[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] NPC-oriented gameplay and XP model:GURPS/EveOnline vs. D&D/Diku

[John Buehler]

Mike Rozak writes:

> John Buehler wrote:

> > Doesn't a successful interaction with an NPC produce the same effect
> > as experience points?

> Kind of. As in RL, social connections open up doors and cause things to
> happen. XP affect skills, which affect your own character, and
> relationships only indirectly (for example: Speaking to elves in elvish
> produces a better result).

There seems to be an implicit association between experience points and the
ethic of "practice makes perfect".  In real life, practice will indeed help
one's skills.  However, the virtual setting of an MMO is supposedly about
entertainment.  Having an avatar do the learning while the player does the
repetition is an interaction that is rather far afield from entertainment.

In contrast, consider a game where repetition brings skill to the player.
In that case, repetition of tasks makes sense.  Even then, experience points
have no useful purpose in such a scenario.

Returning to the specifics of NPC interactions versus experience points,
consider that a player could take their character on a quest to improve
their elvish.  The quest takes the place of whatever generic activity the
player might undertake with their character to gain experience points to
improve their language skill.  It avoids silliness such as listening to
another player character spout foreign-language gibberish over and over
again to advance a skill.  The misapplication of the "practice makes
perfect" ethic created that implementation.  If *players* practiced to learn
elvish, diligent practice would make a lot more sense.

For time-allotted experience points, let's rename the experience points to
be 'gate points'.  Accumulate enough gate points and your character can
change the game experience in some way.  These changes are permitted at only
a certain rate.  This is the technique employed by Eve Online because they
hand out points based on time.  It is done purely to pace the content.

> > Explorers are sated by the constantly-changing topology of NPC
> > interactions (by getting friendly with *this* NPC, I've damaged my
> > connection to *that* NPC, perhaps making it harder to rent a boat to
> > get to the island to meet a third NPC).

> Totally agree. What do achievers need? Do I care?

Explorers want many content gates.  Achievers want locked content gates.
You should care if you want to entertain a wider range of players.  The
players we refer to explorers are people who are entertained by exploration
at this moment.  Achievers are entertained by achievement at this moment.
An hour or a day later, they may want something different.  A game that is
all about a single form of entertainment will be played while that form of
entertainment appeals to a given player.  So including many different forms
of entertainment makes your game appealing to more players for more hours of
the day.

I assume this is why MMOs are constantly being marketed as "worlds where you
can be anything you want to be".  The seduction is that we have the freedom
to pursue any kind of Tolkeinesque entertainment that we might want.
Achievements, socialization, exploration and perhaps a bit of crafting,
empire building, intrigue, and skullduggery as well.

> > I'm also not sure what it means to have "slow" players in
> > non-achievement entertainment. I could imagine a player getting stuck
> > and being unable to figure out how to get the dockmaster to rent a
> > boat. In that case, features in the game to let a player cheat their
> > way through an interaction would seem to be desirable.

> Yup, which is how I was planning on using XP given at a fixed rate, for
> example.

Instead of letting players dig holes so deep that they are well and truly
stuck, how about designing the game such that players simply cannot damage
any given content gate to the point that it will no longer open.  By
analogy, there is always another key that will fit the door.  Make the
actions leading up to approaching the gate determine which key or keys the
character has in hand.  But that there is always at least one key.

So alienating the harbor master might mean that renting a boat gets far more
expensive, but it would also mean that the ship captain who doesn't like the
harbor master warms to you.  Alienate that ship's captain and your character
might find itself constantly subject to abduction attempts whenever
approaching the dock area.  Abductions that carry the character across the
water, just as the other techniques do.

JB