Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Spoke · 08-01-2006, 05:36 PM

Although already a bit off-topic, I believe this is not necesarilly true. You speak about repetitive grind and stock features with a despective tone, but this also means that these features are familiar to people who have played elsewhere, and the repetitive grind allows for an easy mechanism to advance (though repetitive you feel like you are advancing in levels etc).

What you, as a developer (and probably as a player, if you actually play MUDs) find boring and as a down-side, others (and I would argue that this is a bigger group) might find as an advantage. Better systems with more features and options often mean that you have a steeped learning curve, if you wish to excel you need to spend more time activelly engaged in the game learning and toning skills down so you can master the system. In a more simplistic game, with somewhat familiar-looking features, the learning process is shorter, you can go ahead and start making levels while you simultaneously explore the alternative activities sniped-in/created-for the game, effectibly increasing the number of available options in your hands for when you get bored of the grinding part. More options, all put together, different goals to fulfill (levels, gold in hand, equipment, other random stats you come up with, RP competitions, etc...) means a player will have something to do in this rather simple game whenever they chose to be playing.

Now, you have an easy game, with a short learning curve that has a bunch of options since early on, and you can go ahead and interact with dozens of people without regard of OOC/IC issues. TADDA! you now have the "community" feeling many people long to have when they go on the net (it is not a secret that people have increasingly more "relationships" with virtual individuals to real ones compared to 10 years ago).

So, even if you have a lot of money to advertise, a very good game with nothing custom but a too steep learning curve, with player-interaction restrictions, could end up as barren as an stock diku with a poor admin and a couple of snipets added to it.

08-01-2006, 05:36 PM	#48
Spoke Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 101	Although already a bit off-topic, I believe this is not necesarilly true. You speak about repetitive grind and stock features with a despective tone, but this also means that these features are familiar to people who have played elsewhere, and the repetitive grind allows for an easy mechanism to advance (though repetitive you feel like you are advancing in levels etc). What you, as a developer (and probably as a player, if you actually play MUDs) find boring and as a down-side, others (and I would argue that this is a bigger group) might find as an advantage. Better systems with more features and options often mean that you have a steeped learning curve, if you wish to excel you need to spend more time activelly engaged in the game learning and toning skills down so you can master the system. In a more simplistic game, with somewhat familiar-looking features, the learning process is shorter, you can go ahead and start making levels while you simultaneously explore the alternative activities sniped-in/created-for the game, effectibly increasing the number of available options in your hands for when you get bored of the grinding part. More options, all put together, different goals to fulfill (levels, gold in hand, equipment, other random stats you come up with, RP competitions, etc...) means a player will have something to do in this rather simple game whenever they chose to be playing. Now, you have an easy game, with a short learning curve that has a bunch of options since early on, and you can go ahead and interact with dozens of people without regard of OOC/IC issues. TADDA! you now have the "community" feeling many people long to have when they go on the net (it is not a secret that people have increasingly more "relationships" with virtual individuals to real ones compared to 10 years ago). So, even if you have a lot of money to advertise, a very good game with nothing custom but a too steep learning curve, with player-interaction restrictions, could end up as barren as an stock diku with a poor admin and a couple of snipets added to it.