[KaVir]

Yet 3rd edition (and 3.5) had considerably more complex progression than 1st or 2nd edition - and 4th edition caused quite a schism among D&D fans, with many deciding that Pathfinder (dubbed D&D 3.75 by some) was what 4th edition should have been. In fact I got the feeling that 4th edition was somehow more aimed at bringing in new roleplayers, particularly from the MMORPG community.

Personally I rather like simplified game mechanics when playing a tabletop roleplaying game, as I usually focus on interaction and storytelling, with a strong tendancy towards improvisation (possibly due to having done live roleplaying in the past). In fact I've recently been playing with a GM Emulator for running tabletop games, and I've realised I've already been using similar elements in many of the games I've run. I did also enjoy D&D 3.5 for the more tactical-oriented aspects it added to gameplay, but even then I was often quite slack about following the rules.

However for non-roleplaying games I tend to prefer a greater degree of complexity - and I'm not a big fan of roleplaying online, so most computer games I play tend to involve strategy and player skill.

While it's clear from the popularity of Facebook games that there's a huge market for very simple casual games, I think there will always be a market for the more hardcore games. This actually brings to mind a :

"Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Regular computer games don't have this problem.

The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore. The hardcore finishes product faster than newbies, and therefore buys new product faster than newbies. The hardcore understands design implications better than newbies. They won't buy a game with features they can see are poor; they select games with good design genes. Because of this, games which are good are rewarded by higher sales than games which are bad.

In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Furthermore, in today's flat-fee universe, the hardcore spends the same amount of money as everyone else: developers aren't rewarded for appealing to the cognoscenti, except maybe through word of mouth that always comes with caveats (because of point #3)."

But were you lost because you didn't know what to do (even with the 'what' command) - or and there were too many new things to learn? To quote Bartle's article again:

"Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't."

I think this is a problem all muds face to some degree - most veteran players have too many preceptions from other muds, and . I know I'm guilty of this too - even being aware of it, I just don't have the patience to spend time learning something completely new.

And I suspect this is one of the main reasons behind the attitute towards certain mud features, such as those common to RPIs (in fact permadeath is specifically mentioned in Bartle's article): Players from an RPI background typically like permadeath, no public channels, hidden names, etc, because that's what they're used to. Conversely, players from muds that don't have permadeath, do have public channels and don't hide player names will prefer the opposite for exactly the same reason. Neither side will change their stance, because their preferences are based on their personal expectations of what makes a good game.