[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies -No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

"Richard A. Bartle" <richard at mud.co.uk> writes:

> I wasn't saying they were designed FOR newbies; I was saying they
> were being designed BY newbies. Basically, newbies introduce
> market pressures that promote poor game design to the disadvantage
> of exlcusively good game design.

If the designers are required to satisfy newbie-wishes, then it is
odd that they all don't design for them too.

Are you sure this market pressure exist or is it just an assumption
designers make? I'd opt for the latter. You have to be brave to
launch a MMO which doesn't cover the bases of D&D/Diku/EQ, otherwise
you risk providing the first shaky proof-of-concept... It's a
question about risk management?

> It was a soapbox column, not an academic paper.  That said, I
> think

Soapbox or not. What I dislike about what I read into your
presentation (which might be my fault) is the following:

There seems to be an underlying assumption that the interests of the
users can be aligned with the other interests motivating design
choices. However, it might be that what one might dismiss as "short
term good" is in the user's true interest and that "long term good"
is some other interest (e.g. subscription based design). When you
make statements about "user requirements" (newbies) you also make
statements about system development. From a system development
perspective you are in general better off looking for possibly
conflicting interests. What is good for the users isn't necessarily
what is optimal for the product. (e.g. Microsoft Word)

In the worst case one might say that you are arguing that designers
are non-designers facilitating a market and that they are somehow
relieved from the responsibility of what they are doing as they are
left with no choices.

This doesn't sit very well with me. I don't think it is
well-founded. You may have described the mentality of some
designers, but I don't think you have described the situation.

> Yes, I'm sure. When AOL closed down NWN, its players flocked to
> M59 and demanded the inclusion of every NWN feature they could
> remember. It happens a lot with text MUDs, too.

But then they still want to play NWN... They didn't leave NWN
because it was crap and exhausted for entertainment value, so that
would be a different situation?

> They don't demand it to be EQ, but what they do demand is coloured
> by their EQ experience such that the closer it is to being EQ
> (while remaining visibly not-EQ) then the happier they'll be.

Yes, it is obviously coloured by EQ, but I don't see the EQ-quitters
beg for having to go locate their corpse or camping.

>> Often because they are good, for them. :-)

> Yes, but some are only good in the short term.

Maybe, but even then you are making the assumption that it is in the
player's interest to remain in the system for the long term.

>> The idea that PD in general promotes role-play is rather suspect.

> Why do you think that?

I think I provided a hint...

>> Game mechanics of raid-type activities can benefit greatly from
>> instancing. Instancing can be done in a non-intrusive way.

> I don't care about the intrusiveness so much as I care about the
> antisocialness.

Hanging out with 6-30 other people isn't anti-social per se. Indeed
some instancing content is used for building group identity and
bonding. It all depends on the design.  (I am more weary of design
which discourage arbitrary teaming. Mandatory quests, level ranges
etc.)

There are also instancing designs which are load based, not team
based. (New instance being generated when the dungeon has over N
players)

>> Considering that it is near impossible to play a MMO wihout being
>> hardcore that seems a bid odd.

> Well if you want to say that newbies are hardcore, I guess I can't
> argue with that.

By hardcore I assume large investments of effort. Btw I doubt if all
Mario Bros players are hardcore, are most big console games are
dominated by hardcore anyway?

>> Game designers copies features from the biggest successes, so do
>> MMO designers. Where is the core difference here?

> They don't copy the features that cause the success, they just
> copy the features.

How many percent of single user games make a decent profit?

>> Get over it. If there was a market that was easy to address then
>> people would go over board to play single user text adventure
>> games too.

> Maybe 50 years from now that's exactly what they'll be doing.  I
> doubt it, but who knows?

The market is probably there for text MUDs, even now. It is just
difficult to address. It isn't obvious to me that the player that
loves CS/Quake/CoH belongs to that text-market, or that a text based
game is optimal for them. There are other options too, such as
targeted marketing directed towards text oriented services that
allow advertisments.

--
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/
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