[MUD-Dev] Natural Selection and Communities

[Paul Schwanz]

I'm very much in favor of the recent move toward more community
focus in MMORPGs.  However, I'm not sure that the full potential of
communities can be realized unless and until they are given more
freedom and tools to help them define themselves in unique ways.
Where there is more variation, I believe there is much more
potential for natural selection among communities.

For example, I recently participated in a discussion regarding
eminent domain laws in player-owned cities in an MMORPG currently in
development.  This is the first time I've seen ED debated, but in
many ways, I feel like I've participated in the same exact
discussion on many, many occasions.

One group was concerned that the city leader would use ED as a form
of grief, kicking a peaceful, law-abiding crafter out of a prime
location so that the city-leader's buddy could set up shop.  Another
group was concerned that, without ED, an individual could grief the
entire community by blocking a municipal building.  Some thought
that ED would be acceptable if a citizen majority voted for it,
while others thought that the mayor already was accountable to the
citizens through election, so he should be able to enact ED without
all the red tape.  One poster thought that ED would be OK as long as
the city paid three times what the property was worth, while another
thought that was unreasonable.

The thing that surprised me, however, was that not one poster or dev
member hinted at any sort of solution for ED other than a global
one.  It was universally assumed that whatever form ED took, it
would in fact be universal.  But here is where I think we miss a
great opportunity.

Why not let the player-run cities each decide for themselves what
form ED will take?

Could not all of the above options be included in the charter/city
creation interface?  When the city is formed, let the founders
decide which implementation will be best (with the possibility to
change the charter at a later date through citizen vote...or not).
This will then give players the freedom to choose from among a
number of different possible implementations the approach they
believe best addresses their own concerns.  Variation, along with
the natural, player-choice selection mechanism, will cause the most
fit implementations to thrive and the least fit implementations to
wither away.

ED is only one such issue, though.  As I mentioned before, it seemed
to me that the ED discussion was very typical.  There are many other
issues that I believe are best addressed at the community, not the
global level.  If I don't like the community's implementation, I can
find another community within the same MMORPG, but if I don't like
the global implementation, I must look outside of the current MMORPG
if I am to find the community that fits me.  I don't think we should
underestimate just how much the rules of the community affect its
character.

If you then design so that community growth leads to increased
opportunities for individual success, won't this create an even
stronger selection mechanism?  In other words, the community is even
more motivated to structure gameplay such that the community will
grow if it knows that 200 more citizens will mean that the city will
attract better NPC trainers, will be allowed to build better
municipal buildings, will be able to expand its borders, etc.

I don't doubt that building this sort of flexibility into
communities will require more effort and resources for designing and
coding the game, but it seems to me that the benefits would vastly
outweigh the costs.

Or am I just not seeing the whole picture here?

--Phinehas


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