28 Feb, 2008, shasarak wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
drrck said:
I agree. As I said before, while the futile attempt at a utopian game where everything is fun is a good theoretical goal, it's important to realize that it will never happen. You simply can't make everything fun for everyone, and there are a lot of game concepts that simply have to be un-fun for a lot of people in order for the game to make sense (not talking about realism here, necessarily).

I think you're making the basic newbie mistake of assuming that "you should have a game where everything is fun" means exactly the same as "you should try and do what absolutely everybody wants all of the time". These two statements are actually directly opposed to one another. You can't try and please everyone all of the time precisely because the only viable goal for a game is to make every single aspect of it as much fun as possible. Maximising the fun-level of a game requires that you have a coherent game vision which does not attempt to please everyone.

Moreover, just because attempting to please everyone results in a game that is actually less fun, that does not mean that it is necessary or desirable to include game functions whose sole purpose is to make players unhappy or angry when they encounter them. It is valid to say that death should be something that players will normally put considerable energy into trying to avoid. It is not valid to say that the only way to achieve this is to make dying boring, or unambiguously upsetting and negative. Making death fun, and making death something that players actively try to avoid under normal circumstances, are not mutually exclusive goals.
28 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think it's confusing to talk about "fun level" as if it's an objective and universal measure. You shouldn't say that you can't please everyone because you're trying to make it as fun as possible – that's almost a contradiction in terms! If it's as fun as possible, it should please everybody (well, at least in principle). Really, the problem is that different things are fun for different people, and that, therefore, you can't make something "maximally fun" for everybody.

To reiterate, it's not that you can't please everybody because you want to make it as fun as possible:
it's that you can't make something as fun as possible for everybody.

And for what it's worth, I don't think drrck was saying that "max fun" == "do what everybody wants". I think he was saying kind of the opposite, actually, by making the point that you need features that people don't want in order to have a game that makes sense – by "making sense" I presume he means "still is fun".
28 Feb, 2008, drrck wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
I think you're making the basic newbie mistake of assuming that "you should have a game where everything is fun" means exactly the same as "you should try and do what absolutely everybody wants all of the time". These two statements are actually directly opposed to one another. You can't try and please everyone all of the time precisely because the only viable goal for a game is to make every single aspect of it as much fun as possible. Maximising the fun-level of a game requires that you have a coherent game vision which does not attempt to please everyone.


I think you lost all credibility the moment you implied that I was somehow a "newbie". Be that as it may, not only was I not making the correlation that you seem to think I was, but, as DavidHaley correctly pointed out, fun is not a measurable thing. The point I was making is that you can't possibly make everything fun because every player's definition of fun is not equal, and I thought I made it pretty clear that that was the reason behind my comment.

shasarak said:
Moreover, just because attempting to please everyone results in a game that is actually less fun, that does not mean that it is necessary or desirable to include game functions whose sole purpose is to make players unhappy or angry when they encounter them. It is valid to say that death should be something that players will normally put considerable energy into trying to avoid. It is not valid to say that the only way to achieve this is to make dying boring, or unambiguously upsetting and negative. Making death fun, and making death something that players actively try to avoid under normal circumstances, are not mutually exclusive goals.


I did not even attempt to say that "the only way to achieve" that was to making dying unambiguously upsetting or negative. I simply said that it was how I wanted to represent it within the confines of my game. And while I agree (technically speaking) that making death fun as well as something that players actively try to avoid are not mutually exclusive, I think that as the fun-factor tends toward "irresistibly fun", the avoidance-factor will tend towards "non-avoidance" - if that makes sense - and since I want the avoidance-factor to tend towards "absolute avoidance", it makes logical sense for me to cause the fun-factor to tend towards "completely un-fun".

DavidHaley said:
And for what it's worth, I don't think drrck was saying that "max fun" == "do what everybody wants". I think he was saying kind of the opposite, actually, by making the point that you need features that people don't want in order to have a game that makes sense – by "making sense" I presume he means "still is fun".


Yes, that's what I meant.
28 Feb, 2008, Detah wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
shasarak said:
The point I was making is that "realism" seems to me to be about the only possible justification for something as inherently un-fun as permadeath,

Some people argue that it can encourage world balance as a natural leveling force. By forcing a recycling of equipment and skills, you guaranteee that nobody becomes unduly powerful forever. I'm not sure I subscribe to the belief, but there you have it.


That does not seem well-thought out. There are two points here. Im not sure they necessarily go together. I'm not sure either is a 'good argument' together or alone.

* Permadeath is justified because it simulates reality.
* Permadeath is a means to balance, because it can prevent some people from becoming supremely powerful.

I hope I have captured the essence of your statements.

I think this is a poor design and not a good argument in favor of permadeath. If you permadie, then one of two things are going to happen: 1) your eq drops to the floor. Thus allowing anyone to come along and pick it up. This just randomly redistributes the eq; it doesnt provide balance. And it doesnt do anything to prevent players from becoming powerful. It just removes one powerful player and replaces him/her with a player with lots of unearned powerful eq. 2) your eq disappears/evaporates/disintegrates. How exactly does this simulate reality?

Detah@Arcania
28 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 45th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, as I said, they're not my beliefs; I was just giving an argument that other people have made. That said, let me address the points you brought up:

(1) random redistribution of equipment. Arguably, this is a balancing factor: if equipment really is randomly redistributed, then it won't get hoarded in one place and will tend to be spread out over players. Since nobody stays alive forever, nobody can hold on to things forever.

A player who kills another and gets their equipment might have "unearned" equipment (but didn't they earn it from the kill), but that's not really a problem: somebody can come along and kill them and the cycle continues.

(2) equipment disappearing. Well, you can think of it this way: what kind of state do you think armor will be in if it has been used by somebody who was killed? Perhaps it's not realistic for it to utterly disappear, but it's also not realistic for it to be in spiffy shape ready to be used again. Of course, the same doesn't apply to weapons. But it might apply to stuff in backpacks; if somebody gets fried by a spell, their backpack presumably got fried too…

Additionally, the argument I gave doesn't suppose that the point of permanent death is to be realistic; its claim is to do with balance.
28 Feb, 2008, drrck wrote in the 46th comment:
Votes: 0
Detah said:
That does not seem well-thought out. There are two points here. Im not sure they necessarily go together. I'm not sure either is a 'good argument' together or alone.

* Permadeath is justified because it simulates reality.
* Permadeath is a means to balance, because it can prevent some people from becoming supremely powerful.

I hope I have captured the essence of your statements.

I think this is a poor design and not a good argument in favor of permadeath. If you permadie, then one of two things are going to happen: 1) your eq drops to the floor. Thus allowing anyone to come along and pick it up. This just randomly redistributes the eq; it doesnt provide balance. And it doesnt do anything to prevent players from becoming powerful. It just removes one powerful player and replaces him/her with a player with lots of unearned powerful eq. 2) your eq disappears/evaporates/disintegrates. How exactly does this simulate reality?

Detah@Arcania


Assuming that the equipment sticks around (most realistic option), DavidHaley's comment is still valid. Whoever died and left said equipment will no longer be powerful (or exist, for that matter), and the power has now shifted to someone else. While the "power" itself has not been removed from the game, it has been shifted around, which can be construed as balance as long as it's adequately moved around the playerbase.

Basically, it falls back to the old argument that something may be "over-powered" but still "balanced", as long as everyone has access to it.

Of course, this assumes that we're talking about balance in this respect, rather than balance of power itself (which is a whole other, mostly unrelated, discussion).
28 Feb, 2008, Detah wrote in the 47th comment:
Votes: 0
Maybe you and I are thinking of two different scenarios for the eq drop.
Im thinking of the case where a player is killed by an NPC. The players corpse and eq just drops to the floor. So the 'random redistribution' I was referring to, is that which ever player happens to walk into that room next hits the eq lottery. That doesn't seem to be balanced. It's just chaos. Some worlds may be built around the principle of chaos, but most are not. I think it would be a hard sell to convince most admins that chaos=balance.

I understand that none of these cases are your position. I just think that balance and realness are poor arguments in favor of permadeath. The best argument in favor of permadeath is probably 'because that's the way this world is' or perhaps the admin's goal is to 'make players as skittish and risk-averse as insanely possible'. Both are legitamite arguments. Crazy and insane, but valid arguments.
28 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 48th comment:
Votes: 0
Even in the case of the NPC killing the PC and causing eq drop, one can argue that redistribution implies balance in the long run. It's not that it's "fair" for the next PC to be able to grab the equipment; it is that the system as a whole will, over time, even itself out.

I'm not sure why you think realism is a poor argument in favor of permanent death, but "that's the way this world is" is a good argument – aren't those the same argument? (or does "this world" refer to the game world and not the IRL world?)

If you are referring to the game world, and not the IRL world, then isn't "that's the way it is" basically an arbitrary argument? Feature X exists, because that's just the way it is. That's not really a justification, is it?
28 Feb, 2008, drrck wrote in the 49th comment:
Votes: 0
Detah said:
Maybe you and I are thinking of two different scenarios for the eq drop.
Im thinking of the case where a player is killed by an NPC. The players corpse and eq just drops to the floor. So the 'random redistribution' I was referring to, is that which ever player happens to walk into that room next hits the eq lottery. That doesn't seem to be balanced. It's just chaos. Some worlds may be built around the principle of chaos, but most are not. I think it would be a hard sell to convince most admins that chaos=balance.

I understand that none of these cases are your position. I just think that balance and realness are poor arguments in favor of permadeath. The best argument in favor of permadeath is probably 'because that's the way this world is' or perhaps the admin's goal is to 'make players as skittish and risk-averse as insanely possible'. Both are legitamite arguments. Crazy and insane, but valid arguments.


Chaos and balance are not mutually exclusive, which is what I think is causing the confusion. It doesn't matter who gets the equipment - it only matters that the equipment moves around the player-base.

Since we're concerned with realism here, what do you think happens to the valuables of soldiers who die in combat? Usually one of two things happens:

1) A fellow soldier/friend in the soldier's unit gets the valuables (this can be likened to a group member grabbing the equipment after player X dies to an NPC).
2) A random enemy combatant gets the valuables (this can be likened to random player Y grabbing the equipment after player X dies to an NPC or player Z getting the equipment after he/she killed player X).

Real life seems to be no more chaotic and just as balanced as the MUD situations.
28 Feb, 2008, Detah wrote in the 50th comment:
Votes: 0
I am indeed talking about the gameworld. I could make a rule that all fire burns cold in SuperKoolMud. Then 'that's the way it is' is the reason. Perfectly justifiable. There can be internal consistency and chaos. I'm not arguing that those two cannot exist together. I am saying that trying to map all the physics, chemical and biological rules of the real world onto a mud world, is not a good reason. I already gave my example of why that is not a good argument.

I think we just disagree about the random redistribution of eq and balance. We probably have different definitions of 'balance' and that is just fine. I follow the Aristotilian philosophy that Justice and Fairness are a subset of Balance. That does not need to be the case. And no particular definition of balance is going to solve a taste or preference issue. So I will just leave it at that.

There may be lots of (other) valid reasons to have permadeath; I just do not think that realness and balance are good arguments to support it.
28 Feb, 2008, drrck wrote in the 51st comment:
Votes: 0
Detah said:
I think we just disagree about the random redistribution of eq and balance. We probably have different definitions of 'balance' and that is just fine. I follow the Aristotilian philosophy that Justice and Fairness are a subset of Balance. That does not need to be the case. And no particular definition of balance is going to solve a taste or preference issue. So I will just leave it at that.

There may be lots of (other) valid reasons to have permadeath; I just do not think that realness and balance are good arguments to support it.


It's not that such a system is unfair or unjust; it's that we're looking at it from two different perspectives. You (rightly) think it's unfair because of who gets the equipment. In this respect, it is unfair. However, if you disregard who gets it and only consider the fact that everyone has a chance to get it, it's also fair in that respect. Which point-of-view is most important to you is obviously going to vary from administrator to administrator, but our definitions of balance are all the same.
28 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 52nd comment:
Votes: 0
Well, not to get too philosophical about it (but knowing Aristotle fairly well I cannot help but comment)… but, you could argue that long-term balance is long-term justice and fairness. Redistribution means that you are just as likely to benefit as to suffer from it. That seems fair, no? (Incidentally, I'm not sure you are using the term "balance" in the way that most game developers mean. I think you're thinking of a rather different kind of balance, i.e. not game play balance but some kind of moral judgment of the whole system.)

What exactly is it that you disagree with? Do you disagree with the idea that over time, redistribution will ensure that power is not centralized? Or do you agree with that, but disagree with that having anything to do with balance?
28 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 53rd comment:
Votes: 0
We all need to stop posting within minutes of each other! :wink:
29 Feb, 2008, Conner wrote in the 54th comment:
Votes: 0
drrck said:
shasarak said:
I think you're making the basic newbie mistake of assuming that …

I think you lost all credibility the moment you implied that I was somehow a "newbie".

I think you lost all perspective when you saw the use of the word "newbie". Shasarak didn't imply that you're a newbie, he said that he thought you'd made a newbie mistake. Contrary to what our ego may want us to believe, we all have "blond moments" now and then.

DavidHaley said:
We all need to stop posting within minutes of each other! :wink:

Or maybe at least stop double posting about it? :wink:
29 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 55th comment:
Votes: 0
Conner said:
Or maybe at least stop double posting about it? :wink:

What double posts? The confusion was that there were three people posting very rapidly in two one-way conversations… exactly the kind of thing that forums aren't very good at. :wink:
29 Feb, 2008, Conner wrote in the 56th comment:
Votes: 0
Just teasing because the post I quoted was only one minute behind the post (also by you) immediately preceding it.
29 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 57th comment:
Votes: 0
Sorry, I've been head-first in too many homework assignments for too many sleepless hours so I'm a bit slow at the moment. :lol:
29 Feb, 2008, Detah wrote in the 58th comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
Well, not to get too philosophical about it (but knowing Aristotle fairly well I cannot help but comment)… but, you could argue that long-term balance is long-term justice and fairness. Redistribution means that you are just as likely to benefit as to suffer from it. That seems fair, no? (Incidentally, I'm not sure you are using the term "balance" in the way that most game developers mean. I think you're thinking of a rather different kind of balance, i.e. not game play balance but some kind of moral judgment of the whole system.)

What exactly is it that you disagree with? Do you disagree with the idea that over time, redistribution will ensure that power is not centralized? Or do you agree with that, but disagree with that having anything to do with balance?


I do not care which players acquire lots of money, eq, or xp. The important things from a gp/eq/xp distribution perspective that matters are that a) players must earn what they receive and b) that players feel that the system is fair and consistent. Now in fictional mud, SuperCoolMud, if the rules are that there is permadeath and whoever gets to the loot first, gets it, then what you have is a violation of a) and also b) if there is anything but randomness involved in the timing and frequency of eq-death drops. Can you as admin control whether that is random? probably not. Therefore you have violated a) and b).

And yes, I think my definition of balance is the same as the commonly-used definition. You don't want any one path to wealth or power to be any easier to acquire than another, otherwise, everyone will pursue the same path. In the same way that having a supersamurai guild which is 3 times more powerful than any other guild is an unbalancing force, seemingly random eq-death drops are unbalancing. Do you want the incentive of your game to be who can run around to every room in the mud the fastest? Do you want L1s to pick up 30 pieces of L50 eq? Sure you can code preventatives against them wearing it, but they can also sell it and get unearned wealth or give it to high level players who can use it. I do not see any of these things as preserving the balance. They are unbalancing. It is difficult enough creating moneysinks to counter the infinite money supply problem. Why would you want to add to that with random eq drops. There are all kinds of results to having a design like that.

But it all comes down to preferences, as I stated before. If the admin _and_ players can agree to those rules, then players will stay. I am designing my mud so that players can pursue power in several different ways. Not just thru h&s but they can also do trading, hard labor like mining or rare plant gathering. If any one of these 'routes' to gaining power is easier than the others, then everyone will take that route. Now sure there are a few people who will do something else for the variety. But ultimately, they will become disillusioned because while pursuing the alternate route, even while interesting, others will be zipping by them in power and possessions with less effort. There is some obligation to the admin to make sure this doesn't happen. It just makes it hard for the admin to maintain the challenge. Maintaining balance is crucial to hosting a fun mud.
Maybe, you do not buy into a) or b). If not, then you are really stuck with 'because those are the rules of this world' as your case.
29 Feb, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 59th comment:
Votes: 0
Detah said:
Can you as admin control whether that [eq-death drops] is random? probably not.

Uh… why can't you, exactly?

Detah said:
And yes, I think my definition of balance is the same as the commonly-used definition.

No, I don't think it is… Balance is typically considered over players, which is not how you use it. Here are some very specific reasons peculiarities that your definition has.

1. You state that it doesn't matter who acquire lots of bonuses.
From a normal balancing perspective, of course it matters who gets what! It matters because if the same people get it all, things aren't in balance.

2. You state that, in a balanced system, players must earn what they get.
But the definition of balance is that everybody has an even shot. If everybody has the same very easy shot, then everybody has the same shot, and so there is balance.

3. You state that there shouldn't be one path that is easier than others.
If this one path is limited to a certain category of players, yes, there is imbalance. But if everybody has access to it, you have balance across the player-base. Granted, you (by definition) do not have balance across game paths, but the typical definition of balance is with respect to balance of player experience, not their options in game.

4. You state that randomness is unbalancing.
This is way off of the standard definition of game balance, and sounds a lot more like chaos vs. order. If everybody is subjected to the same randomness, then there is balance across players because everybody is equally likely to suffer or benefit from the randomness.



Now, let's address some of the other points…

Detah said:
Do you want the incentive of your game to be who can run around to every room in the mud the fastest?

This has nothing to do with balance. Rather, this has to do with lousy game objectives. If the game allows everybody to run around just as fast, there is balance.

Detah said:
Do you want L1s to pick up 30 pieces of L50 eq? Sure you can code preventatives against them wearing it, but they can also sell it and get unearned wealth or give it to high level players who can use it.

You can just as easily set it up so that it will be very difficult for L1s to randomly find high-level equipment. Typically, high-level equipment will only be found in high-level areas; therefore, a L1 there has very high chance of death. And if they get out alive, then have they not in some sense earned (to use something that seems important to you) that equipment, by defying the challenge and surviving?

The more difficult you make it for L1s to successfully acquire high-level equipment, the more unlikely you make that event; therefore, in the general case, balance is preserved.

Detah said:
It is difficult enough creating moneysinks to counter the infinite money supply problem.

Actually, it's a lot harder to manage a closed system than it is to create money or equipment sinks. If you can predict the expected income of a player, which you can with some accuracy due to being able to compute the expected value of random gold drops and so forth, you can predict how large your sink should be. Try it out, then use empirical evidence to tweak.

Detah said:
I am designing my mud so that players can pursue power in several different ways.

This is not adding balance: this is making the game more interesting.

Roshambo is a balanced game, but is (well, IMHO at least) rather boring. Adding more ways to win will not make the game more balanced: it will make the game more interesting.

Detah said:
There is some obligation to the admin to make sure this doesn't happen. It just makes it hard for the admin to maintain the challenge.

Yes, there is an obligation of some kind, but it has nothing to do with balance across players as long as everybody has access to the same paths.



A good way to summarize this is probably to say that a lot of confusion is due to the fact that you are using "balance" to mean that there are many interesting things to do, and not to mean that all players have access to the same chances of success.
29 Feb, 2008, drrck wrote in the 60th comment:
Votes: 0
Conner said:
I think you lost all perspective when you saw the use of the word "newbie". Shasarak didn't imply that you're a newbie, he said that he thought you'd made a newbie mistake.


The implication was still there. Had he not meant to imply that, it would have been rather easy to just say "common mistake", or even just "mistake".

Detah said:
I do not care which players acquire lots of money, eq, or xp. The important things from a gp/eq/xp distribution perspective that matters are that a) players must earn what they receive and b) that players feel that the system is fair and consistent. Now in fictional mud, SuperCoolMud, if the rules are that there is permadeath and whoever gets to the loot first, gets it, then what you have is a violation of a) and also b) if there is anything but randomness involved in the timing and frequency of eq-death drops. Can you as admin control whether that is random? probably not. Therefore you have violated a) and b).


On the contrary; that seems to be the one thing you do care about, and just don't realize it. By stipulating "a", you're saying that only players who earn the loot should get it. This, at its most basic concept, is you caring about who gets the loot. You want "worthy" players to get it, and not "unworthy" ones.

Detah said:
Maybe, you do not buy into a) or b). If not, then you are really stuck with 'because those are the rules of this world' as your case.


I buy into "b" simply because its common sense, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't. I don't necessarily buy into "a", because it's only one perspective of balance with complete disregard for the other perspective that I listed earlier. I also dislike the fact that it seems as if you're taking an "if you disagree with me, it's your perogative, but you're pretty much wrong" type of stance here.
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