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Old 09-04-2007, 03:24 AM   #32
Molly
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Sweden
Home MUD: 4 Dimensions
Posts: 574
Molly will become famous soon enoughMolly will become famous soon enough
Re: What Does "Fair" Mean?

Umm...
How did player Y access 'the Sword of Uber Slaying' in your example?
Through extensive grinding and camping?

That seems to me to be an example of very bad Game design.

This is a very good point.

I have noticed the generally diminishing death penalty myself, (even in my own Mud), and it irritates me. But since it seems to be a general trend, muds that apply harsh death penalty actually are put at a disadvantage. Players, who are used to dying every five seconds without any more penalty than having to re-wear their gear, are not likely to stay long in a game where death sets you back a lot, or even is permanent. I guess you could say that those are not the type of players you'd like anyhow, but let's face it, if all the players were of the ideal type, our Muds would be very empty.

"In the old days, young whippersnappers, dying would set you back so may levels that it would take weeks to catch up again, and we didn't have any of those 'portals' or 'transport items' or fancy swords either..."

There is actually a general trend of making a lot of things easier in Muds nowadays. Not just death penalties but almost everything gets smoothed out, so that players get babysat and led by the hand and skill becomes less and less of an asset. So even the foolhardy or downright dumb players can advance like crazy nowadays, where in the old days they'd go down in a blaze of fire and have to recreate, because they were so far in the negative that recreating would be a quicker way. (Nowadays I guess they'd just quit instead of recreating, and find themselves an even easier game). :P

It's sad, really.

There are of course ways to counteract this tendency and put some sort of challenge into the game, but they are not always effective, and they are almost always made at the expense of a large playerbase.

Our own method is to offer alternatives to grinding, as ways to get ahead. Above all we use Quests that are not just 'fetch-and-carry, but actually require a lot of attention and at least some thinking to solve. This is where the best equipment comes from in 4D. On top of that we put wear-flags on the quest equipment, so that you can only use it if you have done the quest yourself.

Of course this makes the players who are unable to solve the Quests on their own very frustrated, and I bet they are saying that it's 'unfair'...
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