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

[Dave Rickey]

From: Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag at ifi.uio.no>
> "Koster, Raph" wrote:

> 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.

Then you'd be mistaken.  The non-"Roleplayer" may not simulate the
extremes of emotion (love, hate, etc.), but he can feel them, and
when he does they are genuine.

>> 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)

I use terms like "Immersion" and "Engagement".  That indefinable
experience when you're not manipulating the inputs of a computer
character, but are "in" the world.

> 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...

Oh, that's easy.  They want it all to be real.  Short of that, they
want it all to behave as if it was real (within its own internal
logic).

>> 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.

Same thing the other players want, they just aren't willing to
pretend it is a world when it acts like a stage.

>>  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.

Then why have ActiveWorlds and similar VRML projects stalled out?
In that environment, you can do anything, have anything, and that's
the source of the problem.

>>  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.

And because one is pretty much identical to every other.

>>  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?

The current crop is more or less static (EQ and DAoC more, AC and UO
less).  I expect that to change, and Raph is betting on it.

> 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).

It goes deeper than that.  Without the carrot and stick, players
don't socialize.  Most people form social bonds out of a perceived
*need*, not simple gregarious instinct.

> [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).

No, it's more than that.  Players know at an instinctive level that
things don't just appear fully formed from the bit bucket, but are
assembled and created.  If "real people" are involved in the
assembly process, the product is more "real".  So are the similar
products that *did* spring fully formed from the bit bucket.

>>    - 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.

In the real world, we call that "Value Added".

>>  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.

Not yet, and not ever in quite the way you are thinking.

> 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.

It's comes back to making the world more "real".  Player towns in UO
were more "real" than the pre-placed cities, because they were the
result of real evolutionary pressures similar to those that shape
real-life towns.  That was until they succeeded in paving the
planet.

--Dave Rickey

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