[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Sean Howard]

"Michael Hartman" <mlist at thresholdrpg.com> wrote:

> In what entirely different careers are you a master of? And by master, I
> mean a world famous, top .01% master.

One's level of mastery is not and can not be measured against the level of
mastery of everybody else. There is no point in which person X being a
master prevents person Y from becoming one. You could have a career, like
professional basketball, where everybody in that career is assumed to be a
master of the sport they are playing.

I don't know that I can answer your question without seeming like I'm
bragging or without entering into some giant argument on the nature of
world famous or whatever. But I will say that I have been world famous,
top tier in several unrelated fields. If you are curious, please email me
privately.

>  Because that is what player
> characters are, generally. They are heroes of the world performing epic
> acts that would be utterly impossible for "normal people." Not just
> difficulty... completely impossible. RPG characters save the world like
> every other day, and sometimes twice on Sunday.

Let's ignore for a second what the players are supposed to represent in
your eyes. Do you think it is fun to be told that you can't do something
for reasons you disagree with?

>  > Why don't you try explaining to me
>> why Leonardo da Vinci couldn't be an engineer, artist, mathematician,
>> scientist, sculptor, botanist, writer, or musician?
>
> Why don't you try explaining to me how Steven Hawking could set a world
> record in the marathon, or how Albert Einstein could have played for the
> 1936 World Champion Green Bay Packers?

Hawking had a birth defect - unfortunate, but a fairly uncommon thing. If
Einstein wanted to play for the Packers in his youth, no doubt he would
have been capable of the physical training required. Please don't confuse
"can't" with "didn't want to". Hawking can't. Einstein didn't want to.

> The overwhelming majority of the time, people are lucky if they are
> great at even one thing. Most are never great at anything. At least in a
> game, you have the option of having multiple characters. You don't get
> that chance in life.

Maybe you have trouble imagining a world in which people are
multi-talented, but that is the nature of my existence. I resent playing a
game in which I have less intelligence, less skill, and less talent than I
do in real life. It's like a professional football player playing a
football game where all they can be is the waterboy.

> There are scientific and psychological reasons for this as well. Studies
> have shown that the longer you engage in a certain activity, your brain
> forms patterns and pathways that make it harder to learn a different
> activity. The old expression "it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks"
> actually has a basis in modern scientific study of the brain.

Hard, but not impossible.

> Let us not forget that you claimed it is "absolutely insane" for a game
> to limit someone to greatness in only one career path. So yours is the
> absolute that is being challenged here. I just want to make sure we are
> keeping things in perspective here.

It's absolutely insane for a game to limit EVERYONE to greatness in only
one career path.

> Player characters in every RPG I have played and enjoyed are
> the extremes of their world, and they go far beyond any level of mastery
> we have in our real lives.

That doesn't even hold up to the MMORPGs currently available. Most MMORPGs
allow you to master several things, like combat and tradeskills. In WoW,
everybody can be a master fisherman - and all it means is that he can fish
in higher level ponds than everyone else. There is no connect here between
mastery and real life. The only connect is that in WoW, I can be a
fisherman, a blacksmith, a prospector, a cook, and a shaman, but I can't
be a fisherman, a blacksmith, a prospector, an engineer, and a shaman.

> Do you realize how silly this statement of yours is? You criticize me
> for choosing two modern professions that have very little overlap when
> we are comparing them to careers in RPGs that are even more diverse and
> fantastical?

> How much overlap is there between wizard and warrior? Or how about
> cleric and shapeshifting garou? They have even less overlap than doctors
> and lawyers.

Why can't a guy in SWG be a master of both pistols and carbines and track
animals? Why can a guy in WoW be an herbalist and blacksmith, but the same
guy can't be a weaponsmith and an armorsmith? Why can't a super hero in
City of Heroes have both strong melee attacks and minions? Why can't a
warrior use bows as well as an animal trainer? Why can't priest use
offensive magic when paladins already can?

> And furthermore, the point is that it is more fun for characters to have
> different things they are good at. It is no fun if everyone can do
> everything.

Remember that there is a difference between can do and want to do. Not
everybody in WoW becomes a master fisherman or cook, despite there being
no obstacle to such advancement. In old school SWG, the game would not be
greatly changed by allowing players to go up any and every skill tree
they'd like. There are additional costs involved in crafting,
entertaining, and combat above and beyond which skill boxes you've
unlocked that will still benefit those who specialize without making such
a thing explicit.

> That is why games almost universally go this route.

BS. Game designers don't actually know how to design games. They all just
copy off each other such that game design is an evolutionary process. How
much different from D&D is WoW? And how different is WoW from Warhammer
from Tolkien? Why haven't we seen a MMORPG with a fundamentally different
way of doing things? There are plenty of MUDs out there that take those
risks. But people who make those MUDs aren't professional game designers -
a field which you can only get into through non-game design means and
usually requires some degree of nepotism or cronism.

Professional game designers are, almost universally, full of crap. That's
why the games they make are, almost universally, full of crap. That's why
games go the way they do. Nobody knows what the hell they are doing.

> What if studying magic is so physically draining that it is all you can
> do just to stumble into bed and sleep until you are well enough for the
> next day's practice. How then are you supposed to also train in
> weaponplay, horseback combat, jousting, and other physical training?

How does being physically tired from casting spells translate into, let's
say, spell points that regenerate between fights?

> And you might want to face up to the fact that the overwhelming majority
> of gamers have voted with their wallets and their eyeballs: they prefer
> specialization. It is just more fun for most people, and tends to make
> for a more fun, more successful game.

That's not true. They just don't know anything better. If all the MMORPGs
out there are exactly the same, how does someone "vote with their wallet"
against such things?

-- 
Sean Howard