<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws --> <!--X-From-R13: Uert Gaqrejbbq <thaqrejbbqNqbarg.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 16:10:53 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 3.0.6.32.20000312224506.00838170#donet,com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:gunderwood#donet,com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00296.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00298.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00299.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00300.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00297">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00297">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00297">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>[MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Greg Underwood <<A HREF="mailto:gunderwood#donet,com">gunderwood#donet,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:45:06 -0800</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> Raph must have put up his page-o-laws whilst I had traffic turned off, so the first I saw the page was just this week. On the whole, I think the comment at the top about viewing them as challenges and not rules is most excellent. I know I found myself saying "yeah, but if you try this," or "well, yeah, but looking at it this way..." an awful lot. ;) Anyway, forgive me if I'm restating a previously discussed topic, but I just had to comment on what seems to me to be an obvious correlation between a couple of the points. Specifically: A corollary to Elmqvist's Law In general, adding features to an online game that prevent people from playing together is a bad idea. A caveat to the corollary to Elmqvist's Law The exception would be features that enhance the sense of identity of groups of players, such as player languages. Community size Ideal community size is no larger than 250. Past that, you really get subcommunities. Does it not make sense, then, to say that you ought to severly limit (or at least very carefully consider) the number of 'group identity enhancing' features in your game, until you reach that level of roughly 250 players? In answer to my own question (and probably what got me thinking along these lines as I read those points), I have to offer up my experiences in running EoD. Early on, we didn't have too many guilds (the stock 4 or so that come with most DIKU's, IIRC). However, we thought it'd be keen to add some more, give more people a chance to find their niche, not to mention fit more closely with the story (Wheel Of Time) that we were supposedly based on. Once we boosted the number of guilds, we ran in to a few problems which, in retrospect, seem to be what the corollary to Elmqvist's law is trying to prevent. We had about 150 people online during the peak hours. Early on, people tended to split out pretty evenly amongst the guilds. After a while, once we had a few pretty charismatic leader types in charge of the guilds, people tended to group together under the strongest guild, leaving the rest as vastly underpopulated. Which guild was "the guild to be in" depended on a lot of things... which charater class was perceived to be strongest (class didn't determine guild, but the nature of the guilds based on the story from the book did tend to determine the class of the members). Now, granted, any community will want to divide into sub-groups, but what you call those groups, as well as how many you provide can have a great affect on how much flavor they add vs. how much they push at the seams of what holds the community together. -Greg _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev maillist - MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00303" HREF="msg00303.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban#darklock,com></li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00301" HREF="msg00301.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Wes Connell <wconnell#skotos,net></li></ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00300" HREF="msg00300.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> "Kristen L. Koster" <koster#eden,com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00296.html">[MUD-Dev] Embedding Python</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00298.html">[MUD-Dev] MUD Specific Building pages</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00299.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] MUD Specific Building pages</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00300.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00297"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00297"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] distributed objects</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00363" HREF="msg00363.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] distributed objects</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Wed 16 Feb 2000, 09:04 GMT </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00358" HREF="msg00358.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] distributed objects</A></strong>, Charles Hughes <a href="mailto:charles.hughes#bigfoot,com">charles.hughes#bigfoot,com</a>, Wed 16 Feb 2000, 04:58 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00298" HREF="msg00298.html">[MUD-Dev] MUD Specific Building pages</A></strong>, MichelleThompson <a href="mailto:m.a.thompson#mindspring,com">m.a.thompson#mindspring,com</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 01:16 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00299" HREF="msg00299.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] MUD Specific Building pages</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 01:36 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00297" HREF="msg00297.html">[MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong>, Greg Underwood <a href="mailto:gunderwood#donet,com">gunderwood#donet,com</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 00:10 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00300" HREF="msg00300.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong>, Kristen L. Koster <a href="mailto:koster#eden,com">koster#eden,com</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 07:06 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00491" HREF="msg00491.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong>, Greg Underwood <a href="mailto:gunderwood#donet,com">gunderwood#donet,com</a>, Mon 28 Feb 2000, 15:42 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00301" HREF="msg00301.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong>, Wes Connell <a href="mailto:wconnell#skotos,net">wconnell#skotos,net</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 07:06 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00303" HREF="msg00303.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Raph's collection of MUD design Laws</A></strong>, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sun 13 Feb 2000, 21:12 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>