[MUD-Dev] Birthday Cake (or Why Large Scale Sometimes Sucks) (long)

[Brian Green]

Ah, I'm quite proud of the discussions I've spawned.  Mission
accomplished for this week. :)  One point I did want to clarify, though.

Dave Rickey wrote:

>     If you think EQ and AC are "dumbed down", I think you're in for
> disappointment.  My expectation is that for the true mass-market they are
> far too hardcore.

I don't remember saying that these games (or UO) were "dumbed down".  I
did say these games are being hurt by the focus on large-scale, though. 
I agree that in the grand scheme of things, these are niche products. 
EQ, for example, appeals to the Achiever audience almost to the
exclusion of the other audiences.  Certainly it can be argued that
they've tried to shut out the Killers, didn't design very well for the
Explorers, and have harmed the pure Socializer population.

>     That being said, the people that are trying for 50,000+ player worlds
> are *way* over-reaching themselves, IMHO.  We're still figuring out how to
> build solid communities in 2000 player worlds, without people feeling like
> part of the faceless mass.  To the extent that people can influence their
> world, it's by influencing their fellow players, a 50,000+ world has way too
> much social inertia for everyone to participate fully in the game of
> players.

Which is basically a partial restatement of my original post without the
clever birthday cake analogy. ;)  I do like thinking of it as "social
inertia", though.

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_  
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'  "Ritalin Cures Next Picasso" 
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)               -The_Onion_, August 4th, 1999



_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev