[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Marc Fielding]

Phinehas said:

<snip>

> First of all, as a system, resurrection functions almost exactly
> like the "save game" feature of a single-player game.  It is
> impossible to save the entire world-state in a persistent
> multi-player world and let a single player revert to that world
> state like we would expect in a single player world.  So instead,
> in effect, resurrection is a kluge to let the player save their
> character state and revert back to that character state should
> misfortune befall them.  The function is very similar.  Both are a
> means of overcoming temporal irreversibility, the effect of which
> is to lessen the momentous nature of decisions, by making
> consequences somewhat avoidable.

> Is this a good thing?

> Personally, I don't particularly care for the way we do it.  It
> seems like we do a sort of 'bait and switch' routine, although
> that isn't an entirely appropriate analogy.  It isn't really that
> consequences are avoidable in most cases, but we *act* like there
> are certain consequences while we all know (wink, wink) that the
> *real* consequences are much different.

>   "Oh no!  Your character died!  Isn't this terrible and
>   dramatic!"

>   (wink, wink)

>   "Psst.  You can revert to a saved game or resurrect and receive
>   only a negligible penalty for your 'momentous' decision to
>   attack a Balrog."

> Bleah.

> On the other hand, I haven't seen many successful single-player
> RPG's released without some sort of save game feature.  It seems
> that the more a game is based around a goal of progressing slowly
> over an extended period of time (although I'd like to point out
> that I don't find conceptualizing an RPG that doesn't take this
> approach especially challenging), the more there is a requirement
> that a player not be sent back to square one.  Also, those who
> approach the game from a more experimental perspective (i.e. "What
> happens when I attack a Balrog?") are not as interested in being
> faced with momentous decisions.  So in some (many? most?) cases,
> temporal irreversibility seems like a bad design choice, but I
> still find myself pining for more momentous decisions in
> role-playing games.


Therein lies the rub! (Sorry, just had to get that in ;)

A game with "momentous decisions" is a game in which the player must
deal with substantial *risk*. Risk of property. Risk of time. Risk
of status.  You can't have the upside without the accompanying
downside.

As far as I know...I have one life to live. The significant time and
effort put into my several decades of existence makes the "momentous
decisions" I come across every so often all the more riveting. I may
enjoy my life....but it is far from entertainment.

For IRL humans...there are no practical alternatives to
existence. ;)

Customers, too, have significant time and effort invested in their
virtual lives. However, they are in it for the entertainment
value. Should the game cease being "fun" or if a substantial loss is
incurred, they can easily choose to no longer participate. This
limits the range of emotion that a designer can safely elicit from
them and still stay in business.

As a result, in-game consequences tend to be simple delays and
setbacks that provide negative reinforcement while not crushing the
spirit of the player.

Without the possibility of great loss, great suspense is much more
difficult (if not impossible) to achieve.

<snip>

> Thirdly, while character death isn't fun, this is not to say that
> it cannot be enjoyed at some level of entertainment.  Hamlet isn't
> fun, but it has contributed immensely to fans of literature.  Is
> Hamlet mass-market?  Probably not, but it has demonstrated an
> ability to endure beyond many mass-market fads.  As a designer,
> I'd like to aspire to something closer to Hamlet than Pokemon.  As
> a player, I have a similar desire to experience something closer
> to Hamlet.


A reader is not a participant in Hamlet's world...and hence has
nothing at risk. A reader can feel sympathy and grief at Hamlet's
tragic ending, but it still remains only a voyeuristic spectacle. If
anything, the reader is most likely to feel relieved about the
relative sanity of his own family. ;)


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Marc Fielding
marcfielding at earthlink.net

Current Research: The creation of group minds via involuntary
                  holarchic subsumption. >=)


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