Top Mud Sites Forum Return to TopMudSites.com
Go Back   Top Mud Sites Forum > Mud Development and Administration > Advanced MUD Concepts
Click here to Register

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 04-30-2005, 02:47 PM   #1
Burr
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 123
Burr is on a distinguished road
This morning I was skimming through Nick Yee's site, The Daedalus Project, and one of the statistics I noted was that older, female players tend to be the most loyal to the mud they currently play, probably in large part because of the importance of relationships they have built there.

Three other statistics about this demographic stuck out.

1) These players have a significant tendency towards jack-of-all-trades characters or hybrid class characters as opposed to pure class characters.

2) They tend to see their characters as their idealized self and tend to play their characters similarly.

3) Of all player types, they seem the least attracted to achievement gameplay.

As such, it seems a good character advancement system for them, as far as game mechanics are concerned, would be one that allows the player to achieve their "idealized self" as efficiently as possible, because it isn't the achievement so much as the customization that matters. Then they can get on with types of advancement that are really important to them -- relationship building and world exploration, for instance.

On the other hand, the advancement system should not be allowed to destroy immersion. This means injecting a certain amount of realism.

I think that the system would be classless in nature, with a relatively flat and interconnected hierarchy. What I'm less certain about is what type of initial customization it would be best to allow, and how abilities would respond to skill usage or lack thereof.

If you care little about advancement as a game mechanic, then does it still serve any necessary purpose? For instance, if everyone could do everything from the beginning, then you may lose some gameplay, but you gain your "idealized self" almost immediately simply by ignoring what skills or abilities don't fit your self-concept. But will you still be immersed in the world itself?
Burr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-30-2005, 03:44 PM   #2
Angie
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Prague
Home MUD: God Wars II
Posts: 134
Angie is on a distinguished road
Angie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-01-2005, 01:08 AM   #3
Keriwena
New Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 11
Keriwena is on a distinguished road
Keriwena is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-01-2005, 01:49 AM   #4
the_logos
Legend
 
the_logos's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Mill Valley, California
Posts: 2,305
the_logos will become famous soon enough
Keep in mind that Nick's project deals nearly exclusively with data collected from very large commercial projects that are monster bashing games (which we can assume have an audience that differs in some way from text mud audience), and that his methods lend his data very little legitimacy. All his data is collected via opt-in polls, for instance, which are statistically meaningless in terms of representing a population. Don't get me wrong: The Daedalus Project has some interesting stuff, but they're a curiosity, not something to really depend on, with much respect to Nick.

--matt
the_logos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-01-2005, 11:43 AM   #5
Ilkidarios
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Name: Lamont
Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Posts: 436
Ilkidarios is on a distinguished road
So basically you're talking about "The Sims". Everything you outlined in your poll data is all pretty much what is contained in the computer game called "The Sims".
Ilkidarios is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:20 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Style based on a design by Essilor
Copyright Top Mud Sites.com 2022