[silvarilon]

So, how do we create a game that fulfills the ranter's impossible request?
I'd go through the list above of what makes people enjoy ongoing activities, and think about each point in terms of MUD game design.



- The activity has ongoing levels of challenge, and knowledge necessary

This is the activity that most people speak about when they are talking about long time muds. It is incredibly hard to maintain this, though. There can be a lot of challenges... but in most cases, the amount of effort for a staff member to implement the new challenge will be larger than the effort for the (good) player to overcome the challenge. This means it is ongoing work for the staff to continue adding challenges, and that doesn't take into account world consistency, modular design, etc.

In some cases, you can get the ratio happening the other way, often by having hidden variations in the challenges, or by having the challenges repeat with different variables. For example, if I code a secret door that can only be opened with the password, and I hide the password... I've created content. But as soon as one player discovers the password, the content is completed (and now the "activity" becomes "find the player who can tell you the password") - if I know this, and plan for it... I could instead code in a secret door with a password known by a random, active PC in the game (and have some mechanism where, if asked, the player is told the correct password) - now the activity is still essentially the same - find the other player that can tell you the password. However, since it's abstracted, I can reuse that puzzle, and put in unlimited passworded doors, without having to write any extra code. Each door has a different character that can tell the password. Hopefully, if I've designed my game well, the characters it picks will be sensible (so thieves can tell you passwords to secret doors in the sewers, merchants can tell you passwords for secrets in the banking house, etc.)

Now, obviously, nobody is going to enjoy a game that's about walking up to random people and asking if they know the password. But that could be a small aspect of the game, and that small aspect will probably remain about as fun on year 10 as it was on year 2 (but, obviously, not as fun as it was on day 1)

- The activity constantly provides new content

Of course, the new content we can provide will be limited by the speed with which we can create it. If we are smart, we can set up *good* procedurally generated content, which maximizes the use of the content we do create. But we'll never be able to keep up with the players. Partly because it takes more effort to create content than it does to consume. And partly because (at least with games) players will only consume part of the content.

My thoughts on this are to let players create the content themselves. On a roleplaying mud, I don't try to tell the players what is happening in the game - I try to give players the tools they need to *make* something happen in the game. Then, by trying to consume the game content, they are actually creating more content.

An example, in Ironclaw there is a guild council, made from representatives of the commoner guilds which, as a group, has significant political power. One of the "tools" available to the players is the ability to join the guild council. Another is the ability for the existing council members to vote on whether the new arrival should be accepted or not. A player trying to become a member would be creating content, since they will have to play politics to convince the existing members to vote them in. The way they attempt this will be different every time, depending on the character, and depending on the active council members. And the content is created for the supplicant member, the existing members, as well as anyone who supports or opposes the supplicant (and decides to attempt to sway the council members)

Obviously, that's a very specific case, but it's a nice example of how we can set up our games to organically allow the players to create the gameplay content. It is difficult to do, though, and has to be carefully designed and directed. (For example, if the council was full of carebears who always said "yes" to everyone, there would be no game content, and just unnecessary delay while you wait for the council vote to take place. To we need to ensure that the council members have a balance of motivation both for voting yes and for voting no.)

Essentially, well designed PvP creates content. And well designed systems allows that content to be more than "I hit you with a sword."

- The activity gives external benefits

Easiest way to do this is to foster a sense of OOC community. So the players are playing a game, but they are also making online friends and relationships. I've known players that have stopped playing a MUD, but are still a regular part of their forum due to the friendships they've built. More regularly, they log into the mud to play due to the OOC community that they feel they are a part of, even if the IC story isn't grabbing them at that moment. This happens by itself, as long as you give players the ability to interact with each other on an OOC level.

- The activity creates an output that you value

Hard to do in a MUD, since it will depend on how much each player values the roleplay they create. Many players tenaciously value the "stories of their character", but others don't.

- The activity has a psychological "hook"

Ah!
Create well designed PvP and you can get (some) players competitive natures to the fore.
Create regular, meaningful achievements, and you get the Pavlovian "reward" responses happening.
Create risks that can be regularly taken and sometimes pay off and you get gambling excitement.
Create achievements that required ridiculous effort, and you get artificially-created player investment (since they've put so much energy into the game, they don't want to admit to themselves that it was wasted. So they will stop evaluating the game rationally) (This means you need both regular achievements, as well as stupidly-difficult achievements) (And since you want everyone to have this investment, the "difficult" achievements shouldn't require skill, only time & effort.)
Create "maintenance" needs, and you get players logging in from fear of "loosing" what they have earned. For example, make skills reduce over time unless you practice them. But make it really easy to practice the skills.

Not all of these will make the game more *fun* - but all of them will encourage players to continue logging in to get their "fix"

- The activity has a moral dimension

Ah, convince players that they're doing the right thing by playing your game. How, would depend on your game.
Many of our most zealous players have done this to themselves, they've created an artificial burden of "I must log my characters in, because I'm a blacksmith and other players need the items I create" etc. - Although they often complain about not enjoying the game anymore due to the stress, they refuse to give up their "duty"

(So my problem is actually the opposite. I try to convince them that they do NOT have a moral duty to log in when they don't want to. And to convince them that if they don't provide the items, that just creates game content for the other players (the content being "we have a shortage of good X, how will I get one? I could barter with a current owner, etc. etc.) - it rarely works, because if I succeed in convincing them that the game continues fine without them logging in, I run into the point above about "maintenance needs" where they fear if they don't keep supplying the good, someone else will, and they will loose their in-character customers.)

So, yeah, with this in mind I certainly think it's possible to design a game that will still have plenty of content, challenges, and excitement years later. The players might be experts at the game by then but, like with chess grandmasters, I think it's possible to make a game that is still interesting to the experts, and challenging due to playing against/alongside other experts.

But, obviously, it's a *lot* more effort to create this sort of ongoing content than it is to create once-off content.