Personal Interest vs. Marketing Decision WAS RE: [MUD-Dev] dealing with foul language

[Zak Jarvis]

Having gotten behind on mail, I'm letting a few threads drop because I just
don't have time to catch up... This isn't one of them.

--> On Tuesday, April 11, 2000 Zak Jarvis wrote:

>> Raph, do you think some of the early problems (and I gather lingering ones
>> to some extent as well) stem from UO's PK design not being one you had much
>> invested in emotionally?

--> On Wednesday, April 12, 2000 Raph Koster replied:

> Oh, no, because I (and others on the team) were VERY invested emotionally in
> having PvP in the game. In fact, I'd say that the fact we were overinvested

In what sense were you invested? It appears to me almost like you were defining
PvP in negative space, which I don't think can ever make for a good game
mechanic.

> in player policing was the problem. (I'm still very invested in this notion
> because a) it's interesting and b) it's a sure way to reduce admin costs in
> both human and financial terms).

I would guess that player policing has a short but interesting future. Probably
the next two or three generations of MMPOGs can get really good use out of them,
and all mid-to-large scale games in the future (until there's sufficient AI for
the task, and until that AI is available on a large scale).

My theory, however, is that a breed of game will emerge ultimately where
policing will be an issue of industry. My prediction is that after a certain
scale is reached with MMPOGs that the game will become a framework within which
space, administration and content development is treated as real-estate and sold
to companies who have an intent to make a profit. Don't ask me how the mechanics
of policing can be financially successful, that's not my job. ;) Of course it
could very easily be argued (I think I'm arguing it right now!) that even
companies leasing space in the virtual world could be considered 'players'. It's
extra fun invalidating your own statements. (See above about 'short but
interesting future')

I have to say that I'm really quite looking forward to the time when political
candidates create avatars to stump with. It *will* happen.

Will secret service agents be able to protect them from Glorious, Blistering
Flame Attack #9? I don't really care, I just want to see the smoke.


-->Zak said:

>> My belief these days (and largely unspoken, and therefore not very fleshed
>> out) is that content which matters to the developer will be the more
>> successful aspect of any given design, which can become an obviously
>> difficult issue in a commercial venue. Most especially in a large scale
>> one.

Raph replied:

> Well, so the area of the UO design in which I was most invested was the
> ALife system and underlying data structures. We turned it off before the
> game even launched officially. :) I am but one data point though!

Err... Well, yes, I've had the same issue. I think I mentioned it in snipped
portions of my original post. :) I didn't mean to say that what matters most to
the developer will always be successful. Rather, I meant that a design created
because it needed to be there won't be as successful as a design created by a
developer who really cares about that part of the game.

Really caring sometimes means trying to do something radical, and radical things
don't always work out.

Feel free to split this off into its own topic if you'd like:

Going a bit off on a tangent here, have you given thought for how to make an
ALife system work after your initial experience with it? The way I'd approach it
(after seeing how yours failed. :) would be to ensure that the interactions
within it mattered to the players. If they knew they could get extra leather to
make into tunics by killing all the wolves and increasing the deer population,
they might take a more active role. Or, if they could lure the mighty Earth
Ettin Titan into the cave of the Exceptionally Hungry Brown Dragon so the two
would duke it out, then they could polish off the survivor...

-Zak Jarvis
 http://www.voidmonster.com





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