At 04:15 PM 12/13/99 -0500, you wrote:
>From: Dave Gaines <dave@...>
>
>Can I argue some, please?
>
>You talk a lot about enjoyment of the game. Let me ask you a question.
>Do the people playing "Monopoly" play for competition or for fun?
>Imagine the shoe bought all properties at a 1% discount. Would
>that make you want to be the shoe? What if that discount was 10% or 25%,
>or higher? Eventually it won't be fun to be the hat, because the shoe
>will almost always win.
>
>EQ is a lot like this skewed Monopoly. The shoe is the unbalanced
>class, and those that like the Hat or the Thimble want the shoe
>balanced. This IS competition, and a lot of people that play, do so
>for competition, and their fun comes from the competition, not from
>the play. That is not a bad thing.
Well, I've had this same discussion going on for about - god...can it be
almost 3 years now?...over on the UO front.
A virtual world is a new genre - it is not Quake, it is not a board game,
it's not even a paper and pen D&D game. A virtual world is persistent, not
session based. A virtual world will never be 'winnable'. There may be
instances of competition internally (i.e., duals, contests, games, etc.)
but the competition is geared against the world itself - surviving and
existing in it - not necessarily against other people.
A 'game' IS competitive - it's designed to have a winner - it's setup that
way. That does not mean you can't enjoy the play aspect of it as well - but
it's a forgone conclusion before a 'game' starts, someone is gonna win,
someone is gonna lose.
This is why designers need to decide upfront - is this 'just a game', or is
this a 'virtual world'.
Show me what in EQ 'let's you win'? Level 50 - nice things? Ya know,
eventually everyone that is persistent enough at trying will get that same
thing. If you look at others achievements as somehow diminishing your own -
you are superimposing your own personal competition on the world at large.
The first watershed in a virtual world is the question "Can you win?". EQ
has a problem here - it WANTS to be a virtual world - but by setting itself
on a level based system it gives the illusion you can WIN.