Ive been playing carrion fields since about 2001-2002ish and its been really fun and all, but ive tried out other mudds to.. what i realized is that carrionfields dosent have any housing for the players, and i thought it be a neat idea if you were able to build a player village or something were you can actually buy your own houses, or have apartment complexes like areas all around thera.. maybe even create a class that can build equipment and or houses and stuff... just an idea not a request, but would be nice to read some of your takes on it....

Let's say we did this and we decided you had to be level 40 to have a house. 40 (if I'm not mistaken is also when you show up on the battlefield when you croak). Everyday there are at least 2 or 3 people who croak off...the sheer upkeep of removing those houses (even if we purged houses every week) would equate to more downtime (reboots with new houses and cleaning old houses) as well as take up already pretty thinly stretched immtime. Even the simplist process I can think of for doing this would require at least a team of 2-3 imms who looked over and approved submissions. Considering how many people hit 40/die per day....it would be a pretty heinous task just from the tech support end of it all.

I'll also say that given the nature of CF (we tend to be a little more fast paced than some of the other muds that offer houses and other such player commodities...life and death is a matter of 2-3 months on average here, where as there are MUDs, MUSHs and other games where average lifespan of a character is around 6-7 months....personally, I like our everchanging landscape better) houses don't really fit well with the scheme. I guess basically it's just not our style. Kinda like putting a bicycle rack on a porsche...it'd just slow things down.

I'll also say that given the nature of CF (we tend to be a little more fast paced than some of the other muds that offer houses and other such player commodities...life and death is a matter of 2-3 months on average here, where as there are MUDs, MUSHs and other games where average lifespan of a character is around 6-7 months....

In a lot of games, this is an underestimate. The game I was quoting wasn't so much selling you stuff as leasing it to one character for 24 months. Many games boast about having characters that are 4 or 5 years old, as a sign of their development. We advertise the opposite-- if characters never die, it's impossible to get a foothold as a newer player. On CF, if you want to be Leader of Battle or whatever, you probably only have to wait a month or two for an opening to show up. On other games, you're basically waiting for the other guy to stop playing or step down willingly.

Most games where you can buy your way to the top can't have a mechanism for true character death (or even equipment loss) or decline-- if you paid us money for The Magical Sword of Doom, and one of our NPCs killed you off... we'd either have to make sure all your other characters get their own sword, or else hope we phrased our disclaimers just right to avoid legal action. The most common solution is that characters never die, and that purchased equipment is unable to be looted, lost, or otherwise taken out of your hands.

Ick.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

It's an interesting concept for me. I can completely understand the desire/need for a pay-MUD and I have nothing against them. I just don't play them, avoid them like the plague actually partly because we're poor as dirt right now and partly because I have a notoriously short attention span and there's a good chance I'll get bored with it inside a couple of weeks if not a couple months (oh if only I could count the projects on the list...) Granted this is the first MUD I've played since, um, well let's just say that BBSs were all the rage. ;)

If paying $100 for a personalized room that nobody is going to see does it for someone, well good for them. It's doubtful they'd have anyone to spend it on that they can't download. Buying items with real cash is a bit shady if you ask me, borders on dishonest when it's a game of the-fatest-wallet-wins. The turnaround here is absolutely insane (which is good for me, see above paragraph). It almost forces you to be ballsy and go for broke with your character. It also lets you get to know how things work without any realy penalty because in a couple of months that guy who's currently kicking your ass all over Thera isn't going to be there anymore. Kind of exciting really, and scary with school starting up in a couple of weeks, like I really need another distraction but oh well, if my grades suck my wife will come after you. If you knew her you'd be frightened too. :)

Ultimately, I don't personally have a problem with the concept of the pay MUDs that are sort of like subscriptions-- you pay them $X per month, and you get to play. It's a business like any commercial MMORPG. It's not our bag, but it doesn't boggle me that they exist.

Pay-for-perks games do boggle me though. Why play a game where he who spends most wins? They could rename the game "Elaborate Wallet-Waving Contest" and at least be honest about how things work.

My job situation is presently comfy, and if I wanted to play a commercial game, the fees wouldn't be a big deal. But I wouldn't want to play a game that's blatantly unfair, or shell out hundreds of dollars just to keep up with the Joneses.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The Internet's a weird place, it almost sounds like an ego boost to me at times. *shrug* Dunno, like I said I stay clear of those kinds of games. I'm far too lazy for the commitment (though Halo is a different story altogether, albeit a bit more mindless but I'll forget meals and bedtime for it).

I remember that episode the of the tick in your quote!

You feel a stunning presence guide you to newfound coolness!

Athank you. One of my alltime favorite shows (the cartoon). Never saw the live-action but somehow it just seemed wrong.

hey thats cool and all, id thought id just see the view.. but i understand your point.. to bad theres no way to program once your dead.. its just up for sale

This is a problem of DIKU/ROM engine design. Its a miracle new muds using this engine even keep sprouting.

Its not like a MUD engine is that hard to write. I can't think of any other applications I'd prefer to use 15 years old code rather than just write my own.

Agreed. Further, a lot of what would've been considered the more hard/obscure problems of writing a MUD engine at the time have easier solutions or all manner of how-to snippets posted now.

That said, MUD founders are frequently either not coders or not especially good coders.

In CF's own case, of course, we're an 11+ year old game and there's not a whole lot of gain for a lot of effort of rewriting most of that stuff from scratch now. (I'm a lot lazier than I personally used to be with CF stuff that seems like work instead of fun to me.) Some of the staff decided they wanted to do it eight or nine years ago and that never went anywhere.

That said, MUD founders are frequently either not coders or not especially good coders.

IMHO, advanced coding expertise (beyond basic competence... obviously you can't run a MUD if you can't keep it online or add content) isn't what makes or breaks a game anyway. The reason you still see successful games being started off of the Diku/Merc/ROM branch of MUD-dom is that it provides a neatly packaged way for people with good ideas and the ability to recruit and manage a staff to get them out there.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

The fact that so many are based off of DIKU/MERC/ROM is why they're all nearly exactly the same too, and why the closest you get to unique is making it about doing stupid #### like paintball or hiking.

There's only so unique you can get with 300 games built off the same engine. :)

I agree with you guys tho about rewriting CF, there's no point to it because it'd be too time consuming and would basically be like pissing away all the coding you've done thus far. That being said, I've been working on my own MUD engine that's flash based for fun and I gotta say, the whole multithreading server/web service combo is like, 50 lines of code. Combat routines and stuff is obviously more, but the reason most people used ROM wasn't because they had problems figuring out how to do areas/combat, its because multithreading and TCP was more of a mystery/hassle back then.

1) It would definitely create a lot of overhead. Not only in coding, but there would have to be some form of quality control. Given this cost, I'd need to see a clear reward, and I just don't.

2) The real reason many games have this is because they charge (*) for the privilege of an in-game safe zone with added storage and/or selective entry. We're opposed to accepting RL money for in-game benefits, in order to keep a level playing field. We're also opposed to players being able to arbitrarily designate areas as "safe", excluding enemies either absolutely (they just can't enter your house) or effectively (you have guards, locks, etc. to protect your house).

3) If the house's only benefit would be purely ornamental (essentially a player-written room)-- well, we're picky about making the landscape larger without tangible gains. If we're going to add a new area, we want it to "do something", not just be a SimCity-type experiment. If you really want to add to Thera, apply to be a heroimm and we'll teach you how.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): It's not cheap either. I checked one game where I know they do this, and the price for a single-room house is 84 units, where units cost $0.65 US each-- a little over $50 US. If you want a chest to store items? $50 more, please. Accessories and cosmetic decorations? Yup, a fee for those too. Your $100 didn't cover that.

This might be something that could add to the cabal system. Specifically extra room that could be designed and maintained by the cabal leaders. This would control it somewhat, since it could reasonably be expected that the cabal leaders wouldn't abuse the system too badly (or wouldn't be cabal leaders anymore).

One example of this working could be in empire, where the emperor could commision as many additional rooms as he wanted.. however.. the rate at which donations would have to be made would start to go up with every extra room. So if an emperor wanted a huge citadel, he'd have to be a task master, which would likely stir resentment and lead to his being over thrown. Might make a good RP angle.

Another place this might be useful would be at the Inn. This would give more of an incentive to people to join the inn... honestly though, I don't see where this would be that great.

One additional thought might be that Outlanders (as someone else sort of suggested) could have a cabal power that allowed them to destroy these 'special' room for some purpose...

Anyway, I'm just rambling now and not getting anywhere... bottom line is I think the Empire idea would fit well with this system.

...Rome...

the thing about the Emperor being able to commission rooms and have the donation requirements go up is pretty neat.

Any chance of this happening, Valg?

The brilliant part of it though is that you control the supply. If I could con some dip#### into giving me $100 for an imaginary friend I would too. I mean seriously, a fool and their money...etc.

But then you get the reputation for screwing people out of money. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stupid people getting what's due, but it's another to actively go about doing it. Keeping it free and a level playing field in that respect is a much better policy. The Stupids will weed themselves out soon enough, hell they'll probably even leave here for someplace that WILL take their money for crap. :)

Thats silly. Free is not 'a much better policy' unless you are the gamer. For the admin, getting paid is always better.

Thats silly. Free is not 'a much better policy' unless you are the gamer. For the admin, getting paid is always better.

Unless the amount of money the game was going to put in my bank account was pretty sizable, I'll take the advantages of this being a "hobby" instead of "employment".

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Via CF, yes.

However, CF it wouldn't make sense. You use ROM code, have a relatively small playerbase, this is your only playerbase, you can't resell your code/libraries and there's no extensibility to this system that isn't a royal pain in the ass to implement.

I don't much agree with pay-per-perk, I prefer subscription based. If you had a codebase that was scalable to several genre's without being cheesy and could maintain a moderate playerbase using a subscription system, assuming you could maintain high enough registration to make a salary competitive or better than what you make now, why wouldn't it be alright?

The people who do those systems run several MUDs usually. If people are willing to pay, more the power to them. I'm not one of those people, but I don't see anything truly unethical about it unless you're using ROM code or violating some other sort of agreement. Pay-per-perk sites aren't where I spend my time, but other people have the same choices and if they have fun by buying victory, then there's nothing wrong with parting a fool from their money I guess.

I've written about this here (most recently elsewhere in this thread: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=10000&mesg_id=10018&page= ), and more extensively on TMS. Despite the attempts of a couple of parties with vested interests in pay-for-perks schemes to falsely paint me as some sort of free-love money-is-bad hippy, I don't see anything wrong with a subscription-based model. Goods for services.

I'm also aware there's nothing illegal about running a pay-for-perks game. I do find it sleazy that certain of these games advertise themselves as "free" when it's obvious with even a casual perusal that you have to pay to compete. (As an analogy, this game sells the equivalent of CF's practice sessions. If someone told you that you could play CF for free, but anyone could buy extra practice sessions for $10 a pop, would you advertise it as a "free" game?) But I'm not trying to argue they can't do what they do, just that sophisticated players should realize that financial arms races are a raw deal for them.

Proponents of the idea counter this by saying that in CF, time playing is unfair-- people who play the game more are generally more skilled and competitive than people who don't. They claim that the money exists to even some imaginary line between players who have a lot of money and no time, and players with a lot of time and no money, neglecting the fact that the people spending a lot of money on their games are the people who spend a lot of time playing them. Why would you shell out $500 for unsellable virtual goods (they're linked to your account and can't be transferred) if you're going to play it once a month? Thus, pay-for-perks affects the game in a "rich get richer" dynamic-- new players are skittish about paying for a game that haven't gotten into yet, and old players drive competitively each other to spend more and more.

The time argument is specious in any case. People who invest a lot of time in a hobby are (assuming comparable talent) going to be better at it than people who don't. Nobody calls Wimbledon "unfair" because you have to practice for a zillion hours to win it. But if you could buy a "free ace" for $100,000 and Bill Gates had a 5-year winning streak, everyone would know it was a sham and they would stop watching. If time investment doesn't build skill, then your game is either very simple (tic-tac-toe, etc.) or entirely luck (craps, etc.).

So yes, CF is slanted in favor of people who play a lot (*). Of course, they're also "putting in" the most-- they're roleplaying, forming groups, adding to stories, fighting battles, etc. and adding to the game while a more casual player is off doing other things. I think this is about as fair as you can make it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*) Less so than most MUDs, actually, because characters die and players have to start over involuntarily. Imagine a CF where your PK range has people in it with 5,000 hours of play and unlimited skill growth (i.e., 465% Sword skill), and you'll see why it's easier to get a foothold here.

Just quickly, while I'm sure you know this already they're making those posts not out of an actual belief in what they're saying (it'd be pretty insane if they really believed that) but out of an attempt to rationalize it to their player-base. Its obviously paper-thin logic.

One thing thats interesting about CF though in relation to maintaining a continual audience is that its inherent design of time vs reward and cost vs gain (highs and lows model of heavy penalties balanced with heavy rewards) is that the combination lends itself towards user-burnout.

In systems design regarding subscription based entertainment services the typical implementation keeps penalties low (you can view this in services like WOW/Guild Wars/etc where the penalty for loss is virtually non-existant) and that's an answer to the problem but in CF typically the 'adrenaline' stems from a penalty system. The recent changes lead me to believe we're trying to lower the lows of CF and decrease overall frustration from players in an attempt to lessen the amount of player-burnouts, I'm curious if this is a trend we should expect more of in the future or is it more of a tweak?

First, I'll agree that CF is more of a "time vs reward and cost vs gain (highs and lows model of heavy penalties balanced with heavy rewards)" than virtually any commercial game. My usual analogy for commercial MUDs vs. "niche" ones (like CF) is the restaurant industry, where the most "successful" (in terms of income or numbers of customers) enterpeneurs are the ones who found chains of largely identical restaurants which seek to serve the most inoffensive food possible.

I don't think we're heading towards the "I'm OK, You're OK" 3rd-grade--Olympics-everyone-gets-a-medal-ceremony of MMORPG-dom, though. What we are trying to do is isolate cases where the cost is out of proportion to the gain. This sometimes means that the gain is reduced (i.e., no piles of 20,000 coins lying unguarded in easily accessed locations), but it also can mean that the cost is reduced to match an existing gain (i.e., recall potions cost a lot less).

Sometimes it's more complicated, but the same principles apply. For example, corpseguard can be thought of as helping the person who puts in the cost (beating some bastard down) collect their gain (first crack at spoils). Making sure people don't spam-kill themselves looting their own corpse is making sure no one is paying a steep cost for something we don't consider a gain, namely getting your things back manually.

Going back to your first point, it's both kinds of changes that make CF what it is, and that the highs and successes only exist because there are proportional lows and failures. If we did make all of the mamby-pamby hold-my-diaper training-wheels childproofing changes that people suggest (Triple XP gains on all-cannon-fodder mobs! a/b/s in Market Square wheelbarrows! Quests with instruction manuals!), people would be bored in a week. It's why console games come with difficulty settings, and why ski slopes aren't all green circle. People like to be challenged.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I ran some numbers on one of the pay-for-perks games that publishes some information as to how much things cost and how easy it is to get with what a TMS poster (and pay-for-perks admin) likes to call "sweat equity"-- effort invested to earn what other players are buying with RL money.

On that game, you can write essays, sign them over to the game, and receive perks if they decide your essay is worth printing. (Probably closest to our Lyceum submissions.) A 500-word essay nets you:

2.5 units for an interview
4 units for player guides, tips, area tours, etc.
Just over 3 units for history/background.
Negotiable rate for other work farmed out to you.

Units can be purchased for US $0.65 each. So a 500-word essay is worth somewhere in the range of $1.60-$2.60. I could optimistically think up, write, check, and email a 500 word essay in an hour-- I've had exams like that, and writing about MUDs is probably easier than most university-chosen topics.

So on that game, my time is worth about $2/hour when invested in creative writing. If I need 3 units, I can either spend $2, or I can spend 1 hour writing.

That's a horribly ####ty exchange rate, yo. Even McDonald's would value my time at $5.15/hour, and creative writing for a MUD is skilled labor compared to fry-o-lating.

Now, a CF player might say "But CF gives you $0 for that!". However, MUDs are competitive games. On that game, one of your enemies can drop $50 to buy a high-end weapon that they can never lose (can't be looted, dropped, stolen, etc.) for one year. That weapon isn't available by CF-conventional means within the game-- it has to be purchased with Units. So, to even the odds with your enemy, you either have to:

1) Drop $50 of your own, to rent that sword for 1 year.
2) Spend 25 hours writing essays, and get your sword for "free".

After all of that, where are you? Well, you're no better than your enemy, and both of you are out $50 or 25 hours. The game owners definitely profit-- they either have $100, or 12,500 words of new area content. But what did you get for your $50? A chance to keep up with the virtual Joneses, at least until the Joneses buy a shield to go with that sword...

But you say "Well, at least I'm a leg up on NPCs with my spiffy new sword." Unfortunately, however, games get balanced for the average player. If the median player is running around with a $50 sword (some with more, some with less), NPCs will be made so that having a $50 sword is "average" difficulty, and not having a $50 sword means a corpsepile. The admins have every incentive to make the game unfair unless you have the 'perks'.

CF will give you $0 for that submission. If you write it for your own enjoyment (which usually means it's going to be of high quality), we'll gladly print it. If you don't, you still get to log in and play a fair game. The other game doesn't offer that option. you can play for free, but you're a third-class citizen with "whipping boy" on your forehead.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I'll tell you what though, I have a hard time calling the admin the villain in that scenario. People dumb enough to subscribe to that ego stroking for such a high monetary cost don't get my sympathy and neither do masochists who would want to write out 900 hours of literature to get a fantasy sword heh.

Though, as a sidenote, the exchange rate improves depending on what country you're from. I don't see why people play those games, but I can't fault a guy for making money off their stupidity, so long as what they're doing is legal.

"After all of that, where are you? Well, you're no better than your enemy, and both of you are out $50 or 25 hours. The game owners definitely profit-- they either have $100, or 12,500 words of new area content. But what did you get for your $50? A chance to keep up with the virtual Joneses, at least until the Joneses buy a shield to go with that sword..."

In a perfect world yes. But is it even realistic to assume every one of your essays will be accepted? I have a feeling you'll be spending far more hours than 25 to just keep up with the dude who's got the extra $50 laying around. You're basically busting your hump for almost nothing, while Jonsey has his sword right now for $50 that wasn't going to be spent on anything anyways (if your're spending $50 for a text sword chances are you don't have a girlfriend...flesh and bones that is). In the meantime he's killed your gearless ass five times and taken all your stuff while you sit and pour out thousands of words for a measily greenback or two. Ouch.

Nah. Maybe policy isn't a good wording, but I firmly believe that free is better. Even for admins. I've never asked for a cent from the places I was admin/staff, it would have felt wrong. My opinion's probably a little more extreme in that direction, but I do think it makes for a better atmosphere if you can remove the money factor. Plus it forces you to be creative to keep the donations coming, instead of just upping the cost. Not everyone does this for money, I have far more respect for those who don't.

> I've never asked for a cent from the places I was admin/staff, it would have felt wrong.

Its wrong with ROM code. If, however, you made a MUD from scratch and chose to have a subscription system why would that be wrong? There's nothing wrong with being compensated for entertaining hundreds of people.

If someone's created a MUD then hell yeah, slap on a sign-up cost, they're completely entitled to do that. Btw, I wouldn't expect a MUD from me any time soon. Programming gives me the shakes, we don't really get along well. ;)

this would be a very, very bad idea.

I can just see "Arolins dome of pleesure" now.

nt

The outlanders would just burn down your house anyway.

This isn't Ultima.