<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account --> <!--X-From-R13: "Yevfgra Z. Ybfgre" <xbfgreNrqra.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 21:45:18 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: B5141C02.212D%koster@eden.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 200004071849.OAA06659@hutch.East.Sun.COM --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:koster@eden.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="msg00093.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00098.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00086.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00125.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00094">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00094">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00094">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</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>: Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: "Kristen L. Koster" <<A HREF="mailto:koster#eden,com">koster#eden,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 23:13:07 -0500</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> <LI><em>User-Agent</em>: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 5.01 (1630)</LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> on 4/7/2000 1:48 PM, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services wrote: > Randy Said: > >> Actually, I'd like to see a set of reasons for even _attempting_ the goal of >> one character per player. > > I see only one reason for _encouraging_ one character per player, whether > through game design or otherwise. You alluded to it in your post: increasing > character investment. In one sense, having multiple characters per account is a valuable thing because it increases the "social density" of the game. Each character is an economic participant. And it seems to be the number of economic participants in a society which drives the level of political, social, and community development: more advanced tribal/social/governmental structures form when a higher efficiency is required in order for basic subsistence for the population as a whole to be eked out from the environment. When played as separate characters--even mules--each of these characters acts as a producer and consumer of goods and services, thus increasing social interdependence. (Obviously, there's fertile ground here for investigation as to what basic subsistence means in mud terms, etc). In another way, however, playing multiple characters literally simultaneously (what I am used to as the definition of multiplay) makes of those separate characters a single economic participant, since they are operating in tandem, at a higher pitch of efficiency, consuming more resources. It is as if they suddenly acquired an opposable thumb in a world where previously there had been no thumbs. It's of course a desirable state because it follows a logical evolutionary trend, so it is not suprising that GoP players adopt it. The problems arise with the issues of "fairness." It is of course NOT fair for there to be a single guy with an opposable thumb running around in your game when everyone else lacks the thumb. They'll consume all the available resources, driving the other types of players out of their habitat (eg, your game). This is why many admins despise people with triggers, bots, etc, though they can rarely articulate it beyond "it's cheating." What they mean is that they want a roughly equal apportionment of resource *availability* to the various participants in their game, and having a notably more efficient consumer means that this cannot happen. Of course, cheating itself fits this explanation as well, which is why they label this as "cheating" even though it may not technically be the case. In UO we termed many of these sorts of situations "exploits" rather than "bugs" or "cheats." The truly pernicious part is the fact that the game is likely to be operating with limited resources--limited connections at a time, limited space for playerfiles, limited cpu load, etc. If you get a mud that supports 250 characters simultaneously, but 4 out of 5 are trigger-based bots run as support tanks, mules, and healers for a "main" character that is manually controlled, then obviously your fixed server resources are not being used efficiently in a social sense--you could support more players and more social interaction by removing the opposable thumbs. :) The math is pretty simple--don't forget that each new player adds n social relationships where n is 0 < n < x where x is the lesser of total mud population or ~150. So if your goal or interests relate to player-player interaction of ANY sort, it serves your goals to disallow simultaneous multiplaying. Interestingly, non-simultaneous multiplaying (eg running mules), cannot push the number larger than x. But if there is sufficient economic differentiation between the characters (different classes, or even starting one character well after another so that it is obliged to group with a new set of people more appropriate to the new character's level) they may move in different social spheres, resulting in n being a higher number than it otherwise would have been. You could attempt to maximize this by variety of tactics, if this was a goal of yours. I alluded to one tactic in another post, but I'll repeat it here: - allow as many characters as there are genders in your game and force each slot to be of each gender. - allow as many characters as there are races in your game, each slot locked to a race. - allow as many characters as there are classes in your game, each slot locked to a class. - allow another character only once the first has moved beyond whatever point on your advancement ladder that makes it pointless to associate with newbies: eg, each slot locked to a level range. All of these are designed to push n to the theoretical maximum of x. > The _currencies_ of an MMORPG are health, wealth, information, and power. Time, time, time, and time, to translate. :) Jonathan Baron calls these games "cumulative character" games because the persistent players ALWAYS wins. It's just a matter of how efficiently they go about acquiring all of the above. > Are there any others who have thoughts on this? I have many. Er, make that more than many. But this post is long enough. :) -Raph _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev mailing list 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> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00086" HREF="msg00086.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00093.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] dealing with foul language</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00098.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] dealing with foul language</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00086.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00125.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00094"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00094"><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] characters per account</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00054" HREF="msg00054.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Darren Henderson <a href="mailto:darren@nighttide.net">darren@nighttide.net</a>, Wed 05 Apr 2000, 03:10 GMT </LI> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="00055" HREF="msg00055.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Darren Henderson <a href="mailto:darren@nighttide.net">darren@nighttide.net</a>, Wed 05 Apr 2000, 03:28 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00061" HREF="msg00061.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, adam <a href="mailto:adam@treyarch.com">adam@treyarch.com</a>, Wed 05 Apr 2000, 18:22 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00086" HREF="msg00086.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Fri 07 Apr 2000, 20:37 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00094" HREF="msg00094.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Kristen L. Koster <a href="mailto:koster@eden.com">koster@eden.com</a>, Sat 08 Apr 2000, 04:45 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00125" HREF="msg00125.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Mon 10 Apr 2000, 21:45 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00128" HREF="msg00128.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] characters per account</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Mon 10 Apr 2000, 21:45 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00013" HREF="msg00013.html">[MUD-Dev] META: Topic List - 1999</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com">jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com</a>, Mon 03 Apr 2000, 03:36 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00012" HREF="msg00012.html">[MUD-Dev] Fw: DESIGN: XML?</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com">jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com</a>, Mon 03 Apr 2000, 03:36 GMT </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>