozle to come around? Again, look towards the real world - what
>was the most prevalent problem of Dark/Middle Ages Europe, which is when
>most fantasy settings are most similar to?
>
>Food.

The major characteristics of food are that it must be consumed constantly 
for any benefit and that the benefit quickly passes.  In that respect, it is 
like a magic buff without the advantage of being highly portable.  Food is a 
poor way to alter a player character's abilities.

It is an excellent way to address NPC abilities.  Not in the sense of a pet 
or henchman, but in the sense of addressing the macro problem of feeding a 
population.  Consider the game Caesar, which is about building and running a 
roman city.  Without food, the people in the city aren't happy.  People move 
away.  Housing prices drop.  Eventually you get riots.  That is the way that 
food should be included in MMOs, in my opinion.  As a key component to a 
society, but of the NPC society.  It gives players very good reasons for 
doing a great number of things, which you allude to in your post.

>So, there's my RFC. How can food (supply and production) be implemented
>best in an MMO/MUD, to encourage realism and prevent all the problems
>associated with inflated stats, while still providing a fun and playable
>game? What games currently implement food, in what ways, and how
>successful are they? Are there any major problems with the whole concept
>of food in an MMO/MUD?

Food is for NPCs.  I look forward to games that will tackle food production 
and consumption as a motive element of gameplay.  Players are always talking 
about having an impact on the world, and I can see NPC food as a prime 
candidate for having an impact.  More and better food and the NPCs operate 
better.  Less and worse food and the NPCs don't provide the services as they 
once did.

If you want to gimp player power, just gimp it.  Make each player the same 
power and let them wander through the world, experiencing it as they go.  If 
they run into a large foozle, they can either run away if they don't have 
enough people to attack it, or maybe they can try to calm it, or use some 
trick to distract it, and so on.  The majority of problems that I see in 
MMOs stems from the fact that player characters are on an insanely-steep 
ramp of power (items, wealth, abilities, etc.)  It stratifies the community, 
addicts players and ultimately frustrates them.  It appears to blind game 
companies in some way because all games appear to go that route.

Remove the power ramp and the designers will have to figure out other ways 
to keep players entertained.  Such as having intrinsically entertaining 
things to do.  That said, it's a tough thing to come up with a new way of 
entertaining players.  Ultimately, I think games will have to return to 
relying on player skill instead of player time, implementing experiences of 
the complexity and difficulty of chess, backgammon and poker.

JB