[MUD-Dev] Stranger in a Strange Land (was Usability and interface and who the hell is supposed to be playing, anyway? (Was: PK Again))

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <c=US%a=_%p=EA%l=MOLACH-970925223940Z-13404 at molach.origin.ea.com>,
on 09/25/97 
   at 08:36 PM, "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at origin.ea.com> said:

>On Thursday, September 25, 1997 3:17 AM, clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote: 
>>The primary effect I see of removing the WHO command, and removing 
>> the global namespace I do both) is that of removing the sense of the
>> individual players as being a member of a larger group of players 
>> all playing the same game.  It removes the sense of an instant social
>> context, "All of us on the who list are players," and with the 
>> removal of the global namespace removes even the pretense of baing 
>> able to place oneself in any even remote sort of social relevance as 
>> a new player. The result is that it tends to devolve them all into 
>> confusing world without clear ability to identify or locate friends 
>> or allies, or even know who or what might be any of these things.

>Yes, yes, yes. Couldn't agree more. The issue, once you have settled 
>for not having a global namespace, as JCL terms it, is providing a 
>rich social context quickly and easily without it.

A quick addendum here as some newer members may not realise the
definition of "no global namespace" as above.

  I have no global namespace (very minor exeptions).  This means that
there are no objects that have names that everybody knows.  While you
character may have a name that you gave it, nobody else will know that
name, and in fact has no requirement to use that name,  Instead they
may assign whatever name they wish to you, just as you may "name" them
however you wish.  The result is that a name assignment is now private
to the character that assigned the name.  Thus I may know a certain
character as "bubba", you may know his as "Boffo", and other as
"Bernie".  (This is generically known as the "Silke effect" after a
fictional character who was fond of name games.)

  Name can be assigned to more than just other characters,  Players
can name objects, rocks, houses, locations, trees, etc freely.  Of
course those names are private to them -- so other players can assign
different names or no names at at should they wish.

  The end result is that upon re-encoutering the named object, the
name you have assigned to that object is substituted instead of the
generic description of that object.  This can result in dialogues as
follows:

    > l 
    There is a troll here.
    > say Want to help me do Castle Krak?
    The troll says, "Sure!  What's your name?"
    > say Most people call me Bubba.
    The troll says, "Got it.  My name is Boffo."
    > name troll Bernard
    > l
    Bernard is here.
    > say Right!  Lets go!

>Consider the means of social interaction we commonly build into a 
>mud:
>
>* spatially based communication (say, emote, etc)
>* long-distance peer-to-peer communication (almost always bolted on) 
>  (tell/page)
>* multichannel broadcast mechanisms (always? bolted on) (chat, gossip, 
>  whathaveyou)
>* delayed peer-to-peer messaging (usually bolted on but sometimes 
>  in-context) (mudmail)
>* bulletin board systems (usually in-context but sometimes global and 
>  therefore bolted on)
...
>Obviously, the first one is the strength of a mud. And the latter is 
>also very well-suited to a mud. The others are essentially very 
>different paradigms that have been implemented within a mud context. 
>Usually they shatter the fiction. And a global namespace is essential
>to their functioning in this bolted-on manner...

Given the above, I don't see that a global namespace is necessary.

>Now, given that the global namespace immediately provides social 
>context, what do you do about providing the social context that tell 
>or channels provide? It's a rather tough question.

>> Temporarily ignoring the thematic question as to the (dis)advatages 
>> of this (both sides are arguable), it does place a premium on 
>> experience and social connections within the world, and as such, 
>> also presents a (daunting?) barrier to entry for new players to the 
>> game world.  It is probably worth noting at this point the extremely 
>> simplistic and generalist interfaces in this regard on UOL, DSO, 
>> EverDark, M59,Avalon, MUD2 etc.  There is very little barrier to 
>> entry for these commercial efforts to a non-socially connected 
>> player.  Logon == You have instant (if minimal) social context 
>> (Not quite so true for Avalon, but that's an implementation detail 
>> they've largely overcome thru other (interesting, impressive, 
>> and over-crafted) means(*))

>I assume you meant EverQuest? 

Yep.  I overstated myself there.  I've little knowledge of them, and
just got into listing commercial projects.  <sigh>  My fingers run
away with me.

>Now, yes, all the commercial efforts place a premium on low barrier
>to  entry, of course. They have to compete within the game market
>with  many games that offer the same low barrier. 

Yup, the market is intellectual Doom players.  Their backgrounds are
game principles which can be stated in triplicate on the back of a
matchbook.

>Gotta grab that
>customer  quickly... and yes, generalist interfaces, and interfaces
>that lead  you step by step through processes, are very important in
>that regard.  

>And UO is getting criticized in some quarters anyway,
>for the number  of interfaces required for the various crafts and the
>like, despite  the fact that they are all either (double-click) or
>(double-click, then target). 

Could you give me some references for those criticisms?  I'm very
interested in what data points are considered important by the media. 
(Comments and replies on such reviews are of course more than welcome
as well).

>It's amazing how simplistic something
>needs to be for  the general public.

is this really true?  Is it how simplistic it has to be for the
general public, ir is it how simplistic it has to be for the media's
protrayal or expectation of the general public?  I've long suspected
that the two are much further from each other than either would like
to admit, and that each is inherently self-serving and validating
beyond any reality (ie the truth is somewhere between, but that truth
damages both parties were it known).

> However, the social context you have when logging into UO is actually
> more than minimal--it's practically nonexistent. We don't have who.
> Or tell. Or mudmail. Or channels. We have the bulletin boards, but 
> lacking the others, they see little use. We don't have unique names 
> (which is rather disturbing to old mud hands). We also have thousands
> of people per world, less "spatial binding" because we don't have 
>"rooms," and a rather large space to run around in.

Note: I haven't played UOL.

Would you accept the assertion that the implicit ability to
distinguish players from NPC's, and that players have a (potentially)
very large field of view/interaction (eg can see other players when
they are very distant), effectively work to create a social context?

A text-only MUD would seem to present a different case if only due to
the fact of limited scope.  You can't see or detct anyone who is not
present in the same room as you, and once they are more than one room
away you have no real way of following them (especially if they are
moving at any speed).  The room metaphor for MUDs very effectively
creates an ultimate myopia on the part of players -- you can't see
anything until you run your nose it it.  It actively destroys any
chance of a social context without the TELL/PAGE/etc bolt-ons.

>Hence one of the biggest lacks in UO at the moment--social fabric. 
>It's very easy to get lost in a crowd, make friends and later lose 
>them altogether, be unable to find them, get somebody to even stand 
>still to talk, etc. We're working on this by making more in-context 
>social fabric however. Among the tactics:

I see the areas to be addressed as:

  Currency -- What is another player's state now?  Logged on?
  Location -- Where is another player now?
  Communication -- Instant, time delayed, and store and forward.

>additional communication elements:
>- in-context means of magical long-distance communication - possibly
>mail, dunno yet.

Magical sky writing?  

  Bubba launches hundreds of fireballs at the sky.  They explode
magnificently!  The resultant streams and balls of smoke spell out,
"BUBBA R00LZ".

>I mention all the above to point out that we're running into lots of 
>interesting implications of the lack of global namespace that I doubt
> people have usually tended to consider.

Yup.  This has been intrigueing me of late.  Thus my post.

>> If you are new, and have not met other players within the world, 
>then
>> your ability to progress and learn is hampered.  Conversely of 
>course,
>> if you are experienced, you are at an advantage to the extent that 
>you
>> have an association of friends and the like to support and forward 
>you
>> and whose group understanding you can draw on and support for your 
>own
>> intellectual assult on the game-world.

>And also, if you are experienced, you tend to then exclude those new 
>people from your social sphere.

True.  Thus the formation of cliques and the like.  The challenge is
to embed enough reason to counter clique formation, to encourage
socialising with newbies, to keep the thing workable.

>> This also creates an interesting side-effect value for perma-death. 
>> If you character perma-dies then you lose all the social systems 
>> and context which that character had.  You still know of the 
>> existance of those structures and people, but you have no idea who 
>> and where they are, or any real way to causitively locate them.  
>> Perma-death suddenly becomes an almost catastrophic occurance -- 
>> you lose a lot more than just your character.

>Pfui... you assume that the social systems are character-based and
>not  player-based. MOST of them are player-based. 

Uhh, for me they are character based.  I realise that the relationship is inter-player, however my technical implementation renders the key mappings on the character.  

Your character assigns names etc to other characters, and that mapping, and thus that social context and availability is lost as soon as the character dies.  Your old friends now have no way to know that you have a new character, and discounting personal touches to character generation, for you to recognise your old friends as different from any other strangers.

Bubba dies.  How is his old friend Boffo to find Bubba's new character?  How is Bubba's new character to find Boffo?  Will they ever see each other again?  Will they be forever seperated?  <cue violins>

Sure they could have exchanged email addresses earlier.  In fact this implementation may actively encourage players to do this as a side-effect.  But not given such an exterior venue, they are effectively lost.

>Only a few are
>character  based--largely the ones in the category I call "context 
>embellishment." But how many of these are truly critical to your 
>social experience? Remember, mud social bonds evolve from the 
>fictional towards real social bonds; if you have good community ties 
>they will be OOC ties, not IC ties.

While true, I think this misses the point.  Without any social context a character will be lost, and only able to play at a severely reduced capacity.  With no social context a player is essentially playing a glorified Zork.  Given that a player has no way to causitively locate or isolate other players anywhere in the game (cf above mention of your graphical scope advantage), I see this as a real problem.  

  logon: new player
  ...
  > l
  You are in a room.  
  > who
  That command does not work on this game.
  > shout Hello!
  You yell loudly.  
  A troll walks in.
  > "Hello, can you help me?  Are you a player?  A mobile?
  The troll walks out.
  > page troll Hello!
  That command does not work on this game.
  > follow troll
  You can't find him.
  A dwarf walks in.
  You hear a something crashing in the distance.  BOOM!
  > shout Hello!  Is anybody out there?
  You yell loudly.
  The dwarf attacks you!
  > "Hey!  Stop!  I'm new to this game...
  The dwarf hurts you...
  > flee
  You run away.  
  This is another room.
  A young elf lounges nearby.
  > "Hello!
  > l at elf
  He looks like a young elf.
  The youg elf leaves south.
  ...etc

Ignoring the tritenesses, its almost a classical nightmare.

>> (*)  Avalon has a very extensive (over-extensive?) system of guides
>> which lead new players about the world, showing them how the world
>> operates, many of its base mechanics, and suggesting how the player
>> might take social advantage of the various possibilities.

>We've been discussing this sort of thing recently on Ola's graphical 
>mud list, actually. 

I caught the tail end of that.

>It wandered into the topic of newbie areas, 
>training wheels, and the like, and basically ended up, i think, at
>the  opinion that ifyou can provide such an experience to people
>crafted  well enough that they do not feel they are being channeled,
>it can be  successful. But if they start to sense channeling and
>restrictions,  they rebel...

I'd question if the rebellion really matters if the players know that they can always retreat back to the guide whenever they want.  The key then would seem to be able to pick up on a guide at any point on his tour.  The guides then really become randomly tappable references rather than a fixed tour.

Sure, go rebel.  Go do your own thing.  When you want to find out more about the basic structure, come back and we'll continue from whereever you want.

>> Is lack of a social context for new players a Bad Thing?  There are
>> ways to work around much of the initial barrier to entry to the
>> non-social world problem (cf Avalon's guides), however that doesn't
>> address the problems of entering the social world, or the question 
>> of social context.

>I think it certainly can be a Bad Thing given the right
>circumstances.  One such circumstance: trying to make money off of
>novices. ;)

Quite.  Here perhaps is the real difference between the commercial interests and the hobbiest leagues.  For now, the hobbiests can afford not to pursue the mass markets.  

>PS Woo hoo, Ultima Online hath shipped! :)

<bow>  Congrats.  I've had the luck to work on half a dozen large projects from design thru shipping.  Its a real kick to see that thing finally go out the door.  

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...