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Old 09-06-2010, 05:10 PM   #34
DonathinFrye
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Name: Donathin Frye
Location: Columbus, OH
Home MUD: Optional Realities
Home MUD: Atonement RPI
Home MUD: Project Redshift
Posts: 510
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

In brief response to Prof's points:

1) When I speak to the hay-day of the Mines of Moria, I mean further along in its life, after the Northlands staff took it over. That is when it acquired greater regulation and began to attract better roleplayers. I will not disagree with being disappointed in its opening; I was chief amongst the staff with this train of thought at the time, which is why I took it over and changed it from the ground up. As with Angost, or with Atonement ALPHA, I suppose you would've had to played there to see for yourself.

2) It's a shame you didn't give Atonement's ALPHA-phase a shot. ALPHA didn't mean that it had a ton of kinks in it; rather, it meant that it was just the first step in our implementation of a vastly superior RPI Engine. Even as it was that early on in development, it was still far more advanced than other current RPIs in the way of code. I will not judge its roleplay and story here, because I experience obvious bias in my own work. I think that you should give BETA a go, once we open this Fall.

3) I don't think that you have to dumb down a game to attract players, and I don't think that you want to alienate newbies. As you suggested, the greatest help that you can give is to teach newbies and guide them along a path that will improve their roleplaying ability and general enjoyment of the game. That's what our staff does; we take an interest in our new players and their growth. We managed this even with our respectably-sized playerbase during ALPHA, and some of our newbies (who had never played an RPI before) were able to really immerse and enjoy themselves. My goal is to not "dumb down" Atonement and to avoid being elitist towards newcomers. So far, so good.

4) I do suppose we have two different views of what direction the genre should move in. My problem with the "old way of thinking" is that it favors an attitude where "veteran" players are more valuable than up-and-coming players. My experience tells me that this attitude leads to apathy, which causes projects, storylines and roleplay to eventually stagnate and not get accomplished. It's the attitude that I see in some burnt-out ex-admins/admins from other games, and it worries me. I can understand the point-of-view, but I just don't see how the problem can be solved from that point-of-view. That is why, if nothing else, I bring a fresh perspective to the cabal of veteran admins in the genre.
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