[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <3.0.32.19970527222131.00686b9c at mail.tenetwork.com>, on 05/27/97 
   at 11:25 PM, Jeff Kesselman <jeffk at tenetwork.com> said:

>At 08:35 PM 5/27/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
>>There is a very simple solution to that. Use a system similar to the
>>ATP ranking system. If you can acquire more experience points given a
>>certain time than the player directly above you in the ranking you will
>>swap places. 

>Oh gods, no....  in order to be highlevel you have to be oen of the
>insane 40 hours/week players?

Simple to handle: make it gain per hour played as versus gain per RL
time.

>This soudsn likea  god awful mess to me, frankly, anda  GREAT way to scare
>off most of your players and insrue the ones left do no roleplaying.

Ignoring the RP question (I have no intention of explicitly supporting
or encouraging RP), it has promise.  You just need to hide the fact
that this is the way the mechanics work, and add enough twiddles that
so it is thoroughly hidden from the experimenters.  The goal then
becomes one of efficiency.  The game is now not one of direct accrual
of advantage (tho it should be painted that way), but of best
sustained gain rate.

Match this up with the recent discussions on unstable luck feedback
(good things getting better, bad things getting worse), and it gets
interesting.

Bubba starts working on a plan which during its construction and
implementation earns him no advantage.  He falls on the rankings and
his luck value begins to get perilously low.  At the final compleation
of the plan, due to the nature of what he's done, Bubba earns
incredible numbers of points for the whatever it did.  Given a fairly
short period on the rolling average for the status values, he
immediately leaps to the top of the list.  Associated with that his
luck value also starts to peg positive.  This in turn gives him enough
Oomph and general reserves to repeat (start a long project with no
gain during the project, massive gain at the end, etc).
 
--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...