[MUD-Dev] Is content on demand bad?

[John Buehler]

Ola writes:

> Does the instant availability of an activity lead to addiction
> through escapism?

[snip]

> So, this begs the question: should the MMOs' content be more
> focused on providing events rather than content on demand? If they
> do (and I know some MUDs do), what advantages would you get?

>   1. Closing the gap between casual and hardcore

>   2. More variety in the experiences

>   3. Better evolution cycle as the success of an event is
>   relatively easy to assess.

>   4. ...

> What kind of the design would be optimal? I'd propose a two-phased
> iterative design:

>   A. Week-day play involves preparation, socialization and >
>   planning for events.

>   B. Week-end play involves executing the event.

> Thoughts?

I like it quite a bit.  The anticipation aspect is an excellent way
to give meaning to more mundane activities, such that they will be
viewed as far less mundane.  And it offers a means of having
world-changing moments to avoid the stale feeling of current games.
Those moments are controlled by the gamemasters, not the players.

Because I'm on an anti-power-accrual campaign, I'll mention that
events like this would be a bear if the player base was socially
stratified according to character power.  I'm sure designers can
come up with piles of ways for lowbies and highbies to be near each
other during whatever the activity is, but if we simply drop the
holy grail of 'power accrual as the cornerstone of entertainment' I
figure that an event structured game would work that much better.

If I were to attempt to distill what you're talking about, I'd say
that the key is to have clear, predictable events.  Having them
always take place on weekends is a way of having predictable events,
but I think that it's possible to have more frequent events.  Some
will be uninteresting to a portion of the player base, while others
will be.

  1. The regular caravans from the distant land.  We get our
  financials or goods ready for its arrival.

  2. The large orc raids that scouts can give us a few days of
  warning about.  We get our forces together in anticipation of the
  assault.

  3. The announced marriage of two powerful nobles.  We need to
  finagle in the political structure to get a prominent position in
  the festivities, have our clothes prepared, locate and purchase an
  impressive gift for the nobles, etc.

And so on.  Anticipation for specific events is a wonderful way to
give players clear motivation for performing their actions.  Quests
are structured in this direction, except that they are for personal
gain and they are repeatable by each player character.  As a result
of that isolation and impotence, players say that they want their
actions to have a greater impact on the game.  I believe that what
they want most is to be involved with game-changing events.  And
that's what gamemaster-controlled events offer.

Events will be swamped by players, so the entire design has to be
prepared to deal with that.  Plus, you'll have to deal with the huge
number of opportunists who don't bother to prepare much of anything
during the week.  They just show up on weekends and hope to poach
something good from whatever is happening.  So attendance on
weekends is going to be huge.  This is one reason that I think that
many orthogonal events may be a better way to go.  They still need
to be clearly identifiable and predictable, but they needn't be
game-encompassing.

All of this requires resources to operate the game, of course, so it
would be quite an effort.  Not to mention the software and data
support to make it all happen.  But I believe that this is where the
games will go ultimately.  Not PvP.  Not unassisted smart monsters.
Just gamemasters pushing buttons to guide the game along the lines
that they believe will bring the greatest entertainment value to the
players.

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