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Old 11-16-2010, 02:05 AM   #16
silvarilon
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Re: YART (Yet Another RPI Thread)

Lack of motivation.
If I'm reading through a mud list, visiting the games looking for somewhere to play I'm going to be jumping into the game, spending a few hours to see if I can start having fun.

And if I'm after RP, and I get some, I'll keep roleplaying there, and maybe stay (and therefore not go back to the listing to vote for it just yet) or maybe stay while I keep searching for something better.

If I log in and find nobody online, or run into someone who doesn't RP, well, I'm not going to vote it as low roleplay. Maybe I met a jerk, who is going to be banned tomorrow. Maybe I logged on during dead time, and the game is normally bustling. Maybe I walked east when there was an event to the west where all the players are found. Roleplaying is such a hit-or-miss sort of thing that I can't judge the RP until I've been involved in it. And even then, I can only judge based on my experience.

I've seen people talk about the high quality of roleplaying on WoW. Excuse me if I'm skeptical, I suspect we've got different expectations of "high quality" roleplaying. Similarly, someone who hasn't been playing a RP mud for long enough that their character is established in the society isn't going to be able to judge the quality of the RP fairly.

And what motivates them to go back to the listing and "vote it down"? Probably nothing. Unless they had a *really* bad (or good) experience. In which case we're only really hearing from the outliers.

Instead, what I'm thinking is that you design a system that encourages current players to basically "vote up" their current mud. But design it so the number of players doesn't make much impact, but the way they describe the mud does. So a player who feels their mud is superior in combat would vote up combat, while a player who feels their mud is superior in RP would vote up RP. That way all MUDs appear to be "equally cool" but with their emphasis in different areas. With maybe some minimum number of monthly votes needed to maintain the standing (something like 5 maybe? So it's easy for a small MUD to maintain it, but an abandoned mud would quickly drop down the list until it becomes active again - that also gives muds an incentive to encourage their players to vote it, giving us a wider spread of what the players think rather than just what the mud admins think)

So the real motivation to rate the mud would come from the players loyalty to their own mud. And they wouldn't be much motivated to rate muds they don't play.

Obviously, there are exceptions. Some people just love categorizing things They would still be free to do so.

Sure. But it would probably have to be very poor before you do so.
If I log in to a RP mud, and I see names like "SirHottie" and "SexyGal" then I'm definitely voting the RP quality down. Or if I find the characters, who are all saying things like "Yo, bitches! I pwned that dragon!" then I'm voting it down.
But if I log in, find the controls clumsy, and my level of character customization too low for my personal preferences... I'm probably leaving without making any votes about the quality of the RP.
Or if I log in to find the players staying in-character, but the actual things they are roleplaying might not be interesting... I'm probably not voting it down. Even if I find it bland and move on to the next MUD.

So, you're right, the extreme cases would certainly get voted up or down. But the middling cases would probably just hang around in limbo.

Yep, that would work fine. And give a good rating of what people think for yes/no questions. It's fairly clear in your example that the hypothetical mud has permanent death, but with some wiggle room (maybe you have to consent before you can die, but won't return. Or maybe there are possibilities of returning from death, such as becoming a zombie) - so that works well.

But something like "Good RP" - well, assuming the players of the mud are more motivated to vote than the non-players, and the players are biased towards their own mud, they're likely to vote RP up, giving it a good rating. And the ratio of players voting RP up for all RP muds would probably be approximately equal across the board.

That's why I'd suggest the ranking system, so it's not "Does this MUD have good RP?" (where, of course, on a RP mud the players feel it does. Or they wouldn't be there.)
Instead, it becomes "Which is more important to this mud? RP or Combat?" where different players might have different opinions.

So it gives more useful information when you're looking for a mud. If you love combat, but also want RP, you'd look for a RPE with a high ranking for combat. And you'd know that, although this MUD has "good RP" listed high, the emphasis is more strongly on combat.

Correct.
I suspect players who didn't enjoy the mud would usually not vote, and only occasionally vote once.
Players who stay would vote more regularly.
Players who stay, and then leave while having a tantrum would return daily to vote the mud down, for a period of time (and then loose interest) - often, the *better* the mud, the worse these players will be, and the worse they will vote. This is because on a better mud the players have stronger emotions when things don't go their way.

Yeah, I agree. That sounds very useful.
Heck, maybe players could even vote on the comments themselves. So there could be 3 comments about permanent death, but the highest voted comment gets displayed.
That way there can still be lots of comments, while highlighting for the players the "important information" they need, and giving the option to read more if they want.

Heh. Start a new thread, and put a link back to this one. Then we can continue the discussion there.

Got a question, though. Are you discussing this just from idle interest, or are you planning to do something with it? Such as create a mud listing website or something?
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