"Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs)

Fri Feb 15 07:58:07 CET 2002

On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Ola Fosheim [iso-8859-1] Gr=F8stad wrote:
> Matt Mihaly wrote:

I agree with that, yep.

>> I'm also not sure why you think a big political game =3D getting
>> the entire server killed off. Politics are quite important in
>> Achaea, and a political leader killing the server population off
>> isn't possible.

> Political game built on top of free form PvP is difficult to
> balance without intervention by the system or the admins.

What do you mean by free-form? Do you mean free-form as in the MUSH
kind of free-form PK, where it basically has to be consensual? Or do
you mean free-form as in you're provided with tools, and there are
not a lot of restrictions on the use of those tools to negatively
affect other players?

I don't have much experience with the former, but I can't imagine it
working out in a competitive environment. Achaea is the latter and
yes, it takes intervention by either the system or the admins but
that's just part of running a game.

>> Political games are also, I would say, extremely ill-suited for
>> roleplaying, becuase no one wants to roleplay someone stupid and
>> no one can roleplay someone more competent than they themselves
>> are.

> Many people enjoy roleplaying a stupid character. I can indeed
> project the image of someone competent and clever. Or adopt the
> feeling of being clever. Or trying to get the response from other
> people that suggest cleverness. If you are clever within your clan
> (of roleplayers) then you are per definition clever in that
> context even if the rest of the world perceive you as stupid.

Yeah, I should have been more clear. No one wants to handicap
himself when he or she is trying to be competitive (well, there may
be the odd person that does, but nearly nobody is willing to do so
in a really competitive environment). The most amusing roleplayer
I've seen in the last couple of years was someone pretending to be a
dumb, but eager-like-a-puppy troll.

> The problem with competition isn't that it is in conflict with
> roleplay, but that it attracts a type of players that will talk
> about mechanics and generally not be stimulating for RPers.

Well, that's not at all my experience, at least. Using physical
world politics as an analogy, the political system attracts people
who are prone to corruption, but it also helps to corrupt in and of
itself. It does this because it is so incredibly competitive. People
start sacrificing values to 'win', perhaps justifying it in the name
of "Well, I'll do a better job, if I can just win first." It's the
same with roleplaying in a competitive game. The system itself
exerts a downward pressure, and as more participants enter the
system, the carrot becomes larger, and the pressure to win at any
cost becomes larger.

I've seen it happen to great roleplayers. In fact, about 8 months
ago, we had a really tragic (for me) incident in Achaea where this
exact thing happened. Our best roleplayer, and a guy I had met at an
Achaea meet and really bonded with, was on the verge of being
offered an immortalhood or the opportunity to found a roleplay
council within Achaea. Almost everybody in the game, even his
enemies, respected him, because he was such an excellent
roleplayer. However, we then discovered that his winning entry in
the monthly Bardic contest had been plagiarized from a Pulitzer
Prize winning author. As one of the players discovered that it had
been borrowed (with some changes, but it was clearly a rip-off), we
didn't have a choice but to follow through with the promised
punishment, a permanent shrubbing.

I talked to the guy over e-mail before I condemned him, and asked
him why the hell he would do that. I was really really
disappointed. He was such a quality player. His reason (paraphrased)
was, "The competition got to me. I felt like I could do more for
Achaea by winning than anyone else could, so I justified it to
myself that way."

He didn't break roleplay to do it, but roleplay can be considered a
'value' like honesty. It takes work to stick to it, and it's often
easier, in straight achievement terms, to discard it. As the
competitive pressure mounts, more and more people will start
cheating on their values. It's a shame, but it's a nearly universal
phenomenon, as far as I can observe at least.

So yeah, I agree that PvP games do attract a larger percentage of
people not interested in roleplaying. At the same time though, as
PvP of any kind (not just combat) tends to be much more competitive
than PvE, the system itself makes it harder for people to stay true
to their roleplaying ideals.

>> No offence, but do you actually play any PvP MUDs seriously? They
>> are -not- well-suited for roleplaying, because they get so
>> incredibly competitive. The only MUDs I've played since about
>> 1994

> I currently only play EQ non-pvp, AO almost-non-pvp, but the
> problem isn't PvP but the players PvP tend to
> attract. I.e. players that don't talk and if they do it is either
> smack-talk or mechanics. However, the ability to affect is an
> asset for RP, might consider limited PvP (one kill per month) .

Remember that combat is merely one type of PvP. Turning on
playerkilling in EQ doesn't really make it a PvP game. It's still
fundamentally a loot and level game, but now it has player-killing.

>> I have nothing against roleplaying, by the way, and enjoy doing
>> it myself sometimes. I just see no reason at all to classify it
>> as a more advanced form of play.

> And I see no reason to object to such a characteristic.  Which in
> fact is what has happened here, isn't it?  Until proven wrong I
> simply assume that RP can add to and amplify the experience of any
> kind of playstyle.  Thus is a higher level of sophistication. I
> want to see the counter arguments...

Well, I'd agree that it can add to or amplify many game experiences,
but that isn't the same thing as saying it is a more sophisticated
mode of play. 2 can be added onto any number to get a larger one,
but that doesn't mean it's larger than the number it was added
onto. That's not a great analogy, but maybe you see what I mean? 
(Sorry, it's late.)

--matt

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