[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Damion Schubert]

On Fri, Feb 8, 2008 at 10:48 AM, Paolo Piselli <ppiselli at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> >
> "Damion
> Schubert"
> <dschubert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > [good stuff]
>
> Excellent post, but I think there is the caveat that most players enjoy
> and spend a significant amount of time soloing, and for this purpose must be
> at least be situationally self-sufficient without eliminating the variety,
> complexity and inter-dependencies in a group context.  The answer (which WoW
> to a large degree got correct, and IMO is what sets it apart from the EQ
> style forced-grouping or the UO style uber builds) is to separate the solo
> context and the group context (in WoW's case by world vs dungeon content)
> such that each player is self-sufficient, but can *electively* enter into a
> situation that requires interdependence.  A player forced into a role feels
> like a conscript, where as a player whose choice is a role is a companion.
>

WoW's emphasis on soloing helped solve a couple of key problems, one
of which being 'what happens if my friends aren't online and the only ones
who want to run a dungeon happen to be idiotic mouthbreathers'?

This has the end result of making the game much more resilient than other
MMOs before it - if you are stuck in a low population server, or your entire
guild quits playing for a month because they get sucked into Halo 3, there
are still ways to progress your character, and you can always start a new
character.

Compare to what happened in DDO, which was so group dependant that
when your friends quit, most people followed suit rather than PUG.

The more you make your game design concept depend on other people,
the more that your game design is susceptible to other people leaving,
or not taking the necessary roles, or holding a group of players hostage
due to their own necessity.

--d

--d