[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...)

[Ian Hess]

After reading the items in this thread, I find myself wondering if the
problem is assuming one model for character growth will fit all
bartle/player archetypes.  

 Why not have:

achiever tasks give achiever skills and advantages

exploring, maintaining information stores and puzzle solving give
informational storage (shared maps?), divination, and movement powers

group building, leading and participation give communication networks,
synergistic bonus systems to skills, and community infrastructure like
auction houses, legal systems, or taxes for mutual benefit managing
resources and building items give

customization options, different patterns, access to gathering or
transmuting progressively more rare resources, more patterns, better
returns on investment vs output, etc.

 I think in this model you end up with 1 ladder of achiever tasks, and 3
 pools of tasks where players can enter activities at various points in
 the flowchart and exit at other points.  

An example of this:  A person joins a guild, and gets the quests to work
towards maintaining and manning a communication channel for city
defense. A second player gets attacked on the edge of town, and appeals
to the people on the defense channel to join him to extend enough
synergy combat bonuses (shieldwalls, massed fire, dogpile style
grapples, group channeled spells, etc) to overcome the individually
powerful achiever who is doing the ganking.

I am specifically thinking of these gameplay 'pools' as being a circular
flow of civilization tech tree style options, with several entry points.
In this way, its less important that a explorer gets 'divination rank5',
as he does critical pieces of information that allow him to play the
role of expert, scout/guide, or spy.  

In the same way, socializers don't have to field level 50 fighters, but
they need ways for a grouped militia with dug in fortifications and comm
channels to fend off the lone villain or group of bandits.

I think a system like this would go a long way to replace a class
system, or at least serve as a framework underlying it.  I'm not sure
how much content you would have to plan for the intersections of the
models, such as when Bob the hero decides he wants to learn enough
armorsmithing to create that legendary dragonscale breastplate from the
dragon only he and his friends can kill. Building out the intersections
makes for a much more massive feature set than just supporting the 4
bartle types.    

 Ian Hess