[MUD-Dev] On socialization and convenience

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2001 10:05:35 +0100 
Daniel Harman <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com> wrote:
>> From: SavantKnowsAll at cs.com [mailto:SavantKnowsAll at cs.com] 

>> Are they though?  Rather than pre-designed "safe spots" -- Isn't
>> there more thrill in heading to town to get that group together?
>> Or what about hunting in an area together, and shouting out,
>> "Hey, you guys wanna group and try out [insert slightly more
>> difficult area with better treasure]?"

> That would depend entirely on the distances involved (time
> really), and the likelihood of finding the area at full capacity
> upon arrival.

There's a more interesting implicit assumption in here: 

  The world is repeatable.  One can return to an area or location
  and it will be much the same as it was the last time you were
  there.  Sure, details might be slightly different, an NPC
  might pop with slightly different stats and/or in a slightly
  different location, but in essence, it will be the same.

Should we really be encouraging that assumption?  Do we really want
to train users to automatically expect and then later demand that
this be true?

The usual assumption is that we can't create content as fast as the
punters will consume it and that repeatability is therefore cheap
and leveragable.  Is that necessarily true?

The driving reason for repeatability is so that players have (to
them) reasonable levels of predictability in the game world.  They
don't want to walk into a newbie area and be suddenly confronted by
Tiamat.  They want to have a sense that they know what sorts of
things will happen at any instant, that they have an idea what the
risks are, and that they have a reasonable ability to be prepared
and capable should that happen.  Players need to be introduced to
the world and its patterns, and that requires repetition as a basic
means of human practice and learning.  So we have static pops,
canned zones, newbie areas, and talking swords.  This scales into
the normal scenario of knowing that there will be an XXX somewhere
in zone YYY which will likely have some cool EQ, possibly a ZZZ.

Problem is, change is bad.  Problem is no change is even worse.

A side effect of this is static maps.  They provide a basic sense of
orientation for players.  They may not know what's going on or
really how to effectively play a given area, but they sure as heck
know that they are in XXX area and can valuably talk to others on
that basis.  

  "Hey guys!  I'm lost somewhere in Astoria!"

Carry this progression to its logical conclusion and we have a game
that is merely awaiting a sufficiently flexible macro to be
compleatly automated.

Paugh!

What happens if we drop both those models?  If we loose both the
concepts of static/canned maps and pre-defined area qualities
(newbie area, level N area, tough area, area with tough NPC, area
with EQ carrying NPC, area with good training NPCs, area with NPCs
that can be turned into pets, etc).

Perhaps the easiest way is by making the player populations
inherently nomadic.  Everything moves.  Perhaps players live in tent
cities and the cities are forced to move regularly by other game
conditions.

  Want a model?  Its a water world.  Everybody lives on rafts/ships.
  They sail about.  Lotsa game mechanic problems with that route
  tho.  Not insolvable, just messy for a scenario.

Or the Bedoin, Plains Indians, Mongols, early persians, <whatever>.

  To save on content generation costs and balancing we set it up so
  that they live in tent cities tend to move along pre-defined
  paths, and that along those paths are thematic areas as above.

Problem is it doesn't really change anything.  We're moving the
players about and not changing anything else.  We're only changing
vantage, not underlieing structure.

Can we make the world generally non-repeatable without destroying
player confidence?

We want to change things, often, but not so much that players feel
utterly disoriented or uninvested.  This is afterall their world.
If it really is theirs we shouldn't keep reminding them that we can
take it away from them (even if we can).

A common attack on repeatability is to implement various levels of
non-player ecologies and then rely on semi-autonomous/adaptive
systems to create interesting results around the players.

  Raph hit this with the early UO series and the observation that
  players didn't like it, or abused the system to the point that the
  ecology died (no deer left to breed).  A Tragedy of the Commons
  scenario.

This approach has the advantage that the specific instantiation of
an area can be dynamic, but the base map and thus gross physical
predictability remains constant.  Further, different areas have base
levels of <resource> and will thus tend to be populated with <type>
qualities for players.  This gives predictability for player types.

  Translation: We haven't actually changed anything, we've just
  muddied it about a bit.  We still have canned areas.  Its just
  that there's some randomity in the exact state at any instant. 

So what if we turn the tables and change the ecology to where it is
no longer subject to or a target of the players, but is an implicit
fact that the players are necessarily invested in, in a manner
consistent with normal play patterns.  We then keep the base
assignments (difficulty etc) within the areas the same, but change
the player value of the area per a greater and game-wide dynamism.

  No cow herding. No corn farming.  No long days spent digging rock
  hoping to find a shiny stone (and not finding it).  If players
  want to be heroes and champions, can that be wed into an ecology
  which removes constancy from the world without also killing player
  ability to predict basic patterns and to learn by repetition?

We're doing this already and not even noticing.  I'll leave figuring
out where and how as an exercise for the reader.  

  Challenge: Build an ecology that directly invests and involves the
  players.  Its not targeted at the players.  The players are not
  oppositional or consumers of the ecology, but are rather
  fundamental components of tjat are inherently manipulate that
  ecology through playing in the way they would normally play
  already.

ie: Don't fight them.  Just have them do more of that they are doing
already.

Which of course assumes an ecological attack.

Some musings:

Emil's various sided games are well known.  The Darkies and the
Whities are endemically opposed.  NPCs are largely irrelevant, but
the world is repeatable to the extent that, well, the Darkies are
always _there_, and the Whities are always *there*, they both always
start in their respective same places, and the war is perpetual.
the only thing that varies are the borders and the possessions
(stones/jewels) on each side.  

  Except the jewels are owned by individuals.

Could we change that usefully?

Tresca recently raised the example of Ivory Tower with its three
cities.  Consider that morphed in pure GoPish terms so that world is
now variable.  As landscape is expensive to gen (and distribute to
players) we'll leave that mostly alone (thus we have that level of
predictability and training./repeatability left for them).  What
we'll change is the political landscape and the level of extensive
predict players can have on what they'll individually encounter on a
given landscape.

  You have a world.  There are N sides.  Each side has their
  starting base which is more or less unassailably theirs.  

  Why unassailable?  It simplifies later mechanics and discussion.
  They don't need to be, and could easily be changed not to be.

For ease of reference I'll assume a three sided game and refer to
the two sides not mine as Darkies and Whities.  

  The game at a significant level is all about territory control.
  Each side struggles to conquer, hold, and defend its territory
  from the other sides.  The ability of the players on any one side
  is proportional (not necessarily simply or linearly) to the
  quantity of territory held by their side.

This is of course a standard positive feedback loop which will
result in one side starting to win and then rapidly running away
with the prize.  We'll balance that out later.

Literally the idea is that each player on a given side would benefit
or suffer, instantly, should their side conquer or lose a given land
mass.  Immediate feedback.  Significance of social networks and
feedback loops that encourage and build social evaluation.

  Bubba is an arse.  If he hadn't XXX we wouldn't have lost the
  Eastern Mountains.  Twit.

  Boffo is great.  He did YYY and got us the lower river reaches.
  He rocks.

Now to make it interesting and to devalue the positive feedback
loops.

  Make the benefits also proportional to the type of territory
  controlled.  Different territories have different values, and are
  therefore variously attractive.

Fairly simple, but still in the more-is-better monty-haul vein which
encourages linear progression, static inflation via hording,
run-away progressions.

  Say the <good_thing> of the players on a given side is controlled
  by the territory they own as a side.  This is not a simple
  equation of more is always better, but a question of types of
  territory and of conflicting territory types.  The players don't
  only want new territory, they want new territory that benefits
  them.

  Some territory also hurts them.  So they also want to get rid of
  some bits now and then as their needs develop.  Ocassionally
  they'll desperately want to offload some bit of territory.
  Sometimes the problem will be finding a sucker to take it.

We've now introduced resource allocation and balance.  We've still
got positive feedback loops, they're just tougher to balance but
remain prone to canned experimentally determined solutions.  Urk.

Let's model:

  The world is coloured.  Depending on the colour of what you own
  you get different benefits.  Problem is, some colours don't get
  along.  The other problem is that the land changes colour fairly
  regularly (and predictably).  Assume crayola colours.  Method of
  representation and presentation is up to you (perhaps a magic
  stone flashes appropriately when consulted).

Its going to require intelligence and dynamic calculation of the
area quality changes to both balance this out and attempt to flatten
the feedback loops.  Computing game balance is now also a bitch.
<sigh>

  Note: We don't want to kill the possibility of winning or to
  create endless detente, we just want to prevent run-away trains
  where it is obvious to all sides that one side is unstoppable.

  You have to work for your beans.

Players are now invested in the complexity and the fact of the
changes of colour.  It is important to them.  If they manage their
side's territories they can do more as players.  Territory feeds
their own personal BFGs, and that investment also results in their
side winning more.  

The fact that state changes over time forces active and continual
evaluation.  More specifically, they have to make decisions, and
they have to cooperate on those decisions.

  "Yeah, I could annex and conquer this Green Land, but that would
  nuke our Blue Advantage and I'll be easy pickings for the next
  Whitie that walked this way.  Then again this Blue stuff will be
  going Orange soon and that will boost our regen rates through the
  roof for a little while.  Pain now, gain later?  Could we hold it
  long enough to benefit?"

But the challenges are too big for individuals, and the same game
data is usually available to their opponents, who are also in a
position to make the same calculations for their side, and against
their opponents.

  "Damn, the Darkies just took all our Western Territories.  We're
  out of Green land.  No food!  Our best way back is to try and rip
  off the swamps from the Whities.  They're kinda weak over there,
  and by the time we do that the Swamps should starting to turn
  Brown giving us kick ass speed.  That will help us push the
  Darkies out of the Deep Mines.  The Hidden Fastness is losing its
  Brown so the Whities are about to be getting slow...  I can't do
  that alone tho, I'll need help.  Let's see who I can rustle up."

  "Hot damn!  The Darkies are really going to want the Ember
  Forests!  They're starting to turn Violet.  Wonder if I should
  help the Whities stop them instead?"

We've just built a stategist and general class, a value for campaign
leaders, and for the differentiation between tacticians and
stategists.  We've also build a physical base for effective politics
and political manipulation of holdings.

Now scatter in tokens which further mutate the territory map.  The
only real reason for this is to add non-player randomity and to vary
the realised value and timing of otherwise known variables (lands
and their colours).  More simply: They're cheap dynamism.  The
tokens will be time limited and will pop fairly randomly in hidden
(need to be found) locations.  The challenge is to find them, deploy
appropriately, and try and marry them into a strategy before they
crumble.

  "If we can get the swamp our Oracle says some sort of magical
  object should be popping there soon after it goes Blue.  If we can
  find that in time, which will be tough, we might even be able to
  push the Whities all the way back to their fortress!"

In-built requirements for cooperation and positive feedback loops to
encourage those that do.

Key assumption: Players think they want to play SuperQuake.  Let
them.  Encourage them.  Help them.  Also make being more than a
SuperQuake player more rewarding at being a SuperQuake player.

<shrug> Its basically a variation on the old model of the physical
world being the basic opponent for the players.

> That paradigm also encourages the mentality that its not worth
> logging on unless you have several hours free. Thats one of my
> peeves with EQ, unless I have about 5 hours free, its simply not
> worth logging on with my high level character.

What is your definition of "worth" for a play session?  What is the
basic metric of value which you measure and quantify to adjudge that
something was "worth it" or not?

Stat gain?  Major activity compleated (eg area, NPC hunt, whatever)?
Good social time?  Successfully compleated personally set goals
(which are)?

--
J C Lawrence                                       claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                          http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
The pressure to survive and rhetoric may make strange bedfellows
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