[MUD-Dev] Community Goals (was: I Want to Forge Swords.)

[Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services]

<EdNote: Multi-hundred column margins fixed>

Jeff Freeman wrote:
>> From: Auli [mailto:auli at bellsouth.net]

>> Does anyone think a midevil economic simulator is a good idea as
>> the primary focus for a MMOG?

> Yes, sort of.  I think a town-building simulator is a good idea as
> the primary focus for a MMOG, with cooperative adventuring as a
> secondary activity (rather than the other way around).  I think
> tradeskills and the like would have to be a lot higher up on the
> scale of "what's important" in a game in which the primary focus was
> to build a community.  But, I think it's a very good idea for a MMOG
> (or even just a MOG), since "building community" is the fundamental
> purpose of these games, IMO, regardless of design.

> I'd like to see a game designed from the ground-up to facilitate
> groups of players moving into an area, settling it with shops and
> homes, governing and defending their community, with monster-bashing
> as a secondary activity - just something "thrown in" for the benefit
> of the community's craftsmen rather than, as we have now, the
> opposite situation: Where crafting skills are (at best) tossed-in as
> an afterthought, and primarily just used for the benefit of
> adventurers (and with community-oriented tools left-out altogether,
> generally).  Where the goal of the game was to "level-up" from
> outpost, to settlement, to village, to town, to city - rather than
> the goal being to level-up individually from peasant to demi-god.
> Instead of promising housing will be added some day in an expansion,
> maybe a game that promises monster-bashing will be added some day in
> an expansion. :P

I think there is a great game in there.  Perhaps you could give the
ability to move beyond a city to a province and eventually an empire.

It strikes me that in multi-player games so many of our goals are
still individualistic.  For the most part, players are encouraged to
pursue the same kinds of things they would in a single-player game.  I
don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think we are
missing an opportunity to realize the full potential of multi-player
games when we don't implement goals that are more community centered,
especially given our knowledge of how community affects
retention. This is what multi-player has to offer that single-player
cannot.

The "level-up" your community idea is a perfect way to implement
community goals.  Imagine adding to the normal individualistic
pursuits of health, wealth, information, and power the community
pursuits of security, prosperity, culture, and (technological?) 
advancement.

So you want to level your community from an outpost to a settlement?
Well then, you need to ensure that your citizens don't die a lot.
What will this mean?  Keep the roads clear of bandits and monsters.
Control access to your outpost and keep out undesirables.  Be prepared
to defend your outpost from invading forces.  If there is a benefit to
the entire community in leveling to a settlement (opportunity to build
better facilities, etc.) then there is finally an incentive for PEACE
in an MMORPG.

But that is just security.  You might also have prosperity goals.
Perhaps you need to ensure that a certain minimum set of goods is
available to your citizens.  Do you trade for these goods?  Do you
help your craftsmen to produce them locally?  How do you balance your
security goals with the need for freedom to commerce?  And of course,
building wonderful works of art, training and education facilities,
entertainment facilities and the like could be needed to increase your
culture and technological advancement.

To make things even more interesting, perhaps you could let each
community customize their own goals.  Perhaps you have 5 'sliders' for
security, prosperity, culture, technology, and population.  The
community can decide what kind of place it would like to be by
adjusting the sliders, but lowering one requirement automatically
raises the others.  This way, you could found a sort of 'thieves den'
if you wanted.  The local constablary tends to look the other way, so
it is a 'visitor beware' sort of place, but in order to advance to the
next level, this sort of outpost might have to meet much more
challenging population goals.

Along the same line of thought, elsewhere, I've discussed the use of
'community items' in multi-player games.

In current MMORPGs, powerful items really only come in one flavor: the
item makes the individual that equips it more powerful or perhaps more
unique.  EQ has demonstrated that this type of item is an effective
"carrot" for players, so I certainly wouldn't propose removing these
from your game.  However, I'd like to introduce a possible new flavor
for powerful items.  I call this new flavor community items, to
distinguish them from the normal individualistic items.

Contrast the two different possible flavors:

Lets take the example of a possible old-style individualistic item
like a Sword of Titan Strength.  Suppose that the SoTS gives +100 STR
to the person that equips it.  This is a very powerful item, but the
scope of individuals who are interested in the SoTS is pretty small.

In a PvE situation, the SoTS is really only interesting to the person
who has it equipped.  "Kewl. I can now kill a frost dragon with only
two swings of my new sword."  In a PvP situation, the SoTS also
becomes interesting to the person facing the one who has it equipped,
but obviously with much more negative connotations.  Perhaps the SoTS
is slightly interesting to other friends or travelling companions of
the lucky owner, but in a much different way.

In fact the only way that others can really be interested in the SoTS
is if they can somehow get one themselves.  So, most MMORPGs respawn
the SoTS many different times so that a much larger percentage of the
gaming community can share in its interest.  But this has a sort of
'item inflation' effect in that as more individuals get a SoTS, it
tends to lose much of its attraction.  Once a certain percentage of
the population has one, the developers then must create the Sword of
Mega-Titan Strength with +200 STR.

As long as items remain individualistic, there really are not many
options in the approach you take.  You could only make just one SoTS,
but this will mean that only one of your players really gets to enjoy
it.  I suppose you could let others try to kill that player and loot
his corpse, but this will likely lead to some very ascerbic customer
complaints.

So what is a developer to do?

What if, instead of the Sword of Titan Strength, you created the
Statuette of Titan Strength.  Suppose this statuette is too large to
be lifted or equipped by an individual.  It still gives +100 STR, but
instead of giving this to one individual who equips it, when the
statuette is placed in a zone, city, etc., it spreads that +100 STR
evenly across the area to all friendly characters or citizens.

Basically, we've taken the same exact item, but increased the scope of
its interest.  The statuette is very interesting to all friendly
characters in that area, whether PvE or PvP oriented.  It is possibly
even interesting to those who are just doing trade skills, depending
on how trade skills are implemented.

Since the statuette's scope is not as limited, it is more reasonable
to just have one.  It can be a truly unique item.  And, the item
passing from one faction's possession to another will be much more
acceptable.  It is a community item, probably seen much in the same
way as a disputed resource areas or the land itself.  Players will
expect it to be a target of invasion.  Its theft will not be taken as
personally.  Although the community might be outraged, I suspect that
even this will be perceived as more IC, perhaps working to build
stronger bonds within the sub-community.  As the item changes hands,
it becomes more and more interesting, fostering stories about its
past.  Its ability to be an interesting item to many people over a
long period of time is exponentially greater than the sword's.

I imagine that there are thousands of community items that could be
put into a game.  Not only could powerful individualistic items be
reshaped to be more community focused, but also, there are additional
options for community items.  Some might influence the weather in a
particular area, making crops grow faster, or effecting the quaility
of a created item.  Perhaps some community items work in concert with
others.  Some items might boost the 'power' of other items.  Some
might actually require that a number of different components be
discovered and assembled before the benefit was realized.  Other
community items could have negative consequences as well.  That
Fountain of Humidity might increase rainfall for a server, making
crops grow faster, but also causing wooden structures to decay much
quicker.  Or for some reason, the Great Orb of Fire seems to help
blacksmiths finish projects in less time, but now we've noticed that
the Fountain of Humidity isn't quite as effective !  !  as it used to
be.

Community items could target certain sections of the game.  In fact, a
whole sub-system of the game could be centered around a type of
community item.  Consider a system for priestly magic that was based
on community items.  Perhaps each 'spell' is tied to iconoclasts or
religious relics.  If your faction holds a particular icon in its
temple, your priests can cast the spell associated with it.  Maybe
there are 20 icons for a less powerful spell like a 'Lesser Heal,' but
only 5 'Turn Undead' relics, and only one 'Holy Hand Grenade' relic.
The way to increase the number of spells your priests can throw now
involves questing for these relics, or if all have been found,
obtaining a relic through negotiation or even war.

The basic concept is this: Increase the scope of an items influence
and and you will increase its interest.  Instead of having only
individualistic items that affects ONE character, often to a very
large degree, have community items that affect MANY characters, but
often to a much lesser degree.  Incidentally, even something as simple
as a city wall could fall into this category, since it can affect MANY
characters.  In my mind, we need lots of this sort of thing.  Really,
the items we have in MMORPGs are simply carry-over items from
single-player RPGs.  Multi-player RPGs are different.  We're just
starting to figure this out.  It is time to have items that make sense
in multi-player games.  As far as I know, Mythic Entertainment is the
only developer out there currently considering this.  They have Relics
in DAoC that the three different warring factions try to obtain.  If I
recall correctly, there are only three Relics, though, and each has
quite a bit of power.  I see a la!  !  rge gap in between this
approach and the individualistic items in other games.  A gap that
could be filled by all sorts of community items, with varying levels
of power, and affecting different sized sub-communities in the game.

As far as I can tell, there is really only one thing to consider:
BALANCE.

First of all, let me state again my philosophy of game balance.
Imbalances can actually bring a 'dynamic theme' to a game. The
important thing is that these imbalances do not lead to permanent
superiority. What we term 'unbalanced' really just refers to a dynamic
game situation in which players are not given the ability to address
changes. On the other hand, what we laud as 'dynamic' is simply an
unbalanced game situation in which players are given the ability to
address imbalances. Giving players the ability to address imbalances
is about giving them control.

Personally, I think that if having only three very powerful items
doesn't lead to game imbalances, then having hundreds of items that
are much less powerful is even less likely to cause imbalances.
Nonetheless, I would think that you could reduce balance concerns by:
1) reducing an item's scope of influence, 2) reducing an item's
benefits, 3) causing an item to distribute evenly from a 'pool' of
benefits so that more participants automatically dilute the influence,
4) tying negative influences to items as well as positive, 5)
'inflating' an items influence by having more of its type available,
6) making it more difficult to control the scope of influence, or 7)
any combination of the above.  There are probably additional methods
available, but this list will do for a start.

Anyway, I've just been thinking a bit lately abut the appeal of
multi-player games and what makes them unique.  It seems to me that
more community centered goals could help make multi-player games seem
more multi-player and less like a congregation of individuals playing
their own game.  Your post just sort of triggered some of these
thoughts.

--Phinehas

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