July 2007

• [JOB] Linden Lab Brighton Party 26th July Jim Purbrick
• • [JOB] Linden Lab Brighton Party 26th July Christopher Lloyd
• [BIZ] Forum software? Mike Rozak
• • [BIZ] Forum software? Caliban Darklock
  • • [BIZ] Forum software? Adam Martin
  • [BIZ] Forum software? Chan Yong Wei
  • [BIZ] Forum software? Michael Chui
  • [BIZ] Forum software? David Johansson
  • [BIZ] Forum software? Dana V. Baldwin
  • • [BIZ] Forum software? David Johansson
  • [BIZ] Forum software? Morgan Ramsay
• [DESIGN] Will players pay for public services? Nicholas Koranda
• • [DESIGN] Will players pay for public services? cruise
• [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Nicholas Koranda
• • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Tom Hudson
  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
  • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Travis Casey
  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Tom Hudson
    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Travis Casey
      • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
      • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
        • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
          • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
            • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
              • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
                • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Tom Hudson
                  • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Aurel Mihai
                    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
                      • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... John Buehler
                      • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Michael Chui
                    • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                      • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                        • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                          • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                            • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                              • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
                                • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                                  • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                                  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                                    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                                      • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                                  • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                                  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                            • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Michael Chui
                            • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                        • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
            • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
          • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... John Arras
          • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
            • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Damion Schubert
              • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... John Buehler
              • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
                • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Damion Schubert
                  • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... John Buehler
                    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Damion Schubert
                      • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... John Buehler
                      • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
                      • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
                        • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
                            On 10/4/07, Vincent Archer <archer@frmug.org> wrote:
                            >
                            > You can't take the easiest mob, and say, I'll kill them
                            > for 1h or so for some xp.
                            
                            That's true. Instead, you take a LIST of the easiest TASKS, and say
                            "I'll do these for an hour or so to earn some ACHIEVEMENTS."
                            
                            You aren't actually solving the problem. You're just moving it. You're
                            artificially redefining the system, but it's the same system. Instead
                            of "where do I get the most XP", the question becomes "what's the
                            optimal order of achievements". The elite player - to whom you want to
                            appeal - is not going to be fooled by this. He's going to figure out
                            in pretty short order that this game is just like the last game, only
                            the treadmills are farther apart and don't run as long.
                            
                            Again, the grind is a solution, not a problem. You don't solve the
                            grind by chopping it up and spreading it around. The only reason
                            players accept the grind as a solution is because it's convenient.
                            Making it less convenient does not solve a problem, it simply uncovers
                            the same one you always had - low levels suck, and over time they suck
                            more.
                            
                            Without the convenience of the grind, there's no solution to this
                            problem. So the players will redefine the grind. If they can't,
                            they'll leave, because your game sucks.
                            
                            > You need to achieve something special, something
                            > you haven't done before.
                            
                            These aren't the same thing. As a player, what's special is up to me
                            and me alone. If I think it would be cool to run through area X and
                            kill every mob in my path, that's special. If you arbitrarily decide
                            that none of this counts because I've killed all those mobs before,
                            your game sucks.
                            
                            And determining whether a player has done something before rather
                            depends on knowing what a player is doing. This is an impossible task.
                            It can't be done. Among other things, some of your players have
                            radically different thought processes than you do.
                            
                            > > >You're trying to decouple advancement from enjoyment,
                            > >
                            > > Looks like you're getting the idea at last :P
                            >
                            > Yup. Enjoy the game, and you will advance.
                            
                            That's the exact opposite of what I said. If I like doing the same
                            thing over and over, that's my enjoyment. You're telling me I can't
                            advance that way. Instead, you want me to romp all over your game
                            world finding new things to do all the time, and I don't think that's
                            fun. I don't enjoy that at all. So if I enjoy the game, I *don't*
                            advance. They're mutually exclusive things.
                            
                            In an XP system, whatever I enjoy - no matter how retarded it might
                            look to you - generates a slow but steady XP return. That leads to
                            people finding interesting and unusual ways to enjoy themselves.
                            
                            Your system defines a linear series of paths where I can advance. If I
                            don't do what you say to do, I can't advance. If I don't think that's
                            fun, and I want to do something else, I have to choose between
                            enjoyment and advancement. And that's not fair, so your game sucks.
                            
                            > So the system is for people who want advancement. It is not for people
                            > who think advancement comes from doing simple and easy thing over and over.
                            
                            Unfortunately, it does. You advance from novice to expert by
                            practicing the basics, over and over again, for years. That's reality.
                            When your system denies this, I tend to suspect it's because you don't
                            like the way reality works, and are trying to rewrite the rules in
                            your own private world for reasons best discussed with a therapist.
                            
                            The problem with this system is that it's too special-case. It will
                            burn design time like you wouldn't believe, and that design time is
                            not going to produce a scalable result. It is a waste. You can't
                            profit from this. You can't even sell this. And the cardinal crime of
                            the system is that IT ISN'T EVEN INTERESTING. There's no emergent
                            behavior or systemic interaction that falls out of this, except what
                            XBox Live has already demonstrated.
                            
                            It's just a deadweight loss. It can't work; you can argue all you want
                            about how smart you are and how perfectly you've balanced everything
                            and how efficiently your designers produce content, but you still have
                            to sell this system to players, and in the end players are not going
                            to like it. You're too smart to waste your time on this system. Find a
                            real problem and build a real solution.
              • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Acius
              • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
          • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Tom Hudson
        • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Tom Hudson
        • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Caliban Darklock
    • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Jarod Reid
    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Vincent Archer
    • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Removing the almighty experience point... Travis Casey
• [DESIGN] Believable NPCs (was Natural Language Generation) Nicholas Koranda
• [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Nicholas Koranda
• • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Travis Casey
  • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Jon Leonard
    • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Peter Keeler
    • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Caliban Darklock
      • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Peter Keeler
        • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Michael Chui
          • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Caliban Darklock
            • • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency John Buehler
              • [DESIGN] Active and Inactive Currency Johnicholas Hines
• [DESIGN] Expected value and standard deviation Nicholas Koranda
• • [DESIGN] Expected value and standard deviation Travis Casey
  • [DESIGN] Expected value and standard deviation cruise
  • • [DESIGN] Expected value and standard deviation Darryl Woodford