Manhiem

I have often been frustrated when trying to check the appearance/color scheme of a new/newly dyed outfit because it happens to be night time, and you can't see well.

Ah. I should have mentioned that the only thing that would perma-kill your character would be aging out.
(Otherwise, I'd never get my own character safely down Main Street.) I'm not a pvp fan, so I would definitely
favor an environment where players would have to OK any duels themselves.

I like your idea of awarding SP or AP by using an experience bar, similar to leveling up. It solves the problem
nicely. Award craftsmen xp for creating items, and merchants xp for completing runs, as well as fighting off
bandits and monsters.

This thread isn't about Mabi, so maybe this isn't the place for it, but it is the place for suggestions, so...

Recent posts by Helsa and SyruneStarlight on other threads have got me thinking again about something
that bothers me about all the MMO games I've played. They all suffer from at least two major problems:
player retention, and the acquisition of new players after a certain amount of time has passed. Player
retention becomes a problem when the players run out of content to explore. Many of them disappear until
a new storyline comes out, at which point they reappear long enough to play through it, and then disappear
again. Player acquisition becomes a problem when the characters of the older players become so advanced
that it becomes difficult for newer players to catch up to them.

SyruneStarlight may have hit on the solution to the content problem - let the players design their own
dungeons. Not necessarily every player, but perhaps a couple hundred or so. Have the players who are
interested in designing one apply for a chance, and let the developers decide who should be given
responsibility for a given geographical area in the game. Periodically call for a re-design. If the player
doesn't respond within a certain timeframe, re-assign the area to a new applicant. This keeps the content
changing all the time. Game developers can still be responsible for over-arching storylines, and can even
reserve dungeons for themselves when the over-arching storyline calls for it.

The only way to deal with stratification is to keep it from happening. In other words, don't let the player
characters become so ungodly powerful that new players can't catch up. Two things should help with
that - do away with the level system, and remove character immortality. The game Traveller had a way of
dealing with that - character aging and death. I propose that each month of real time, a character should
age one year. At some point, the character's ability scores should start to erode. After a certain age, Traveller
started forcing the player to roll periodically to see whether their character suffered some sort of medical
crisis which killed them or forced them out of the game.

By aging the character one year for every month, a character should be good for 2 - 3 years real time. Four,
if you push it.

GURPS had some good ideas, too. The game gave the player a certain number of points that he could spend
in his character design. Buying skills and higher ability scores cost points. Taking on disadvantages or
lower ability scores gave the player more points to work with. Once the ability scores were set, it was
supposed to be very costly to change them. Skills could be advanced, but the higher the skill level, the
more character points it cost to advance to the next level. Eventually, advancing further became cost
prohibitive. Character points were awarded after a play session, with 2 or 3 points being considered a
a good evening's work. I'm not sure how the character points should be awarded, but they shouldn't be
easy to get. Maybe 400 character points over the course of a character's career.

Slow growth and character death should help limit stratification. It might even encourage mentoring.

Maybe it is time for a game that looks more like Kino's Journey and less like Bleach.