[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[Adam Wiggins]

[Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad:]
> Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user2.inficad.com> wrote:
> [Glassner:]
> >> We are in constant conversation with the game creator, more
> >> than we are with almost any author or screenwriter. Bad
> >> things done to the hero in fact happen to us, personally.
> >
> >Total disagreement here.  The bad thing is happening to *my character*=
, which
> >I do have a closer attachment to than a character in a film, but not t=
he
> >the extent that Glassner seems to think.
>=20
> Are you talking MUD or what?

Of course, since that's the topic of this list.  But I'm also speaking
of other games.  Some examples with recent games:

 When I play Command & Conquer, I am not a Nazi.
 When I play Monkey Island, I am not a wanna-be pirate.
 When I play King's Quest, I am not an estranged priness.
 When I play Space Quest, I am not a futuristic janitor.
 When I play Master of Orion, I am not a silicon-based creature bent
  on the genocide of all the other races within fifty solar systems of me.

My *character* is.

> I think this depends on how much time
> you've spent with your character or maybe how much time you have spent
> with the game.  I think he is right in saying that if the game is
> unfriendly designed, then the game (creator) will be perceived as
> unfriendly to us as players as well.  You can extend this to badly

It depends - I see a 'wicked' design to be a good thing - unfriendly
to your character but more interesting to you as a player.  A just
plain mean design which is meant to make you feel stupid or slow
or otherwise incapable is no fun, yes.

> designed controls as well, if the game makes us look clumsy, then it
> is making fun of us.

Absolutely.  Because your ability to control the game is *you*, not
your character, and if you feel clumsy, then it's *you* feeling clumy.
If I have a character with a low dexterity I don't feel personally
offended.  (Cavet to that being that in a game where you have no
choice in your character's abilities at the start of the game (like
most adventure games), a really clumsy and/or stupid character can
quickly get tedious.)

> In a MUD you can easily reach a situation where something happening to
> your character is perceived as happening to us, or even worse if a
> roleplayed character really dies.  I would perceive that as loosing
> some of my personality freedom and investment of time (which is
> convertible to money)...

Well, we beat this one nearly to death a while back.  Caliban and
some of the other hardcore role-playing types felt that any time you
loose control over your character's fate the game has failed.  Others
(myself included) feel that if you can control your character's fate
100% all the time (ie, there is no external factors affecting them)
that the game itself looses much of its meaning.

> >I don't think it's so much deception as it is instant death.  Deceptio=
n is
> >okay as long as you don't go overboard (ie, Paul Reiser's character in
> >Aliens added immensley to that movie, but if everyone on the space mar=
ines
> >squad had been deceiving each other, it would have gotten a bit old).
>=20
> Uh, but deception by a character (whom you might have reasons to not
> trust) and the gameworld (which you would expect to be reasonable) is
> two different things.

Okay, maybe I should have said that he was overgeneralizing.
He said 'Avoid deception', when he should have said 'Avoid having
seemingly straightforward elements in the gameworld which deceive in
such a way so as to annoy the player and add nothing to the game
experience.'

> >> In one game I played recently you assemble some pieces in
> >> what you think is the right order, and then push a big button
> >> to submit your answer. Pushing the button initiates a
> >> sequence of visual and audio effects, simulating some big
> >> machine "examining" your answer. Eventually it might tell
> >> you that some of the clips are in the wrong order, and then
> >> you hear some audio encouraging you to keep trying. All of
> >> this takes about 15 seconds, but it feels like a half-hour. By
> >> the third or fourth time I submitted an answer I was resentful
> >> that I was forced to waste my time waiting for this now-boring
> >> effect to repeat. There was no way to hurry it up or skip over
> >> it. By the tenth time I went through the process I was ready to
> >> climb the walls.
> >
> >Amen.
>=20
> Well, I actually liked the sound world in Myst.  From an artistic
> point of view this one was one of the best ones!  Although I admit
> plotting in the sounds could be somewhat tedious it was fun as well,
> because you were building "music" and used your pattern recognition
> skills.

Haven't played it, so can't comment.

> >> But wait a second, that character is me!
> >
> >Again, I take exception to all of this because of the basic premise.
> >The character is *not* you, Glassner.  It is a character which comes w=
ith
> >its own abilities, desires, and faults.  It is up to you to direct the
> >character most of the time, but it is not you.
>=20
> For a singleplayergame I would have to agree with Glassner, the
> character is me.

Again, if you're speaking of a game like Myst where you don't even
see 'yourself', or even games where you control a vehicle that is
piloted by some unseen character, this is true.  If you're talking about
the majority of adventure games where you are given a character which
has a certain personality, you are simply not them.  Now, since you
do control them most of the time, if they are constantly doing things
which anger you (because you would have done something different
had you been in control), this can be bad.  Without a character having
their own personality you can't have story motivations which personaly
involve the character - meaning paper-thin stories with no character
interaction at all.  I think this is worth not being able to pick up
an axe and go on a killing spree just because it would be inconsistant
with the character's nature.

> There is less motive for roleplaying,
> roleplaying/acting for a computer makes me feel like I am wasting
> time, more so now than when I was a kid.  When I play Myst, I am me
> (it is me in a role, but I has MY personality).  To roleplay for
> another humanbeing...  That's fun.

Hmmm.  Like I said, I haven't played Myst, but one of the artists I
work with worked in the sequel and I watched him play it for a bit.
There's no role - there's no character stuff at all.  You're a robot
flying through a series of static pictures and fiddling with
misc. devices.  I *like* characters, I like human motivations, I
like stories.  Esoteric puzzles by themselves don't do a whole lot for
me, even with really nice graphics.  Of course, that's just me - I
realize that lots of folks do like this sort of thing, and for those
kinds of games I agree with the above.  Not only are you your own
character, but there is no character at all.  It's just you and the
gameworld.

> >> Never take over control of the player's character.
> >
> >Again the logic is sound, but as a player I can't agree.  I *like*
> >cut scenes, when done right (again, all the Lucasarts game do them wel=
l).
>=20
> But it wrecks immersion.

I guess it's just subjective.  I find games without cut-scenes
less immersive, because it usually means no story and no character
motivation.

> Lucasarts, they make movies in a box, right?

*scratch* You consider Lucasart adventures to be movies in a box, but
Myst is a fully interactive roleplaying experience?
Well, at any rate, this is true.  Classic adventure games (pre-7th
Guest, mainly) have characters, storylines, and cut scenes.  In
that respect they are certainly much more like movies than much of
what you can find on shelves today.

> I can't say I feel I am "in" the game, I am more having one hand in
> there.

Is that good or bad?

> It's more like watching a movie, skipping the boring parts (if
> allowed to), and saying "I bet that's what's going to happen next".  I
> find these types of games highly annoying unless I've got a
> cheatmanual somewhere. (Like I'm going to hunt down that missing key,
> lazy designers, go find it yourselves)

Hum, okay.  There's not much point in talking about adventure games
if you don't like them.

> >> character's personality, which fatally injures the development
> >> of the character and leads to a psychotic personality and
> >> uninteresting story.
> >
> >I take exception to the last three words of that paragraph.
> >What is it that makes a psychotic personality inherently
> >uninteresting, pray tell?
>=20
> I think he meant "not convincing", like a badly written novel. A novel
> is usually trying to make the reader feel/understand/reason with the
> main character in some sense, right?  I sure wouldn't enjoy a novel
> where I say to myself "oh well, this character is just plain stupid
> and boring, do me a favour, go jump off a cliff, will ya!". (Unless he
> does, of course ;)

Ah okay, I see now.  In that light I agree completely.