Realism vs Fun

[kobnach]

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, I participated in an LP mud project that fortunately never saw the light of day. We had gotten completely enamoured with the idea of making the game as realistic as possible - and the result was boredom. We felt we had to have acres of boring (but realistic) territory between useful locations. We tinkered with getting weight and encumbrance exactly right - right for realism, not playability. I spent ages playing with the inheritance model of the core mudlib, trying to get object interrelations exactly right. And somewhere along the line, interesting content just did not happen.

H&H is not an LP mud, and doesn't have some of the limitations of that old game style. It's also already far more fun - and far more complete - then our failed project. But I'm reading things that suggest that a number of players are falling into the realism trap, and the devs sound like they may be sliding in the same direction. Beign egotistical, I figure my own opinions on the subject must be worth sharing besides, I'm at work, rebooting my test system for the umpteenth time today, and waiting for yet another build.

We have certain tasks that require a longish waiting time, and then must be attended to within some limited time period. Currently, these are steel making (must attend to every 12 RL hours for around 2.5 RL days), silk making (tends to need attention every four RL hours, which is very awkward, but has stages where it can be left for 16 hours), and tree planting.

The first two of these make sense - the product is supposed to be rare, so it's OK to rule out people with lives, intermittent net access, etc. The third is a mistake - the world is severely deforested, and I can only start trees when I expect to be on for at least 3 hours, or back on within 8-10. So I plant no trees any day where there's a morning crash, or I oversleep, etc. etc. I'm sure other folks have the same problem, and the world suffers for it.

Now I'm reading that it would be a good idea for basic farming to work the same way. You plant some seeds, wait 8 or more RL hours - and then _must_ harvest the produce within some hopefully not to narrow boundary. Next people will want seed to rot if stored more than a "season" - which will hopefully be more than an RL week, so that it will remain possible for folks to play even though they don't live online. (Consider the person who only has long playing sessions on weekemds.)

Is it the goal to only have players who lack real lives, or who are so well organized that they can arrange to have someone from their village on line almost literally 24*7?

Specifics aside, I suggest thinking about how often and reliably a player must be online, to perform certain tasks, and asking whether you want to make those tasks unavailable to many players, or massively inconvenient.

The same thing also applies to the insertion of extra tedium. Making a batch of raisin muffins already requires more than 24 RL hours of preparation, along with all kinds of stages. Keeping butter supplies up is a PITA. Raisins take 24+ hours to produce. So now I see suggestions from the developers of making it take more stages and more tools to produce wheat flour. Precisely what is the game balance or fun-oriented reason for this? I mean, playing with all these tools is cute and fun - but I'm already harried enough feeding one farmer and some variable number of miners. (At least the miners bring home meat - how long before realism suggests that those with low nature should have more trouble finding game?)

[Jackard]

Now I'm reading that it would be a good idea for basic farming to work the same way. You plant some seeds, wait 8 or more RL hours - and then _must_ harvest the produce within some hopefully not to narrow boundary. Next people will want seed to rot if stored more than a "season" - which will hopefully be more than an RL week, so that it will remain possible for folks to play even though they don't live online. (Consider the person who only has long playing sessions on weekemds.)

who is saying this? that sounds like a terrible idea

tree planting is already an incredible pain

[kaka]

Loftar has said something along those lines to me in person, at least, and I imagine Jorb agrees with it.
He never said anything about shortening the growth time, though. Especially not to 8 RL hours.

[kobnach]

Loftar has said something along those lines to me in person, at least, and I imagine Jorb agrees with it.
He never said anything about shortening the growth time, though. Especially not to 8 RL hours.

Yes, what I saw in some thread in this forum was the possibility of lengthening it. I'm not sure what brain fart caused me to type "8" above.

[theTrav]

I believe the goal isn't so much "realism" as it is, slow pacing.

If you're used to playing a lot of twitchy, grindy, do as much as you can as quickly as you can, competitive style games, then just chill the heck out and take it easy.

Silk making doesn't need anything near as much attention as you're making out... I've been doing quite well just putting my eggs in the herbalist table every night before I go to bed, then in the morning before work, I grab the hatched catterpillars, thrown them in some chests with sufficient leaves (I can get 7 slugs per chest) then they're typically cocoons either when I get home from work or the next day... I unravel a bunch and leave about 5 in the hopes of getting another breeding pair (last time I got 5 females and was extremely vexed).

I've dabbled in tree planting on the weekend, and found that with a full nature character, the process of getting some sprouted seedlings is a couple of hours work, and then planting them is nigh on instantaneous. Putting them on the right terrain gets them to full size within a week or two, sure that's a long time, but what's your rush? It's not like you have to be online to tend them while they're growing.

You already mentioned steel being a deliberately pain staking process, so I'm not sure why you brought it up...

Wine, beer and cheese are also all fairly long processes, but again, they don't demand too much from the player.

I like a bit of realism, and I think this game's got the balance fairly good, but I don't think that's your issue so much as the general pacing of the game, which is deliberately slow.

[Jackard]

I don't mind growth time - you'll just see larger fields of crops instead of the current gardens

but I really hope there isn't a treeplanting-esque window of time in which crops must be harvested or they die

[theTrav]

I don't mind growth time - you'll just see larger fields of crops instead of the current gardens

but I really hope there isn't a treeplanting-esque window of time in which crops must be harvested or they die

Tree's don't die if they're not cut...
Do you mean the window between seedlings growing and being planted? I reckon that window is way too small. At worst it should be the time for a single growth cycle, and even then it should produce bonzai/stunted trees rather than kill them

If the dev's implement seasons I'd imagine they'd have winter frosts killing off most crops, however I'd expect you to have PLENTY of time to harvest (we're talking in game months here) which shouldn't be a problem

[Jackard]

Do you mean the window between seedlings growing and being planted? I reckon that window is way too small.

exactly

[Malicus]

Tree's don't die if they're not cut...

If you're trying to make a forest and you don't cut them down before they produce logs, you'll WISH they had just died. I know I have.

[Ferinex]

Tree replanting should be as simple as "pick pine cone->stick in ground". How do you think nature does it all by herself? Certainly without herbalist tables and treeplanter's pots.