Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?

From: mebonar@sn01.sncc.lsu.edu (MsciDave)

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 16:29:16 +0000

In article <20fnf6$6vu@morrow.stanford.edu>, barry@playfair.Stanford.EDU (Barrett P. Eynon) writes...
>In article <srt.740942744@aerospace.aero.org> srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner) writes:
>>
>>In most MUDs, the details of combat, magic, etc. are not known.
>>Generally players seem happy with this.  I don't play MUDs very often,
>>but I've certainly never seen anyone quit a MUD because he didn't know
>>the formula used to determine combat.

>Bzzt! I've played enough combat MUDs to see what's really going on, perhaps
>you have not

What's really going on is different from player to player.  At one
point I played a fair amount on MUDs.  I loved not knowing the equations.
I got to explore and test thing.  I talked to loads of people.  But I
didn't view the ultimate goal as reaching any specific level.  In fact,
I quit playing the one Mud where I was about to hit Immortal just so that
I wouldn't get to see behind the sets.

>there are a few players who play all the time, get their
>characters up to Immortal level, and then can take those characters all over
>the game and peek at all the data. They also become the people who work on the
>database and code, and many of them just for fun will make new characters and
>use their knowledge to take their new characters up to Immortal while other
>players are struggling to gain one level.

I think this is part of the problem.  If a game is viewed as a
struggle for the top spot then either you should release the formulae or
they will get out eventuallly but be unevenly distributed.  However if the
game is viewed as an interesting world to explore and interact in then
it is better to hide some of the workings to preserve some of the wonder.

Olympia confuses things because its different things to different
people.

Dave
__________
Dave Bonar
mebonar@lsuvax.sncc.lsu.edu
__________

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 17:25:44 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?
barry@playfair.Stanford.EDU (Barrett P. Eynon)
Fri, 25 Jun 1993 20:33:42 +0000