[MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs

[Dave Rickey]

From: Michael Tresca <talien at toast.net>
> Dave Rickey posted on Saturday, January 12, 2002 1:30 PM

>>> Yes it does.  So how do you define RP?

>> I don't.  If two or more people are communicating, and *they*
>> consider what they are doing RP, I accept their standard.  Our RP
>> servers are an experiment, the people who like to RP said they
>> could in an MMOG if we'd just keep the OOC elements out of their
>> face.  *Something* is happening on those servers, and most of
>> those involved seem to feel it is RP, whyshould anyone else get a
>> vote?

> I'm confused.  You opened a role-play server but didn't define it.
> What screens those OOC elements?  Peer pressure?

CSR's.  OOC is a much cleaner, easier judgement call than "I know it
when I see it" standards of "real RP".

> Surely, from a business perspective, you didn't just open a server
> and hope for the best, right?

Let's just say that I have been surprised by how popular they have
been.  Mark Jacobs thought the OOC restriction would be enough, I
wasn't as confident.  Turned out he was right, guess that's why he's
the boss.

>> I've still got the money they spent while they were there.  What
>> would you count as "long term"?  Cradle to grave?

> I consider long term to be at least a year.

> Heh.  Yes, you've still got their money.  But do you want to
> retain the cash flow?  I've already argued that the short-term
> effect will speed up as time goes on.  That is, the same current
> game structure will retain players for a shorter and shorter time.

I can't argue with that logic.  But these games evolve, not just as
a genre but as they age.  UO and EQ are very different games now
than when they launched, DAoC will be very different in a year.  I
would say that, eliminating those that leave very early, once you've
got their *first* monthly payment the average now is at least a year
(something like a quarter quit during the first month, that's been
true of all of them as far as I've been able to determine).

> From a business perspective, creating games that people play for a
> decade is a beautiful thing.  It's like a mortgage on a house.
> Hopefully, the folks living in the house will be paying you for
> years if not decades.

> If you're in the "make money now" business, that's fine.  That's
> not evolving the game design, but it certainly makes money.  Even
> the spectacular failure of some games has not managed to sink
> companies completely, and there still are SOME people playing said
> MMORPGs.  So really, if it's all about credit cards, and that's
> the only physical filter that matters, then there you have it.

Yes and no.  Certainly the genre will survive even if Square turns
out to be correct and 3 months is all you should expect for
retention.  However, it will survive as something not very different
from single-player titles as far as the overall industry goes.
Longer retention rates start to rebuild the fundamentals of the
business.

>> I get the impression you come from the MOO side of things, where
>> the whole construct *is* the social grouping, and all
>> communication and community is inside the structure because
>> that's the point.  I came into this from the fan community (I was
>> a fansite operator), to me community is a much more flexible
>> thing.  The fact that many of the community-forming occurs
>> outside the game structure is irrelevant, the game is the focus
>> and without it that particular community wouldn't exist, at least
>> not in that form.

> Heh, I come from the MUD side of things (which is why I'm on this
> list).  To follow the logic I was attempting to lay out in other
> posts, the game gets them there, the community KEEPS them there.
> If the community exists outside of the game, then the community is
> subject to external forces that you have less control over.  When
> a new game comes along, POOF! your "external community" moves on.
> If the community is internal to the game, it's MUCH more difficult
> to lure people away.  You want, essentially, to own every aspect
> of your player's involvement in the game, including the fan
> community that talks about it when they're not playing it.

But that's the point, the community generally *doesn't*.  If DAoC
had only grown through what we took from others, we'd have half or
less of our current subscribers.  Most of our players this is either
their first game, or they left another long before DAoC was
released.

>> SWG, as I understand, is going to move a lot of the current
>> web-based community tools inside the game structure, but they
>> have two advantages we lacked: A bigger budget, and a theme into
>> which web-based tools can be integrated almost as-is.  We looked
>> at it, and decided that there wasn't any point in doing badly
>> what the players could do well.

> I definitely respect a well-informed choice.  I agree, if you're
> going to do it badly, don't do it.  Maybe in DAoC2. > :)

There isn't ever expected to be a DAoC2.  These games don't have a
shelf life, never have to die.  Hell, Mythic is still making money
from DFC and Silent Death (more than we used to, since the rights
are now unified and we're no longer getting a percentage of a
percentage).  There will (hopefully) be DAoC: The Umpteenth
Expansion.  Guild message boards and game-supported tournament
ladders and other community functions are always on the table.

>> The community as a whole maturing has little to do with it,
>> there's always a new batch.  Griefers are a bad apple problem,
>> you always have some, the question is which side of the entropy
>> curve grief behaviour is on.

> Can you explain the "entropy curve"?

Emergent system behaviours display three kinds of profiles:
Dominant, subordinate, and dynamic.  Dominant behaviours tend to
increase in prevalence until they, well, dominate.  Subordinate
behaviours tend to dwindle away.  Dynamic behaviours tend to find an
equilibrium (usually symbiotic) and fluctuate to some degree around
that.  "Behind the entropy curve) is my shorthand for behaviours
that are subordinate or weakly dynamic (meaning low in prevalence
and variability) in a given system.

>>> To elaborate, griefing has a few proponents that encourage it:

>>>   1) anonymity

>>>   2) a reward system not tied to social structure (i.e., killing
>>>   something independent of any other character)

>>>   3) a means of expressing a contrary behavior (violence to
>>>   other players, cursing on channels, etc.)

>>>   4) lack of accountability to a particular body (multiple
>>>   accounts)

>>> So how does DAoC discourage any of the above points?  It sounds
>>> like by "limiting their options" your discouraging #3.  How?  Do
>>> you have code that scans for inappropriate names and kicks them
>>> out?

>> We do not allow you to fight with members of your own Realm, or
>> talk to members of other Realms inside the game.  Talking to
>> members of your own Realm is supported, and fighting members of
>> other Realms is not only supported, it's encouraged.

> Hmmm.  Okay, you controlled #3.  That's it.  That doesn't stop #1,
> 2, and 4.

Nope.  1 is built into the nature of the Internet, 2 almost
impossible to get a handle on (since the reward of grief behaviour
is often strictly internalized to the griefer), 4 is partly a
redefinition of 1 and to the extent it is not can be a horrendous
manpower sink.  We had to do it through 3 or give up.

>> We did try to cultivate the community, but around beta 3 it got
>> completely beyond our capability to manage (which was expected).
>> When you have over 160K players, your influence on what the
>> community does is limited.  We have occasional problems with
>> harassment and exploits, but in general grief activities never
>> impinge on the majority of the players.

> Which ultimately goes back to the feasibility and expense of the
> "close, personal MUD-touch" on a MMORPG. Sounds like you tried,
> anyway, which I applaud.

I don't think you quite get it.  We didn't "try", in your terms.
When managing the community was feasible, we did it.  When it grew
beyond our capacity, we didn't.  Since launch, we've created a
separate community on some invite-only boards we use for feedback
under controllable conditions.  Trying to control the behaviour of
nearly two hundred thousand people through direct involvement would
be like trying to steer an iceberg with a canoe paddle.

> Here's the question: with a larger budget, would it still be
> valuable to devote staff to cultivating the community?

> After a certain point, I imagine it's too late.  The community you
> have is what you've got, unless you're willing to start canceling
> accounts and knocking players off, which is a bad business
> decision all around.

The community you've got is under your control only to the extent
that it reflects the social properties of your game mechanics.  It
is almost completely immune to efforts of direct intervention.  DAoC
has a griefer-free user experience because the inbuilt game
mechanics leave griefers few avenues, a constructive outlet for
atavistic impulses is provided in the form of RvR, and CSR's land on
those that persist with grief behaviour like the hand of God.  The
last stage of the process is only possible because the first two
(which are purely based on game mechanics) reduce the scale enough
that economically feasible manpower *can* handle it.

Now, the system doesn't completely exist in a vacuum, the community
can (and does) try to "wag the dog" and alter the game to suit
itself.  But ultimately, control of the game code yields the only
control of the community you can really count on.  All the bannings
in the world couldn't reduce the amount of gankage in UO by more
than a tiny fraction, but changes to the fundamental game mechanics
could and did (admittedly, it took pretty radical action once the
behaviours were well entrenched).

--Dave

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