On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, Rich Chiavaroli wrote:
-+Ummm I thought about this. Two reasons that I'm not going to do it.
-+I don't think the majority of mudders out there would like a mud
-+where they didn't have levels and could say that they were higher
-+than someone else. People like that structure for some reason. *shrug*
This is terribly linear, one-dimensional thinking; a problem that
affects the creative productivity of far too many fields. And,
it actually seems an excuse to get out of having to code something
that is time consuming (though only a few hours work in truth, and
all of the changes are quite trivial). In my experience, if the
game is fun, then people will play it whether it is familiar or
otherwise. Actually, people tend to enjoy a well-constructed
original concept, as it re-ignites the sense of exploration and
amazement that they likely haven't felt since first starting to
Mud (or, worse, have never felt at all; that's what I mainly
dislike about Muds, now-a-days, they're too predictable, and if
they're not, there's typically a high-level player that is all too
willing to ruin a lot of the fun and exploration of the Mud by
just leveling you; and worse, too many Mudders accept the offer,
and never think twice about all of the enjoyment they could have
had).
So, it generally doesn't matter what you do, as long as the players
enjoy it (I mean truly enjoy it; not a novelty like immortality
after leveling, or little animations sent via a special client). I
call immortality a novelty for the simple reason that once it's
achieved, it's generally not fun any more. Sure, it's cool to have
those new commands and powers *at first*, but then you quickly realize
you're no longer playing the game. You're just lying around, trying
to think of new ways to use the fairly worthless (at least to you)
"at" command.
I never really "liked" levels. When I was an avid player, I didn't
much care about levels, except that they were my status ranking.
Once upon a time, a 12th level person seemed infinitely powerful (on
a MUD where no-one had yet achieved a higher level than that); and
a tempered sword was just unequalled. Perhaps bliss is reserved for
the naive. Though when I hit immortality, and the novelty of the
situation wore off, I regretted ever being able to achieve the
status. All well, enough of this nostalgia. Doesn't matter, I
haven't seen hide or hair of a good Mud in 4 years; and I'm *not*
talking about things like Sojourn, which are quite featureful and
large, but hold no surprises or twists on the typical formula. And
I doubt I'll be seeing anything worth my time in the future (not
to insult any other administrators out there, as I have very
particular tastes; and if other people like your mud, it doesn't
matter what I think).
Yes, bliss is reserved for the naive.
--
Daniel Koepke -:- dkoepke@california.com -:- [Shadowlord/Nether]
Think.
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: |
| http://democracy.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list-faq.html |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/08/00 PST