How Your Player-Created Content Affects the Lifespan of Your Favorite Iron Realms Games

Far too many people see computer games as a source of entertainment and leave it at that. But people who play RPGs like the ones offered by Iron Realms Entertainment know that these virtual realms filled with made-up characters are not only games, but they are also investments.

The Investment of Time

You may be thinking, “Yeah, I have invested a college semester’s worth of tuition in credits!” but in reality the investment goes far beyond any dollar amount. First there is the investment of time people put into playing the game. All you have to do is look at your STAT for confirmation of this.

For example a person with a time investment that looks like this, “You have played for a total of 615 days, 13 hours and 27 minutes” has obviously made bigger sacrifices to play the game than someone with a character that same age who has only played the game for a quarter of that time.

Adding Unique Content to the Game

Another type of investment people make is with player-created content. People who love the game enjoy being a part of its creation without resorting to becoming one of the admins or learning technical coding terms. When people are able to add their own content to the game, they are likely to stick around longer thus improving the game’s lifespan.

Text-based RPGs make it easy to add player-created content without a lot of headache to either the player or the coders. That is because adding content does not change the original source code. In Achaea the ways to add player-created content are nearly endless. Here are some of the more popular ways.

• Crafting Skills & Heraldry – Taking up a crafting skill like tailoring, jewellery, or cooking, or even the ability to emblazon things with heraldic arms, serve two purposes. First it allows players to express their own creativity and secondly it fills a need for other adventurers who make use of these items.

• Item Customization & Artefact Pets – Achaea recently introduced a new customization program that is done entirely within the game. People can alter the look of items, add reactions, make items nodecay, or have an item reset to their inventory all within a few simple commands. Additionally, people can order artefact pets, which are custom denizens that are loyal to an adventurer and have few restrictions in regards to their special abilities and powers.

• Mortal Building – Mortal builders are able to add player-created content within reason. Novice builders will start out with projects like rewriting existing rooms and work their way up. However, periodic contests allow players to vie for the chance to have their own unique content added to the game and in the past have included things like designing items, denizens, rooms, or even an entire island.

Benefits of Player-Created Content

When a game like Achaea allows people to add content based on things from their own imaginations and ideas, it adds so many benefits – especially for people who play the game. New players are often impressed by the things created by their peers and they aspire to obtain crafting licenses to develop their own unique content.

Crafting and customizing items can lead to a larger job like mortal building or coding. This can lead to a position such as Celani, Demigod, or Divine in which the player is not only creating content based on their own wants and needs, but they also have the opportunity to make these dreams come true for other adventurers when they do things like patron a house or city.

In graphics-heavy video games, allowing player-created content appeals to a minuscule portion of the player base. However the opposite holds true for text based games. Anyone who doubts this need only to log into Achaea and look at the CRAFTERWHO list of everyone in the realm who is visible and holds some type of a crafting license.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Seth Grayson is a college student who uses inspiration from real life whenever he adds new content to his favorite text MUDs like Achaea from Iron Realms. Although he is not much for fashion or accessories, he really enjoys the game’s new Cooking miniskill. For example he recently created a series of coffee-based desserts (which to Achaeans would be kawhe-based desserts) inspired by the ones in the café where he works as a barista.