When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism.
Yet I look at today's big hitters, and I wonder: what happened?
Players still have freedoms, but they're restricted. The designers don't let you be who you want to be, just who from a number of class/race combinations you think you want to be. They don't let you do what you want to do, because then you might upset people whom it inconveniences in some small way. The limitations are much stronger than they were before: even the designers themselves have less freedom, being increasingly wrapped in creative paradigms from which they can't escape.
Why is this? Today's graphical worlds have many more players than the old textual ones, and this makes it harder to monitor abuses of freedom. Is it therefore merely a question of scale?
I don't think so: these constraints began to creep in well before graphical worlds appeared in number. Also, some of the restrictions (such as character classes) aren't linked to abuse in the same way that, say, PvP is.
No, it's something deeper than this. Designers make these kinds of decisions primarily because they have an artistic vision of what their virtual world should be like. Their design articulates some inner conviction or conflict of a kind that other people might express through writing, painting or composing. Virtual worlds are therefore manifestations of their designers' core philosophy.
Philosophy that affects others isn't philosophy, though: it's politics. MUD1 and its peers were highly liberal by today's standards, and nowhere near as paternalistic. Through their code, people gained - and learned - that responsibility went with such freedom. Basically, MUD1 reflected the Hacker Ethic that Roy and I entertained (and still do).
Although it may be convenient to say that the Hacker Ethic in today's virtual worlds has been crushed by commerce, I don't believe that's the case here. Designers still have plenty of scope to create worlds that reflect all kinds of views of How Things Should Be. It's just that most of them are happy with how things are, so they don't.
Wistful though I am for the kind of virtual world I wanted 25 years ago, I'm not proposing we now turn back the clock. I'd kinda like to know why it is the clock doesn't seem to be ticking, though, and why there aren't different time zones.
Where are the designers with fire in their bellies?
Richard
Hi Richard,
Isn’t freedom on the society level about societies building the rule set that they want?
MUD1 and its peers were highly liberal by today's standards, and nowhere near as paternalistic. Through their code, people gained - and learned - that responsibility went with such freedom.
I think there may be an assumption in here that I'm not clear about. Are you assuming that the demand for "highly liberal" spaces where players are forced to learn (take on) more and more responsibility, is higher than the demand for "slightly restricted" spaces where people can be carefree and/or role-play at ease?
I mean, I look at the big hitters and say, wow, looks like a lot of people want to enjoy restrictive spaces. I look at games like SWG and say, wow, people want to be a Jedi, or a wookie, or a starcraft pilot. Or a game like CoH and say, wow, lots of people that want to be flying superheroes. Are you asking why can't people be Aladdin on a magic carpet in SWG?
Also, as strange as it may sound, it has been my experience that (for the most part) people enjoy spaces with rules more than spaces without rules. In fact, in some cases, it seems that the more 'public' a space is, the more detailed people like their rules. In real life, the number of spaces that are shared by more than 50 people that don't have any rules is comparatively small. Get 5 collage students in a single apartment, and one of the first things they talk about is 'house rules'.
The fact that many virtual spaces have many of these rules pre-packaged, could be argued as a sign of sophistication as much as it could be argued that it is a lack of complete and utter freedom. Since when was lawlessness the higher form of societies?
As far as designer belly fire goes, it doesn't seem to me that the cutting edge is in highly liberal spaces, but the other direction. Even academia (see state of play 2) is saying that the cutting edge is in systems of governance, protection of rights and expansion inter-personal economic relationships. If this is the direction that academia is going, why would we then expect businesses to be going in the opposite direction?
It seems that you may be asking, why are designers going after fulfilling the demands of the mass-market, and not after fulfilling your personal dream of an array of highly liberal spaces. It's not that I don't value such spaces, it's more that I don't see evidance that they are in as high demand as 'slighly restrictive' spaces.
A better question for you might be, why do so few players share the hackers ethic as the ideal model for a society? But, again, I would point to the lack of demand for this model in real life as evidence that the demand for that same set of politics may be comparatively smaller than some think, even in virtual worlds.
-bruce
Posted by: Bruce Boston | Sep 23, 2004 at 08:50
Funnily enough, I read this just after I finished posting in by own blog (http://www.livejournal.com/users/avizandum/) about the freedoms available in Second Life, and the consequences for intra-community conflict that these freedoms (and the associated toolsets) provide. After all, a world where conflict can be pursued semi-legally by building (from primitives) a ballistic missile that (through clever scripting) lag-bombs the distant target area and allows you to (appropriately enough) set light to the carefully constructed model of the Reichstag at that area is pretty open.
It all, in fact, looks very Gibson/Sterling/FASA.
Posted by: Endie | Sep 23, 2004 at 08:56
BB wrote:
1) "Even academia (see state of play 2) is saying that the cutting edge is in systems of governance, protection of rights and expansion inter-personal economic relationships."
2) "If this is the direction that academia is going, why would we then expect businesses to be going in the opposite direction?"
Whoa there --
re 1) I'm sure someone somewhere is saying that the "the cutting edge is in systems of governance, protection of rights and expansion inter-personal economic relationships" -- but a monolithic "academia" is certainly not saying that.
re 2) See, 1, but also note that if academia were really going one way, that would be a pretty good indication that business would be going the other way.
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2004/09/07/academic-vs-developer/
Posted by: greglas | Sep 23, 2004 at 09:53
Endie, don't forget that One Song was suspended several days for his fire/lag bombing of the Reichstag
But I agree that Second Life seems to run counter to the general trend of controlling the creative possibilities of play.
Posted by: Urizenus Sklar | Sep 23, 2004 at 10:27
Hi Greg,
Re 1: Ok, agreed. To imply that there is a monolithic academia may be as inaccurate as saying that the industry doesn’t have different time zones.
Maybe this should read;
“Even a number of those that represent academia in the industry (see state of play 2) are saying that the cutting edge is in systems of governance, protection of rights and expansion of inter-personal economic relationships."
…or something to that effect.
Re 2: Just to note, I’m not saying that mainstream business and academia (or any major part thereof) are on the same path. While academics may call for these spaces to be treated as public areas, more likely, businesses will continue to use contractual agreements like the TOS/EULA, and pre-establish rules set in code to define the can-do’s and cannot-do’s of what they will most likely continue to consider very private spaces.
What I will say though, is that it seems that both systems “public governance systems” and “contractually based systems of code” may be seeking to address a similar market need for a more sophisticated systems of creating, communicating, enforcing and amending the rule sets lived by within virtual spaces.
-bruce
Posted by: Bruce Boston | Sep 23, 2004 at 11:43
There's a scale here, and past freedom lies libertine behavior and then anarchy. The tipping points between these do change based on scale. The audience pretty vehemently rejected anarchy and most forms of libertine behavior even as forms of play--as long as they were victims, anyway.
When we think back to the early 90s, the classic example of "creative freedom" is LambdaMOO, which was heavily hedged about with rules; few talk about HoloMUD, which was all about anarchy. Many daydream of the freedoms of Armageddon--which were circumscribed by a mandatory roleplay rule--and nobody thinks about the many MOOs that never got any size whatsoever because they were too amorphous.
I tend to agree that this comes down to issues of governance. Freedom is not maximal when there are no rules; it is maximal when there are rules correctly applied. We have a lot to learn about applying rules correctly in environments of greater scale, lessons that unfortunately, muds by and large did not teach us because of the smaller populations.
Posted by: Raph | Sep 23, 2004 at 13:41
Well, I was going to post a very long rebuttal to Richard, but some other guy named Bruce pretty much said everything I wanted to say.
I also, however, think commercial concerns also probably play a role. Like any industry or product or service, commercial MMOs have evolved over time. Those people who played MUD1 were certainly what are called "early adopters", who were excited about the potential of the product and who had highly motivated needs to try the product and accept it, warts and all. The broader market requires a more refined product, and not just because of technological progress.
What I lament more isn't the fact that many of these spaces are structured, but that they often simply repeat the same structure over and over, often simplifications based off those that already exist in the real world. The lack of imagination is not that the don't create worlds with no laws, but that they don't create worlds with different laws in an attempt to creater a "better" or "fairer" virtual reality.
Bruce
Posted by: Bruce | Sep 23, 2004 at 13:57
Classes and such solve a coordination problem, and it's a serious thing. When you bring a level 39 cleric into your team, you know what you are getting. It's easier than having to query everyone what their healing and buffing skills are. And for the cleric, the hard label is easier than having to advertise your particular skill template.
BUt...
Why not let people choose their types freely but also have some kind of certification system? The certification system solves the coordination problem. So, everyone could take a healing skill but you'd have to get it to a certain level to be admitted to Priests of Faldor faction, whereupon youd be labeled as such in all game systems.
not sure if this satisfies the liberality criterion. yeah, you wouldn't have to be a cleric to do some healing, but to be socially recognized as a healer, you'd have to go all that way up the tree. is a limitation on the avatar that's driven by society's need for coordination OK? or is it just as oppressive as hard-coding?
Posted by: Edward Castronova | Sep 23, 2004 at 16:17
Bruce Boston>Isn’t freedom on the society level about societies building the rule set that they want?
It may well be, but societies don't build virtual worlds. Those who do build virtual worlds can use them to say things about society that couldn't be said if they were speaking on behalf of society.
>Are you assuming that the demand for "highly liberal" spaces where players are forced to learn (take on) more and more responsibility, is higher than the demand for "slightly restricted" spaces where people can be carefree and/or role-play at ease?
I wasn't talking about demand at all, at least not from the players' point of view. If demand were my primary concern, I'd be advocating Tetris rather than virtual worlds. My aim was to illustrate that there are different ways of viewing virtual worlds in terms of the politics they embody; my lament was that the majority of them these days all have the same politics, and it's largely uninspired. Why the homogeneity?
>I mean, I look at the big hitters and say, wow, looks like a lot of people want to enjoy restrictive spaces.
Fair enough. Of course, they might like further restrictions even more, or prefer fewer restrictions or different restrictions. They don't get a lot of choice, though. Is it that they're so used to being bossed about like this in real life that they want it in their fantasy worlds, too? Or is it that the designers take on board authority roles akin to those they see in real life, and manage their virtual worlds according to those principles? Or maybe it's something else - I'm open to ideas.
>Are you asking why can't people be Aladdin on a magic carpet in SWG?
No, I wasn't asking that. The freedom/restriction thing was just an example to show how different political philosophies can be embedded in virtual world designs. What I was trying to get at was why it is we don't see that kind of thing any more except in a very few cases (SL is probably the most prominent one regularly mentioned here on TN).
Besides, if I were asking that then I wouldn't be asking why people couldn't be Aladdin in SWG, I'd be asking why they couldn't be themselves.
>The fact that many virtual spaces have many of these rules pre-packaged, could be argued as a sign of sophistication as much as it could be argued that it is a lack of complete and utter freedom. Since when was lawlessness the higher form of societies?
I'm not talking about lawlessness. It's not as if the available options are 1) what we have now, or 2) lawlessness. There are many different ways to manage societies. I agree with your assessment that what we have here is a sophisticated solution, because many of the laws are encoded in the virtual world's physics; I'm raging against the fact that they all have the same laws. Does no-one want to take this power to shape society and do something with it?
>Even academia (see state of play 2) is saying that the cutting edge is in systems of governance, protection of rights and expansion inter-personal economic relationships.
Well SoP2 is saying that, yes, because it's a conference about systems of government and so on. If it were being run by a bunch of educationalists or psychologists or geographers we'd find a different cutting edge.
>It seems that you may be asking, why are designers going after fulfilling the demands of the mass-market, and not after fulfilling your personal dream of an array of highly liberal spaces.
OK, well that's probably because I didn't state what I was asking properly. What I was asking was why are designers wandering meekly across the political landscape like sheep when they could be charging at it like bulls? You can say things through a virtual world design that can't be said in other ways. I want designers to realise that, and if possible to act on it. Society affects virtual worlds, but virtual worlds can also affect society. If real life society is so perfect, why do people play virtual worlds? And if real life society is imperfect, why can't virtual worlds work to change it through their players?
>A better question for you might be, why do so few players share the hackers ethic as the ideal model for a society?
The hacker ethic works if everyone is hacker; it falls down when there are non-hackers in the equation. I wouldn't vote for the Hacker Ethics party if it stood for election, it's an untenable position. That doesn't mean I feel that some of the original hacker ideals aren't worth cherishing; I believe that if more people had that viewpoint, the world would be a better place.
It doesn't matter what I think, though, it matters what you think. How do you want to change the world? Can you effect this in some small way by embedding your ideals in your virtual world? If so, why don't you?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 23, 2004 at 17:01
"Where are the designers with fire in their bellies?"
We're right here making insanely complex games with enormous budgets at great financial risk. What are you doing?
I think a better question might be, "How did you go from kicking ass to cranky pundit? What happened to the fire in *your* belly?"
bruce#3
Posted by: bruce rogers | Sep 23, 2004 at 18:26
Well, I don't work in the field, I'm not a designer or anything, just a fan who is interested in MMORPGs and enjoys this site. I hope its ok that I can pop in on your discussion.
But I thought I'd give my impressions as just a player of MMORPG's with an interest in how they are made.
Right now I'm playing SWG. And I think the freedom that you guys are talking about is great BUT I wouldn't want that freedom to destroy the framework (if thats the right word) of playing in the SW universe.
Lots of freedom in SWG to mix n' match your toon and skills as you see fit. Mayors controlling player cities, ability to join factions, etc. But all within the constraints of the SW universe.
I have the feeling that giving people the kind of freedom you all are discussing would destroy the entire reason for the games existance: playing in a Star Wars universe, with all its constraints and rules.
I worry about giving players too much of a voice. Just look at the SWG forums. I don't want most of these people making ANY rules. *shudder*. As it is the game is in trouble I think from listening to the playerbase re: Jedi.
Perhaps ATITD is the way to go with its law system.
But in the end, I don't want to change the world or be myself (thats boring enough as it is-I'm an attorney 'nuff said), I just want to logon and play my Wookie, so to speak.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Posted by: Ernest | Sep 23, 2004 at 20:03
Insofar as I can tell, Richard's question is this: "Virtual worlds are a vehicle with which you can change the world. Why isn't anyone using it as such?"
Yesterday, I was talking with my friends over dinner about Star Trek and Roddenberry's vision as a humanist. And while I'm still not sure, one of my friends argued that it was possible to change the world through a TV show like Star Trek. (Come to think of it, that's rather possible. Let's run with that, shall we?)
Most Americans are aware, at least on some subconscious level, that Hitler was evil, but also that he had to be stopped because he was spreading that evil. How? The television and the classroom. So you can definitely change the world through the TV; and even if you don't succeed in fulfilling your vision, you still changed the world by trying to. The fact that it didn't turn out as you wanted is irrelevant.
TV is a one-way medium, however. Most people reading this have a good idea of the merits of VWs, particularly over TV. (Wasn't there an implication that VWs were stealing TV viewers, too? =) So you can't sit there and tell me that TV can change the world and VWs can't.
And to answer Richard directly, I have to answer with my anti-capitalist bent; because it's just too damn rare and difficult for someone to be Creative, to defy the status quo, without funding. And there don't seem to be any people who fund that sort of people.
ATITD, which gets held up as an example time and time again, appears to be a wonderful example of a designer who is willing to snap out of the popular paradigm and develop his own. I'm not familiar enough with Teppy's beliefs and thoughts on the subject to say whether he has fire in his belly. And he, and eGenesis, is an indie dev.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 23, 2004 at 22:03
A follow-on question: How can a VW be used to change the world?
I have some ideas of my own that I could spill out, such as using VWs as a way to get the right people together, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas.
I'd like to point out that the sword slices both ways: I suspect VWs are (negatively) affecting the real world by teaching people to fight one another, individually or as armies. A recent TV documentary discussed how video games influenced the Americans fighting in Iraq; I didn't see the whole show, but I doubt they thought about what's happening in VWs today; it wouldn't be that difficult to make a virtual Iraq with players choosing sides and combat tactics.
Posted by: Mike Rozak | Sep 23, 2004 at 22:50
In addition to what's been said regarding regulation and governance, I think some of it has to do with the fact that today's audience doesn't come into the situation with the same mindset that the audience of ten years ago did.
Think about who was willing to step into the world of MUDs back in the earlier days: creative, open-minded, engaging players in the truer sense of roleplaying. These were the folks who were willing to capitalize on their imagination to step into and fulfill a character in some sort of fantastical world.
Fast forward to today: the number of people who wish to the above are dwarfed by those who are completely content to be passively and easily entertained. They do not need to visualize a world if it can be drawn for them. They do not need to create sound effects in their head when it's all done in 5.1 surround sound. And I dare say that most folks are so ready to escape into another world, having a profession/class/template laid before them is the easiest way to get into their alternate realtiy.
I think developers are simply meeting the demands that most folks want. Laying out the structure so that it caters directly to that escapist mentality to another world while also making the player feel secure in their alter ego = success for the developer.
Posted by: Will Leverett | Sep 23, 2004 at 23:30
it wouldn't be that difficult to make a virtual Iraq with players choosing sides and combat tactics.
Considering all of the multiplayer (though not MMO, though I think there used to be some) combat sims based on doing exactly that... and the fact that things like Counterstrike have popped up... Not only is it not difficult, it wouldn't even be surprising.
However, the point is that the sword isn't slicing. It's being carried around and presented as a blunt, ceremonial object for show-and-tell and oohing-and-aahing and wow! that's so cool! Does it do anything?
...
Does it do anything? =)
I think developers are simply meeting the demands that most folks want.
More or less, I agree with that. I agree that it is probably a fact. I disagree with that, too. I disagree that it's what should be happening. Does anyone not remember the argument over whether game design is Art or Entertainment? If I recall correctly, it came down to saying that the difference between those two words is... one could change the world.
The problem (if you choose to call it such, as I would), therefore, is that developers begin with the goal of making money. The begin with the goal of "Hey, Sony made a ton of money with EverQuest! Let's make an MMORPG and make a ton of money!"
Then developers are doing something reasonably acceptable; something that's usually a good business practice. And I think this is something that should be challenged. Developers are writing games that, at the most abstract form, mirror the real world.
Developers are becoming these adventurers with no parents, no background, no nationality. They slot themselves into templates (race and class) such as what stance they believe in (to permadeath or not to permadeath), and equip themselves (university degrees, programming skills, experience in gaming), and go and kill stuff (make games) to get experience (and make money) so they can level up (and be funded to build a bigger game) to do more things (like making something Revolutionary so they can Change The World....) but there's no end, so they never get around to that final goal (changing the world).
Neither do their players, or the characters they play.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 24, 2004 at 00:52
Bruce Rogers>I think a better question might be, "How did you go from kicking ass to cranky pundit? What happened to the fire in *your* belly?"
I don't post here because I'm cranky, I post here because I have things to rage about.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 24, 2004 at 02:46
Mike Rozak>I suspect VWs are (negatively) affecting the real world by teaching people to fight one another, individually or as armies
If they're rewarded for this, well yes, it does give players a particular slant. That was in part what I was getting at. Whether it's "negatively" affecting the real world is in the eye of the beholder, of course.
The reasoning goes something like this: ogres are evil, you can't reason with them, you just have to kill them when you see them, and you should kill their babies too because they're only going to grow up to be ogres. This is the simple stuff of Heroic Fantasy, but dangerous if people become so set in their ways that they take it with them into the real world. Someone whose political, philosophical or religious views were that this kind of viewpoint is productive would put it into their virtual world; someone who considered that some seemingly "evil" people may have a legitimate reason for their actions might want to muddy the waters a little occasionally.
Actually, this kind of "watching violent videos is bad for you and society" argument isn't really all that powerful. Most people can switch off between real life and virtual life, and aren't going to grab an axe and head for the public library as a result of playing a computer game. Where it does become powerful is when players' behaviour and attitudes change as a result of playing a computer game. In MUD1, for example, permanent death meant that players rapidly learnt that attacking one another was a losing strategy: the gameplay promoted co-operation, or at least respect for other players. A virtual world that taught pacificts to behave violently would be making a different point - but it would be making it.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 24, 2004 at 03:11
Michael Chui>I have to answer with my anti-capitalist bent; because it's just too damn rare and difficult for someone to be Creative, to defy the status quo, without funding.
I agree that this makes it difficult to create new virtual worlds that clearly break new ground, but I don't think many investors are going to get enough from a design document to gain any sense of more subtle statements.
For example, a designer might want to pursue a trade unionist theme (this is merely an example!) and decide to limit guild sizes by some geometric function of character levels. A guild composed mainly of L10 characters might have 100 members, whereas one composed mainly of L50 characters might have only 8 members, maximum. This would have an impact on gameplay, and might cause players who wanted to be powerful to try to rise within the ranks of the guild, rather than to rise an an individual outside of it. An investor isn't going to know that when they put money into the development of this virtual world, though - to them, all they see is "medieval Fantasy" and that's enough.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 24, 2004 at 03:24
Conspiracy theorists:
As usual with my headline posts here, what I thought I was writing about isn't what everyone else thought I was writing about, and the discussion has gone off at a tangent. I was hoping to introduce a discussion that answered the question "why don't designers do different forms of social engineering instead of all doing the same one?", but the discussion I got was in answer to "why don't we all become hippies?".
I only mention this because the main "social engineering" posts have been from people called Mike/Michael, and the main anti-hippie posts have been from people called Bruce.
Admit it guys, it's a plot to unnerve me, right?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 24, 2004 at 03:27
It doesn't matter what I think, though, it matters what you think. How do you want to change the world? Can you effect this in some small way by embedding your ideals in your virtual world? If so, why don't you?
You wanna know what I think? Easy enough.
1) Virtual World are now, and will continue to ‘change the World’. My guess is that within 20 years, 3dimensional virtual spaces will have done the same thing to 2d Internet spaces that CDs did to 8track tapes. To think that virtual spaces will not, or are not changing humanity is to ignore the enormity of evidence to the contrary. While it may take many more years than we all have, in the same way that the Internet is, and will continue to change almost every major facilitating system of human life on the planet today, so will virtual spaces make that same evolutionary jump forward tomorrow.
2) Rome wasn’t built in a day.
3) Before entering this space formally, I worked as a Japanoligist, which allowed me to work in a number of industries from electronics to automobiles, and touch many other industries from travel to mass communications. I have worked intimately inside and outside and in-between two of the World’s largest economies and have seen what goes on at the very highest of levels in both politics and industry. Even so, outside of maybe a handful of zealots in other media related sectors, I would be hard pressed to name another industry that puts as much conviction into the ideals that they believe as what I have witnessed first hand in this industry. As but a simple first hand example, an estimated $35M was invested in There.com, and I can say without hesitation, that that monetary value is but the tip of the iceberg compared to the value of the human capital of blood, sweat and tears that was invested by the majority of the employees at all levels of the organization.
4) From what little I know, I can only imagine what the blood investment must be in other companies. Listen, just because developers work for one company, doesn’t mean they don’t know what is happening in other sectors of the industry. Yes, we know what SL is doing and what the cost must be, yes, we know what ATITD is doing and what the cost must be, yes, we know what YPP, TSO, UO, EQ, WoW, SWG, CoH, AC, DAoC, Mx, ME, DoD, TT, EV, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc are doing, and we can estimate what the costs must be, and thay are not low by any calculation. Personally, I'm of the opinion, that the devs in these companies wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and face their investors and their 24hx7d persistent communities of 10k’s to 100k’s of sometimes overly energetic (yet paying) members, year after year, if they didn’t have a bone marrow fused conviction that what they we doing actually mattered in the great scheme of things.
5) And again, to be straight up and straightforward, if you are seeing increasing levels of homogeneity, Welcome to the Mass-Market! I can only imagine that in a few short years we’ll all be debating; if a 250,000,000 person society is going to go with a bi-party system of representation, why, oh why, isn’t there more diversity in the sound bites that show up on the front page of everyday media?
-bruce
Posted by: Bruce Boston | Sep 24, 2004 at 03:35
"Admit it guys, it's a plot to unnerve me, right?"
Nah, but I do think you struck a nerve or two.
-bruce
Posted by: Bruce Boston | Sep 24, 2004 at 03:44
Do the players really want freedom? There have been numerous discussions on how players would like their games to have "purpose", fixed goals. It is also becoming an industry mantra that MMORPG need to be more "casual player friendly", adding a lot more guidance to the game.
What you end up with, is a game like World of Warcraft. Which is brilliant as a game, very casual player friendly, and full of quests that constantly set new goals to the player. You can play WoW all day long and never run out of some NPC telling you what to do next. And that system is highly popular. But the degrees of freedom you have are minimal. By having the game tell you what to do next, you lose all the open-ended freedom you had in the classic MMORPG.
By losing that freedom, the MMORPG genre gains entry into the mass market. It seems that many players much prefer being told what monster to kill next. Having the game set you a small goal, and then being able to achieve that small goal in a reasonable time fills the player with some sense of achievement. A sense of achievement which he wouldn't have if he could be anything, with no reference system against which to measure himself. More freedom often equals more confusion, and that is why the industry is moving away from it. There is no "vast right-wing conspiracy" against liberal thoughts in games.
Posted by: Tobold | Sep 24, 2004 at 04:59
A guild composed mainly of L10 characters might have 100 members, whereas one composed mainly of L50 characters might have only 8 members, maximum. This would have an impact on gameplay, and might cause players who wanted to be powerful to try to rise within the ranks of the guild, rather than to rise an an individual outside of it.
You see some of the individual vs. collective opportunity cost in Eve Online. They don't use a leveling system, but large successful corporations tend to require members to invest heavily in skills which are much less useful on an individual basis.
As for the larger point, I tend towards Bruce Boston's:
Personally, I'm of the opinion, that the devs in these companies wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and face their investors and their 24hx7d persistent communities of 10k’s to 100k’s of sometimes overly energetic (yet paying) members, year after year, if they didn’t have a bone marrow fused conviction that what they we doing actually mattered in the great scheme of things.
Percieved "things that matter" seem to be "herd-following", however. One day its maximizing PCs on a server (at expense of AI etc), the next its instanced missions, emergent play, etc. Not to be cynical, its just that innovation in a competitive environment requires prioritization: take risks in the ways it is perceived to matter, and minimize risk elsewhere.
There should be more experimentation. But probably those will need to be fermented (with lots of malt) in the niches first where folks can afford to unbutton the design in a variety of ways - after all, most innovation occurs from the unpredicted and the unanticipated...
Posted by: Nathan Combs | Sep 24, 2004 at 07:29
ATITD, which gets held up as an example time and time again, appears to be a wonderful example of a designer who is willing to snap out of the popular paradigm and develop his own. I'm not familiar enough with Teppy's beliefs and thoughts on the subject to say whether he has fire in his belly. And he, and eGenesis, is an indie dev.
Teppy must have fire in his belly, or he wouldn't work so much. The guy is often online at 2 in the morning and all weekend.
He has a real knack for coming up with complex puzzles that take the players a long time to solve, so that when you solve them, you feel like you're making actual progress rather than just leveling.
As far as his vision goes, it's a good vision, but when it goes wrong, it's very hard for the playerbase to convince him of this. The amount of time spent just running places drives off a lot of casual players, and we've developed a crude commodities market in ancient Egypt because Teppy doesn't like vending machines.
Posted by: Shane | Sep 24, 2004 at 09:29
If real life society is so perfect, why do people play virtual worlds? And if real life society is imperfect, why can't virtual worlds work to change it through their players?
The real world doesn't always have something important that it wants you to do and that it will thank you for going. The real world doesn't promise that your efforts will be rewarded and that in the end you will become powerful and respected. These messages from virtual worlds are incredibly powerful when a lot of people feel frustrated, bored or out of control in their real lives. Maybe people don't want a very different virtual world, just a world where people say please, thank you and well done.
The question of improving the real world through virtual worlds is difficult. If we say that all the violence in virtual worlds doesn't have a negative effect on the real world, can we also say that by providing new models of society in virtual worlds we can improve it?
There are also pragmatic concerns. While using virtual worlds as places to experiment with new forms of society appears attractive, many of those new societies are going to fail, failures which are very expensive.
Current virtual worlds can still be useful as mirrors to comment on our real world society in the same way that fiction set in real or fantasy worlds can comment on reality. The virtual world I'm thinking about at the moment is even closer to the real world, but will hopefully make people ask questions about the real world through its portrayal of reality.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Sep 24, 2004 at 10:34
Richard> Why don't designers do different forms of social engineering instead of all doing the same one?
Richard (from older post)> EverQuest has levels because DikuMUD has levels. DikuMUD has levels because AberMUD has levels. AberMUD has levels because MUD1 has levels. MUD1 has levels because of the several advancement systems Roy Trubshaw and I considered, that one (from Dungeons & Dragons) was the one that most gave us what we wanted.
Raph, Brad and the rest of the MUD to MMORPG gang all talk about "MUDs in 3D" and are intentionally using the same approaches. They've worked for them in the past and evidence suggests that they continue to work. Hell, I’ve heard Worlds of Warcraft described as the best implementation of a DikuMUD yet. There is nothing wrong with any of this. There are also plenty of folks taking different approaches. Many of them didn’t play MUDs/MMORPGs, didn’t like them, or just decided that new directions had to be explored.
So, to paraphrase Larry Wall, anyone who wants different rules in a digital world has a simple process:
Step 1 – Make your own damn world
Step 2 – Make it popular
Those of us on the fringe have tackled Step 1 and we’re working on Step 2. Bruce Rogers and Cryptic have done both – and done both while taking much of what TN holds dear and chucking it – so double kudos to them.
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Sep 24, 2004 at 11:46
Alan Kay (designer of Smalltalk the orig. OOP lang. & codesigner the first GUI's) and his Viewpoints Research foundation have created the no limits 3D environment called "Croquet". Alan never lost that fire from his first GUI work. His environment is peer to peer (no server needed) so you can limit who plays in your worlds. The smallest thing is programable in the environment itself while it's running, no compiling. Runs same in all common operating systems plus some uncommon ones. Details, philosophy, & screenshots at:
http://www.croquetproject.org
Posted by: Darius | Sep 24, 2004 at 17:52
Richard Bartle wrote: Actually, this kind of "watching violent videos is bad for you and society" argument isn't really all that powerful. Most people can switch off between real life and virtual life, and aren't going to grab an axe and head for the public library as a result of playing a computer game.
I generally agree with this statement. What concerns me about the specific example I gave is that a MMORPG with 100's-1000's of players in a combat is a tool that players can use to train themselves how to fight an organized battle. I doubt it has happened yet, but I wonder if the gangs in LA will go online, run simulated wargames against their enemy gangs, and then put them into action. A MMORPG deosn't make the LA gangs any more violent than they were before, but the MMORPG becomes a tool they didn't have access to before.
This would be seen as a good feature if it allowed revolutionaries to overthrow a dictator.
Of course, using this logic says that flight simulators should be banned since they teach terrorists how to fly into buildings. (Coincidentally, one of the first things I did when playing flight sim was to fly it into a building, not because I wanted to train to be a terrorist, but because as a programmer I was wondering if the FS programmers had put in collision detection. Actually, the first time I tried FS, on an apple ][, I tried to fly into the mountains, and they DIDN'T have collision detection.)
I am digressing a bit...
In response to designers of MMORPGs not doing being creative in their social engineering: The combination of working in a large group where everyone has different ideas, for a purse-holder that wants an EQ clone, to make a mass-market game, and not be willing to spend $35M and risk producing 1M CD-shaped coasters, ends up producing MMORPGs as we know them.
The only way to break out of the mold is to be extremely lucky by getting the right people for the team and the right financial backer and the right idea, or to reduce the costs of building a MMORPG so a few friends can build one in their garage.
Posted by: Mike Rozak | Sep 24, 2004 at 19:21
Okay, so now that Richard has clarified the issue, I think there are really two questions here.
1. Why aren't these virtual worlds exploring more and varied social systems, rather than repeating the same ones over and over, many of which are based of simplified RL ones? That's a good question, and is the same one I had. I think the answer lies in the fact that few are motivated to do so. Commercial world developers are primarily concerned with providing entertainment, and as such there are market expectations and limitations in to what is best for making money. Those people developing freely accessible worlds (MUDs, etc.) generally are concerned only with providing a space according to their own desires, and are those structured in a dictitorial or oligarchical way. In both cases, certain RPG conventions get repeated because this is what people are familiar with.
2. Why aren't these virtual worlds changing or be used to inspire change in the "real" world? This is really a question that is asked of all art. Most art is simply for the artist's own personal expression. Most of the rest is primarily for entertainment. It's actually a very small part of art that is purposefully made in order to incite or inspire change. And games currently get much less respect than movies and other forms of art. So right now, trying to create social change through games is unlikely to succeed.
3 (or 2a). Okay, I know I said 2, but this is perhaps a tangent off question 2. And that is why, say, academics aren't using virtual spaces to help change the real world? And I would answer that I think they are, but most of that research is at the very early stages of trying to indentify some basic social principles and testing them for the first time in these virtual conditions. Looking at it another way, almost every psychological and social experiment creates its own virtual world; it's just not done on a computer. And since you have "real" people there face-to-face, there's probably the assumption that the results you get are going to be more accurate. How would the famous Stanford prison experiment have been different had these people been using virtual guards and virtual prisoners in a virtual world, and would the results, even if the same, held the same meaning, let alone had the same impact?
I'd ramble on some more, but I have to get back to playing Fable. :)
Bruce
Posted by: Bruce | Sep 25, 2004 at 03:29
the main "social engineering" posts have been from people called Mike/Michael
That's because we all know "Michael" means "who is like God?"! *heroic pose* Ascension complex aside...
Mike Rozak says, The only way to break out of the mold is to be extremely lucky by getting the right people for the team and the right financial backer and the right idea, or to reduce the costs of building a MMORPG so a few friends can build one in their garage.
I noticed that suddenly EVERYONE is agreeing. =)
But in response to the proposed solution... what are the costs of building a MMORPG? Let's break this down really fast.
Massively Multiplayer Online = It has to be capable of scaling up to 1000+ players (which is the working definition for Massively, now, I think) connecting at the same time and running with minimal to negligible lag.
Role Playing Game = A nicely large discussion in its own right. This just means that the designers have to be competent and cohesive.
Recently (about a month ago), I started playing Dragonrealms again (http://www.play.net/dr/). I've not heard it even whispered in whatever lists I frequent. Dragonrealms seems to have about 900 players peak and 300 players bottom simultaneously. I've experienced perhaps 3 crashes in the past month and all lag was due to my own setup.
The different thing about DR is that it's text-based. There's no graphics to be put on a CD. No client you're required to download. All you need is a TON of bandwidth and a TON of server space and processing power.
I debated the merits of text-based v. graphical for a while with my friends when I was playing with design. And it came down to the fact that text-based was forcibly a niche (because there isn't enough eye candy), but it was preferable for quality of final product. (And you can also do nifty defy-the-laws-of-physics things with text without drawing fifty megs of artwork.)
If you want to talk graphical, I must again point at eGenesis, because insofar as I'm aware... they don't mail you a CD. ATITD isn't on any shelves at your local computer store. It's a downloaded client.
Essentially, as long as you don't make them buy a CD, then the only thing you have to worry about is maintaining servers and their ability to serve and store. Essentially sysadmining or webmastering. If you want to scrap the game, all you have to do is pull the plug; sure, your playerbase might take up arms and storm your garage, but other than egging your house, they can't really do anything about it.
Depending on design paradigm, server space, capability, and bandwidth can all be scaled up with the playerbase, meaning you CAN start out with a small crowd and work your way up.
The next real cost is marketting. But word-of-mouth seems highly effective, and a low-key, but effective marketting campaign will probably cost you about the same as a server and a half.
The last cost is time and effort in designing and maintaining a game. The difference between the Corporate Machine and the Garage Buddies is manpower to distribute. But the Garage Buddies have no business going for a MMORPG if they don't intend to maintain it; and neither does the Corporate Machine.
Oh, and just to cut my own feet from under me... I'm an undergrad. I know nothing about finances. =) Which may explain why I bothered to start designing a VW. (Project on hold because I'm so ambitious that my VW would require knowledge of quantum mechanics and server awareness of every particle. Project may go forth when my reality check ceases to bounce.) ;)
Now, sleep. Forgot to do that this week.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 25, 2004 at 06:41
Bruce> 2. Why aren't these virtual worlds changing or be used to inspire change in the "real" world? This is really a question that is asked of all art. Most art is simply for the artist's own personal expression. Most of the rest is primarily for entertainment. It's actually a very small part of art that is purposefully made in order to incite or inspire change. And games currently get much less respect than movies and other forms of art. So right now, trying to create social change through games is unlikely to succeed.
First, VERTU has so far generated:
$1700 for EFF
$1800 for Heifer International
$2000 in one week for Florida Hurricane relief
Digital worlds that allow and encourage socially conscious residents have the potential to throw significant donations around, which would seem to be an effective way to create social change. Even more importantly, and relating to Ted's questions of implicit roleplaying and myth generation, why should role playing and myths be limited to elves and healers? Why not a world where education, creation and active participation are the roles and myths?
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Sep 25, 2004 at 16:53
One interesting question is: What games have tried to effect social change? What games may have effected social change accidentally? I don't mean in the usual: "Violence is the solution!" type thinking.
One game which comes to mind as a piece of art which tried for social change would be Ultima IV. Up to Ultima III, you had the usual hack & slash kill everything approach to CRPG (which is still going strong). Ultima IV was a deliberate attempt to move away from that.
Another game which has no doubt a greater social change then we'd assume would be Civilizations. One example would be in the choice of governments. In choosing between Democracy and Communism, one is making an a choice between the benefits the game grants for each system. However, this will no doubt feedback into one's real world impression of the forms of governance. This forms a feedback cycle as the designers assumptions of the types of governments reinforces the players assumptions. Similarly, the history and descriptions in game will no doubt colour the player's views of history and descriptions. I would say Civilizations has had a greater impact than most encyclopedias in informing people about the past. When we recall that any presentation is biassed, we realize this means that this game has had a lot of power.
- Brask Mumei
Posted by: Brask Mumei | Sep 26, 2004 at 00:27
Brask Mumei said, When we recall that any presentation is biassed, we realize this means that this game has had a lot of power.
It does. But then here I have to point out that I doubt Sid Meier (of course, I don't KNOW) was looking to color players' views of history, of governments, even of the various cultural, technological merits of things like the Temple of Zeus.
His intention was more likely to make a game that was fun strategically and utilized Earth's historical greats as part of the design. Unfortunately, there arises this question:
The game wields power; who wields the game? It's not Sid, unless he intended this. It's not Atari; I doubt they're even aware that Civ does anything but make revenue. It's not the players; they had no part in the design and can make no changes.
No one wields it. It's a loose cannon. I'm not saying that's bad; it's a game attempting to be fun. I see no problem inherent.
Civilizations is an example of a game template with the ability to "change the world", as it were, but no one is utilizing it with that intention.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 26, 2004 at 04:58
I have to say that I'm really glad Richard started this discussion. I'm currently working with a team in SL, building a medieval styled PvP type game within SL with two dedicated servers. Seems we should be free to do anything we want since I'm not worried about getting the money back, just having fun. But...
I find myself in long discussions about how long buffing spells should last within a D&D inspired environment, and I find myself caving into arguments from faithfulness to D&D and subsequent MMORPGs. WTF? Why am I doing that? I never even *played* D&D. Ever.
I think it has something to do with narrative coherence maybe. A sense that the language should be familiar to current rpg players and that the game should be an extension of the extant D&D RPG universe.
But note: no financial constraints. certainly no creative constraints (the lit I'm familiar with is so foreign to gamers u couldn't even translate it). It has something to do -- not sure what -- with a deeply felt need to tell stories that are extensions of the familiar -- with contributing to existing narratives rather than trying to forge new ones. And if u think about it, most all great literature has had precisely this character.
Posted by: Urizenus Sklar | Sep 26, 2004 at 10:07
But note: no financial constraints. certainly no creative constraints (the lit I'm familiar with is so foreign to gamers u couldn't even translate it). It has something to do -- not sure what -- with a deeply felt need to tell stories that are extensions of the familiar -- with contributing to existing narratives rather than trying to forge new ones. And if u think about it, most all great literature has had precisely this character.
It seems to me that the root problem is that there are vastly more ideas than opportunities to express them. And passion builds up, and when the chance arises - folk reach back to that moment it all started: then game they always wanted to play... Which unfortunately is likely more retrospective rather progressive. I'm there, and hang out with folks just like me all the time :)
The same for literature.
In the case of virtual worlds, what we need to do is have folks and burn off their baggage in toy worlds. There needs to be easier ways for folks to explore and set up small multiplayer worlds - a vibrant "ecosystem" of many small exploratory worlds...
Touching back at the literary angle. People should be able to express themselves in terms of a virtual world as easily as they can express themselves in books. Not that writing is easy, but that the work is in the places it counts: content, creativity. etc. We should then be able to turn around and find a "vanity press" for <5K and publish our world, in say, small runs of...
Would these virtual worlds be fun? I'm optimistic, some will catch. But in any case I'm sure there will be some good poetry to be found.
Posted by: Nathan Combs | Sep 26, 2004 at 13:10
"We should then be able to turn around and find a "vanity press" for <5K and publish our world, in say, small runs of..."
There is such a vanity press and its called Second Life. 1K down and 200/month will get u a private island on their grid -- i.e. 16 acres of virgin game space to do whatever u want with.
Posted by: Peter Ludlow | Sep 26, 2004 at 21:07
*coughs* I damaged the comments system... =P That's shameful; TypePad should close off all tags at the end of a comment. Anyways...
My ideal Virtual World has always been very basic in theory, and nearly impossible in practice.
The fundamental idea is a vast possible range of action, from the macroscopic army command to the nuanced moving your pinky toe up and down. Of course... that would be immensely difficult to code if you didn't plan for it.
It draws off the idea that the virtual world is a place, not a game. Once you have that, the idea of "balance", of certain classes being too powerful, etc. are all tossed out, because it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you can do things.
And the designer's job is to create the physics and the metaphysics. The rules of the VW wouldn't include fighters can't cast spells; it'd say something like... overexposure to blood hampers magical ability. The designer wouldn't even have to tell people. Let them write books on magical theory! Let them hypothesize and experiment. Guilds will form on their own; cities will rise, empires will expand. It will be possible to set the stage and let it go.
You're not having them write literature. Not directly. Literature requires something to work off of. Reality is the mere passing of events. Literature is the dramatic retelling of said events. Literature cuts out the boring and exaggerates the interesting. To make literature, you must first have reality. And to make reality, you must first have freedom. And to make freedom, you must first have a world where the only rules are natural laws. THEN, on top of that, you can build your landscapes and your empires and your cultures.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 26, 2004 at 22:24
Sorry for the double-comment... see if I can fix this like this...
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 26, 2004 at 22:25
The existing worlds are already worlds where the only rules are natural laws.
Ultima Online for example, has it's own physics and metaphysics. One can conduct experiments in game to deduce fundamental laws of the game world. This is what was often done to reverse engineer the behaviour of spells.
Your envisioning of inifinite action space is meaningless. We don't have infinite action space in the real world. Our set of actions is constrained within a small parameter space. I can't leap over tall buildings in a single bound, for example. While VWs tend to have tighter action spaces, I'd contend a world like Second Life actually grants more action ability than one has in the real world. I certainly can't rescript the physics of my coffee mug in the real world!
I would thus contend we already *have* "reality" in these games. And we thus have the passing of events. And this gets chopped up and retold as literature. Look at any guild recounting some in-game event to find literature alive and strong inside the game. Worlds like UO have the added advantage that there exist in game books which are filled with in game literature (as in, recounts of in game events written by in game characters)
- Brask Mumei
Posted by: Brask Mumei | Sep 26, 2004 at 23:05
I personal opinion on this is that if you look at all the great games (not just online games) you'll find the designers have found a way to use constraint -- not only to keep the game manageable from a development point of view, but also to keep it fun.
We have been using the term 'constraint' for 5 years when teaching people how to create online games at Skotos. The first quote that I can find is from http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_Nov30.html "Think small. Build from a constrained base rather than trying to create the whole world at once."
Some more early discussion on the topic from 2000 is at http://forum.skotos.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=277&highlight=constraint
If you use google to search the following, you'll see quite a few discussions in various Skotos articles about constraint in games:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Askotos.net+constraint
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Askotos.net+constrained
Posted by: Christopher Allen | Sep 27, 2004 at 15:22
1. Modern MMOGs seem to be fissioning into two camps when deciding on a design: general-purpose, and focused.
The focused MMOG appears to be dominating the VW market for several reasons:
a. Focused worlds are often based on licensing popular literary works. Publishers (like Hollywood studios) believe that a proven audience in one medium improves the odds of guaranteed income in another medium -- basically it's aboout risk reduction.
b. A focused world is easier to create and maintain because individual features are more limited in scope. Features in a GP world require "big thinking" because there's no external structure (or licensor) telling you what you can and can't do. Features in a focused world don't require as much creative effort because you're constrained either by the license or by the genre/setting of your focused world. (This isn't to say that making a good licensed game is a no-brainer -- just that a lot of decisions get made for you... whether you like them or not.)
2. There may be plenty of developers making wildly original games right now. We just don't see these games because the popularization cost for garage developers isn't just the art/programming cost -- it's the operational cost. How many individual developers can afford to maintain their own server farms?
The more usual case is that an individual developer of a Web-based game that becomes popular is dropped by the ISP hosting his creation for getting too many hits. We don't see these clever new ideas because no ISP wants to pay for the bandwidth, and buying one's own dedicated servers means expensive hardware and a full-time job maintaining the server (which means no time for new development).
Bottom line: It's still too expensive for the creative independent developer to make a game that a lot of people can play. That leaves the field to the big players, who are driven by the need to earn back their large investment and whose products necessarily reflect their risk-minimizing mentality.
3. Developers don't get too creative in their world-building because the now-typical mass-market MMOG consumer just wants a simple-minded fighting game. In other words, developers aren't imposing their ethics on consumers -- they're building products whose ethos is a direct response to what consumers say they want.
4. It's much easier to think of many small rules to tell everyone what they can't do than to think of a few big rules to maximize what everyone can do. Developers being as human as anyone else, it shouldn't be too surprising that this tendency would find expression in virtual worlds, too.
...
Note that these conditions together are sufficient to induce developers/publishers to prefer focused worlds that are similar over general-purpose worlds that are unique. There's no need to believe that VWs are becoming homogeneous or paternalistic as a reflection of the supposed beliefs of today's developers.
--Flatfingers
Posted by: Flatfingers | Sep 27, 2004 at 16:28
Flatfingers>developers aren't imposing their ethics on consumers -- they're building products whose ethos is a direct response to what consumers say they want
They're imposing ethics on consumers whether they like it or not. The only questions are: whose ethics are they imposing, and why?
>There's no need to believe that VWs are becoming homogeneous or paternalistic as a reflection of the supposed beliefs of today's developers.
VW developers have beliefs/opinions/politics/dreams, but they don't make much of them in their designs. Why not?
I don't think that commercialism is an excuse here: you could design a world set in, say, the Agatha Christie universe that encouraged or discouraged co-operation, that encouraged or discouraged religion, that encouraged or discouraged honour, loyalty, honesty, whatever - anything that was orthogonal to the central Agatha Christie universe premise (you couldn't have a pro-violence message, for example, because her universe is anti-violence).
We're getting these homogenous world views because designers don't follow up their own passions. I repeat: Where are the designers with fire in their bellies?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 28, 2004 at 03:11
I guess I don't quite buy it. Lord knows enough of the firestorms I get directed at me occasionally are centered on the notion that I express too MUCH of my beliefs/opinions/politics/dreams.
When I look at Wish, Second Life, or Tale in the Desert, I certainly see an artistic agenda. And I would hope that when you look at the games I've worked on, you see the same.
Posted by: Raph Koster | Sep 28, 2004 at 03:32
We're still here, Richard. Some of us are limited by our past successes. Others are limited by our funds and our unwillingness to sell parts of our soul and lose control to get the game done. Still others are doomed to see the same mistakes done over and over again. I'll let the reader decide who fits under which category.
Richard asked, "VW developers have beliefs/opinions/politics/dreams, but they don't make much of them in their designs. Why not?"
I can think of two immediate answers.
First, taking a side alienates other people. I usually avoid any political discussions online because my politics will likely alienate some of my playerbase. In fact, a good share of my playerbase is fairly far from my political point of view. People aren't likely going to start playing my game because of my political agendas, but they could very well STOP playing my game because of them.
There's an established audience for these types of games, and you see games taking advantage of that. That's why you see so many games where killing ogres that are irredeemably evil. People are used to going around murdering the walking sacks of xp and loot as "gameplay". Trying to develop a non-violent game is admirable, but ulimately you will have a MUCH more limited audience. In today's market, you want to shoot as high as you can because if you fail you might not get a second chance.
Second, interactive entertainment is still a VERY undeveloped area. We don't have the rich and impressive toolkit that more traditional storytellers can rely on. I just watched the movie Secret Window and some of the commentaries on the DVD. It was interesting hearing the writer/director talk about doing things off-camera to let the audience's imagination fill in the gaps. In Understanding Comics Scott McCloud refers to this as "blood in the gutters", where you show the ax raised in the air, then the next frame shows the murderous scream from a distance. The reader KNOWs what happened in between those two frames in the comic, and the image in his or her mind is much more gory and hideous than what the artist can (or is allowed to) draw.
Unfortunately, we can't rely on that particular trick in games. Taking the camera out of the scene during an interactive part of the game means the player would be running blind. We can do some of this using restricted camera angles (c.f. Resident Evil), but often it feels contrived and often frustrating to the player to lose the control usually granted by games. It becomes even worse in online games when you usually can't stop all the action to do a cutscene. We have to develop new tools and techniques for doing things like this in games, which also requires a level of experimentation that many developers seem unwilling to stomach.
Without these tools, we can't really use the right level of subtlety necessary for expressing interesting ideas and concepts. Without this subtlety, any expression we do is likely to seem preachy and ham-fisted, distracting from the game instead of adding to it. So, for now it is best to leave this out of the game and focus on entertainment.
My thoughts on the matter.
Have fun,
-Brian
Posted by: Brian 'Psychochild' Green | Sep 28, 2004 at 05:53
Raph Koster>enough of the firestorms I get directed at me occasionally are centered on the notion that I express too MUCH of my beliefs/opinions/politics/dreams.
That's excellent! If people are provoked by articulations of your views through your designs, that means they're thinking about virtual worlds as objects for artistic expression (even if they profess not to want them to be such). If enough of them do this, we may get better virtual worlds as a result.
>When I look at Wish, Second Life, or Tale in the Desert, I certainly see an artistic agenda.
I don't know enough about Wish yet to make an informed comment, but I agree that the other two have an artistic agenda. It's not obvious from a "reading" of them whether they're simply out to change what it means for something to be a virtual world, or whether they also want to change the real world through the virtual. I suspect it's a little of both, although their gaze seems to me more focused on breaking the VW mould than on changing the real world; perhaps that comes later.
>And I would hope that when you look at the games I've worked on, you see the same.
Well I do, yes, but how many other people do, and at what level? There are what, maybe 20 designers in the whole world who've put enough of their soul into one or more virtual worlds and reflected upon it that they can appreciate the way other designers have done their thing? It should be that every serious designer can do this, and that most long-term players have their own views of what a virtual world designer is saying through their design. As it is, we have neither of these happening.
We do get new designers coming along with exciting ideas in terms of creativity, and I have high hopes that some if not all of these will be able to bring their plans to fruition. Originality has to be the great hope for the future. What I'm moaning about here isn't so much lack of originality (although that's also something that bugs me); rather, it's that up-and-coming designers who have the creative flair don't seem to want to use it to say anything. Why don't they? They can change the world here, but they're content to write chamber music rather than symphonies. Augh!
I know, I know, wait 10 or 20 years and it'll happen. I'm ranting mainly to blank faces here, but given time enough other people will see the art (as opposed to understanding intellectually that it exists) that they'll wonder why I ever felt the need to get on my high horse about it. It's just that I just get so frustrated when I see these lost opportunities - and the pessimist in me worries that everything could easily go horribly wrong.
Oh well, every creative industry needs its grumpy old men for people to rebel against. I suppose I should accept my lot...
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 28, 2004 at 13:05
> Touching back at the literary angle. People should be able to express themselves in terms of a virtual world as easily as they can express themselves in books. Not that writing is easy, but that the work is in the places it counts: content, creativity. etc. <
If I might jump in the debate here... :)
I think Nathan has hit on one of the critical things that is missing from many of these games... "literature", or more properly "literary merit".
Consider Turbine's Asheron's Call (AC1) and its sequel AC2. AC2 was definitely the superior game in terms of graphics, computing power, class balance and presentation. Its interface was cleaner and easier to use, its servers were FAR more stable, etc. Despite all the areas where AC2 was demonstrably better, those who played both games would overwhelmingly agree that AC1 was a superior game, whereas AC2 would be rated as flat and lifeless. The difference was one of literature, not of technology.
AC1's story was the brainchild of Chris L'Etoile, who brought the literary skills needed to craft a meaningful plot with story arcs that were relevant to the game. His world had remarkable depth, with various civilizations spanning epochs of time and competing with one another and the players. AC2 had no such comparable developer, and thus suffered from "bad module syndrome" - while visually appealing, the player's sense of his or her actions actually making a difference was nil. As a result, there was very little immersion in the gameworld and AC2's subscriptions tanked after several months.
Virtual worlds are fun, because they allow us to be something that we are not - warriors, mages, what have you. The fun of being doesn't last long, though; it is replaced by the fun of doing, which is what leads to the leveling treadmill so common in MMOs. Depending on the person, this stops being fun after a while - and this is a juncture that (to my knowledge) has not been addressed by most companies or dev teams. Past the point where the treadmill becomes tedious, there needs to be an overarching plot or reason for the character's actions. Otherwise, ennui kills the interest. L'Etoile's world in AC1 provided such reasons, which is why AC1 had such a devoted (some might say rabid) fan base for so long. AC2 did not, which is why it sank without a ripple despite being a technically far superior game.
Posted by: Iamblichos | Sep 28, 2004 at 14:33
So if I understand now, the assertion boils down to this: Not enough people are designing original virtual worlds that unabashedly express their personal artistic beliefs.
Most people replying seem to agree with this belief; the debate is over why it's happening. The viewpoints expressed so far appear to be based on holding one of two antithetical world-views:
1. Designers are *unwilling* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the contstraints are internal.
2. Designers are *unable* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the constraints are external.
If you hold the former assumption, if you think that the ability to create artistically expressive virtual worlds is readily available but that designers aren't using that power, then that naturally raises the question, "Why not?"
If you hold the latter assumption, if you think that resources are more of a limiting factor than desire, then "why not?" doesn't make sense because it seems to blame would-be designers for an inability to create that's not their fault.
...
To explore this distinction, suppose I built a service that offered powerful world development tools (artwork, logic/scripting, network code, database code, art/code asset management, user revenue management, etc.) and tool enhancement for user requests, as well as database and file server hosting and maintenance services. And let's say I offered these tools and services for just enough to cover my expenses and earn a small profit on each sales agreement.
To keep this simple enough to stay focused on the point, let's say I could offer this for a flat fee of $100/month, that developers could charge subscription fees to their world (of which I would get a small cut), and that all content produced using my tools and hosted on my servers belongs to and is the sole responsibility of the developer.
(I know these aren't perfect assumptions. This is just a thought experiment.)
Question: If I built it, would they come? If I could demonstrably say, "OK, designers, here are all the external resources you need, you're now only limited by your time and creativity" -- would the designers who signed up for this service begin producing artistically expressive worlds?
In which case, why hasn't someone already offered this service?
Or would they continue to play it safe?
In which case, isn't it possible that our assumption that most designers (and perhaps even most people) would be artistically expressive if they could be is false?
--Flatfingers
Posted by: Flatfingers | Sep 28, 2004 at 15:27
> 1. Designers are *unwilling* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the contstraints are internal.
2. Designers are *unable* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the constraints are external.<
I think "unable" wins over "unwilling" in most cases, though there are some exceptions.
Assuming a design project within your thought experiment, even with a complete set of worldbuilding tools provided to a dev team for a game there are a number of factors which are going to limit artistic expression.
1) Funding (Unable/External) - This is a biggie, unfortunately. In order to develop a virtual world for public consumption, a vast amount of resources must be poured upon the waters in the nebulous hopes of return. Financiers, even in an industry as supposedly forward-thinking as the gaming industry, are not known for being willing to take great risks on exotic new concepts. They would much prefer a proven model to something never done before, and thus require a degree of design conservatism that is inherently limiting to artistic expression.
2. Creativity (Unable/External) - In order to design something radically new, the developer must be capable of such radical new thought. The farther from the "norm" the world is, the harder it will be for a designer to conceive of it - and the harder it will be to explain to players/participants in a way they can grasp. Writing beyond the audience is a danger in every form of artistic expression, and virtual worlds are no different.
3. Risk (Unwilling/Internal) - Designing and implementing something based on internal vision which is completely untested and unproven requires a substantial risk. This risk is not only financial (will it sell?), but also social (will it reflect poorly on the designer?) and emotional (will it result in vilification or abuse?). Few people, software developers among them, are willing to run substantial risks without the corresponding chance of rewards.
Posted by: Iamblichos | Sep 28, 2004 at 15:51
In which case, why hasn't someone already offered this service?
I could be mistaken, but isn't this what Skotos is all about? (Skotos Seven?)
Then again, Skotos is almost strictly small-time. I don't remember details from when I was lurking around their site, but I don't think they deal in numbers above 500, though not necessarily by choice. (Might be. Don't recall.) I also heard they had some financial troubles.
Posted by: Michael Chui | Sep 29, 2004 at 02:56
Flatfingers>1. Designers are *unwilling* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the contstraints are internal.
2. Designers are *unable* to create artistically expressive virtual worlds -- the constraints are external.
While I accept both these as real possibilities (and I've been working on the assumption that the first one is more likely than the second), there's a third case: designers don't realise that they can use virtual worlds as vehicles of expression, or as means by which to affect reality. They have the tools and they have the permission to use those tools (within reason), they just haven't yet grasped what they can use them for.
>In which case, why hasn't someone already offered this service?
There are hosting services for textual worlds that while not an exact match for this model (because the engines are free, not provided by the hosting service) are nevertheless a reasonable match. For graphical worlds, you'd need to provide the necessary artwork and animation models, too, but assuming you could do that then yes, people would use your service to host original worlds and yes, people would come to play those worlds.
Linden Labs could probably offer such a service fairly soon if they wanted to, as they have most of the jigsaw pieces in place with SL. I suspect they'd prefer to keep their virtual worlds interconnected in a single mass rather than physically separate on disjoint servers, though, as that would run counter to their "multiverse" philosophy.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Sep 29, 2004 at 03:03
>We're getting these homogenous world views because designers don't follow up their own passions. I repeat: Where are the designers with fire in their bellies?
I would submit scale IS a part of the reason for what you are seeing. Let me ask a question: can good art be designed by committee?
My impression is artistic expression, which is basically what you are looking for, is a solo undertaking. So in terms on mmog design, the large commercial projects with design teams are going to sacrifice a lot of artistic creativity by their very nature (not to mention restrictive licenses and risk management of large amounts of capital doesn't encourage creativity anyway).
This is why earlier mud and todays niche games like ATITD can BE more creative; they are the vision of a single mind and as such, reflect much more of their creators ideas and concepts than any team driven project.
Posted by: Xilren | Sep 30, 2004 at 19:59
Xilren>Let me ask a question: can good art be designed by committee?
Let me reply with another question: are any movies good art?
The Fellowship of the Ring has 4 writing credits, 58 cast credits, 12 producer credits, 6 music credits, and several hundred other credits (I stopped counting at 400, which wasn't even a third of the way through). Yet despite all this, it's regarded as a Peter Jackson movie, because he was the director. It doesn't matter how good an "extras wrangler" Nina Nawalowalo was, or how important a factor she was in the movie's success; ultimately, it's Peter Jackson's movie.
The lead designer of a virtual world does indeed lead a huge team of creative individuals, but (as with movies) ultimately it's that one person who's responsible for the overall vision. Other people can produce high-quality art in their own subfield as part of the overall process, but the art of virtual world design is only in the hands of one person - the lead designer.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Oct 01, 2004 at 04:59
Flatfingers> In which case, why hasn't someone already offered this service?
We offer this already. Multiple private estates are working on games right now in Second Life. Obviously, many features could be added to improve this process, but multiple groups feel that enough of a tool kit is there already.
Richard> I suspect they'd prefer to keep their virtual worlds interconnected in a single mass rather than physically separate on disjoint servers, though, as that would run counter to their "multiverse" philosophy.
The balance here, of course, is between local desires for privacy and differentiation and the benefits of large, connected worlds. Clearly, one world of population 2N is significantly more interesting (however you define interesting) than 2 worlds of population N because most of the social and economic factors scale much faster than linearly.
On the other hand, as Randy Farmer has also pointed out (and deomonstrated) collisions between cultures, aesthetic choices, and games can cause problems.
So, the current approach in SL is allow private estates that are not connected to the mainland (ie, you can't walk to them) that provide their owners additional controls over who can see them, who can visit them, &c. This allows game creators to leverage the best parts of a large, connected world (lots of content creators, testers, players, &c) while still putting up fences when needed.
I doubt that we've found the final formula, and we'll certainly continue to add features, but so far this approach is allowing focused experimentation in many different directions.
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Oct 01, 2004 at 10:58
Great discussion! I printed out this thread and took notes while reading it, then realized there was far too much to paste here. Here are a few points that seemed worth posting:
----------
Raph mentions Armageddon, and I was going to make a similar example. Achaea is the only world where I’ve actually had to plan time to go fight things and level, because otherwise I’d never do it. There is so much to keep busy with in that world, and while the rules are numerous and very strict (eg enforced roleplaying, and not being allowed to declare a class or access its abilities without joining its guild and fulfilling their requirements), they’re all used to enforce positive social interaction.
----------
I tend to agree with most of the pro-rules statements in this discussion so far, but I’d like to add a qualifier. In virtual worlds, the ability (and the temptation) to make political and social rules literally as immutable as physical rules is great. It’s certainly more interesting to live in a world where it is possible to break the rules, but at a significant cost. From reading his past writings, I think Raph in particular might agree with this. As I understand it, UO from pre- to post-Trammel was a shift from mutable rules to immutable rules (which, for good or ill, seems to have changed it into an entirely different world socially and ethically).
----------
In a game with unique rules/language/world etc, people’s items and friends aren’t the only things holding them there. It seems as though “the suits” should want to support a game that is unique enough that it doesn’t merely take their guild moving to another game for them to leave (since they’ve grown attached to their guildmates and other game is basically the same anyway).
----------
Our affinity for visuals and constantly improving technology may be holding us back- when worlds eventually become outdated technically, they can be replaced by a nearly identical game that merely looks better, and players are grateful. The purest example of this effect is when a game is literally remade, like Counterstrike:Source. It’s been ported to a new engine, but aside from aesthetics, it’s apparently the exact same game, map layouts and all.
When we reach a point technologically where games look as good as they’re going to (or at least as good as we think they need to) , perhaps me-too games will become less viable. In a world where games do not become visually obsolete, someone could play Everquest for literally decades if they want and never get the feeling that it’s time to upgrade, and there would never be a good excuse to remake it. We’re not there yet, but we may be close. It’s [unlikely but] possible that WoW could become the final word on the Tolkien-inspired fantasy Diku hack and slash.
When/if we reach a time when games are no longer in risk of becoming technologically obsolete, big changes are sure to follow (and all of them that I can foresee are very positive in terms of the issues being discussed discussion here). First, niches would be able to be filled quasi-permanently by individual games. So once there is one successful game based on x, the only way it can be supplanted is for someone to come up with one that is so much better that players are willing to drop all they have in their current world and switch over. The new world would have to be better in terms of it’s DESIGN, since visuals and just being new wouldn’t be enough to sway people necessarily. So if the new game takes all the players away, it probably deserves them, and it becomes the new filler of the niche as the old game dies off. Competition between similar worlds could become more like a single-elimination tournament than the free-for-all it is now. Ideally, since it would be so hard to take a niche away from an existing world, innovative and crazy worlds would actually become the de facto way for companies to make a game that could attract players, rather than the just copying what already exists, like now.
Secondly (and perhaps most importantly), in order for a game to be able to exist for 20 years, the idea of just sticking to the current pigeonholed gameplay and just put out 20 expansions begins to seem a little crazy. Big companies will realize that they need to come up with an endgame strategy more effective than just adding new and more powerful monsters. They will also realize that if they can make a game that never needs an expansion, but can be compelling to players for years, the profit margins would be huge. Suddenly, games like Second Life will be the rule and not the exception.
The definition of what is “safe” is not set in stone, and that even in the worst case scenario where every game is made by people seeking only money, we are not necessarily stuck in a rut forever.
---------
Here’s a link to the rest, if anyone is procrastinating and wants to read all 5 pages
Posted by: mike darga | Oct 01, 2004 at 20:06