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Old 09-27-2010, 09:31 PM   #134
silvarilon
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

I'd go a step further and say that I like simplified mechanics whenever are possible.

What did Einstein say? "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

If a complex mechanic doesn't add anything, it should be simplified. If the complexity does add something, it should be kept, or built on. The different flavors of the games will dictate which fits. In a combat game, the combat system will need nuance, which the communication system might not. In a social game it might be reversed.

Not to say there can't be complexity, there are plenty of ways to add complexity to a game, while still keeping it simple for the players that don't want to use the complex options. It's only dumbing it down if we remove the complex options that were adding to the game.

Agreed - but unlike regular computer games, we have a very short development cycle, so we can continue making improvements after release.
Not all of us are newbies, the rest can still learn from the experienced, and we build on what came before.

The second. To be entirely fair, I didn't give it a proper chance (I plan to come back when I have more time) - I was just there to have a look around and get a feel for the place. I didn't read instructions properly, I *did* read the intro text, learned to walk to the training area, learned to make fists and throw attacks with the right and left hand. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing when throwing punches at the dummy (my character was a blademaster?) - I suppose I could have continued, but instead I tried the "what" command, which just told me to do what I was doing. I had a look at the available commands (with r?) and saw the simple commands along the top, but then there was a table of other commands (sssd +15 +0 -5 etc.) which I assumed were combos or some sort or another. I started reading help files, saw the command to set gender, tried it, it didn't work (presumably I need to go back to the character-defining-area and not change things like that while "out in the world")

So I did read the files and use the 'what' command, but not to the extent that a newbie would have. Instead I expected to be able to "pick up and play" and just use those commands for quick reference. While I couldn't do.

That's not a complaint, when I have time I'll have a proper attempt. At the time I was logged in while at work and doing other stuff, so I didn't have the concentration available to learn something completely new.

I find it interesting that you feel the games are inherently role-play intensive due to the features and philosophy - because the guiding goal when we were setting up our non-RPI was to put roleplaying first. We considered the game design elements (including every item on the RPI list) and, although we came to many similar conclusions, we have a few big differences. However, those differences were, without exception, put in place to facilitate RP. I guess it's that "different flavors for different people" issue. But I find it interesting that the feature-set (and philosophy) that you feel inherently leads to role-play is different to the feature-set (and philosophy) that I feel inherently leads to role-play. (Actually, I'm not quite that confident. I don't feel that it inherently leads there, just that it enables the RP, if we can shepherd the players there. So maybe the RPI feature set is actually more effective?)

I suspect you're right

Mmmm. Maybe.
But this is where we disagree. (although I don't have enough of an emotional investment to really care. Beyond some teasing here, since writing these posts amuses me when work is boring)

You claim that the problem is a lack of English skills. I claim that the problem is an (unintentionally) misleading term.

I do understand adjective word order. If we break up the two phrases we have:
Intensive role-playing mud
Intensive(adj, opinion) role-playing(adj, purpose) mud(noun)
role-playing intensive mud
role-playing(adj, purpose) intensive(adj, purpose) mud(noun)
and, just for fun:
"These games are inherently role-playing intensive"
These(determiner) games(noun) are(verb) inherently(adverb) role-playing(noun) intensive(adj, purpose)

So it's indisputable that you are using the words correctly.
But the purpose of language is to communicate, and not everyone has studied NL or knows how to do POS tagging. If a significant number of people who know the term RPI misunderstand it to mean that there is intensive RP, well... it doesn't really matter how grammatically correct you are. Confusion is created. There is PR value to a phrase that makes people *think* that you're telling them that these games are focussed on intense RP.

I'd also question the word "intense" as an adjective that is taking the "purpose" position when looking at adjective order. Let's look at some other acronyms.

RPE game
role-play enforced game. So it's a game with role-play being enforced. That makes sense.

FPS game
first-person shooter game. So it's a first-person game. That makes sense. And it's a shooter game. That makes sense.

RPI game
role-play intensive game. So it's a game with role-play. That makes sense. And it's an intensive game. Uh? An "intensive game"? What does that even mean? Are RPI's any more "intensive" than other games? (and we're not talking about "intensive role-play", as you've many times pointed out.) What is an "intensive game"? Does it mean I'm interacting constantly without much chance for rest? Maybe it's "intensive" in the case of intensive care, or intensive workout, where we talk about a lot of effort and work going in - so does it mean that RPIs require more work from the players for the same output? With all that confusion over what, exactly, is "intensive" about the game, I can understand why people might think that the "intensive" refers to the role-play. Even if they have good grammar comprehension.

If we were speaking Latin, this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, we're speaking English, which has a horrible amount of ambiguity in both its structure and use. I'm of the opinion that when creating a term, if the term has an in-built ambiguity (such as what, exactly the "intensity" relates to) and the grammar structure causes problems for many amongst the target audience of the term, then the fault does not lie entirely on the audience. I would argue that at least part of the fault lies with the term.

I don't know. Those terms don't match exactly, and may be inaccurate definition, but they hardly cause confusion.
When I talk about a "player-killing MUD" I don't think there are many, amongst the mentally stable audience, that would assume we kill another player. They might not understand what the term refers to, and have to ask, but they won't jump to the wrong conclusion.

Similarly, I might not know what RPE stands for, but if I guess it stands for Role-Play Enforced, then again, there is no confusion.

If I figure out RPI stands for Role-play Intensive... well, there is confusion. Demonstrated by the number of times this topic has come up.

I don't begrudge you the term, but at some point, you might want to consider why you need to defend it. There doesn't seem to be a need to defend the term FPS or RTS - nobody is motivated to describe a FPS as a RTS or vice versa. Even if one style of game is more popular than the other. So why would people be motivated to describe a RPE as an RPI? Surely not just because of all the totally awesome good will that RPIs have gathered over the years? RTS games also have some pretty hefty good will, but that phrase doesn't get misused.

I'd put forward the theory that a strong term would become self-regulating. I'd also put forward the theory that this strong term would have to be descriptive (if not accurate) and emotionally neutral. I would suggest RPE is a good example, I don't think anyone needs to defend the meaning of "RPE" (even if there are admins that list their games as RPE when they don't do any enforcement.)
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