The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [83]
What is just as important, if not more so, than advancement, is status. The two are intricately tied together. All characters begin on equal footing at first level. Despite every game developer’s goal of creating just such a level playing field, players inevitably feel that certain combinations of race, guild, and equipment are a faster path to advancement, just like in real life. Still, this does not prevent perceptions of status to be assigned to advancement.
In MUDs, status is often assigned through a leveling system. It’s telling that coders and programmers sometimes provide themselves with a level much higher than any player, thereby establishing dominance in a hierarchy. Conversely, becoming a programmer on a MUD and thus a staff member is sometimes part of a leveling requirement.
This issue, of status and advancement tied together, is a challenge for many games that use a form of MUD school to educate new players. These “newbie schools” create the impression that new player characters are children—helpless beginners who need to be taught how to play the game. The new player (newbie) is handed a weapon like a ruler and then asked to fight rats or butterflies. Mazyar Fallah, RetroMUD administrator, explained the issues with level and status:
It is basically level stereotyping: low level characters are often seen as representing kids playing. This is most prevalent in the playerbase though sometimes the coding staff exhibits the same behavior. After level, the next social status determinant is how long someone has played the game. The more years they’ve been around, regardless of level, the higher their social status. Again, this means that the view of a player behind the character is one of aging, in the “respect your elders way,” the longer they’ve been around [2010].
The best MUD schools are not schools at all, but part of the game experience that helps new players get assimilated into the game, both socially, to the player base, and personally, to the game’s rules and regulations. The worst MUD schools are patches to game systems with poor documentation that really exist to reinforce why players don’t want to join—which turns off casual players at a critical time, when they’re deciding whether or not they want to play the game (Juul 2004:139).
To address this issue, RetroMUD instead created a “helper” character whose job is to advise the new player, heal him, and otherwise provide a means of getting around the universe. This guide appears in a form appropriate to the universe—it is not a meta-guide to gaming or a walkthrough. It is conducted entirely within the fantasy experience.
The problem with status and levels is that it begins to shape the reality of the game; lower-level players perceive themselves as worthless and highlevel players perceive themselves as morally superior. Of course, the primary component to success in any level-based system is time—players with more time on their hands are capable of becoming much more powerful than similar players who cannot devote as much attention to the game. The prestige associated with all high-level players is not necessarily well-deserved. One RetroMUD player summed up the problem:
Ah, levels, a.k.a. the number that tells us how much you suck and I rock. Along with creation date, levels determine how people treat you. If you’re a low level with an old creation date, people think you’re inexperienced, because you should have been able to level by now. If you’re a high level with a recent creation date, people think you’re a clueless newbie who’s just been spoonfed and powerleveled through everything. If you’re a low level character with a recent creation date, people either hate you or help you depending on who they are, and if you’re a high-level player with an old creation date, you’re pretty much set. All you have to do now is either idle all day or grind through your last few levels, and you’ll fit right in with your fellow elite players. It’s actually