[Dionae]

I think it's definitely possible to have a serious roleplaying mud where you don't have to be logged in all day. Obviously the more time you spend on the game, the more you will be able to interact with people and get involved, but that doesn't mean you can't have serious rp in the times where you are logged on. I've come across new characters on the game I play and they instantly have something interesting to add and to play off of (crazy starving tshaharks, furry wild elves...). It make take awhile to get to know a game and to see what interesting ideas would work, but you don't have to be playing all day for some fun rp to develop. It does depend upon the mud, I'm sure. And what one player considers "serious rp" may not be the same as what another player considers it. But I wouldn't say it's not possible.

[arden]

very nice ideas melopene, i'd love to see the mud when its 'done' well to an exctent where it is playable

newworlds: there is a ski slope somewhere in a desert, i think it egypt somewhere, completely inside.

and to be honest i don't spend more than about 3/4 hours online, sometimes less than one, and the guilds on newworlds play how you play them

[Will]

Melopene: I absolutely love your game creation philosophy. Your takes on motivation and roleplay mirror mine exactly. As I said in the Community Survey thread, if the goal in building a game isn't to make something fun for players, what's the point? Like you, I believe that the events and histories of virtual worlds should be player driven and that great roleplay does not require blocks of flowery prose. I really look forward to checking out Anaea when it's ready to roll.

Where I think a bit differently than you do is the idea of player designed and created content. Listening and genuinely considering ideas and suggestions is one thing, and maybe you have solutions for this, but I can't imagine dealing with players as they design new guilds or classes or whatever. In my experience, players want what's good for them, and they aren't very happy if they don't get it, especially when someone else does. The "F" word (favoritism) gets thrown around way too much as it is. I think allowing players to build and code sounds like a good idea, but that quality control could become a massive issue. If I have to review and edit a bunch of other peoples' work I'd rather just do it myself.

And maybe I'm reading some of your ideas completely wrong. In that case, ignore me. I'm intrigued by the possibility that Anaea presents. How long have you been in production? When do you see the beta period beginning?

Just my $.02.

-Will

[IZDemon]

The ski slope you are thinking of is in Dubai.

[SnowTroll]

The philosophy isn't too awful, if you trust your players to focus on the bigger picture. Making a set of skills or whatever that makes sense and goes together, versus trying to make something 1337 that makes the game easy for them.

There was this tiny, new mud I tried out for a little while called Inferno RPG. It was something of a MUSH-MUD hybrid, with some MOO aspects thrown in. Every single object and room was player-designed. Players were simply expected to dress their own characters, have items that fit the role they were playing, and make locations that were reasonable places to have rp encounters. Players who wanted to could make themselves a quasi-imm charcter and run rp plots, all player done. As long as you have some level of oversight and don't give players carte blanche to decide how much damage the new skill they're giving themselves does, I think you can trust most rp-focused players to design content with good intentions.

[arden]

i thought maybe it was dubai, but then thought again,. still a desert though

[Will]

That's a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG if.

I'd argue that if your game is growing, it's impossible to know who has the big picture in mind and who doesn't. Shall we survey incoming new players to find out?

[melopene]

Will-

In terms of managing player wants versus a balanced game, I think it just takes a firm hand and the ability to say 'I said no to this idea, and that's that'. I take that position on a number of things that are definitively off-limits. There are, after all, boundaries. And the F-word is always going to be thrown around, but I do pride myself on being fairly objective (after all, I'm in academia and have to be able to make value-neutral analyses).

Quality control - yes, that's an issue, and that's why I've got an absolutely awesome woman in charge of all things building, plus me as a backup reviewer. I don't mind reading and editing work as needed, because when you work with a builder and show them how they can improve, they become a better builder for it.

I've been working on it off and on since 2005ish, when my ex convinced me to help fix some crash bugs on this game he was playing. I ended up inheriting the code and stripped out a lot of 'features' that I despised, added a few of my own, etc etc.

I'm expecting to have the code, and hopefully enough wilderness area, to have the game playable through all the levels by sometime in September, unless something severely hijacks my time. You're welcome to provide some input on those same forums anytime.

Note - not really trying to use that as an advertising opportunity, but I'd be silly not to ask for his ideas

[Darren Brimhall]

THis was my part of my problem at Marrach, for the most part I devoted my time there to providing a service with my characters which wasn't a great deal of time becuase of unemployment and limited employtment taking up most of my time. And RL concerns pretty much forbade me from sitting at a computer for 12 hours or more trying to rebuild my characters after their fall...

Then again, they there wanted me to play in a manner they wanted. So I told them to go to hell in my own way and haven't been back since.

And to those who spend 12 hours or more at a computer playing games, I gotta ask, are you so wealthy you can afford to do that--or living on Unemployment in a Shelter? Is your real-world life so awful you spend all but a few hours of it per day glued to a machine trying to escape from it? I can see if you manage or program from a Computer, but anything else--come on.

I mean honestly, get a life!

Darren Brimhall

[Jazuela]

Some people are kids, who game constantly because their parents use the computer as a babysitter/nanny instead of engaging them in face-to-face interpersonal activities.

Some people are physically disabled and -cannot- work, and all their able-bodied buddies are busy working all day, and so they need something to do, and use the computer to do it.

Some people are so significantly physically disabled, that the computer -is- their lifeline to reality (such as someone with ALS, who cannot walk, talk, move, breathe, eat, expel waste, without a machine to do it for them, however their ability to think is just as sharp as it always was).

Some people play while they're doing other computer-related things, such as work, or school, and they just happen to be fairly good at multi-tasking.

Add those four types together, and you would probably come up with a pretty hefty portion of people who fit into the category of "people who spend 12 hours or more playing computer games."

[Will]

So what if I am?

So what if it is?

I mean, honestly, mind your own business.

[melopene]

Incidentally, I do think that you can be important and influential in a game without being on all day, every day. You just have to spend a decent amount of time online every week, and generally be available to RP. That doesn't mean that you can't have some times when you just want to log in, read mail, and go do a few things, then log off, but it DOES mean that you get out of a character what you put into it. But if you spend less than 20 hours a week online, don't expect to be selected to rule a kingdom or other important social structure, because there are specific demands behind that. Also, some of my favorite RP experiences were from people who had little time to play, but had bold characters that were lots of fun.

Also, I'm a graduate student who generally has only a few hours of work per month to do (I write a draft, my committee gets back to me 2-4 weeks later with a handful of edits, rinse, repeat- should be on the academic job market within a month, though). I spend plenty of time socializing, I get out when I want, spend plenty of time with my family and friends, and still have more than enough time to average 10-12 hours a day online. I also find it as an inexpensive and satisfying hobby. A number of MUD players are students, so they have more free time than most.

[Darren Brimhall]

don't know how to use the Multi-quoteWell to recap, only the first group would be the ones who really spend 12 hours or more playing computer games, as the rest are divided between Work and Exsistance with very little possible game time.


What players of MUD Games need to realize, and for the most part they do, is that people have lives beyond the Game that are more important. It is those MUD Players who insist players must put in more time to gain anything in a partictular Game are the ones who are killing the Game by driving players away from it, along with those who with their friends get their jollies off on dangling opprtunities for novice players--and enjoy watching those players jump through hoops in the effort to try getting them.

Darren Brimhall

[Jazuela]

1. We agree.
2. Once again, you're not comprehending a very simple sentence:
Some people are physically disabled and -cannot- work, and all their able-bodied buddies are busy working all day, and so they need something to do, and use the computer to do it.

I guess you've never heard of SSI - you know, disability payments for people who are physically disabled and cannot work. There are millions of people collecting it. They cannot work. Not only can they not work, but they are not allowed to work, because if they get caught working, they lose their disability payments. But - most of the people they know, DO work. And so they have limited interaction during regular working hours. What will they do during that time? Oh I know. They can...play muds. Astoundingly enough, there are many people who are disabled and cannot work, playing muds. And some of them play for many hours a day.

I don't know if it's 12. That was your number, I don't know where you pulled it out of. You wanted to know who is mudding 12 hours a day. I took a leap and thought, who indeed, Jazuela? And I thought awhile, pondered it a few, and came up with my handy dandy list of "people who would play 12 hours a day." I based it on who would have access to a computer 12 hours a day, who might actually want to game 12 hours a day.

Now, I'm thinking, they probably don't game 12 hours a day. In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with 100 mudders, who mud on average 12 hours per day for longer than a month in a given 6 month period. But hey, you're the one who came up with the ridiculous possibility. I just lent potentiality to your possibility.

[melopene]

Oh darlin, don't feed the troll.

/not that I didn't feed it too
//stays online 18 hours a day cos she WANTS to

[arden]

i',m currently looking for work, and since i can't afford to jump on the bus for an hour everyday (job centre say i have to be able to travel upto one hour via public transport) somedays i sit on home and will get 6+ hours online but ussually not more than 4.

[melopene]

I have a feeling that someone might need a whaaaaaaaambulance from not getting enough attention on various MUDs. But really, if you have so much time to devote to other things in your life, how is it that you have time to post here, exactly, hrm?!

Believe me, we all know that one another have lives. Many of us have provided support to one another through various means. I still keep in touch with one of my favorite RP friends, even though I didn't know him in the MUD-world long, and he never played for more than an hour or two at a time.

Now, I say 'we all'.... but maybe except for maybe that former neighbor of mine, who literally filled the downstairs and spare room of his townhouse with pizza boxes before taking out trash. He would emerge twice daily - once for work, the next was pizza. I borrowed a stick of RAM from him once and saw the scene - everything was covered in pizza or takeout boxes, except for the geekapalooza of his bedroom. Five 24" widescreen monitors, three base units... and that was for warcraft alone.

There's always going to be those. The rest of us actually do pay attention to the real world, no matter how much time we choose to spend in it.

[kurik]

Some administrators have helpers that help them to run the game while they are gone. For example, in Materia Magica, there is at least one visible administrator on at one time 24/7. The only bad side to the game is that the playerbase we have now are ignorant and rude and that the administrators are just out to get you because they have nothing else to do but listen to the whining and crying of players due to the stupid rules they have. NEVER PLAY MATERIA MAGICA!

[Darren Brimhall]

Simple, I parcel my time out--Yard Work, Job Hunting, Play and the IRS every MOnday

Exactly.


Darren Brimhall

[Darren Brimhall]

Reminds me of Castle Marrach when I and others left it...

And a Star Wars style MUD I herd about from a fellow on Second Life.


Darren Brimhall