[MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marian Griffith [mailto:gryphon at iaehv.nl]
> Sent: Monday, July 27, 1998 2:16 PM
> To: Mud Dev Mailing list
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: WIRED: Kilers have more fun
> 
> 
> In <URL:/archives/meow?group+local.muddev> on Mon 27 Jul, Damion Schubert wrote:
> 
> > Heavy-handed?  Yes.  But ultimately, commercial providers will
> > realize that losing the $10 bucks a month from 1 person is better
> > than losing the $10 bucks a month from all 50 people that that
> > person ticked off.

They'll only realize it if the cost of paying for the cop is covered by
the money saved by not having those people quit. Which is an equation
that is as yet very very fuzzy. You might save fifty people, but the cop
cost you 100 people's subscriptions worth.

> I do not think it is accidential that ultima online, even if they try
> to provide an environment that is essentially as free as possible has
> created increasingly strong measures against pk and similar behaviour
> up to the point that players who enjoyed such behaviour complained it
> had all but wiped out the PK on that game.

It's worth noting that as much as UO gets brought up as an example of
the freewheeling highly dangerous game (and the "kitchen sink" too) its
original intent was actually fairly easily summed up. We wanted to make
an alternate world. A microcosm. That meant we wanted to have in it as
much as we could to get the feeling of having an alternate world. Some
of us were from MUSH backgrounds, others from LP backgrounds, and some
from Diku backgrounds. Some weren't mudders at all. But the intent was
always to make an alternate world. Some features clearly were
overdesigned, others underdesigned, others missing, but on the whole, we
ended up with precisely the sorts of problems one would expect from
having an alternate world. I was quite mesmerized by the possibilities,
and wanted to take some steps towards virtual reality, and towards
virtual environments that were dynamic, rather than static. Similarly,
all my postings about the need for player-driven social controls and the
necessity for combat and all that arise from that perspective.

Legend wasn't about an alternate world. It was about strong narrative
experiences. It in fact regularly committed that room description thing
that has been cited as a cardinal sin here: telling the player how they
felt. It was actually a design principle (and I'll gladly argue why it
was a valid one, and why Legend's descs won't be matched by a
description-generation system anytime this century). Quests were specced
to feel like movies. Rooms were vetted to read like descriptions from a
novel. Yes, there was an interesting degree of freedom in the skills
system, and in other areas, but the game was very much about being a
game, being a carnival ride through history, or a history-themed theme
park. Quite a far cry from UO.

It's sort of bizarre for me now to see UO as such a touchstone on the
list (is this the longest thread in the list's history yet?), defining a
certain approach or something to the social issues. (It's also
interesting to see the Usenet mud community somehow fail to notice UO is
there). Yeah, it was designed as much MORE of a "sandbox" than many
other muds, I suppose. But I am sure that there must be text muds out
there with less controls on PK, in a far more gaming oriented
environment. (Aren't there?) For me, the central design heart of UO was
always the artificial life system and resource-based
spawning/ecology/economy and attendant quest-generation routines. All of
that stuff has now been cut for one reason or another. :) (Though we
still intend to get much of it back). And it was about giving players a
free hand to develop something online themselves, within the fictional
context. But it most definitely was not about free PK, or about trying
to pioneer new methods of social control. It wasn't about exploring
interesting dimensions in online social development. That sort of stuff
just happened.

My personal preference at this point in my gaming career would be for a
full-bore RP environment that supports PK for roleplay purposes only. I
don't see myself designing such a game, however. I don't design to my
audience, in this case. There are too few people who want to play like I
do (which is in a manner I suspect quite akin to how Marian plays,
actually!).

> But then I think that games like ultima online fit very well into the
> scheme of Mr. Bartle  and needs a small amount of disruptive players.
> Of course the catch is that it needs a small amount of such behaviour
> or it will totally overpower the social fabric of the game.

Yep. And Richard's (can I call you that now, Richard? :) essay was right
at hand when I was working on UO. As were a heck of a lot of other
resources. Given a "sandbox" design we NEED that sort of thing. We also
need the "kitchen sink" for the same reason. It's a sandbox, and the
more toys we toss in there, the longer people keep themselves amused.
(but of course, some toys are more fun than others). I suspect that the
value of "recess squabbles" is very high in such a playground
environment. It's not a very PLAYFUL environment, though. In most ways
it's taken deadly seriously--something I'd love to change for the next
thing I do.

> On the other hand,  as Dr.Cat pointed out,  there is a huge amount of
> people  who would not be attracted to a game like that  and who would
> prefer something far more safer for their game environment.

Absolutely. Massive quantities of them. And as I have stated before, I
have a LOT of respect for Dr Cat and his work, and think his comments on
overdesign, and on attention as currency, are dead on. In fact, I feel
somewhat uncomfortable feeling put in opposition to him, as this thread
seems to have done...

If we are working towards virtual realities, as I think we are, then I
think that there's a problem set there to solve. And we can reduce it by
going with a smaller design, sure--one tailored to that vast group of
people who would rather not deal with certain aspects it is possible to
simulate, such as violence. As Dr Cat said, we can choose not to add in
combat.

But *somebody* is gonna add combat. And since I was (and still am,
though my interest is shifting) interested in tackling many of the
problems that arise with an environment that includes as many of the
experiences life offers as can be made interesting, I regard it as
"leaving it out." That's not intended to be derogatory towards those who
leave it out; they are not trying to address the same problem set, is
all. I want to tackle the problem set of the day when we have a MUD
(read: spatial, multi-user) interface to the entire Internet, which I
don't think is that far away.

Quite beyond that, I have serious doubts about the commercial
feasibility of a server that's completely safe. Not because of the lack
of interest, but because of the amount of cops you have to pay to keep
it safe. I use as my rule of thumb whether or not we're willing to pay
enough cops to keep us safe in the real world, where the stakes are a
lot higher. :( Yeah, we can code Toontown laws of physics, and people
will still find ways to screw each other over. Because fundamentally,
that's what a safe environment is promising: nobody will screw you over.
And I can't currently design a way around that. I doubt I will ever be
able to. You can reduce the problem set, but the problem doesn't go
away... what's worse, the safer you say you are, the more of a target
you paint on your chest. A nasty dilemma.

As an aside, I'd also like to whap everyone who said that the designers
of UO ignored the history of the online game development field upside
the head, please. ;)

Whew, that was an outpouring. Basically, I cheer on the "safe game"
designs. Love to see how you do it. Am openly skeptical about how you'll
do it. Hope you prove me wrong. And I go about it in a more cynical way.
;) UO was intended as just a microcosm, you see. The fact that it is as
dangerous as it is speaks, IMHO, more to human nature than anything
else...

-Raph, rambling a lot