[MUD-Dev2] Meaningful Conseqences (was: Comparing Worlds)

[Michael Chui]

I've imagined roleplaying to be a vector into handling this problem. While
yeah, obvious massive problem being that MMO roleplayers are a diminishing
minority, roleplaying is _the_ classic benefit to the player himself.

But consider:
1) Roleplaying offers (in theory) a consequence that isn't negative (if you
mess up my lawn, you're dead, kids!), but rather a positive consequence
(wow, I didn't know it felt like that to be in their shoes).
2) Roleplaying bridges the problem of player-character separation by
negating it.
3) Roleplaying demands consequences in the world itself: the computer itself
needs to roleplay with the player in the role of "world".

On the other hand, no one has figured out how to scale roleplaying. Indeed,
I'm not sure it can be done.

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Eric Lee <saintgimp at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Christopher Lloyd wrote:
> >
> The only answer I can see is that as a successful roleplaying game where
> there is such a big world to explore, it's specifically designed NOT to
> have
> other people in, because they would mess it up. It's a truly consistant
> world - When you die, you're dead. The trainers and shopkeepers aren't
> uber-powerful NPCs who will rip off your own legs and beat you with them if
> you try to attack them. They can be befriended, annoyed, robbed, killed and
> then later avenged by their neighbours. Players love that level of
> "realism", but it would be instantly lost if the shopkeepers respawned
> every
> hours. Similarly, I'd soon tire of the game if the shopkeepers or quest
> givers that I used always got killed by someone just when I needed them.
> >
>
> I had the same thought about Oblivion - "Man, this is a great world but I'm
> lonely.  I wish this were an MMO!"  Of course the game as designed would be
> broken as an MMO because it allows way too much permanent altering of the
> environment.
>
> Current (large-scale) MMOs can't allow permanent altering of the
> environment
> because people would instantly and thoroughly trash the environment,
> ruining
> it for everyone else.  Why is that?  Because people are jerks . . . um, I
> mean, because there are no meaningful consequences for being anti-social,
> or
> at least no meaningful consequences that scale to thousands of mainstream
> players.  Some games have tried to solve that problem (Ultima Online comes
> to mind) with only limited success.
>
> The root problem is that it's easy to have meaningful consequences for a
> _character_, but not so easy to have meaningful consequences for a
> _player_,
> and of course it's ultimately the player who's behavior is the problem.
> Players can log out whenever they choose and be invulnerable to
> retribution.
> Without proof of identity, players can have multiple characters at once and
> play both ends against the middle (e.g. collecting their own bounties).
> Players can make new characters if they lose their old ones.
>
> A related issue is limited content.  When there are only so many quests to
> go around, you have people standing in line waiting for the evil boss to
> spawn again so they can kill him and get the reward.  There's no sense of
> causality anywhere.
>
> Are we stuck with rubber-band worlds, where everything snaps back into
> place
> on a regular basis, or are there ways to overcome the problems?  Or is that
> the wrong question to ask?  Are players entirely happy with rubber-band
> worlds and there's no need to fix it?
>
> Eric
>
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-- 
-Michael Chui