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

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

"Koster, Raph" wrote:
> Ola wrote:
>> Michael Tresca wrote:

> Lots of other types of players also use the game on multiple
> levels and in ways it has not been designed for, not just
> roleplayers. :)

Though, the games are still marketed as fictional roleplaying
worlds. Roleplayers are officially targets, but in the end they
really are not because they "don't exist" or "everybody are
roleplayers".

Anyway I think you know what I mean.  You can choose to use your
whole brain or a subsection.  I sincerely doubt that other segments
of the userbase get the same variety and intensity in their
experience.  I.e.  multiple levels of emotional experience.

> They're also often producing at right angles to what the consumers
> actually want. And I don't see most roleplayers engaging in market
> research. :)

Well, actually this is something I do find interesting, because
designers seem to "dream" about their players engaging the world
with a roleacting (or maybe one should call it roleauthoring)
mentality.  At least my impression from reading things written
related to Asherons Call, Ultima Online and Anarchy Online (and to
some extent EQ, not sure about DAOC).  So how do you approach your
design?  Do you imagine an interesting world that you would like to
be immersed into or do you start with market research?  What is
retrofitted into the design vision and what is the motivational
core? (I guess SWG is a bit different due to the pre-existing
universe, i.e. you are not only tied to workable game mechanics)

Of course, now I could take a critical stance to assumptions about
knowing what people want. (I don't believe people KNOW what they
want.  They just know what they recognize.) I certainly don't know
what people _really_ want if they got the opportunity to try "it"
out...

>> Well... I can't.  You might as well state that RPGers can just do
>> their thing with IRC or web as well.
 
> They did and do. I am not sure I follow.

You seemed to imply that roleplayers don't really need more than
chat, but other players do. I need more than chat, I need locations
and motion, and also prefer the ambiguity where the distinction
between reality and fiction become blurred... I.e. I want a world,
not a stage.

>>> communications medium. The chat spaces failed to offer
>>> significant value added and were not, by and large, able to
>>> monetize the presence of the users.
 
>> Heh. If the hamsterwheel is value added... It certainly is far
>> from significant content being added. Actually, Active Worlds
>> probably achieves a lot more, albeit for fewer and older users.

> The "hamsterwheel" as you put it, is one mechanic for having
> players create an investment in data that is stored in the given
> online world's database, as opposed to an investment which does
> not reside there. The more portable the investment in the
> environment, the easier it is to pick up and go elsewhere.

Well, but that is not value added. In my book value added is when
the user get more, not that the producers get more. When players get
to construct in a free form fashion like in Active Worlds they get
to use it in a "therapeutical" sense and get to seek out people that
are interested in a subject they have chosen. Being able to produce
your own art is value added.

> Chat spaces are common. They're cheap and easy. They don't have
> anything tying you to the place except other people. I have
> drifted in and out of more of them than I can count.

Yeah, but also because there were lots of alternatives.

> The "significant content being added" isn't the stuff the
> developers put in.  What really matters are the things that the
> USERS put in, that they keep in the online worlds' database.

Exactly, but MMOs are static.  So what you are saying is that the
hamster wheel stretching and stickiness adds nothing except it makes
the users presence more persistent.  And having enough time to bond
is in turn the value added to the chat experience?  I doubt the mass
market casual players are not going to stick around 4-6 hours every
day, so what are you going to do then?  Add better tools for async
communication and organization?

Actually I think one important thing MUDs add is a valid reason to
make contact, i.e. an excuse for overcoming inherent shyness
etc. The problem for me and some others is, that that excuse becomes
the prime object for socialization.  I.e. a lot of chatting about
levels, stats and items.  That is not very good for bonding either,
unless RPGs constitute your personal identity. (which may be true
for some of the hardcore population).

(And what about the large scale level-based the design that reduce
the amount of time casual players get to spend with the same people)

[on crafting versus fighting]

>   - it's psychological. In the one case, players think "that lewt
>   would have been there even if no one had slain the orc." In the
>   craftin case, they know it would only appear because of player
>   action--their action.

I can agree with this to some extent, although you see this in
fighting as well. "lets kill everything so the boss with that item
can respawn" or having a diverse set of fighting styles (which are
different primarily in appearance).

>   - it's easy. People like to feel creative with things even when
>   they do not actually require creativity

An illusion of creativity?  What is required to achieve that?  A
wide range or option or just the feeling of getting something for
nothing? I.e. converting something that sells for 3 coins to NPCs to
something that sells for 1000.

>   - it leaves a mark. People crave adding to the shared database,
>   frankly.  Just as they do in real life

Crafted items should never be sold to NPCs then, or?

I hope this means that you find the static designs and designer
control to be counterproductive in terms of user experience and
"added value"?  :)

> It IS building, you know, even if mechanically it is just a
> transferral of resources, simply because they say so. It's
> building because it is the creation of bits and bytes that the
> player feels are theirs in some fashion.  Once again, we're in the
> position where if THEY think it is something, we don't have the
> right to question it. An observation I have made before regarding
> online communities, player rights, and the "reality" of virtual
> lives. Clap if you believe in fairies. :)

OK, but it isn't construction in the same sense you get in LP-Muds,
MOOs, Active Worlds etc.

I can see that it might be more like building than looting because
they "plan" to produce say tables rather than chairs. While in
fighting players may tend to focus on XP and semi-random "uber"
items. Still, I am not so sure that the distinction would be very
clear if you did not have single player genres in which there is a
clear distinction. (pure fighting versus pure resource aggregation
and conversion) To me that suggests that there is unused or
under-utilized territory even within the core RPG mechanics design.

Ola.
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