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Freela · 01-17-2014, 06:53 PM

Shevegen, Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my post (I never heard the term necro before but I sort of figured it out from the context).
My mudding experience is quite limited. In the late 90's I was introduced to a very big and original one with very involved coders that kept tinkering and improving it all the time. I stayed there for several years until I found myself disagreeing with too many of the changes. Then I switched to a Pay-to-Play mud which was extremely well conceived and fairly well balanced in the areas of RP, PK and money. I quit that one after a year because the sysops (gods) thought it was ok to help their friends, thereby cheating against the other players. Didn't seem fair to me when they were charging us a fee to play there.
Then I quit mudding for ten years and recently decided to try it again in Midkemia.

In comparing these three muds and a couple more I visited briefly just to see what they were like, I have the following philosophical musings on mudding in general.

The creators of Muds work hard and spend a lot of their time and ingenuity creating fun games for people to play. So it is only right that they try to make a bit of money from their intellectual property. It is therefore quite common to sell, for Real World money, either credits, gear or other types of in-game advantages to people who can afford it. Understandable from the point of view of the coders. Very unfortunate from the point of view of the players because, in my opinion, it seriously unbalances the entertainment value of the game itself. At least for people who are too young/poor or otherwise unable to put hundreds and even thousands of real dollars into their gaming. Because the people who CAN afford the buff-stuff then become bad-ass far beyond the capabilities of the others and can then, if they choose, ruin the game for the poorer players. It also undermines a regular player's enthusiasm for becoming adept in the game, because he/she knows that no matter how skilled they become In-Game, they will NEVER be able to compete with the Real-Money gamers. The coders, noticing a lack of balance in the game, then start to introduce things like taxes and regulations and other "fixes" which just make everybody go "Yuck, what a drag!"

In my limited experience, I think there are two possible solutions to this dilemma. One, make two "Planes" within the mud. People who never buy ANY Real world items get to play in Plane One and can then excel as much as they want. People who just have to have the latest and bestest stuff, get to pay money and play in Plane Two. And neither Plane can enter the other, except by buying stuff and moving to the rich plane.

The second solution would be to make the mud Pay-To-Play but not offer ANY extra items for real world money. This way people can test themselves against the games parameters to the utmost and have the satisfaction of knowing they are beating the game or the other players fairly, on their own merits.

As to PK that's a whole other thing, and needs to be treated separately.

01-17-2014, 06:53 PM	#11
Freela New Member Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Canada Posts: 17	Re: Achieving a balance? Shevegen, Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my post (I never heard the term necro before but I sort of figured it out from the context). My mudding experience is quite limited. In the late 90's I was introduced to a very big and original one with very involved coders that kept tinkering and improving it all the time. I stayed there for several years until I found myself disagreeing with too many of the changes. Then I switched to a Pay-to-Play mud which was extremely well conceived and fairly well balanced in the areas of RP, PK and money. I quit that one after a year because the sysops (gods) thought it was ok to help their friends, thereby cheating against the other players. Didn't seem fair to me when they were charging us a fee to play there. Then I quit mudding for ten years and recently decided to try it again in Midkemia. In comparing these three muds and a couple more I visited briefly just to see what they were like, I have the following philosophical musings on mudding in general. The creators of Muds work hard and spend a lot of their time and ingenuity creating fun games for people to play. So it is only right that they try to make a bit of money from their intellectual property. It is therefore quite common to sell, for Real World money, either credits, gear or other types of in-game advantages to people who can afford it. Understandable from the point of view of the coders. Very unfortunate from the point of view of the players because, in my opinion, it seriously unbalances the entertainment value of the game itself. At least for people who are too young/poor or otherwise unable to put hundreds and even thousands of real dollars into their gaming. Because the people who CAN afford the buff-stuff then become bad-ass far beyond the capabilities of the others and can then, if they choose, ruin the game for the poorer players. It also undermines a regular player's enthusiasm for becoming adept in the game, because he/she knows that no matter how skilled they become In-Game, they will NEVER be able to compete with the Real-Money gamers. The coders, noticing a lack of balance in the game, then start to introduce things like taxes and regulations and other "fixes" which just make everybody go "Yuck, what a drag!" In my limited experience, I think there are two possible solutions to this dilemma. One, make two "Planes" within the mud. People who never buy ANY Real world items get to play in Plane One and can then excel as much as they want. People who just have to have the latest and bestest stuff, get to pay money and play in Plane Two. And neither Plane can enter the other, except by buying stuff and moving to the rich plane. The second solution would be to make the mud Pay-To-Play but not offer ANY extra items for real world money. This way people can test themselves against the games parameters to the utmost and have the satisfaction of knowing they are beating the game or the other players fairly, on their own merits. As to PK that's a whole other thing, and needs to be treated separately.