[MUD-Dev2] no levels / temporary levels

[Sean Howard]

"Timothy Dang" <tpondang at gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyway, those problems are mostly independent of design. But there are
> design problems, and one of the biggest of those is character
> advancement. It's just so weird and un-mappable to reality that it
> shrinks what can be learned about reality from a MUD by a good bit.

I think you may be looking at it wrong. MMORPGs are a kind of reality.
We've taken the mind out of one social context and put it into another.
Character advancement provides a social impetus, like players who are
forced to group to fight monsters. It may not answer an obvious question,
but it certainly creates a few interesting questions on its own.

Online worlds is naked humanity, devoid of consequence and attribution.
You take out some constraints of the real world, and almost like magic,
you've got people exhibiting the exact same behavior they would've
otherwise, but due to a different, arbitrary collection of rules. So, the
question is how much do the rules really matter and how much of it is our
internal self? I argue, reality is just as arbitrary as character
advancement, and we just make sense of it the same way.

> As I understand it, levels (which I'm just using as shorthand for any
> kind of character advancement) are good for at least three reasons:
> 1) It provides for a real learning curve, by adding more options as
> the character advances.
> 2) It creates clear-cut motivation, and regular positive feedback for
> playing (in particular ways).
> 3) It rations content, making sure someone can't experience the whole
> world in a week.

Yes, absolutely.

> I'm wondering how to get advantages somewhat like this without the
> level-advancement model.

I wrote up a system without levels (or identity or social aspects):
http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=30

Believe it or not, it has been an extremely popular and well liked idea,
despite the fact that I literally created an asocial world.


> *** Keep most of the mechanics of levels, and keep the game world
> designed as if there are levels. But instead of making levels inherent
> to the PC, make them temporary powers granted by (say) drinking
> potions.

Nah. Then you'd have a secondary economy built around these potions,
making them stupidly expensive and making it so that newbies won't ever be
able to experience high end content.

Here's a thought. How about drop the mechanics of levels completely? I can
think of several potential solutions to that. For instance, in WoW, you've
got content which is defined by whether you are Horde or Alliance, and the
newbie zones are largely based on which race you pick. Basically, the
character you create defines the order of content you can access - though
it is possible to override this.

Another possibility, not locking content at all, but instead making it
more obvious through theme parks / questing hubs. I mean, if you've got
this castle out in the woods, players may find it or they may not. But
when you've got a quest that leads you to the front door, you can't miss
it. For the most part, questing hubs seem limited to their immediate area,
but there's no reason why you couldn't have it take players all over the
world (like a collector's guild, where players move through it by
collecting ingredients from multiple zones, or a tourist guild, where one
advances by visiting unique locations and getting his photo taken).

> c) Similarly, it reduces the effect of levels->specialization if
> players can choose their abilities each time they drink a potion.

Specialization is entirely overrated. Only in the videogame world would a
guy who carries an axe be unable to administer even a bandaid, or somebody
who learns to read books by beating the crap out of monsters. People are
multi-class, multi-discipline. People learn to play basketball and speed
read and write essays and be parents and ballroom dance and program their
VCR. Skill based systems aren't really that big an improvement, but it
beats forced socialization by purposely inventing ability gaps. I can't do
it myself, so I need other people. Bull honkey. It's like telling girls
they'll never be president (they'll have to reroll).

-- 
Sean Howard