18 Jan, 2013, Splork wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
If I start playing a game and run into indications that I have to quit in a certain location, or do something specific with my equipment before I log off if I want to keep my equipment, and especially if any of this costs any in-game currency, then I won't be returning.



I am seriously debating adding a secondary command for people to leave the game, exactly as you mentioned above, without being in a certain room, location. Honestly, I've never really given it a thought because players simply cut link all the time to log off quickly, as there really are no penalties. Actually, if a player does not rent and cuts link, there is a very small possibility( 2 % ) that they come back to the game and find themselves in instant need to regen, as their hit points, mana, etc has drained while they voided.

I am going to bring this up on our forums and see what response we get. I would be very interested in hearing our players thoughts on suggestions such as replacing rent costs with costs against their vaults and houses or the idea of damaged and worn equipment. I am 99% sure the current players would boycott and quit if we made these changes :ghostface:
18 Jan, 2013, mangan wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
Edit: Seems some of the points were already in the thread over the last 5-7 posts. I must've had this tab opened from earlier, since I hadn't read some of the posts and had reached the reply box at the foot of the page. So read lightly.

@Splork I didn't want to cut and quote snippets of your post, so this is just a response to the whole thing:

I don't feel that a command named 'rent' in a game has anything to do with the topic in terms of game mechanics. It's the feature that matters (for better or worse). Your opinion seems to be that your 'rent' command is a valid feature which does more good than harm (essentially no harm at all). If that is indeed the case, then your feature is worthy of keeping and you should probably NOT get rid of it.

The issue of losing players over a 'rent' command in your specific case is the negative connotation many players have with it, such as my personal dislike of it and Hades_Kane's as well. Your game is then on the defense in terms of trying to keep us as players (in a hypothetical scenario) once we find out about this command that has a generic meaning that we find questionable.

An alternate solution to removing it would be simply changing the name. It is then a positive feature for your game without the negative connotation, thus new players would have to make the correlation ourselves and determine if it is the same thing or not (which based on your explanation, it wouldn't be as bad as the standard rent feature).

Another way to think about this is if a game had a 'rent' command which actually was renting something, such as renting a house, or a horse carriage, or a weapon for an hour of use. This would be a temporary purchase of an item. If someone logged on and was curious about the existence of a 'rent' feature, it should be apparent in such a case that it has a more modern, real-world meaning than the classic MUD meaning.

TL;DR: In your MUD, accepting the idea that it is altered to be almost pure benefit with dismissible downsides, then player retention in this context isn't based upon the feature but instead the name and similarity to poor experiences the players had in the past.
18 Jan, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
Ssolvarain said:
And yes, rent is obsolete. Like I said, sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We have terabytes of storage now, so memory limitations no longer apply. I severely doubt it was intended primarily as a balancing mechanism. The fact that it served as a balancing mechanism was more of a byproduct of limited storage. A case of "This is what is. How can I make it work for me?". It was an original idea, much like the Model T. But, with advancement, we've discovered better ways to do things. I can safely say that's about as close to the definition of "obsolete" as it gets.


Where did you ever get the idea that rent had ANYTHING to do with storage requirements? It, in no way at all, has anything to do with making things fit in a limited storage environment. In fact, rent requires you to save MORE data, since you have to not only store the inventory, but you have to track the costs involved.

Rent is simply a balancing mechanic designed to keep powerful artifacts out of the hands of players who shouldn't actually have them yet, but doing so in a way that doesn't prevent them from using them (for a time). It's also a money sink, which is why most players dislike it. Finally, it's a way to encourage players to congregate around a central location, since players of similar levels will tend to return to the same city to rent, and thus log back into that city. That gives you a better chance of actually seeing other humans in the world.

I still favor the idea of renting out properly, for the social apsect. In fact, given today's carrot vs. stick mindset, I'd probably implement equipment wear (and thus repair costs), and make rent an alternative… you can rent in an inn, and part of the services provided are automatic repair of your gear… or you can camp out in the wilds and pay repair costs.
18 Jan, 2013, Hades_Kane wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
quixadhal said:
Ssolvarain said:
And yes, rent is obsolete. Like I said, sorry if anyone disagrees with me. We have terabytes of storage now, so memory limitations no longer apply. I severely doubt it was intended primarily as a balancing mechanism. The fact that it served as a balancing mechanism was more of a byproduct of limited storage. A case of "This is what is. How can I make it work for me?". It was an original idea, much like the Model T. But, with advancement, we've discovered better ways to do things. I can safely say that's about as close to the definition of "obsolete" as it gets.


Where did you ever get the idea that rent had ANYTHING to do with storage requirements? It, in no way at all, has anything to do with making things fit in a limited storage environment. In fact, rent requires you to save MORE data, since you have to not only store the inventory, but you have to track the costs involved.


I have plenty of recollection in my early days of MUDing of people claiming just what Ssolvarain did, that rent was a means to an end as far as storage. In fact, until recently, I've never heard it defended as a balance mechanism.

I would assume the line of logic goes that if people can quit the game with any and everything, they'll be more likely to quit with a full inventory which makes playerfiles bigger. If you force them to pay for what they quit with, they would be more likely to only keep essential or important items, thus saving their files with fewer items than otherwise and making pfiles smaller. I don't know the validity of this, but that was word on the street back in the day :p
18 Jan, 2013, mangan wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
Regardless of what rent was originally designed for, it has numerous design concepts behind it that should be considered before adding or removing it from a game. I don't recall reading anything before about the congregating players via rent usage, but I do really like that concept as I think it is a huge part of any MMO that is meant to have any social element.

On a short tangent that helps validate the concept of a central meeting place for players of similar goals:
My game used to have two main concepts of central meeting zones. Either the starting village that had the healer/guildmaster/etc. or a player's alliance hall (one per alliance). Camaraderie was definitely obtained via this and brought alliance members closer together, since they would generally hang out in the alliance hall whenever they weren't hunting/questing/etc. This would allow for private (not alliance wide) channels of communication that were open and more casual than a private tell. Further, you could ask for a quick spell-up or weapon enchantments, etc. One of the worst things that I implemented in the game was the end-game hall for the players that reached the highest obtainable level. They'd get their own personal room, etc., but that meant they were no longer in the vicinity of their non-top-level alliance members. Since this change there seemed to be a definite disconnect in terms of loyalty to one's alliance, as well as the bonding that would assist player retention. I'm still deciding whether or not it would be acceptable (to the player base) to remove the end-game hall completely.

Good point quix, although I will also add that this depends on the implementation as well. If there are too many places to rent, in an effort to make it easier for players to rent (less of a hassle), then there won't be any centralized location.
40.0/45