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

[Caliban Darklock]

On 9/14/07, Vincent Archer <archer at frmug.org> wrote:
> According to Caliban Darklock:
> > > That was an old bone in the original thread. People kept trying to
> > > shoehorn the achievement model into a standard xp model.
> >
> > You don't have to try. How is an achievement different from XP?
>
> Because it has one very different property from classical xp.
>
> It cannot be repeated.

This isn't really true.

You kill monster X and you get an achievement, and now you never kill
monster X again. Instead you kill monster Y and you get an
achievement.

You deliver item A to person B and you get an achievement, and now you
never do that again. Instead you deliver item C to person D and you
get an achievement.

You escort NPC 1 to location 2 and you get an achievment, and now you
never do that again. Instead you escort NPC 3 to location 4 and you
get an achievement.

Pretty soon, you get "This monster is just like the last one, only
orange!" syndrome. Internally, the achievement only happens once. To
the player, however, each of these scenarios is still the same one
over and over. Every time you deliver an item to someone, it's the
same damn quest. The player doesn't say "thank God I'm delivering
different items to different people!", he says "WTF, am I paying
$14.95 a month to run a damn delivery service?"

> In the classic XP, you kill a level 1 mob, you get xp. You kill a
> second level 1 mob, you get xp. You kill enough level 1 mobs, you get
> to level 50.

Whereas in your system, if it's properly balanced such that the
average player with a level X character is challenged just enough by a
level X task, level 50 is only gained with the accomplishment of 6275
tasks.

Can you even THINK of 6275 tasks? If it takes one hour for a designer
to build one (HAHAHAHAHA... sorry), that's three years. What's the
industry average? Ten hours? Twenty? How many designers are you going
to have? How much TIME do you have?

Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics.

> In the achievement system, you kill a level 1 mob, you prove you can
> kill a level 1 mob. You kill another level 1 mob, you haven't proved
> anything you didn't before.

In a world where the most expensive and difficult part of your
development cycle is the production of enough content to keep your
players happy, actively forbidding your players to enjoy the same
content repeatedly is pretty retarded.

> > > they tell me my hammer is a poor excuse of a hammer.
> >
> > And precisely how many people have to say this before you think "maybe
> > I'm wrong"?
>
> Because it's not a hammer.

But the problem is a nail. Which is precisely why people are saying
GET A HAMMER, NOT AN UMBRELLA. We're not saying that the system you
have is a hammer. We're saying that you're trying to drive a nail, and
your tool is not good for driving nails.

> In your perspective, a level achieves that by virtue of defining a
> character abilities and stats.

Yes. For thirty years, that is what "level" has meant in the context
of an RPG setting. If that isn't what you're talking about, DON'T CALL
IT LEVEL.

On 9/14/07, Michael Chui <saraid at u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> Rewards do not an achievement make.

I never said they did. I said this system is no different than an XP
system, which is also an achievement system.