[MUD-Dev] Holidays

[Jeff Freeman]

The UO rants thread got me to thinking about in-game holidays.  Some of
this is going to be repetitive since I'm going to quote all the stuff that
I'm replying to...

Starting with support for the idea that real-world holidays should not be
ignored:

>From the Laws of Online World Design:
"It's nice to have an in-game calendar. But emotional resonances will never
accrue to in-game holidays. The only calendar that really matters is the
real world one. Don't worry about breaking fiction--online games are about
social interaction, not about fictional consistency."

Also, Dave Kennerly wrote about using real-world holidays in epic quest
design.  Snipping down to the relevent part:
"I combined real-life holidays with game events; thus, more
player-consequence.  For example, I feel extra-mushy on
Valentine's Day, and extra-spooky on Halloween; many do."

The rant at www.mpog.com/kos/ (by Delusion) accused the observance of
real-world holidays in UO as being a careless mistake (when actually, it
was a deliberate one.  Uh... I mean, it was deliberate.):
"You have the lead designer of Ultima Online telling players that the
context isn't important because Ultima Online is a 'virtual community'.
You have OSI creating seasonal events based on Earth and not Britannian
holidays".

To that, Raph Koster responded:
"The simple fact is that those real world holidays have meaning. And the
Britannian ones don't. We actually launched with a fairly full calendar of
Britannia-specific holidays. You can actually go back and read old news
archives about our attempts at celebrating things like the day on which you
hunt walrus, and other such things."

And Matthew Mihaly responded to Raph Koster with:
"Honestly, I (not the ranter) think that the reason the Britannia ones had
no meaning is because you didn't give it any time and you didn't put any
effort into it (here I mean the live team mainly). You can't just expect to
declare day X a holiday and have your first players give a shit. You have
to nuture that sort of thing, and build a culture that will honour that
sort of day. You probably won't achieve the same level of emotional
involvement that rl holidays achieve, but you can definitely get a
significant level of emotional involvement. I really think this is because
you guys dropped the ball and didn't have the patience to develop a culture
that respects in-game holidays."

Pulling an article from the archives of posts long past, Delusion (writing
at www.lumthemad.net that time, but saying much the same thing) wrote:
"Context is crucial. Through context, you convince your players that you
take your own game seriously. Out-of-context elements in your game are red
herrings. Players introduce out-of-context elements all the time. One of
the best ways to avoid this to any degree is to lead by example: if your
players see you adding out-of-context elements to the game, they'll not see
any reason to avoid doing so themselves. In-game celebration of Earth
holidays: Your world is your unique creation. Litter it with holidays that
would make sense in-game."

Two arguments that seem to be pretty well opposed.  Context is crucial, but
it is just as crucial to do what the players want, like, expect and will
enjoy, too.  What they like is to observe real-world holidays with their
in-game friends (the ones they only meet in-game, for example).  They like
it so much, they'll do it anyway.

As Raph pointed out: "The real holidays had emotional resonance to
players--and the first thing that people did when the servers opened in
Japan was start celebrating Japanese holidays."

Dave Kennerly mentioned actually using the player's emotional connection to
real-world holidays, to tie them to in-game events (in that case, an epic
quest).  Mushy quests around Valentine's Day, spooky quests around
Halloween, etc.

Fictional holidays provide context, or can, if the players "give a shit"
(as Matt put it).  And I expect the holidays won't if the players don't.
Even nuturing a culture that cares about the fictional holidays, the
players won't ever care *as much*.  Wouldn't the goal be to convince the
players to care, as much as you can convince them to care.

Or how about giving them a manner in which to observe real-world holidays
in-game (since they are going to do that anyway), without breaking-fiction.

It seems like that is do-able without either adhering to the Law of World
Design (which says basically "fergitaboutit", and without going to the
other extreme either (Hunt Walrus Day?  Uhm... unless walrus have some fabo
loot on that day or something...).

I think the objective of nurturing a culture that respect in-game holidays
is going to be made particularly difficult if your average player sticks
around for less than a year.  How do you convince someone to care about a
holiday that they only celebrate, at most, one time? (Celebrate holidays
monthly or so?).

Creating in-game holidays that coincide with (and can be easily reckognized
as off-shoots of) real-world Holidays strikes me as a pretty good approach.
 Neither to ignore the RL holidays, nor to include them "as is".  Rather,
to create a game-calendar that mirrors the real-world calendar, with game
holidays that mirror the real-world holidays.  Tweak the observance so that
it adds to the context of your world (in the icy north, we celebrate Gift
Day by exchanging gifts and building bonfires, because we're cold - but
down in the Drunken Plains, the nomads celebrate by exchanging gifts and
getting drunk, because they're alcoholics), but not so much that it isn't
recognizable as a real world holiday.

Even if any given player is only there to celebrate Gift Day one time, they
can associate it with a real world holiday - one they have likely been
observing their entire lives, and one which has more meaning for them than
a holiday you pull out of your hat.

--
  http://home.swbell.net/skeptack/




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev