[MUD-Dev] Are gratification-based (online) societies doomed to being immatu re?

[Koster]

A nice post and subsequent thread by folks on the Star Wars Galaxies
boards.  I'll include some of the postings here, but I urge people
to read the full thread because

  a) it shows that players aren't clueless :) 

  b) it's a collectively revealing analysis of playstyles

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/062581.html

start quote--->

Singularity
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:22 AM 

I'm not gonna lie to you. Bajeezus had a tremendous point the other
day about MMO's being like child-development; something that Holo
affirmed.

As you trace the values of an online society parallel to the stages
of child-development, certain congruencies are pretty
apparent. Different features click into human develoment, and seem
to put the tone of the population squarely where the motivations
dominantly lie, you might say.  Simply put, the modal behavior type,
as dictated by game mechanics, shapes the tone of the player
population.

As was said the other day, MMO's have a great difficulty passing a
few basic hurdles relative to human development. Players have a
tendency to play "next to" each other, rather than with each
other. This is typified by an extreme reliance on PvE (and perhaps
indeed, just the E) in an MMO gameworld that encompasses thousands
of players who go unused in each respective player's
experience. Cooperative PvE, or grouping, signals players learning
the value of working together, which is a decently advanced
concept. However, as Raph is quick to point out, cooperative PvP of
the unconsensual type is still a relative taboo in online game
development. For obvious reasons, of course.

This is akin to online populations understanding the value of say,
noncompetitive sports, but stopping short of appreciating
soccer. Why is this?

I would argue, based solely on the principles of parenting and human
development, that online worlds are tantamount to spoiling children.
This isn't such a grandiose statement when considering that the
lamented point of games are to have fun, and the business objective
of the companies that create them is to keep people having fun in
them for as long as possible to keep subscriptions up. Online worlds
are based entirely on gratification; they're virtual-reality in
which having fun is the goal, all the time.

What does this do to somebody, and more appropriately, groups of
somebodies?  Let's go back to the child-development scenario. A
cardinal rule in bringing up a child (or so they tell me ) is to
keep perpetual gratification to a minimum - people are creatures of
habit, and habitual gratification is addictive and makes for snobby
little kids... Entire online worlds are based on the concept of the
pacifier. If somebody isn't happy, get them happy!  Give people a
quick reward to keep them smiling. Leveling dings are akin to oral
fixations, in my opinion.

Introduce soccer to this concept, and every time you score a goal,
you get to take the pacifier away from the other team. In the world
of gratification, half the people go away unhappy. That's
unacceptable in MMO design terms. Hell, it seems a little petty, but
apparently 90% of MMO players out there will recognize this
competitive feedback loop as being un-fun in the longrun and steer
clear of it. Like a child who doesn't like losing at dodgeball.

And so we get an interesting phenomenon that arguably defines MMO
player populations, and indeed MMO's at large. The concept of
self-chosen gratification in an environment designed for fun sees a
Darwinian process of selection - everything fun can stay, everything
that compromises fun is banished on an individual basis such that
each individual ends up voting with his or her virtual
feet. Anything that takes away the pacifier a child is going to
avoid.

What we're left with is a very sterile, non-competitive form of fun
that allows everybody to go about their business without any real
negative impact from other players. It's this parallelizing nature
of MMO's that keeps everybody safe and happy - but at the same time,
it really keeps people from interacting at higher levels of
"maturity". We haven't really seen a lot of interactivity between
players yet - the systems just haven't been there, for technological
reasons, yes, but also for reasons of design. People prefer to play
side-by-side, rather than with other players because interacting
with another person raises a variable. Particularly in competitive
play.

In this way, MMO's are content to operate at a relatively immature
level, so far as human development goes. They fail, so far, to take
advantage of many of the higher-level social interactions people are
capable of. And so, they're doomed to being relatively immature.

But it's a gleeful immaturity - we're just as happy as four year
olds in a candy shop.


Prijon
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:31 AM  

Hehe, nice post. I would like to add one thing if I may.

In raising children setting boundaries is very important. It is the
parents responsibilty to ensure these boundaries are fair and owe it
to the child to enforce them to allieviate confusion. It is unwise
to allow yourself to be drawn into a long, drawn out debate where
these hard and fast boundary lines are drawn. You are the one who
knows best. You are the one with the experience and knowledge above
their understanding. In time they will understand.

You have to confidence in yourself that the guidelines you set are
in fact what is best for the child. No matter how much they kick and
scream.

I can't think of a better analogy.

-Prijon 


PyRathedan
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:31 AM  

Err.....DING?

Actually thats a great write up Sing. And it's correct.

But the way I see it, MMOGs themselves are much akin to child
development, not just for the gratification in game, but the
development of the players over time.

The games have evolved, slowly to be sure, but htey have evolved and
grown.  Newer games have been producing more aspects of PvP that go
beyond just combat, introducing players to game styles that, much
like soccer and other team sports, only some poeple win, and it's
only some of the time.

MMOGs will continue to mature with each generation that comes out,
its a slow process, but when we're talking about a generation of
players that GREW up literally in a gaming world that centered on
them and rewarded them continually on the single player format, it's
hard to get them to adjust.

My personal vision of MMOGs still have a long way to grow, but they
only grow as fast as the community can adapt to it. I have a feeling
as more and more games come out over time, we'll see that change,
and we as players will adapt slowly but surely.


DarthSterling
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 07:35 AM  

I think the level of maturity on an MMORPG isn't all that different
from that in real life.

After all, we require rather strict measures in real life to
restrict people from commiting immature, criminal acts of harrasment
in real life, just as on an MMORPG.

Plus, having people not be forced to interact in ways they do not
wish to is a good thing. How many people wish to be 'drafted' onto a
football team?  Especially if they're, say, a 4'8" 12 year girl who
doesn't know the rules?

Frankly, the fact that we are having such an open discussion is a
signal of the increasing maturity of these forums. Look at the sort
of immaturity explified by the people who got into the boardroom and
created the Enron and Worldcom disasters. Those were professionals
in their 40's 50's, 60's and more who ruined 10's of thousands of
peoples lives with their greed.

In other words, I don't think we're so bad off


RazaelDemron
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:37 AM  

You must remember that people are hampsters. Do a trick... get a
pellet.


Hoggle
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 07:54 AM  

  quote: 

    Introduce soccer to this concept, and every time you score a
    goal, you get to take the pacifier away from the other team. In
    the world of gratification, half the people go away
    unhappy. That's unacceptable in MMO design terms. Hell, it seems
    a little petty, but apparently 90% of MMO players out there will
    recognize this competitive feedback loop as being un-fun in the
    longrun and steer clear of it. Like a child who doesn't like
    losing at dodgeball.

Losing isn't a problem. The problem is being forced to play a game
against the World Cup champians. If I go to PvP against a roughly
equal opponent and lose, I will try better next time. But some high
level l33tD00D that ganks newbie miners with no combat skills as
they enter a mine isn't a challenge or a good competitive match.


Khafar
Station Member 
  07-11-2002 07:57 AM  

That may be all true, to a point - but I don't think the converse is
true: that if "The Future of MMOGs is PvP" (e.g. competitive sports)
vision were realized, that online culture would improve all that
much. It might even get worse, which is what I'm concerned about
with the PvP-ish aspects of business and politics in SWG. Why? Well,
because of Lum's truism: People Are Broken. And in an online
environment, the "broken" parts of people are far more free to
express themselves. The biggest possible consequence is that you get
your account banned, and have to open a new account on a new CC. Or
at worst, go find another game to play. Big deal.

Also, people are far more likely to act "broken" towards each other
online because of the "virtual sociopath" phenomenon. There's a
fair-sized group of people who find it very easy to objectify people
online. Call it low empathic ability. To these people, other players
are mostly just some pixels and keystrokes coming down a wire, after
all. You can't see them, or hear their voices, go to their house for
dinner, or watch your kids play together. And so it's easy to
misbehave toward them - many psychology experiments have been done
on this tendency of human beings to objectify "them", and in online
games 95% of the stimulus that helps us to humanize each other is
simply missing.

There are no simple fixes for this. I'm not even sure there are any
hard fixes... the very thing that people value about online
socializing (semi-anonymous, low-commitment, low-risk ways to
communicate with as many human beings as they could possibly want
to) is what prevents some people from bonding well enough to treat
other player like well... people.

Khafar 


sabrelight
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:00 AM  

Comparing real-world sports to online games is just not a fair
comparision.

As others have said, the talent level is not equal.

Also it is much more difficult to enforce rules that esnure fair
play in an online world as compared to something like a soccer
match.

So I think the analogy is pretty much invalid.

It is more like kids playing a game on their own with no supervision
and the bully kid making up his own rules as the game
progresses. Eventually the other kids will not play with the bully
kid any longer because the game is not fair.


Shai-Tan
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:07 AM  

Singularity, your post does strike true, but the fact is there are
important differences between life and a MMORPG life.

Having a real life is a constant fact, and aside from the obvious,
there is no way to just turn it off and leave, or start a new one.

A virtual life on the other hand is a passing thing. It is very easy
to quit your virtual life, and since this is the case, the devs of
any MMORPG have the near impossible task of keeping everyone
happy. If they fail, then people will leave. It is very simple to
close an account with a game company; simply a few clicks of a mouse
and you no longer take part in the world. A child who is unhappy
with his world has relatively little he can do to change that world,
and is pretty much stuck there.

Basically, even though we(the player base) should be able to handle
the bad things, in general we won't, and we will find a better game
if we don't like where we are.


slugeater
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:09 AM  

[quote]
  Losing isn't a problem. The problem is being forced to play a game
  against the World Cup champians. If I go to PvP against a roughly
  equal opponent and lose, I will try better next time. But some
  high level l33tD00D that ganks newbie miners with no combat skills
  as they enter a mine isn't a challenge or a good competitive
  match.
[/quote] 

Very true. DAOC did great relating to this with their Battlegounds
features.

But it's also untrue. LOTS of people don't want to lose. They've
been given the habit in RPGs both PnP and computer, to save the
world and be the hero.

That someone can do better than them and shadow them angers them,
because basically there will ALWAYS be a beeter ranked/higher lvl
player. They go from winning all the time to amlays being the
underdog.

Khafar:

  quote:
    Call it low empathic ability 

Brilliant. Some people just don't care about their neighbors in a
virtual reality because they don't conceptualize them as people.

Often it happened to me not to leave a group because people needed
my class and there were no others available. (It's good to be a
Druid in the Bog of Cullen). I did so because I felt seven people
would have to wait or logout if I didn't stay. Some people can't
understand there are other feeling, living people on the other side
of the IP packets. Therfore they keep a 100% self centered view of
the game.


Nyght
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 08:11 AM  

Khafar's comments are dead on from my point of view.

I just finished Raph's UO postmortem and it really gave me pause. He
not near cynical enough about people for my tastes.

Today, in the real world, the vast majority of people are only
restrainted in their behaviours by the consequences of their
actions. In an online game the consequences are only consequences
relative to how much you wish to continue to play that game.

An awful lot of players don't really have any investment in playing
one game over the next.


slugeater
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:12 AM  

quote: 

  Singularity, your post does strike true, but the fact is there are
  important differences between life and a MMORPG life.

Shai-Tan,

Not so much as you would believe. Online loss is felt by the RL
players.  Online is part of RL, since you DO play the game in your
Real Life. People can be saddened by online events, and therefore
responsibility has to be taken to avoid all that can bring sadness
through online gaming: that's grief play. Play with the intent of
causing to the RL player emotional harm.


Thunderheart
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:15 AM  

No, it depends on how the game supports the social structure....

It must support player empowerment much in the way veteran posters
got props from Q-3PO for helping the noobs.

The education curve MUST be supported in the social structure.

Its ALLLLLLL about education baby...

th  


Shai-Tan
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:21 AM  

slugeater, I'm aware of the fact that the game can have a
significant impact on your RL emotions. I myself have been angry,
sad, and happy and many other emotions because of MMORPGs, but that
wasn't really the point of my post.

The point is that a MMORPG can be turned off. That is what happens
if the creators do not make a game that is enjoyable 99% of the
time. In order to make a successful game, they have to appeal to the
majority of the player base, and the fact is, the majority of the
player base is perfectly happy with the "relatively immature level"
that most MMORPGs achieve.

Those of us who desire the higher interaction, are mainly a minority
who have played many MMORPGs for a long time. Comparing it to Baj's
post on maturity levels, we've progressed further than most people,
and are closer to being gamer "adults" than most of the people who
will buy SWG. SWG has made some incredible progessions in
"maturity", but I believe it will be years before a MMORPG is
created that will cater to gamers like us.


Emile_Khadaji
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:30 AM  

Nice write up

The PvP part of the problem in future development has to do with
Solo vs.  Group rewards. A system mimicking The Prisoner's Delemma
is needed to discourge PK and encouraged team PvP (coopertive &
competitive play).

Solo vs. Group problem: In combat the first to run away can live to
fight another day, but if all stand firm all have a greater chance
of survival.  One runner is guarenteed survival, many runners cause
a route. If a route occurs more die then if the army combat unit
stayed together and fought. It is counter intuitive behavior and why
military training is so harsh in boot camp... people are trained to
put group survival up higher then personal survival. Without
negative behavior penalties for promoting individual priorities over
the groups goals PvP will remain PK/dueling centric and won't evolve
well in to team PvP.

FYI: The Prisoner's Delemma= a psych game of ratting out or keeping
quiet, those who rat out on the other first win the short term game
while those proven trust worthy win the long term game.


Alichai
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 08:31 AM  

Leave it up to Singularity to make an eloquent post on a sticky
subject and then manage to interject the phrase "Oral Fixation",
without anyone blinking an eye

Anyways, I think you're dead on accurate, though. The way that a
game is set up can push people towards different mind-sets.

AO, for example, requires no downtime, no cooperation whatsoever. Is
it any suprise to people that this turned out to grow the most
unfriendly player-base in the history of online games? I mean geez,
the people I play Jedi Knight with are nicer, and we're only there
to lop each other's heads off!

I think the key to molding MMORPG gamers into "good" people is to
REQUIRE a little downtime, and to force people to be reliant on
others. Not to the point that you can accomplish nothing on your
own.. but enough that treating people with respect is more efficient
in the long-run.

I think SWG is heading squarely in the right direction, even if some
people don't think so. They're afraid to have to depend on others
because in the past the others have let them down.. But I say its
the games in the past that required no intereliance that created
those players.

Long live Militias (And Free-Cities too)

__Alichai__


Jerid
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 08:45 AM  

Interesting point of view but my experiances differ a bit.

I played first person shooters (mostly team based PvP) fenaticaly
for about 4 years. I played Everquest (co-op PvE) for 2 years as if
my life depended on it.

Out of the two there were always some who acted very mature and some
who acted extreemly infantile. The pure PvP aspect of a highly
competitive enviornment seemed to draw out less civilized play
behavior.

This doesn't necessarily prove anything even if I had hard numbers
to back it up. The games are very diffrent in nature and some could
argue a role-playing game is more cerebral to begin with and you are
relying on some of the more basic animalistic behaviors to excell in
a PvP life of virtual death situation. Just something to chew on.

Since I love to rambel and cook up analogies here is one hot off the
presses.

Scenario One: Joe and Sue are at a fair. They go up to a booth where
you need to shoot targets to win a prize. Sue gets 10 of 10 hits and
wins a huge stuffed bear. Joe gets only 7 of 10 and wins a much
smaller toy. Joe sees what Sue got and decides he is going to play
again. If he shoots just a little better this time he can win one of
those BIG stuffed bears. They play again and they both win big
prizes.

PvE situation. Both players are playing the same game and both have
an equal opportunity to win the prize they want. Since the booth
owner has plenty of all the prizes what the other person wins is of
little consequence aside from motivating Joe to do as well as Sue.

Scenario Two: Joe and Sue see another game. You need to toss a ring
around a bottle and you need to hit a target with a mallet hard
enough to ring the bell to win the prize. Neither of them can do
both and win. They talk the person running the booth to let them
each do part of it and he agrees.  Working togeather they play twice
and win a prize for each of them.

PvE Co-Op. Working togeather they both had fun and both ended out
ahead.[i]

Scenario Three: Joe and Sue see another booth. Padded pugil stick
dueling while standing on a long thin plank. First to knock off the
other wins a prize. Sue promptly whips Joe's butt and collects
another big prize. Joe is sick of getting shown up by Sue. He asks
for rematch. This time he distracters her and hits her with a cheap
shot knocking her down. Who can blame him. There was a huge prize on
the line and she was in his way.

[i]PvP situation. There was a reward on the line and it ment more to
Joe than the idea of being fair to Sue. He saw an opportunity and
took it.

Both had fun in the first game but aside from maybe being jelous of
the other persons skills and rewards they had little interaction.

In the second they both had fun interacted and accomplished
something. The game was easy when they worked togeather.

In the last game they were up for a bigger challenge. Playing
against another person leads to an unpredictable contest. This to
many makes for a more satisfying win. The cost is someone has to be
a looser. Some people hate loosing more than they like a fair
game. Some people will act like Joe.

The actions of Joe in the last contest were childish. In a setting
where annonimity is the norm and feelings don't translate well
people will on some level think of their "opponent" as less of a
person and more of an obstacle.  I supose as MMOG's evolve and the
interaction becomes more and more "real" and "personal" this
childish behavior may evolve with it. This biggest obstical is we
are talking about a GAME, an ESCAPE. People play it to get away from
the responsibilities and concerns of mundane life as much as they do
for compitition or fun. How "real" do you realy want your "games"?

>From a keep people hapy standpoint PvP is dangerous. For many
dangerous = exciting = fun = something they don't get in real life.

/me wonders where he was going with all this psychobabble...

bah


Delphis
Station Member
  posted 07-11-2002 09:02 AM  

Nice essay, Singularity, and nice responses.

There are many types of motivation and reinforcement. People respond
to different stimuli based on their current needs. The [url
=http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM] Maslow's Heierarchy of
Needs[/url] is widely held as fairly accurate in determining how
people will prioritize their values.

As for MMOG's, I've had mixed experiences. RPG's are very much about
constant improvement. We like to see our characters grow and
progress, get stronger and able to do more things. Gratification
doesn't need to be instant, but we like to know that we are working
towards some goal, or completing some quest/mission. We don't like
to have our progress inhibited by other people in any way, nor do
most people wish to inhibit other people's progress.

The issue I would argue with you, however, is that these "sterile"
environments common in PvE games do not require a higher level of
maturity.  When the goals/quests/missions become so difficult that
there is simply no other way to accomplish them than by banding
together with a large force of individuals, we see people coming
together. Once people have a reason to come together, they become
more social and generally exhibit much more maturity. Typically,
someone or a few people will step up to organize the community and
we have Player Associations or Guilds. Not everyone in the PA will
act responsibly, but the leaders usually do or the PA breaks up
shortly.

People will gravitate towards the type of game that meets their
needs. Like minded individuals will tend to stick around each
other. Given the huge variety of options out there in the MMO
marketplace it is up to the game designers and developers to decide
which type of crowd they wish to serve.  In SWG's case, they're
trying for the widest possible audience by incorporating so many
disparate aspects of gaming: many different kinds of PvP, a wide
variety of PvE, focus on RP, hundreds of Skills, thousands of
Crafts, full support of PA's, a massive Civil War, thousands of
Faction, three sides of Conflict plus Neutrality, etc. There is no
doubt that SWG will be many different games to many different
people. And if they do a good job, SWG will surely have millions of
subscribers through the years.


Ewoklover
Station Member 
  posted 07-11-2002 09:09 AM  

Very nice write-up.

I would agree with Khafar and swing towards his perspective.

My points are... what percentage of players are not of an age to be
mature and experienced in real life, let alone in an environment
where their identity is hidden and their actions do not necessarily
demand responsibility and accountability.

PvP, in itself, is not the matured product, if we are discussing
online societies within a gaming environment. I believe it to be
very improbable to have a full, non-consensual PvP
situation... until permanent death is accepted or tested in some
game(or some server ) With perma-death, we have accountability and
responsibility. Also, perma-death will nurture cooperative PvP in
the normally PvE types. When it is realized that a
multi-group(ie...town) environment can rid their area/countryside of
some (higher level/better player type of) villain by banding
together, the online society will reach puberty and rapidly advance
from that point to something more akin to real life.

Wow, I haven't posted that many words on these boards in a long
time. I hope it makes a little sense.  Back to work I go!
<---end quote

-Raph




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