[MUD-Dev] Levels of immersion (Warning LONG)

[John Vanderbeck]

"Yves K" wrote:
> So, this leads me to ask the dreaded question: is real life a mud? If
> so, what is a mud? And what if it doesn't rain?

> Semi-joking apart, maybe the fact that the largest game input,
> coming from the world builders as stories and npc..., naturaly and
> definitively stops at the "character" level is part of the cause of the
> "it's just a game" versus "No it isn't" shism.

>Yves K. aka Volstoff.

Hello all!

First I would like to introduce myself.  My name is John Vanderbeck, and I
have been designing my own Graphical MUD off and on for quite some time now,
and I was the original creator of the Game Design mailing list about 3 or 4
years ago, although I had to stop administrating it some time ago, and don't
know if it still exisits.  I actually started designing my Graphical MUD
while I was beta testing Meridian 59.

A Little history first.  I have played TONS of table top RPGs, so many its
hard to name them all, and even designed several of them while I was in
middle school and high school.  It was more fun to play them then pay
attention in music class :)  I have played a few of the older text based
MUDs, although I honestly don't remember wich ones they were, as I wasn't
that hooked to them at the time.  I then ran smak dab into the world of
Graphical MUDs when I was introduced to Meridian 59 during beta.  As soon as
Ultima Online came out, I switch to that and played it for quite some time,
actually near constantly until EverQuest came out :)  Ultima Online was a
great game, but I just had to try EverQuest as well.  The first time I fired
up EverQuest was in beta 3, and I chose to initially enter the world as a
Wood Elf.  When the game finally loaded up and I saw the 3d view from the
tree city of Kelethin, I was shocked.  I was amazed.  I was..well i'm not
sure but I was certainly AWED.  It was if I was really there.  It was
incredible.  I knew then that EverQuest was going to provide me with a high
level of immersion, graphical immersion at the very least.  What I saw was
nearly exactly what my minds eyed showed me for my own Graphical MUD.
EverQuest looked exactly as I had pictured mine would look.  I decided that
I would do all I cold to make EverQuest perfect, even though as a player I
had little power to shape things.  I later in beta 4 moved on to be a Guide
and eventually a Senior Guide where I was able to help make an entire server
happy.  I was shaping the world that I had adopted as my own.  I then had
the opportunity to move to San Diego and was hired as a GM for EverQuest.  I
was in heaven.  I now had a near direct say and even more ability to make
this game perfect.  I eventually moved on and was trained on the Dev Team
and was to be on what is now the EQ Live team.  Unfortunately things didn't
work out and I was fired.  You see, i'm 25 years old, and that was over a
year ago.  I was, and still am young, and there were some lessons I
regretfully had to learn the hard way.  I tried to take on TOO much
responsability and it bit me in the end.  But why did I do all this?  Why
tell you all this?

Well I wanted to show how immersed I was in EverQuest.  How much it grabbed
me, and how IMPORTANT it became to me.  How much it BECAME me.  This is
immersion.  But after I was fired, I stopped playing for a long time.  It
literally hurt me (emotionally) to much to play and remember all that I had
lost.  After about a year had gone by, I started playing again and for a few
months was again hooked.  But now I had a different viewpoint.  Perhaps the
magic was gone after my ordeal, or perhaps it was other things.  I'm not
entirely certain, but the immersion wasn't there anymore.  In the last few
months I have been reading a lot of papers, essays, and books on MUDs and
Game Design in general.  Running things up to start work again on my own
design.  I recently had the chance to read the pieces f a book on Raph
Koster's web site.  His views and experiences are excellent, and i'm glad I
had the chance to find them.  Specifically I refer in here to his discussion
on Avatars and immersion.

After all of this I have come to a sort of conclusion on the subject of
immersion, and it relates in part to the "present" graphical MUDs such as
M59, EQ, UO, and AC as well as to the "future" graphical MUDs, specifically
Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).  After talking to many players, and looking into
my own soul, I feel that SWG will provide a MUCH higher level of immersion
than the others.  Why? Better grapphics? No.  Better design? Maybe.  I have
noted that the INITIAL level of immersion in the "present" MUDs is quite
high, but seems to fizzle out.  I feel however that SWG's immersion will
remain quite high.  I feel this because SWG allows you to inhabit a very
rich world.  A world with two very rich and important elements.
STORY/BACKSTORY and ENVIROMENT.  I feel that these two elements are crucial
to long lasting immersion.  Ultima Online has one of these elements.
STORY/BACKSTORY.  This is from the line of games before it.  However, this
really only applies to those who have played the previous games, and I would
wager that only around 10-15% of thier game base has played enough of the
past games to know the story.  EverQuest has one of these elements.
ENVIROMENT.  EverQuest leans heavily on the traditional AD&D enviroment, and
so anyone from that background will find EverQuest's enviroment to be rich.
None of these has both elements though.  SWG should have both.  A very rich
envroemnt fleeshed out all these years by an ever expanding area of books,
comics, games, and more., as well as a rich story and backstory given from
the films.

In conclusion, I feel that a rich STORY/BACKSTORY and rich ENVIROMENT are
two crucial elements in lasting immersion.  I don't have the perfect answer
in providing these.  EverQuest tried to do it with in game quests, but IMHO
it didn't work as well as hoped.

Comments?
- John Vanderbeck

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