Annotated Sword (Play)

I stumbled across a charming post over on Laundry Sessions ("Artifact Based Narrative").  It highlighted a recent eBay auction of a "time machine" (that closed for $647).  Noteworthy of this auction beyond a "rewired toaster" (circa early 20th century), was the collection of letters, trinkets, books - some stretching back to the 1920's - related to its former owner, a Dr. J.S. Strauss.  This had me thinking about virtual worlds and whether, for example, the objects within them could become annotated with their own narratives: history, past uses, and hoary owners.  Would this be enriching or just wasted database space.  Would the whispers of the past lives of that sword-of-uberness matter to you?

Comments

[Flatfingers]

1.

I'd enjoy it, including in an otherwise standard fantasy/SF MMOG, but maybe that's just me.

OTOH, something like this might fit nicely (and have real utility) in a game world based on "psychic" phenomena. I personally find such stuff ridiculous, but there is (sigh) a market for it. So why not a "Ghost World" MMOG or some such thing where everybody's got different kinds of psychic powers, including one to "read" items for their past users and events?

Actually, this reminds me of a thoroughly enjoyable Andre Norton novel, _Forerunner Foray_, where the main character had just this kind of ability. If a novel could make this ability seem interesting, perhaps a game could do so as well.

--Flatfingers

[ren]

2.

I like the way that guilds maintain their own narratives and history however there don’t seem to be tools to do this in-world. Last year Constance was talking about supporting guilds with a tool set, I think that leaving a real mark on the world would also be neat.
But
Do we then get into the provider having some kind of duty of care to preserve this stuff?
I do think the ‘we own everything and can delete it when we want’ attitude that pervades VWs right now is restricting, but maybe MMO that run like that don’t want that kind of stuff, though we know that memorials have a long history in VWs.

[Jason]

3.

In Asheron's Call, there was a place on all items for limited inscriptions. Once a person inscribed an item, there was no way to remove it or add to it, which generally led to a devaluation of the item in the marketplace. There are a select number of a quest items that have a default inscription that you couldn't change.

Personally, I usually enjoyed it, as most of the inscribed items I had were marked by a friend. Occasionally it was annoying, especially if someone sold an item with "THIS IS STOLEN! RETURN TO XXXXX" written on it.

[Jessica Mulligan]

4.

We now have regular "uninscribe" sessions online where people can bring their objects to a game master or event organizer and have the inscription erased.

It seems to work well, both as a device to let people mark items they have traded in-game and to give the average player more exposure to our in-game people in a setting that doesn't involve checking a help or abuse call.

[magicback]

5.

Most items of the same type look the same: in the database and in graphics. The inscription field used by AC does devalue most items (going from mint to poor in comic book rating terms) but does add value if they are of any particular cultural or historic significance.

We already have out-of-game meta-data on items and locations already, but it would be great to have in-game annotations on items and locations.

One thing that can enhance the world is to have a D&D-type bard class that can interpret metadata. Quick and easy identify function still needs to be available, but games can design bards to unlock hidden history and special abilities.

We have skills to enhance social interaction (dancing, singing, etc.), but where are the designs for keeping history, tradition, etc. Where is the Steward class and skill trees? Where is the Guild-manager skill (I'm thinking Paladin-like auras that enhance the abilities or party members, but could be more).

The bard class can also be used to limit database size. Only certain items will be annotated and they will be marked with "Significance". All the other items in the database will remain basic items.

[Capt_Poco]

6.

I see this as being cool only if it has gameplay relevance. Otherwise, you're just looking at a lotta backstory. Also, many MMOs have this kind of stuff already, I think. In WoW, many quests are started by finding a strange chest, chewed corpse, lost message etc. The key is how much you can make the backstory matter in gameplay terms. This kinda reminds me of D&D though, where finding an evil dead badguy's lost sword always meant something. Either the sword was cursed, or the bad guy's frinds are still looking for it, etc. It always meant something important.

[Nathan Combs]

7.

I see this as being cool only if it has gameplay relevance.

Just to take an alternative point of view, I do think there are already examples of where players are willing to carry around history for the sake of narrative. In EQ2 for example, your quest book includes the 'completed' quests. Little value beyond sentimental I suspect (unless one is a power quester who uses quest databases, i suppose).

[Brask Mumei]

8.

One of the cool features of UO was the ability to write your own player books. This allowed one to write and distribute group history in book form.

The Mage Tower on Lake Superior ran a book seller which sold books pre-written with various narratives of in-game events.

I think a sense of history is essential to help prevent these worlds from being single-player games online. I emphatically don't mean history as in developer-written backstory. I mean history in terms of things-that-happened.

Think beyond items with history. What if you tracked server side where most people walk, and turn the most commonly walked paths from grass into dirt?

Why isn't there an in game history of patches?Shouldn't the people inside the game know that Fireball got nerfed on date Y? From the NPCs, you'd think we played in a Orwellian world where all changes are retroactively made true history. Where's the old fighter saying: "Back in my time, I could dual wield and proc both weapons. You youngsters have become weak in your training."

One story I wrote in Ultima Online, for example, referenced the Great Skullcap Crash. This was the point where skullcaps halved in sale value, forcing tailors to reevaluate their procedures.

- Brask Mumei

[Theo]

9.

I think if the world contained truly unique items, it might be fun to know that you have the sword that defeated the Lord of Wyrms, or something. Building a crafting system that allowed players to select which attributes and abilities they wanted to build into their items rather than following cookie-cutter recipes would be a great way to implement this, at least from a gamer's perspective. I have no idea what that means to a developer or the database. When everyone on the server has a Ghoulbane (or whatever) and can farm out another at their liesure...it's hard to really care where this particular one came from.

[magicback]

10.

Once we get to a critical mass of these annotative activities, I think we can consider the world alive. The history of the worlds/shards is not the back-story, but the living experiences. We can then move from interactive experience and move toward collective experience. This then all be collected in some form of Heroes' Chronicles.

[Jessica Mulligan]

11.

Don't underestimate the need and desire to create history. On one of our AC1 shards recently, a group of players bought a mansion, then spent months collecting and pooling rare and unique items from the world to hang on the walls. They then opened the mansion to all as a museum of the history of Dereth.

Achievment isn't enough; recognition of achievement is also necessary, :D.

[magicback]

12.

Cool,

Someone like Betsy and others should put together a "walking tour" of all the key places and museums to visit.

Audio and video guides are extra :)

[Darryl Bordelon]

13.

Why isn't there an in game history of patches?Shouldn't the people inside the game know that Fireball got nerfed on date Y? From the NPCs, you'd think we played in a Orwellian world where all changes are retroactively made true history.

I think AC1 did a rather decent job of this. Spells added or even changes to the UI usually included a bit of back-story as to why the changes were made in an in-game manner. It helped keep things quite immersive.

Before I had to quit playing for non-game related reasons, the back-story for the game was a synopsis of changes both content and tech wise (note: I haven’t been following it enough to see if that claim persists). It's something I really wish would be included in more recent games as it really adds to the immersiveness.

[LEKO]

14.

An easy thing would be to track at least whom owned the item and when the item was created.

But this would lead to some "exploit" from people constantly moving items between each other to get a huge list of owner's. This would be not possible if you limit the list to the last 10 person or if you only add names of people who woned the item for long enough.

This kind of stuff would be interesting, because low-mid lvel player would be interested in use items that were once used by High-Level players.

[Jason]

15.

Thanks, Jessica, for updating me on the "uninscribe sessions" - I may have to log in after a long, long break to clean up some old items (presuming my characters are still around).

Great anecdote about the mansion as well - which server, may I ask?

[Nathan Combs]

16.

Brask>
I think a sense of history is essential to help prevent these worlds from being single-player games online. I emphatically don't mean history as in developer-written backstory. I mean history in terms of things-that-happened.

Magic>
The history of the worlds/shards is not the back-story, but the living experiences. We can then move from interactive experience and move toward collective experience.

Damion had a line at his roundtable about what the best stories in MMOs are: they are the stories about who is 'chasing the guildmaster's girlfriend'. As he said, its all about news (about people). My theory is that story/fiction in MMOGs is a sort of "immersive fluff" (meant in the best way): easily dissipated and highly engaging in the moment. But what really lasts and keeps people around in some nook in the world at 2am when they really can't think straight, is well, news about other folks. Who said it? -Gossip is utterly tribal and is the glue that makes the world go around.

[Betsy Book]

17.

Virtual world communities' desire to create and share history is very strong indeed, however I find that this is usually less related to objects than to events. Objects are valued in the context of their role in events that were for some reason or another memorable for those who experienced them.

[Jessica Mulligan]

18.

Jason wrote: "Thanks, Jessica, for updating me on the "uninscribe sessions" - I may have to log in after a long, long break to clean up some old items (presuming my characters are still around).

Great anecdote about the mansion as well - which server, may I ask?"

I recently brought on a group of live event operators who do nothing in the game except RPG and flavor events such as the uninscribe sessions. They've done everything from fox and hounds (chase a character across the landscape and catch him for a prize and title) to just having a known backstory NPC wander around drunk and talking to people, looking for the little people he saw in a dream. Lately, they've been running gladiatorial games on the worlds. Titles can be highly coveted, :D.

The spontaneity and unscripted results of these live events drive deeper interest in the world and help players leave a deeper mark on the history of the world, and that is important. Beyond that, they can just plain make a player's day. It is something they can point to: "How did I get this title of Champion of Solclaim, you ask? Remember the Gladiatorial Games last year? Well, there I was, the sole surviving member of my Fellowship, me a spec'ed melee surrounded by 4 war mages and an archer, with my armor buffs ready to expire..."

I live for these conversations in-game, :D.

If you haven't reactivated and migrated your account from Microsoft's billing to ours, now is the time. Your characters should still be around if you've played since 2002; we haven't had a character purge for three years.

I think the museum is on Leafcull, but I need to check my memory (currently overloaded trying to get the expansion pack out the door); I'll dig out the info and get back to you.

[magicback]

19.

The stories we tell drunk at 2am in the morning are the stories that are dug deep into our heart and soul. The live events, the fan faires, the unique annotations are situations that make those lasting impressions.

In my live-action RPG we call them "war stories" and 10-year stories of long-gone players are still being pass down to newer players.

Have we gotten to the point where avatars have strong and unique annotations? What would the obituary statement about your avatar say?

[Nathan Combs]

20.

Betsy>
Virtual world communities' desire to create and share history is very strong indeed

magicback>
The stories we tell drunk at 2am in the morning are the stories that are dug deep into our heart and soul. The live events, the fan faires, the unique annotations are situations that make those lasting impressions.

I wonder if the nature of communities in MMORPGs is different if they are based on shared events grounded in a fiction. Or, in other words, do RL communities work differently on some levels because they are, well, grounded in RL events?

Or is there no real difference - everything becomes a story to us?

[Nathan Combs]

21.

magicback>

Have we gotten to the point where avatars have strong and unique annotations? What would the obituary statement about your avatar say?

Not quite what you are asking -

but I used to laugh when I'd find some trade-runner in Eve-Online who'd write something to the effect of "When I die, I have an Alt with lots of friends who's gonna hunt you down...etc." in her "bio" description. Eve-Online is of course PvP and these writings, I guess, were feeble efforts to frighten off pirates.

More seriously, I also guess there needs to be some means of grounding annotations in some reality (fictional).

[Jason]

22.

Jessica wrote: “a known backstory NPC wander around drunk and talking to people, looking for the little people he saw in a dream”

Is Ulgrim wandering the streets again?

Those kind of impromptu live events sound precisely like what drew me into AC in the beginning and kept me playing for three years. I remember racing to complete scavenger hunts organized by Advocates during beta, and that same sort of joy was around when we finally completed the first run of the Gaerlan's Citadel quest. Even though it wasn't a live event per-se, seeing my character name server-wide after getting the first kill on the 60-80 Gaerlan was incredible fun, especially after hundreds of us spent an entire weekend trying to figure out the quest. Even though hardly a soul probably remembers who was on those initial quests, except for the character who slew the final "big" Gaerlan (who gave me a solid 30% vitae), that remains one of my favorite "game moments." So I completely agree on the impact that live events and unique moments of virtual history can have on a player.

How do you balance, though, the desire to give each player (of 3000 per server) that feeling, while also maintaining the sense of uniqueness that the feeling requires? What, for a basic example, did the decision to bring back the Hoary Mattekar Robes have on those who had one (I didn't have one, by the way, though I was around for Sudden Season)? I'd like to hear more about what AC is doing now to develop those kinds of experiences.

I suspect my gimpy archer is probably still alive; I may just have to reactivate him to see the new paint job that comes with the expansion.

[Jim S.]

23.

>This had me thinking about virtual worlds and whether, for example, the objects within them could become annotated with their own narratives: history, past uses, and hoary owners. Would this be enriching or just wasted database space.>

It would enhance the game experience for me personally. It would also create a set of items that were unique, since there was only one Super Ultimate Sword used by Godly Guy to slay Really Big Bad Guy. I would say that yes, this would enhance the gameplay for everyone, since having such an item would be a matter of some prestige.

On a similar note, forged items in Achaea bear the name of their maker, be it a PC or NPC. This carries that sense of history that you mentioned, and in the case of Achaea it can mean that the item's quality can be judged somewhat by the person who forged it.