I'm beginning to think having Maeva as a top ranked game on BYOND might not be my ultimate goal. I mean, it'd be cool to see it somewhere in the top 10 or something, but the kind of players I'd probably have in there wouldn't be what I'd want. I guess at that point, I really don't care, but I'd like to have fun playing my game, and not babysitting. The absense of worldsay or anything like that, even so much as "tell" will probably help. If people wanna sit around and just chat in Maeva, that's fine by me, since they'll only be heard locally. I never intended to sell Maeva, and that's being reinforced by the fact that if I was charging for it, I'd feel obligated to keep it up to some kind of "worthy standard", whether I really am obligated or not. I really just want people to have fun with it, I feel like a lot of MMORPGs are ruined because they have to account for there being so many people online, and those people demanding "representation" and "protection" because they're paying for it, so you end up with a lot of administrative gameplay issues totally outweighing the fun realism issues. I see too many games destroyed online because people want a clean cut way to win and be better than someone else. If winning is the best your game can do to be "fun", you've fallen horribly short, especially in the online realm, because to win, unless it's cooperative (and there is like... 1 cooperative game for every thousand that aren't) you end up with a loser, and usually more than one.

I guess I'll put this out here now. Maeva will have PvP ranking for arena matches and the like, and will probably offer a variety of "medals", gold silver and bronze, for anything from "richest player" to "most kills" to "most zones explored". I'd also like to award neat little "trophies" to players for interesting in-game accomplishments. Trophies wouldn't be competed for, you'd just get one to be able to show to your friends. Some of them may be unique, and others anyone can get. I guess it'll be quite an experiment, but I'd really like to deviate away from the standard 1337/n00b seperation we have in so many games anymore.