the truth behind the mmorpgs

[borg9]

it would be intresting to see if they made all monsters do 0xp for a few weeks and see if people still logged on to play and meet people.

if they didnt you would know nobody wants to role play and that they shoudnt buy a game with rpg in the title

Alternatively - give XP, but remove the message that tells you how much you get.

In OB1 and early FBT this feature was not there. I thought wrongly that the XP messages had been put in for the FBT team to make sure things worked and in retail, they would hide this info.

I am a great beleiver in if you focus on a goal, eg collecting mats to make a set of armour (goal=armour). The process of collecting the mats is not boring or repeative. Its kinda fun. Being constantly reminded that pulling ql60 mats is worth less XP than pulling ql100 mats that you don't need, is a distraction from you real goal.... get the mats for your armour.

I say hide the XP rewarded for actions. The die hards will measure the pixels on action progress and report back that a lvl 53 hard kipees give more xp than some other mob..... let em. I personally would be happier not knowing and suddenly finding when I return back to town with a full bag of mats that I have 40 SP to spend with the trainers.

People may buy skills they want and not the ones everyone else say is a must have to level you skill.

Grouping would be much more fun, because anyone could come regardless of level and have fun hunting, without someone saying your killing the XP with you high level spells!

What do you think.

Love the analysis of MMORPG & virtual worlds, however most people seem to have the attention span of a goldfish these days. If I don't get a result in 30secs its not worth doing.

Eg Fast food, Mircowaves, instant tea/coffee, etc...

[jenuviel]

Text based MUDs were level/grind based. They're quite the same as MMORPGs, identical other than a graphic engine instead of N/S/E/W. Everquest even uses some stock public domain MUD code, as most MUDs did. They had plenty enough player base to have active guilds, cliques, etc. They just weren't in the public eye cause they were pre-big-public-internet. This was where it all started

I know what MUDs are. I was a builder, admin, and pretty much everything other than a coder for a variety of MUDs over a period of around eight years. While technically the term "MUD" tends to refer to the Diku and LP based codes, it also loosely refers to the MOOs, MUSHes, MUXes and their Tiny variations. None of the latter have any grinding in them whatsoever. They're more virtual roleplaying rooms based on themes chosen by the coders, though players are often given great freedom to build new areas as well (which is rarely the case with the aforementioned Diku/LP MU*s).

This is all sort of off-topic, though. What I think Bartle meant when he said that "purists would always have text MUDs" was that there's more freedom for people with good ideas to implement good design features in MUDs because they don't operate for profit; MUDs are labors of love, and use of the codebases precludes profit from ever being obtained. Furthermore, since MUD code is a much simpler beast, changes can be accomplished in a much shorter timeframe than MMO changes can. I've seen and worked on Diku (Circle) MUDs whose primary form of "leveling" was done via roleplaying. I've had coders implement dumbwaiters into inns for me. I've had coders create a mini-game of Othello based on rock, scissors, paper for me. Both of those changes were complete in a day.

When money isn't a consideration, art, passion and vision take over. Bartle's observations on the nature of games and people in general still hold true, but a small number of players isn't really as important for an MU* as it is for an MMO. Anyway, that's my take on it. I frequently find myself going back to MUDs after I grow weary of MMOs in order to recharge my batteries. The flash and visual presentation of MMOs is definitely inspiring, but with nearly 2000 MU*s currently in existence, odds are you'll be able to find exactly what you're looking for if you don't mind text. (Incidentally, I'm currently playing a MUD while waiting for Patch 1 to go away!)