Scaling a MU

Considering the issue of number of rooms and number of players on the player's enjoyment of MUs.

By: Brian Jones (aka Otter)

Part of the Management Series.

Introduction

Many MUs propose reducing the amount of rooms thus causing characters to be more likely to encounter each other and role play leading to more enjoyment. This article seeks to discuss this issue. While it draws some examples from Redwall MUCK it's not about Redwall in particular.

Problem Described

Redwall is a good example of a MU that grew large and then shrank. It thus has thousands of rooms and hundreds of players, often with under 30 players on at any given time.

It's often stated that it's a challenge to find good RP because the people are so far apart.

Commonly Proposed Solution

The solution often proposed is to destroy many of the rooms (and possibly the player-formed groups that occupy them) and thus bring the players into closer proximity to establish more interaction.

Initial Examination

First, at just the gross level, does the soluition actually do what it sets out to do? Will this solution increase the interaction and thus spark more role-play?

The answer is "Probably yes."

If there's fewer places and more people, the population density will go up. It's easier to find people to talk to in Hong Kong than on Antarctica. So, having fewer rooms in the game will absolutely increase the density. Hence, the "probably yes" evaluation.

More Detailed Examination

The more interesting question is, "Does this improve the enjoyment of the players?"

Do all players enjoy role-playing? We often assume this, but many players don't role-play that much, they stay in private rooms and page with their friends. They are having fun (or they wouldn't be here) but they aren't role-playing. Would taking away their private chat place cause them to role-play and have even more fun?

Do the people who role-play only with friends in private areas cause harm? Would they role-play more with others if their ability to stay private was taken from them? Would forcing them into the mainstream areas cause them to encourage more role-play? Would they find that the way they like playing causes others to complain or even leave?

If there are central common areas, do these areas serve as gathering points to enable role-play by those who wish it? Do the common areas eliminate the need to forbid the private ones? When people make active events in public areas, do people join in from private ones?

In many cases, the players use "out of band" discussions (like public chat channels, bulletin boards, and instant messengers) and agree to gather somewhere for an RP session. Players don't find RP only by walking around. Be sure that density isn't the only part of the evaluation!

Being Specific

I used terms like "force" because if the decision is made to reduce lands, that means choices will be enforced upon some players that they don't like. That is force.

So, assuming the decision is made to reduce rooms to improve RP, how many rooms shall be reduced?

How many rooms per player, or players per room, is appropriate? Should there be one room per eight players? Five rooms per player? If it's difficult to pick a number, then how will the decision to stop reducing space be made?

There's going to be serious conflicts during the reduction process. Effectively, rooms will become "valuable" and a "resource" that is finite. That makes ownership of rooms a prize, and forces the world into a zero-sum system (a system in which there's a finite amount of stuff and all that can be done is re-arrange it). Choosing which rooms to keep and which to destroy will become very divisive. Every choice will increase someone's stature (ownership of something rare) at the expense of another.

Many MUs add quotas on rooms to avoid the staff selection problem. Those that do are using a fixed metric well. This also allows the players to choose their "most prized" rooms thus avoding the staff battling it out. If the quota is in place from the beginning, and the density is still too low, then the quota was too high and needs to be lowered, again giving the players the choice of what they wish to keep and discard.

This then leads to the problem of alts, though. When there's alts, some people (not players) get more quota. If I have four alts, I get five times the quota of someone with no alts. So, to enforce quota, you need to also manage alts. That's technically interesting (the basic approaches like "check the IP address they come from" don't work in the face of modern networking, firewalls, and friends).

But, ignore the alts problem. Choosing a quota and forcing the MU to manage its size to that quota will achieve the goal of controling the density. Using a quota will allow the players to work out their own valuables and spare the staff the position of "using their power" and choosing for the players.

Using quotas, expect that the players will condense spaces that used to be many rooms into a single room (or far fewer rooms). This reduces the number of objects in the DB (thus helping their quota) but doesn't necessarily fit the IC scene as well. Instead of many rooms of forest you have "a" forest room (or possibly two forest rooms or some other very small number). And multiple people trying to RP being in the forest trampling each other doesn't make for better RP in what the genre declares is a "huge" forest. The desired side effect has the groups in the forest interacting together; it depends on the players and the RPs if merging those RPs helps or hurts play. The quality of the play can be affected by the way the rooms are created as well as the density effects.

So, the MU is shrunk to the chosen density. Does this mean the players will interact more, that they'll move to the edges where they have privacy and do as before, or even that they'll simply leave the game?

In other words, the million dollar question is: does increasing player density achieve more enjoyment for the players?

Tackling the Million Dollar Question

Does a higher population density result in more enjoyment for the players?

MUs that have a quota and say "See, it works" seem to have the answer clearly proven. But MUs that didn't have a quota (like Redwall in its busiest period, at 5000 players) also said "See, it works." So, we can't really evaluate the position directly and say "Quota success, non-quota failure". The success and failure of MUs with and without quotas makes the quota inconclusive on its own.

When there's a large RP event going on and the number of players in a room goes up, it gets very spammy. That in turn makes it very hard to role-play. IRC and non-MU chat systems are good examples of this. Step into a busy IRC channel and the text flows faster than many people can read. Those aren't good forums for role-play.

So, having a really high population density doesn't seem to be a virtue.

And having "too low" a population density is the problem being addressed.

The fact that players spread out when the space was there indicates they didn't want to all cluster together. So, the very act of reducing space means the players are being pressured against their wants. When people are pressured into close association in the real world they become very formal and polite or they argue incessantly and fight. One of the signs of wealth in the real world is owning space around your house and area.

This can lead to conflict, but the conflict isn't necessarily in "good" or "enjoyable" role-play. Often, it's conflict between the players themselves. So, as soon as the reduction in space leads to players fighting with each other (instead of characters fighting and players playing) then it's gone too far.

How do you solve the problem of too much pressure? You increase the quotas or add more rooms. In short, you decrease the density.

The only way to make this work is to shift it in stages and perform a measurement of player enjoyment (survey, perhaps, measure the number of IC poses and says vs OOC pages and chats? There's many ways to measure).

Asking the players, "Do you think we should have more space?" will likely result in "Yes!" because each individual would love to have more of something restricted and finite. It's very hard to use player yes/no type questions anyway because phrasing the question can have a huge impact on the answer. You need to survey obliquely.

So, does having someone else dictate density give players more pleasure than finding their own levels? Do players prefer to be restricted? Does anyone?

That is the real question behind all the talk of density: should player density be controlled externally by management or not?

Very few people enjoy being controlled (think back to being a child and under control). And if enjoyment is the goal, increased control isn't likely to increase enjoyment.

If quality of RP is the goal, then it will likely work if enough players stay that play well.

Conclusion

I don't have a handy conclusion here. The fact is, I believe a quota system or reduction in size will achieve more RP among the people who choose to stay. I've seen the solution work best in smaller MUs where the goal is to have fewer players and better RP.

In the case of a larger MU, or a MU that hopes to become larger and attract more people, having a strict quota from the beginning won't hurt it terribly, but the staff should put in the means to prevent people from being forcd into continual contact. Having some large open areas with no homes, and also having "sleepers go dark" will help with this (seeing sleeping characters everywhere is really distracting).

Putting such a restriction into an existing game is certain to cause players to leave. Anytime you take away what people like, some of them will simply go elsewhere. So, a quota system really needs to go into place at the start to manage density. Adjusting an existing quota system to further reduce the quota will also cause players to leave for the same reasons, but it won't likely be as dramatic (going from restrictive to more restrictive is different than going from free to restrictive).

For an existing system that has players accustomed to freedom, trying to retrofit a restriction is going to change the nature of the game itself. It will lose players. Will it improve the RP? If it makes the game into a small game with good RP, then those who remain will see better RP. In effect, it makes a larger MU into a smaller MU, a more open MU into a more closed/selective MU.

What is best for any given MU? The game's mission must dictate that. Changing the nature of the game isn't saving it. It's replacing it with a similar game. That may not be a bad decision, and it may be what the game admins choose. Understand that it is a game-changing decision.

And be sure to choose based on the real mission: better RP, more enjoyment, lots of players (some MUs just like having more players than others), whatever you're seeking to optomize for, that is what you need to choose based on.

Created by Otter

Last modified 2006-10-10 09:31 PM