Re: PBM design: give away the formulas?

From: bonar@math.rutgers.edu (Doug Bonar)

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 16:33:25 +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:
> >To get back to the original questiona about whether or not to give
> >away the formulas, consider MUDs.  MUDs are interactive, complex games
> >that give players a lot of room to develop strategies, etc.  In many
> >ways MUDs are "very fast" versions of games like Olympia and
> >Atlantis.
> >
> >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.
> >
> >					-- Scott T.
> >
> >
>
> Bzzt! I've played enough combat MUDs to see what's really going on, perhaps
> you have not: 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.
>
> If you spend the time to get on these guys good side, they can easily recite
> all the formulas for combat, the levels of any monster in question, and the
> stats on all he good magic items and how to find them.
>
> I think this makes exactly the point in question: there is no game with
> "hidden formulas" after it has been played a little. There are games where
> all players know the formulas, and those where only a few do. I prefer the
> former, though it is sometimes fun to play the latter as long as I get in
> early enough to be one of the people who gets the information first.
>
> --
> Barry Eynon
> barry@playfair.stanford.edu

Since Muds were dragged in here, I think I'll comment.  I've played a
number (though many people have played much more) and am presently
working to change an LPmud (generically a combat mud) into something
more like the 'very fast' Olympia mentioned above.

Barry, I think you are a representative of one form of mudder but not
of all mud players.  Also, your description of the interactions on
muds (player->Immortal and then plays more mortals just to speed past
the other players with his new info) is a _problem_ on muds, not a
general feature.  It is true that if you play on the average LPmud,
many of the players know most of the formulas.  They have played other
muds and been Immortal there (combat code is usually the same) or
freinds of theirs have.  But, from experience, if you change the
combat code, players won't have an accurate impression of it even in
two years if you don't tell them.  It isn't that their ideas will be
really wrong (well, some will) but they won't know the formulas, just
the general jist.  Of course, if one person who does know the formulas
leaks them, then a set of knowledgable players forms, but that is
another problem.

2)  If you are not going to show the formulas (which I approve of), be
very careful with descriptive adjectives.  Calling a swordsman 'elite'
means different things to different people.  It perhaps shows up more
in mud combat (which is personal, not troops), but I think it would
apply to any such descriptive terms.   We got a lot of flack for
describing a certain level of skill in our game as 'expert'.  Players
who had any intuition of what an 'expert swordsman' could do vs an
'average' one or a 'novice' complained heavily.  It doesn't matter if
their intuitions are right or wrong, just by putting in the subjective
titles we had to justify all combat effects in terms of them.

3)  Newbies joining is a huge problem.  This is less true in a mud
(where players are generally only in control of one person) than in a
game like Olympia or Atlantis (where players control many units).  At
the very least, a large/old faction could probably split one person
off and supply him with the same equipment as a starting character.
The large factions have (and probably should have) a huge advantage
over the new/small ones.  One way to handle this is to let players
joining in the middle of the game start with some levels in skills
(chosen by the player, but perhaps from a reduced list) to make his
character a little more useful at start.  Putting them in remote
locations of course helps.  Making specialization even more important
is probably the most important step.  In Atlantis, there is no reason
to specialize (as a faction).  In Olympia, there was very little (some
if you owned a tower, but not much).

Finally, I think there are people here who want two different types of
games (no surprise there).  One, the show the formulas crowd, is
looking for a game of military competition, or at least a game of
player vs. player competition.  A game in which you win and loose.
Thus, having the formulas is important, it helps you avoid loosing.
The others want a game that you play.  You may be important, you may
not be, you may even die, but your sucess doesn't mean that others
aren't also succeeding.  Both games can have role-playing of course,
and each game can have military strategy as well.  In the first, the
role playing is rather a foam on top of diplomacy though, and in the
later the military strategy is (probably) more personal and more
'heroic'.

Doug
bonar@math.rutgers.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