[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point...

[Vincent Archer]

According to cruise:
> To be fair, he original idea did actually mention this as an issue. It 
> is somewhat mitigated that killing a creature counts as one of those 

It is somewhat mitigated because achievements are usually tactical situations.
You get an achievement by showing you're able - or still able - to tackle
a given situation. Kill mob solo - achievement. And that generates as
many achievements as you have soloable mobs in the game.

That kind of achievement generates its own minigame. Ok, I've got a good
weapon and enough hp to kill a level 25 creature, but I can't kill a higher
one. So? I need to find a creature that level 26 and vulnerable to my
mace. Hitting orcs doesn't work, but the level 26 skeleton is doable. Or
I have high AC, so I need to find out melee-oriented creatures; that
dark necromancer's academy is bad for my health, but a pure warrior
camp is a good place to get my level 26 kill.

After a while, of course, you can't solo. You've exhausted all the
achievements that can be done solo: killing a single creature, killing two,
killing two out of three AND escaping alive. Killing three.

Each achievement is a bit more expensive to design than the average LOTRO
quest, but immediately scales.

As the level increase the diversity of achievements you need to complete
increases as well. In a MMO, hence a social game, most of the higher level
achievements will probably come from group oriented play.

At any point, you can also have the cop-out of placing a named boss
somewhere, and saying "killing The High Widow is a level N achievement".

Ultimately, to take again the Bartle model, I've got achievements for
social gaming, achievements for exploration gaming, achievement for
brute force gaming (and, I can imagine, I can add pvp achievements as
well). A relatively balanced model of rewards. But, for the pure
achiever, its hard to swallow: if you want to be the best, you need to
master EVERY facet of the game.

> area counts, too - most current MMOG's have very substantial worlds that 
> would eat into that massive total.

Earth & Beyond had an entire XP section devoted to exploration. Too bad,
the non-repeatable part did not add to the designated max level, and
the repeatable part was the exclusive purview of a couple classes.

> ???Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They 
> may be summed up by the phrases: 1- It's completely impossible. 2- It's 
> possible, but it's not worth doing. 3- I said it was a good idea all 
> along.??? - Arthur C. Clarke

Now, to be honest, I don't think I'm that revolutionary. As I said all
along, this kind of game has potential, but not as a mass market game.
Even in 2004, I knew it was far too elitist to appeal to the masses.

If you asked me: what would you replace the XP system with, *and*
bring in the masses, I would have "a bit of a problem" getting an answer.

> How on earth are you "forbidding" players from enjoying the same 
> content? It's still just as enjoyable as it was before, unless the only 
> "enjoyment" was the reward - in which case your game is pretty damn 
> sucky anyway, and you have bigger problems than the advancement model.

And you can add rewards to repeatitive actions. The original article
even mentioned it: if you want to have people enjoy the grind on
the same mobs, add other rewards. Crafting resources and equipment
come to mind.

-- 
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)