[MUD-Dev] The Best Guy on the Mud Thing

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Ilya, SCC, Game Commando" wrote:

> I've given some thought to the whole range of play styles (often or rarely,
> short or long visits).  It seems to me that the desire to make things somehow
> even for these widely varying groups, though noble, is ultimately hopeless.

Don't give up yet. That would break the spirit of this mailinglist. This isn't the
discouraging USENET, but the encouraging MUD-Dev. Yes? :9

> I have toyed with various ideas to try to ameliorate this, and so I'd like
> to hear what Ola has to suggest, in case I hadn't thought of it!  All in all,
> I think this is pretty much a non-problem.  Yes, some people can play more
> and "get ahead" in the hack-n-slash games.  But they also get bored at higher
> levels, and have other problems.  So let them!

Well, the underlying problem is that players should be allowed to freely choose
their friends and spend time with their friends. That is, people who they are
"psychologically compatible" with. Some systems make it difficult for low level
characters to cooperate with high level characters. This is a highly relevant
design problem, which one ought to consider and not ignore. At least in a
professional or research context.

> My favorite idea on this was that you just create several instances of
> your game, each designed for a particular time-line style of play.  So
> you'd have the "unlimited" game, where people could play as much as
> they liked.  And then there would be the "4 hour a day" game, and the
> "2 hour a day" and the "hour a day" and maybe "4 hours a week" and
> so on.  People could enter wherever they liked, but would have to stay
> there.

But this doesn't solve the basic problem. Providing multiple of your "games"  in
one could, under the assumption of careful design and balancing in order to avoid a
"monetary economy". (I'm vague, but I wan't to keep my own ideas for myself for
now, thank you :)

> Anything more like trying to "make things
> fair" or "make things even" is, I fear, doomed to failure.

Make things motivating and fun would be my first goal. If that involves "fair" or
"even", well, then that would have to be included too.
--
Ola






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