Hiding the Numbers (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.)

[John Buehler]

Derek Licciardi writes:
>> From: John Buehler

>> I'll avoid getting into the semantics of what a game is, whether
>> a MUD is a game, and so forth.  Such statements always seem to
>> lead to 'dictionary wars'.  I do, however, want to contend that
>> MUDs are not about 'winning'.  Not even in the general sense.
>> They are about entertainment.  I certainly won't begin to argue
>> the point that many players derive much of their entertainment by
>> comparison against game metrics or against other player's
>> accomplishments in the game.

> Player Killers win by dominating other players, Explorers win by
> having more knowledge than other players, Socializers win by
> building the most valuable network of people they can establish,
> and Achievers win by gaining skill points or some other game
> measurement.  Of course muds are about winning.  Don't limit
> yourself to the Tetris definition of winning where only one can be
> at the top.  Competition drives may players on MUDs be it in one
> way or another.  I was merely pointing out that this seems to be
> an overwhelming pattern in nearly ALL games out there today.  In
> some way or fashion, there is a goal and getting to that goal can
> be considered the winning scenario.  I attempt to use that
> assumption as a basis for describing why there is a 'Holy-War' of
> sorts surrounding the contents of this thread.

You seem to be saying both that current games are about maximizing
some preferred quantity and that this is a feature of human nature
that cannot be turned off.  I agree with the former and disagree
with the latter. I was trying to go farther by stating that MUDs
offer the potential for providing entertainment that is not
competitive or maximizing.  There is the pure experiential form of
entertainment.  Drop a rock and enjoy watching it bounce down the
hill.  It is my belief that this form of entertainment is ultimately
the greatest opportunity for MUDs to attract customers.

> I understand your sarcasm here and probably shouldn't have been so
> stereotypic in my statement.  Still, your example would tell me
> that these supreme beings do not compete in any way and that
> somehow they resist the urge to compare things.  I don't believe
> it.

I doubt JC will tolerate much on this point, but consider people who
can empathize so well that they feel just as much a part of the
opposition as they do their own team.  When empathy reaches that
level, one side loses and one side wins, but the empath feels a part
of both sides, so it's a wash.  Competition becomes just another way
of interacting.  There is no net gain if you feel a part of both
sides.

> What I was trying to point out is that the design decision lies in
> what it will take to allow players to use both logic and intuition
> to arrive at an in-game conclusion.  If you show everything you
> reduce your game to a pile of boring unsuprising tables that the
> Stratics.com web site will publish in its entirety turning your
> virtual world into a math exercise.  The problems arising from
> such analysis are something that your entire development team will
> never be able to keep up with.(new interesting content that is not
> statistically obsolete in twenty minutes) For MUDs with a few
> hundred people this may not be a problem, but it is not scalable
> above a certain number and certainly not in the six figure player
> base range.  200,000 people can disect your game much quicker than
> your 15 people can put out content to keep them interested.  On
> the flip side too little information is frustrating as one can not
> establish an identity.  I believe that frustration stems from the
> comparison factor I have discussed here.

You lost me at the point where players establish identities by
having information.  I do agree with the general statement that
comparison leads to frustration.

> Since MUDs are many orders of magnitude less complex than the real
> world, I would argue that they are that much easier to figure out.
> It is possible to know all there is to know about the virtual
> world of a MUD.(or at least have it cataloged) Removing the need
> for a player to rely on intuition is a mistake in my mind and to
> be sure that it is not removed, I propose that your design
> decisions do not reveal EVERY thing there is to know about your
> world.

We agree that not everything should be quantitatively presented to
the players.  But I'm still in the dark about the value that you see
coming from giving some quantitative information to the players.
You've mentioned 'identity', but I don't understand that one.  I
think that qualitative data - like the colored flashes - presents
approximations so that players can develop intuitions about the way
the game works without working through numbers.  The more
approximate the sensation is in the real world, the more fuzzy the
technique that should be used by the game.  I also believe that
characters should be able to enhance their perceptions and provide
more precise information to the player about what they see in the
game world.  For example, perhaps the distance to a target can be
estimated more accurately, or the quality of a lump of pig iron can
be more completely understood, etc.

JB

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