Something that a lot of ROM muds did that I think scales better is implement “remort” systems. Basically what those entail is that you hit maximum level and then you “remort” into a brand new character. You essentially restart or “reroll” the entire character and go down to level 1, possibly choosing new races/classes/etc. Usually, to give the player a reason to actually do this, the game would grant the character some additional options on their remort.

I don’t know if everyone here understands what “remort” means, so i’ll try to explain it. For most of the Diku MUDS, once you hit level 50, that was it, that was the cap. the levels above 50 were “immortals” or whatever each mud called them. they were the “in charge” people. Once you got to 50, you were stuck until you became an “immortal”.

Some muds added a “hero” concept, where once you hit 50, then level 50 had its OWN 100 levels (or 1000 levels on some?)

So the “remort” came from the fact that if you did not become a “hero”, and you did not become an “immortal”, you became mortal again, or “remortal”, or “re-morted”.

I don’t want to take credit (i do, i do!) but i’m almost sure that the mud i was one of the Imps on (Originally “Nitemare”, renamed “Arcane Nites” to show up higher in the mud connector list ) was one of the first (if not the first) to do the re-mort thing.

Our rules:
1. when you re-morted, you picked a new class which you haven’t been yet(still subject to race restrictions, no half-giant wizards!)
2. you became level 1 again. (same hp, same mana, same mv)
3. you lost access to all skills of your last (previous) class
4. if remorting for the N’th time, you got access to all previous classes (except your immediately previous class, see #3)
5. once you reached 50 again, you could stop remorting and have access to ALL of your skills again, or goto 1

In this way, a character could effectively multiclass into EVERY posible class. The first “remort” was the hardest, because you started over in a new class with no skills. but a level 1 remort had level 50′s hp/mana, so you could generally fly through the 30′s pretty easily. Subsequent remorts weren’t so bad, because you had access to your first class’s skills, and now you had even MORE hp (2x level50′s, etc)

This made PK interesting, as if you didn’t know the players, you didn’t know if a level 25 was a 25, or a 75 (remort+25), or a 125

But again, that was one level cap raise in over 4 years.

with todays mmos were seeing level cap raises virtually every expansion

probably because the major game publishers havent really figured out how to make a truly engaging end game…

Mmo’s raise the level cap to artificially give players a continuing feeling of character growth and development. (I say artificially, since most games scale somewhat equally – player power vs mob power by level – exp might be exponential, making it tougher to climb to those higher ranks, but level 60 is virtually just level 30 all over again…)

Some people play mmo’s for the sense of achievement the growth of the characters gives them. Some play for the achievement of Reaching and playing at end game. Giving a retirement option at level cap doesn’t satisfy either of these two camps.

It was a much more successful concept in the muds..

The honor system basicly is a ranking system based on how many battlegrounds you participate in and how many enemey players you kill. The higher ranks get better equipment/titles, eventually turning them into a PVP alpa-class.

And their “honor system” has done as StGame’s comapny said it would, fail to keep non-hardcore players happy. They are changing the “honor system” in the next expansion taking out the ladder and making it into a grind.

High Warlord/Grand Marshall required what I guess it would be similar to the equivlent amount of effort it took to attain Jedi in SWG. Several months of non stop grinding.

Its actually kind of funny how similar the two systems ended up, they are even letting HW and GMs keep their titles after they phase out the system…where do I remember that from? =)

Also, arguably, the sort of people who max out and remort and so on have an overlap with the achiever types who would enjoy a high score table…

There’s also the possibility of using the retired characters as elements to weave into the game fiction; have them retire from adventuring and be seized up into the heavens to be demiurges, or sent to the capital to join the legislature, or whatever.

Yep, definitely. Seems like a more immersive form of remorting although part of the problem here is that a lot of people don’t want to give up their name (they play the same name across games, etc.). An outright remort may be better because of this.

I agree that the selection method for LegendMUD’s retirement system wouldn’t scale at all. However, I think the general principle stands. Yes, lists of retired folks fill up, but “high score tables” are hardly an unfamiliar mechanic, and there’s all the elaborations like “highest this week, this month, ths day, of this class” etc.

There’s also the possibility of using the retired characters as elements to weave into the game fiction; have them retire from adventuring and be seized up into the heavens to be demiurges, or sent to the capital to join the legislature, or whatever. They could then be called upon by their “heirs” in some fashion — intercessions, powers, whatever. This is akin to the Jedi stuff mentioned in the post previous.

A personal “high score” is also a good thing. One proposal we had for Jedi in SWG was that Jedi had permadeath. If you made it to master with one, you got a blue glowy. Over time, your account might acquire a bunch of blue glowies. You could then just summon them with a keystroke to show them off — it’s a clear sign that you-the-player are a badass even if you-the-character isn’t, because you have your blue glowy Yoda, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Anakin all standing behind you.

I could go on — there’s plenty of other conceivable ways to use retired characters in scalable ways…

Let’s say you have some way in which “retiring” is actually considered an honor by the playerbase. Ok, everyone does it. Now when you retire your name just gets tacked onto a list of 1,000+ characters (and in the process losing access to that name if they then want to create another character to actually PLAY with).

Let’s say you screen for truly “notable” characters. Suddenly you have huge management overhead not to mention that you invite lots of squabbling among your players. You create a system that no one is ever really happy with and, worst of all, you just significantly increased your CS/GM budget.

And basically, retirement as offered only takes away options from a player. They exist, as they did before, and they can’t do stuff that otherwise they could do. All to have their name put on a list with 1,000 other people, most of whom nobody’s even heard of?

Something that a lot of ROM muds did that I think scales better is implement “remort” systems. Basically what those entail is that you hit maximum level and then you “remort” into a brand new character. You essentially restart or “reroll” the entire character and go down to level 1, possibly choosing new races/classes/etc. Usually, to give the player a reason to actually do this, the game would grant the character some additional options on their remort. A standard was to have “remort-only” races. Another way to do it is to allow a slight bonus or small ability to be granted to the character when they remort and to then allow these bonuses/abilities to accrue over future remorts. This encourages your more extreme achievers to restart and reuse the content instead of staying stuck at max level however it does so with a cost to percieved “fairness” of the game as it opens up options only to those who are willing to relevel over and over again.

I assume this retirement mechanic was what “Blue Glowy” status was origionally meant to encompass in SWG for the pre-pub 9 Jedi?

It actually was a decent concept, I think most of the power gamers (who tended to be the first unlocks) on the whole accepted the 3 death/permadeath concept with saber TEF (which would have culled or rather formed a bottleneck (assuming player bounties)for the population of Alpha class Jedi) and Blue Glowy after three deaths as a Master Jedi would have been really the culmination of a player Jedi’s career. This actually goes to much of the threads topic, meaning Blue Glowy would have been the “ultimate” prize for Jedi (a hall of legends of sorts) and for those elite player Bounty Hunters (not the bottom feeders killing the weak Jedi)
who got the killing blow? perhaps thier own BH Hall of Fame. The potential for this system was really rich for hardcore poawer gamers and RP’ers, which is why the game resonated so well with its community. For all the faults people cite with SWG not having follow through, conceptually it had a ton of potential, this was likely the one that mattered most of all to the core combat crowd.

I remember the Jedi correspondant at the time compiled a great list of all the associated benifits of Blue Glowy status (like providing group bonuses to skills when in the area etc.) on the Jedi Forums for the Live Team.

I cant recall any other newer MMO having a retirement system. I think much of it is premised on “what is there to do in retirement” and as a player IMO it would have to be substantially differentiated from being unretired, and it should be a very significant reward for the player concerned.

The issue with WOW is player differentiation, they have given up the ability for a player to differentiate themselves except through “grinding” first through levels, then “grinding” by progressing through increasingly difficult encounters. Yes, in a sense WOW provides some rewards for this but Tier 2 gear looks the same for everyone. I cant imagine they’d suddenly provide some “elite” reward of retirement that wasnt accessable to everyone equally. Again undifferentiated game play in an MMO is boring and unrewarding for experianced players, unless the point is to appeal to lowest common denominator game play….good for reach, bad for retention in the long term.

Rik-
“A raid in WoW is about getting 39 other people to show up on time”
True

“with the virtual items you want them to have”
True but also: with the skill sets (talents) to fill required roles

“and kill the monsters in the way that you have allready deterimined is the best way to kill them”
True

“In the very early stages some of the people running the raid might have some input on how to defeat a new creature”
Not True: A hardcore raiding guild will either share its raiding strat with another guild via public or private boards, once the strat is optimized its just mindless scripted encounters pointing and clicky by rote and role. Your 150th time running MC or BWL is the same as your 15th, 35th, 78th, and 110th. Engaging game play? Hardly.

“If it’s not all coordination, ask yourself why no one tries pick up groups in these area?”
Not True: You can get PUG’s as long as the group members meet the requirments noted above and are willing to have thier loot drops ninja’d in the end (which is the real reason no one does PUG’s) this btw is why there are a prevalence of guild memberships in end game and not required as much before 60, guilds form a social constraint (mostly) on players ninjaing? loot. A bottleneck for progression surely but a garunteed one….