FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[John Buehler]

Matt Mihaly writes:

>> As I said in another post, the player doesn't get to know that the
>> password is "Porkmelon".  This is why I don't damage the suspension
>> of disbelief.

> No, you don't damage it, you wreck the suspension of
> disbelief. Characters communicate. To pretend they don't, or that
> they can't communicate useful knowledge is what is unbelievable.

Matt, if there are two people on the planet who are incapable of
communicating with each other, it's you and me.

Characters do NOT communicate.  We rely on suspension of disbelief in
order to act like they do.  Players are communicating, and that is the
essential problem here.  Because players communicate, they can rely on
many venues to communicate, not just through their characters.  When
players communicate, it permits their characters to act as if they
have knowledge that clearly has not been presented to them in the game
world.  That damages my ability to suspend disbelief.

What I'm trying to add to the game is a case where two characters
actually communicate.  The characters actually know what they're
talking about.  Because software techniques are so primitive, I have
to rely on a dedicated mechanism.  Some here have mentioned a special
command, others an in-game token.  In any case, the intent is to keep
in-game knowledge in the game world.

>> Paul's inclusion of the topic of character skills is the perfect
>> illustration of this point.  My character knows how to use Kung Fu
>> moves, but I, as a player, don't have a clue.  As you seem to be
>> supporting with your own example, if I the player know Kung Fu, it
>> > doesn't do me any good in the game world because my character has
>> to learn the moves.  And it learns it from another character via
>> in-game mechanisms.  I cannot simply go to another player and find
>> out how to use Kung Fu.

> You're just not understanding. My example was about characters, not
> players. The characters were talking to each other. That's why it
> said "Bob says" rather than "Bob's player says". Again, characters
> talk to each other. We're talking about worlds, not simultaneous
> one-player games.

Matt, you are absolutely right.  Your example is about characters and
the characters are actually receiving the text messages from each
other.  The characters are 'communicating'.  That's great, and follows
the in-game genre perfectly well.  It requires a suspension of
disbelief to believe that it is the characters communicating, but
that's okay.  It's part of the genre.

Now for MY point.  My point is that if we ignore the fact that we are
disbelieving the communication mechanism, we have to acknowledge that
there are out of game mechanisms that accomplish the same
communication.  And that's because the players are in fact the ones
communicating and not the characters.  Because of this reality, a
character CAN know things because its player knows them.  And if
things like passwords can be known to players, then they can be
transferred in venues other than the game world.  This damages MY
ability to suspend disbelief because I will witness things in the game
world that just can't happen.

We are talking about two sides to the same coin.

The mechanism that I'm talking about is intended to require the
transfer of information in the game.  I don't let the players know
that the password is Porkmelon.  They cannot use the word in
conversation because they don't know what it is.  They can only do the
in-game action that transfers the in-game knowledge between
characters.  I require the characters to communicate, while you only
permit characters to communicate in a way that also permits players to
communicate.  I'm happy with the first part of your approach and would
be content if players limited themselves to it.  But they don't.  As
soon as players know a secret, they communicate it to all other
players - not through their characters.

>> This is the analagous situation with all character knowledge, be it
>> skills, recipes or passwords.  The information is kept in the game
>> context and is communicated in the game context.  I don't walk my
>> character up to another character and start talking about Kung Fu
>> moves, resulting in that character being able to do Kung Fu.  No
>> more than I'd walk my character up and talk about passwords and
>> have that other character know the password.  The use of 'say' is a
>> player to player communication mechanism.  The characters
>> themselves don't understand any of what is said.  The difference
>> with 'say' is that it is governed by game context rules -
>> specificially, how far away a character is from the speaking
>> character.

> OH, I see what you're saying. So characters can't communicate with
> each other? Talk about the necessity for suspension of disbelief!

> For someone who is so concerned about roleplay, it seems odd that
> you'd not let characters roleplay with each other. All roleplay
> involves communication, and if there is communication between
> characters, then information such as the password can be passed.

> Once again, I'll just make the observation that for someone
> concerned about not attracting the hardcore gamer, you seem to be
> doing everything possible to ensure that the ultra-hardcore
> roleplayer is the only type of player you'll attract.

As I said, we don't communicate very well.

1. I am not a roleplayer.  In fact, I'm fairly lousy at it.  I don't
have the energy or the interest for roleplaying.  I am primarily a
casual explorer/socializer, thus my stated interest in a game that
focuses on such players.  When I think about roleplaying, my foremost
concern is not ruining the ability of players to suspend their
disbelief.  Characters that talk about hit points, damage ratings,
game bugs and the like ruin my ability to suspend my disbelief of the
game world's fantasy.

2. I am not interesting in attracting hardcore roleplayers.  My
comment about the 'ideal' of having a roleplayer run your character
for you was simply a continuation of what these game already do.  They
give you a character that operates according to the rules of the game
world.  You can only jump so high, move so fast, hit so hard, carry so
much, etc.  Those are all physical limitations and software is pretty
good at modeling such things.  Behavioral limitations could only be
handled by having an actual human actor doing the character control.
So I presented it that way.  My point is that the game is already
handling a certain degree of in-genre activity for you, and future
games will provide even greater possibilities.  The resulting roleplay
would always be the roleplay that you'd like to have - so long as it
remains in-genre.  When a character acts out of genre, it detracts
from the ability of other players to suspend their disbelief.  If the
genre is chaos, then any behavior is permitted.  If it is a world
where Thee and Thou are the way people talk, then all characters would
talk that way.  It is the actors that would provide that ability.  *I*
am not roleplaying, any more than *I* am running along a path in the
woods.  I'd be happy if my character did both.

3. I'm interested in avoiding players 'gaming' the game.  My attempts
to avoid hardcore players reflect this.  I'm interested in players who
are interested in enjoying the experience that the game world provides
and ignoring how it works - or treating the game software like a
puzzle to be cracked.  That has nothing to do with being in-genre, so
I attempt to discourage it.  What's the point of claiming that you
provide the experience of a fantasy world if you can't actually
deliver on it?  Hardcore players can deal with almost anything because
they have such a huge willingness to work to enjoy the game.  Casual
players are far less willing to be abruptly jarred by various
out-of-genre actions.  Having other players 'gaming' the game by using
web sites to disseminate information contributes to that set of
actions.

If players wouldn't game the game, I'd just let the players know the
passwords and communicate them to each other through their characters.
As I've said, that isn't what happens.  The downside to that fact
results in effects that I want to remove from the player's experience
in the game world.

JB

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