[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Michael Tresca]

Dave Rickey posted on Saturday, January 12, 2002 1:30 PM
>From: "Michael Tresca" <talien at toast.net>
>> Freeman, Jeff posted on Thursday, January 03, 2002 7:13 PM

<snip>

>> This goes back to having a chat line (ICQ, AIM) within the game,
>> as well as the ability to create social groups.  Players do it
>> ANYWAY.  It's not a secret.  No MMORPG should be without those
>> basic social supports that players create on their own.  By
>> keeping it in the game, it keeps the social group online, which
>> is of course part of retention.

> DAoC has chat support, including special channels for Guilds.  I
> agree that more closely binding the social structures into the
> game is a good idea, but my reasons are nefarious: The more
> closely bound the social structure is to the game, the less
> portable it is.  However, the community that is formed is
> independant of the game structure by nature, and if you bind it to
> the game you have to bind it in the form it would have taken
> *anyway*.  Dictate what form it should take, and communities that
> can't sustain that form simply won't exist.

Agreed and agreed.

>>> One of AC's core systems was designed to foster the creation of
>>> social groups.  I don't know how well it worked in practice, but
>>> I know the developers thought that important enough to make it a
>>> key component of their game.

>> Ah yes, the fabled pyramid game.  I won't go into here because I
>> haven't personally experienced it.  It does foster social groups,
>> so in the context of the discussion, I agree.

> Actually, I would point to AC's Allegiance system as an example of
> what *not* to do.  By trying to impose a particular form on the
> community, it actually stunted the natural community growth and
> weakened the social groupings.

I don't have personal experience with it to be able to comment on it
in depth.  I do know three players who are at the upper echelon of
their Allegiance.  It created something that sounds suspiciously
like work and having a boss (who makes money off of you) so I don't
find it personally appealing.

>> Yes.  I believe MMORPGs set the tone of the game.  If it's a hand
>> off setting with a level-based system, which by its nature
>> generates competition (in effect, trying to be higher level than
>> anyone else) or if it allows PK (directly conflict between
>> players), these settings discourage social groups as a
>> cooperative effort.  More likely, it turns into "soloers" trying
>> to get ahead.

> We could write a book on this point alone.  What it comes down to
> is that if group activities are more efficient means of
> accomplishing the goals, groups form.  The classic
> Tank/Nuker/Healer dependance triad is the simplest form of this.

Sure, let's write a book! :)

>> However, I believe a lot of MMORPGs were not designed with any
>> particular philosophy in mind (I imagine this changed with DAoC,
>> though). That is, there's the general assumption that players
>> will just "work it out."  They won't work it out.  A stable
>> social system doesn't just start on a new game, it has to be
>> cultivated first, then the social supporters reinforce the
>> positive behavior and pass it on to newcomers, even as older
>> players leave.  This ensures a more stable social environment.
>> Throw in a million people, give them all virtual bodies they can
>> toss away at a moment's notice, and a point system for them to
>> accumulate power by killing things...well now you're just asking
>> for trouble.

> Okay, major conceptual break here.  You see, players *will* just
> "work it out", what they will work out depends on the challenge
> that is presented to them.  Social grouping is an emergent
> phenomenon, each individual in the grouping is not participating
> in the social grouping because he likes the other people in the
> grouping, he's participating because he has some goal he is
> pursuing that he needs the other people to achieve.  He may
> actively dislike the other members (as in some EQ "UberGuilds").

> In fact, you *need* to let the players just work it out, they'll
> find a better solution than you could.

I disagree.  Players will work it out, absolutely.  Their way.
Their game.  However they want.

Let me stress this: early adopters are NOT necessarily the people
you want establishing the tone of your game.

This is VERY significant.  Early adopters may be twinks, they may be
goofballs, they may be whatever -- but if you do not make any effort
to help shape your cultural environment, early adopters shape it for
you.  Get the wrong "community hopping" from say, a purely PK MMORPG
filled with dudes, and you've just flushed your MMORPG down the
toilet for any other gaming style.  I've seen it happen on MUDs
before, on an obviously smaller scale.

If you are not actively involved with that early stage of your game,
you roll the dice and hope the dominant group is a group that is in
line with your game's vision.  I saw Ultima Online's vision being
much more complex than the roving group of PKers who laid waste to
everything that moved, including players.

>> Believe?  I'm sure it's easy enough to pay lip service to the
>> idea.  It's a whole 'nother thing to recognize that cultivating
>> viable social communities will require PEOPLE -- and thus money
>> -- to create.  Social communities cannot merely be coded into the
>> system.

> Nyet, nein, no, unh-uh.  Social communities form as a response to
> the challenges the developers code into the system, and the goals
> that players find to pursue within the system.  They cannot be
> formed in a vacuum with neat slots and heirarchies.

Social communities will form because there's lots of people sitting
around in a group.  We'd love to think that they form because WE
want them to (due to the challenges).  They might, sometimes.  But a
much more powerful force is the social hub interaction, the element
that is so often left outside of games.  They don't have to have a
goal.  They don't have to have anything.

To parallel this with real life, I'm pretty sure buddies on a
Saturday night sitting around drinking beer are not banding together
due to any particular challenge.  They do it because they entertain
each other -- they are the "content" for each other.

Remember the reason we play games with other people in the first
place?  THE PEOPLE.  These are not solo games with a billion people
playing on it, they're interactive communities.  In a sea of a
million people, human beings can only relate to each other on a
social scale of personal bonds between small groups. Not a million
new people every day you log in.

To use your parallel -- you're right, social communities should not
be formed in a vacuum with neat slots and hierarchies.  Nor should
they be formed in a frothing ocean full of humanity either.  MMORPGs
need to find a medium between completely hands-off social
interaction and giving every person a name, rank, and serial number.
Right now, I see a lot more ocean and a lot less vacuum.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien



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