[MUD-Dev] New Bartle article

[johnbue at msn.com]

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Original message: http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2001Q1/msg01144.php

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 09:18:37 -0800 (PST)
"Richard A. Bartle" <richard at mud.co.uk> wrote:

> If the game's means of assigning power is such that anyone with time
> on their hands can get it, it dilutes the power of those who already
> have it. Acquisition of power then becomes more of a right than an
> honour.

I certainly agree with this.  In order to alter that balance, I
believe that you definitely have to permit player skill to have a
greater impact in gameplay. I'm not interested in pursuing that
approach, and that is undoubtedly the key difference between the
experiences that we're each trying to achieve for our players.

>> Players don't quit even when it's boring because the social element
>> of th games is predicated on staying with your social group in that
>> stratified structure.  The social element is obviously a big draw
>> to a multiplayer game.

> It is indeed.
 
> The danger that people who run games like this must face is that
> rather than lose players individually, they lose them as a mass. If
> one player leaves, they lose all their friends; if an entire guild
> leaves, they don't. This has happened before in games like Air
> Warrior, and it could happen again once there's enough of a choice
> of new places to go.  The trick is to make people who leave your
> game go off to play another one of your games rather than someone
> else's.

If an entire guild leaves and goes to a new game en mass that permits
them to continue to socialize in some cohesive way, sure.  My reply to
your 'trick' comment is that the single game world that you have
should be providing multiple experiences.  This provides players with
a very low barrier-to-entry in changing the game that they play.

I believe Ultima Online attempted this with their trades versus
combat.  My assertion is that each such game experience must be a
peer.  That is, each experience must be a very entertaining
experience, not just a bolt-on to the 'primary' experience.

>> If all players can't, then you're requiring player skill in order
>> to achieve.  While I believe that *some* player skill should be
>> involved, how much are you assuming?
 
> It depends on the game and what you're doing in it. If you're out
> there slaying monsters then you probably need mental skills so you
> can keep on top of the situation; if you're making clothes, you need
> creative skills so people who see them think they look good and buy
> them off you; if you're a merchant you need bartering or business
> skills; if you're a detective you need observational skills; if
> you're a bard you need social skills. I wouldn't advocate reliance
> on physical skills much because lag is too big a factor.

If we rely on player skill in order to enjoy the game experience, then
why would I go to the game world?  Why not use my skills in the real
world to do the actual tasks?  Is is simply the elimination of various
and sundry hassles such as not having to get physically tired from
swinging a sword, or not having to endure the tedium of stitching
clothes?  You seem to be trying to find a midpoint between the actual
doing in the real world with the real risks and rewards of the real
world versus EverQuest, where there is no risk and no real reward.
But your midpoint is far more towards reality than mine.  In my
parlance, you are pursuing a more hardcore gamer and I am pursuing a
more casual one.

>> Personally, I don't want to be overtaxed in my manual dexterity,
>> nor my brainpower.

> In that case, you should choose a role in the game where that's not
> going to be an issue.

Um, that's why I bought a *game*.  As I said, I tax myself mentally
and physically in the real world when I want to tax myself.  I play a
game when I want to alter the balance of risk/reward.  Or perhaps
effort/reward would be a better scale.

I'm sure you may be thinking of the extreme of effort/reward, where
there is essentially no effort and lots of reward.  Not unlike
visiting a movie.  You don't do anything, but you get a reward.  I'm
far more inclined to pursuing that end of the formula.  Because I want
to play casually.

>> Any anyone standing in the maze trying to decide left or right just
>> gets blown past by the returning powergamer.  The guy standing in
>> the maze wants to ask a question, but the powergamer is already
>> gone

> At least he DID go past you. If he never need visit the place again,
> you won't even see him. Not all people who come back ARE powergamers
> anyway, and some WILL help you. Even if they rush past, they'll spot
> you and come back and ask if you're OK.

I don't think I get your point at all.  Having someone in a hurry go
rushing past me doesn't enhance my experience.  I'm a pretty
altruistic guy, but when I'm trying to recover gains that were just
taken away from me, I get rather more rushed, and less inclined to
help somebody out.  In EverQuest, being killed and flung far from the
point of combat only means that I will run back to the point of combat
before I do pretty much anything.  It is a singleminded goal because
that's where my brain was.  Oh, I might cast a heal on somebody as I
run by, but I'm gonna get back to what I was doing.  This is the
powergaming mentality that I'm refering to.  The powergamer phenomenon
can be terribly exacerbated by the situations that players are placed
into.  I'm simply trying to pursue game constructs that don't
encourage players to powergame.

> Powergamers are a pain, I agree, but there are plenty of people who
> aren't powergamers.

Not by nature, but by circumstance they can become powergamers, per my
comments above.

>> And I submit that there are forms of entertainment in the game
>> world (spots in the maze) that are inherently dangerous to stand in
>> and could result in your death.
 
> Well the solution would be not to stand there, then.

I think you missed *my* point here.  I was refering to a model, not a
problem. It's perfectly acceptable that there be situations in the
game world that are dangerous to the player characters.

[All this talk about *player* death keeps glitching my brain]

>> Powergaming produces undesireable attitudes.

> It does if the game isn't deep enough that players can think of
> better ways to do what they have to do. If it's just a chore, yes,
> it can make everyone annoyed.

The 'chore' that I'm refering to is recovery of gains that have been
taken away.  Player response to such things seems to be to just work
through to get them back again.  And you suggested earlier that
players should be able to recover such gains in less time than their
first time around.

Making the game entertaining in the first place is a separate issue.
You are relying on leveraging player skill, while I am trying to rely
on leveraging character skill to keep providing entertainment to the
players.  As you say, it tends to burn through content pretty quickly.

>> The development of persona might happen in a more balanced,
>> introspective adult, but it's far less likely in children.  Right,
>> Tess?  ;)
 
> Teenagers are at a stage where they're trying to get a handle on
> their own identities. They're quite likely to try and push the
> envelope to see what they can do (although a lot of them do this by
> acting "evil" then laer trying to pass it off as role-playing when
> they find that it's not actually a very pleasant experience).

Yes, I've noticed this 'evil' pattern thing too.  Kids all want to be
bandit kings or thieves.  My big concern here is that they might be in
a world that doesn't structure things such that being a bandit or
thief isn't very rewarding.  Heck, I'm concerned about the whole idea
of advancement through killing - particularly other players'
characters.  But that's a whole other topic.

>> I won't have any high level characters because there aren't any in
>> my world (which doesn't exist, by the way).

> Well high-skilled, then, or well-kitted, or rich, or whatever else
> it has (or would have) for people to measure their relative
> success. Or wouldn't it have anything like that? If it didn't, I can
> see why PD might not be a concept you'd like to use.

You made mention that I'd be burning through game content quickly.
One of the ways of making content 'reuseable' is by presenting the
same content in multiple ways.  I want to develop a mechanism where
the player's view of the game world depends on the development of the
character's skills.  As a quick, rough example, consider the character
who acquires the 'thief' skill.  The player who is running that
character will be able to more easily detect 'wealth' on other
characters.  That is the thief's perception of the world.  Other
skills will provide other perceptions.

Don't ask me why I picked 'thief'.  I don't even want the derned
things.

>> Unfortunately, I'd only ask you to do that in a game where you
>> don't power up through achievement.
 
> So how do you power up then?

'Power up'?  You don't.  This is something that I'm almost
unthinkingly in opposition to now.  I don't want one character having
personal power in the sense that they can control other characters
(e.g. cause more damage) or avoid control by other characters
(e.g. have more hit points).  I simply want to let players cause their
characters to find entertainment and have the entertainment vary over
time.  The whole perception model thing is an example of this
approach.

> I get the feeling there are some other threads I should have been
> reaidng that I haven't...

I don't think so.  It's probably just my style of writing.

>> It's not supposed to be that big of a deal.  It's a simple time out
>> process to remind the player that they were pushing it in a game
>> where typically people aren't supposed to.

> You could do that with a big red sign filling their client's screen
> for 2 minutes.

As someone well versed in human psychology, you obviously will see the
differences between the two approaches.  I'm not going for *some*
reminder.  I'm after a specific kind of reminder that registers on the
player in a specific way.

>> We're talking about *such* different games.  Your target
>> experience/audience is not mine.

> I have a very wide target audience, but in my article I was talking
> mainly about the achievers.

Your comments in this thread have suggested that you are certainly
pursuing a different kind of game.  Unless you have plans of somehow
managing a segregation of experiences for your players that permits
casual players to coexist with more hardcore use-my-skills kinds of
players.

>> Temporarily it does.  Everyone sees it lying on the ground.  Seems
>> pretty dead.  For a number of days.  The only other alternative is
>> permanent death.

> You can't "temporarily" die. That's not death, it's something else.
> "I died for a couple of days, then I got better". No...

As I attempted to point out, even destruction of a character isn't
permanent death.  Only complete game ejection is permanent death.
Your comment about elimination of a given name from the game world is
a barrier, but not a complete one.  I use the character name Tormanth
in games (that I like), and if killed off, I'd then use Tormantth,
Tormmanth, etc.  Unless you're going to pursue phonetic comparisons
via soundex codes or something like that.  And even *then*, the player
can reconstruct the essence of the character - its personality, which
always survives because it lies with the player.

Unless we want to pursue real player death :)

>> You misunderstand my point.  There is no thousands of gold.  There
>> is no Sword of Doom to be had.  The entertainment of the hunt is
>> your reward.
 
> So you have nothing to show for it?

> I can see where you're coming from, and there may well be a whole
> slew of touchy-feeling community idealist types who would play it,
> but it takes far too much away from the individual for my liking.

LOL.  Yes, I'm trying to make Teletubbies Online  :)

I suppose it all boils down to what sort of a reaction we're trying to
get from our players, as well as the sorts of players we're trying to
attract.  As I've said, we're interested in different experiences for
different players.

> By barring all traditional methods of rating achievement, you either
> remove all achievers or the achievers you do get use other means of
> achieving, eg. trying to lead parties (where the other players are
> components that will help you to satisfy your overall goal). Either
> way, I don't see the game (if you can call it a game) having a great
> future.  It would eat up content at a phenominal rate.

Achievement is the only viable form of entertainment?  I know you
don't believe that, but your comments certainly suggest such a
thought.

The most popular entertainment in existence is passive.  Books,
television, movies, etc.  I see no reason to believe that achievement
need be an integral part of an entertaining game experience.  As you
suggest, content *will* be chewed up at a huge rate.  Which means that
the game world must provide great depth of experience or be very
dynamic.  Or both, of course.

>> At no time were we interested in gain of power or possessions.  It
>> was just fun.

> Well I suppose so. I just feel it could have been so much MORE fun.

Where do we draw the line on the pursuit of fun?  Are there lines that
shouldn't be crossed because of the effects of that much fun on the
player?  Can we have too much fun?

Those are really rhetorical questions to illustrate what I'm thinking
about in that area.  There is no answer, although opinions abound.

>> In a world like that, denial of fun is sufficient reminder of
>> particularly lethal situations.
 
> In a game like that, without power or possessions, PD would just be
> equivalent to a teleport to wherever you start, because in all other
> respects your dead character and the new one are the same. I can see
> why, in these circumstances, you prefer a login block.

I want the player to have a sense of having invested in their
character.  I'm accomplishing this by altering the game experience
through that character.  Your use of the term 'power' may not be my
use.  Similarly for possessions.  I want a character to be developing
a mental map of the world as it experiences it.  That is both power
and a possession.  But it is not the power of control over other
characters, nor is it a possession that permits me to damage other
characters. As with *all* things, it can be used to pursue those ends,
but it is not inherent in its nature.  More hit points and the ability
to dole out more damage are predicated in these pursuits.

>> I don't think my (mythical) players would care for the destruction
>> of their character.  It's not entertaining at all.

> No, but the destruction of OTHER people's characters can be. It's
> just not a great deal of fun when it's you it happens to.

Um, that strikes me as a little bit nutty.  It's no fun for me to get
whacked, but it's fun to do it to other people, who probably feel the
same way that I do?  So I am immediately finding my entertainment by
committing grief upon other players.  This is the sort of formula that
I'm specifically trying to avoid.

>> Unless there is near-zero value in any given character
>> (e.g. Quake), then I assume that players want to hang on to the one
>> that they created.

> So where is the value in a character in your scheme, then?

I hope that my comments about perceptions and character knowledge have
indicated the general direction I want to take.

> Or he may decide to play a completely new persona because he now
> realises that the old one was becoming no fun to play. Or he may
> start again intending to play like his old character but find
> himself going in different directions. Or he might do the same
> things but not powergame because he wants to enjoy the view on the
> way.

Or he may find that the social group that he was travelling with
encouraged him into a certain mold and that social position remains
intact.  Certainly a player can follow a different path, but there was
a reason that he was in the original path in the first place.  In my
world, I want to permit characters to morph over time to fit the exact
spot that the player wanted.  So there are no mistakes of choosing the
wrong class or the wrong race.  You are playing the game as you
intended to.  If you wanted to change your mind, you change your mind
and you change your character.  Discarding the exact character that
you were after makes no sense to me.

In an environment where there are irrevocable decisions that go into
character definition, I can see character destruction being almost a
godsend at times.

JB
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