[MUD-Dev] Retention without Addiction?

[Wes Connell]

Freeman, Jeff wrote:

>> The only desired behavior is regularity -- I want someone to log
>> into my MUD regularly. That way, they're participating in the
>> world, and I have an active player. What I *don't* want is for
>> them to stay logged in for hours and hours.

[Animal Crossing features snipped]

> You can still run around and fish, catch insects, chat with the
> animals or do some landscaping (chopping down trees and planting
> new ones, planting flowers, etc.), but basically once you've
> completed all of the above, you're done.

Actually, the fishing, catching insects, chatting, etc. tend to
increase gameplay dramatically. My best friend and his girlfriend
(who avidly NEVER played a video game until Animal Crossing) play
this game all day long. Once they have exhausted all the 'daily
goodies', they spend the rest of the day/night fishing and catching
bugs. The majority of their bells (Animal Crossing currency) come
from the sale of fish to the local market. Without the hours of
fishing, they would still have the stock single story house with
ugly wall paper.

Bells can still be earned by selling other stuff or running errands
for people, but the bulk of the money still comes from the
repetitive fishing motions. IIRC, my friend can pull in 50k bells in
a few hours from fishing. Obviously, this is a mechanic that can be
abused (I consider it abuse anyways).

An allowance of sorts would have been a better method of supplying
bells to a player. Perhaps a salary for a steady job?

--
Wes!
wconnell at kanga.nu


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