[MUD-Dev] Metric vs. English System of Measurement in Games

[olag at ifi.uio.no]

Michael Hartman:
> Damion Schubert wrote:

>> An advantage of making one up or not labelling at all is that
>> it's harder for players to point out incongruities in your game.
>> What do you mean, this warrior can carry and fight with 300
>> pounds in his backpack?  Is this huge, expansive game world
>> really only 10 miles by 10 miles?  That's too small!  What do you
>> mean I have to

> Wow. That is a very compelling argument in favor of an invented
> system. It still raises the problem for writing text descriptions

Maybe this will work for newbies, but I am not convinced that it
makes all that much of a difference for the experience of your
typical player. I fear this is curing the symptoms rather than the
cause. I.e. the complaints simply take another form? Or am I wrong?

Alternative complaints:

  - I am fed up with running for T minutes in relation to U! (rather
  common?)

  - Unrealistic amounts of N would make the game easier to deal
  with. Why can't I get more N when everybody else get more N by
  using alts/multiple accounts?!

  - People with Z has Y, we should at least get X because X<Y!!

  - I'm bored; game G has more L than this, add more L, lazy devs!

  - M is too powerful, I keep dying when I solo M; I could solo
  orange S at lower levels so I should be able to solo orange M too!
  Change M, it isn't realistic to die this fast/often from a regular
  mob which drops loot I really want!

  - Group A gets to do K; group B should be able to do that too,
  give us C.  Yes, I know we can do K by T, but group B people
  aren't the types that can be expected to get T just to do K. We
  pay for this game, we pay for K, give us C. We pay your sallary
  goddamit!!

  - The only activity worth doing is Q. Q was fun, but I am fed up
  with it.  There is way too much Q!! Change D, E and F so they are
  more like Q.

  - J isn't fun: make J faster, that would be more realistic | make
  J faster, it is too realistic the way it is, and I am not playing
  a game to get the same crap I get in the real world, FFS!

On the other hand I rarely see people complain about general
limitless advantages, no penalties etc. E.g. inventory with
unrealistic capacity, insane runspeeds... Wooooooohoooo, I can run
in 100km/h!!! How cool is that??

The obvious advantage with using familiar units is that you can make
their knowledge of physics part of gameplay: jumping into a boat
with a 300kg backpack is a bad idea.

And if the original claim holds then you could argue the opposite
point, increased acceptance for game mechanics: it makes sense that
running with a 300kg backpack with papers in it is straining, it
doesn't make sense that running with a 20u backpack with papers in
it is straining (well it does, but it doesn't sound like much; that
is, until you became truly aware of what 1u means, but at that point
you can really do the 1u=>kg conversion in your head anyway).

Ola.
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