[MUD-Dev] Natural Selection and Communities

[John Buehler]

Raph Koster writes:
> From: John Buehler
>> Matt Mihaly writes:
>>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, John Buehler wrote:

>> The only structures that ever evolved in the graphical games that
>> I've seen are the ones that the games directly supported.
>> Asheron's Call had monarchies because they were directly
>> supported.  EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot had guilds because
>> they were directly supported.

> UO had guilds when they were NOT directly supported. The game
> launched without any sort of guild support. Players used the
> ability to dye clothing to make uniforms for guilds, and they
> *started their characters over* with names that had the guildname
> added at the end--membership was literally a lifetime deal,
> irrevocable for that character. And they developed rituals
> (lighting candles to induct people, etc) and so on.

> Eventually, we added guilds, and players started their characters
> over yet again, without the guild tags on the end. In fact, we
> adopted the guild tag concept the players had developed and made
> it part of the system.

Without dying clothes, guilds would not be supported.  Without the
ability to pick their own names, guilds would not be supported.
Without lighted candles, guilds would not be supported.  The groups
that claimed to be orcs were not supported because players could not
present their characters as orcs.  To those who were not 'educated'
on the guild being orcs, they were just aggressive humans.  Distinct
visual elements support the notion of group identity because it can
be shared.  This is something that a game does to support the guild
notion.

But a guild identity is just a group identity.  It can be held
without even being demonstrated.  If I get together with everyone
else who likes to leave the city at 4pm each day, we have an
identity purely as a result of our actions.  That identity only
exists because we *can* leave the city at 4pm each day.  If there
was a ritual involved that lasted for some 10 minutes at the games
of the city where we don equipment and prepare ourselves for a trip,
there's a greater sense of identity associated with leaving the
city.  If the city gates are only open for half an hour each day,
then that is further game support for a sense of identity.  And so
on.

Games very definitely control the identities that players have
within a game.  Where the impetus for structure does not exist, the
structures will not form.  A group identity is about as primitive as
one can get.  Group identities will form even in games that don't
directly support them.  But you can believe that guilds are *far*
more visible and active as a result of direct support by the games.
Asheron's Call doesn't have guilds.  It has monarchies.  But
monarchies can support a guild structure by just having a one-level
monarchy.  Why is it that Asheron's Call doesn't have guilds?
Because it supports monarchies.  There are *reasons* to get into the
monarchy structure.

At the same time, Asheron's Call implemented groups.  Every game
worth its salt implements groups.  It makes things so much simpler,
right?  Well, even though it implemented groups, the *reasons* for
being in a group aren't nearly as strong in Asheron's Call as they
are in a game like EverQuest or Asheron's Call.  So groups weren't
de rigeur in Asheron's Call.

Direct support for structures means far more than just coding up
constructs that say 'such and such a structure now exists'.  It
means having all the stuff in the game that causes players to want
to organize into those structures.  Asheron's Call is a perfect
example of both creating a structure by supporting it with reasons
and creating a structure which had little reason behind it.

JB


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