[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[John Buehler]

Koster, Raph writes:

> Why do I ask this? Because we have contradictory goals for the
> game. We want to reduce downtime. But people get to know people
> during downtime. That's when they socialize. That's when they make
> friends. In fact, I'd go so far as to state that it is a Law of
> Online World Design: Socialization Requires Downtime. The less
> downtime, the less social your game will be.  And we ran headlong
> into this while discussing interfaces for common municipal
> structures.

I'll offer an observation about why it seems that socialization and
downtime seem intimately related: the keyboard and mouse are used
for all activity in the game.  Socialization requires lots of
typing.  That same keyboard and mouse combination is used for all
elements of achieving, killing and exploring.  So if I'm intently
involved in some activity in the game world, it means that my hands
are tied, almost literally speaking.  It has been pointed out that
Asheron's Call has the particularly heinous attribute of seeming to
disallow running and talking at the same time.  I should also add
that our eyes are occupied in the same dual fashion.  I have to read
'spoken' words versus paying attention to what's going on in the
game world.

I used to play Diablo with guys at work.  We'd set up a conference
call and go to it.  Given the achieving, exploring and killing that
we were doing, it was a non-stop socialization-fest.  We laughed,
screamed and joked the whole time.  Buckets of fun.  And that's
because we could TALK.  We could socialize without fear of
compromising our in-game activity.  We were socializing as players,
but I don't think that's all that significant.

What would a game like EverQuest be like if players or their
characters could actually talk to each other?  By actually using
their mouths to speak and their ears to listen?  I suspect that
socialization would then be entirely tied to how big a mouth the
player had and little else.

The only thing that players need in order to socialize is a shared
experience and the ability to communicate.  Multiplayer games are
excellent at providing a shared experience, but the communication
tools are extraordinarily primitive - and they compete with the
tools that are available to participate in the shared experience.
It's a mess.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no need for architected downtime
periods in order to encourage socialization.  What we need is to
move socialization to a separate game 'channel'.  This could be done
with players talking to each other, or with characters talking to
each other.  In the case of players talking, provide low quality
audio through that broadband connection.  In the case of characters
talking, use speech-to-text on input and text-to-speech on output.
Do the same with the NPCs.  Impractical with current technologies?
Probably.  This is why I started with offering a simple observation.
I don't see a 'solution' with current technologies.

JB

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