[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev Storytelling in MMOGs article

[Sean Kelly]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Marc DM wrote:
 
> as a gamedesigner I would like to succeed in making games that
> make some people think or have a deep impression on them and are
> at the same time successfull. I think Stanley Kubrick succeeeded
> in this. A clockwork orange and full metal jacket where thought
> provoking as well as spectacular movies. So, indeed I shouldn't
> say the media or a particular movie is popular because people
> learn a lot from it. It is not because something is popular that
> it has been a valuable learning experience.

As art is subjective, so does everyone take something different away
from what they experience.  Also, games have a significant
difference from movies and books in that games are interactive and
(ideally) players have the ability to affect the outcome of events.
This has a tendency to defeat any attempt to convey a message
because interaction changes what is being presented to the gamer.
You could certainly set up a world with a structured economic and
political system, but I think you'd have a hard time constructing
specific situations intended to teach the players a life-lesson.

Still, on this note, Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" had an
interesting example of a virtual world intended to teach the player.
At the end, one learned from the experience and another did not, and
the difference had principally to do with their RL situations.

> Still not so shure about this subjects and how they rellate. I'm
> looking for a way to make learning fun. And I believe that playing
> is the key to make learning fun. And it is our task to make fun
> learning experiences. hm I somehow believe that if people like it
> than it's valuable if they don't then it's not a valuable
> experience to them. But this reasoning doesn't always work. Help
> me!

I think there's a definite use for games in teaching problem solving
skills and the like, but less clear is their efficacy at life
lessons... and frankly, I think that's mostly the parents' job
anyway.  Still, perhaps some research into educational psychology
could turn up previous work in this area.

>> d00d r4ci5m sUxx0rs!
 
> I don't get that? :-) Seriously, am not a programmer, what does
> this means?

It's nothing to do with programming so much as an overblown version
of the lingua franca of online games.  Loosely trandlated it means
"understand your audience."

>> If a player can see the results of their actions without risking
>> much, how do they identify negative behavior?  What motivates
>> them not to repeat such behavior?
 
> Well, they do risk to lose their online persona, the life of it or
> the reputation of it, or the physical objects it's got in that
> world. They will be able to lose valuable stuff, virtual stuff,
> but valuable to them, the real people behind the online
> representations.

My experience so far with ORPGs is that this isn't enough to
motivate players to act in any sort of responsible manner.  Granted,
this may also be a result of how those games are structured, but
even so.

>> I'm having trouble understanding how playing a hooker in an ORPG
>> will teach someone anything about what it is like to be a hooker
>> in RL.
 
> Well, you can play a pilot flying an airplane in a virtual setting
> and learn the craft pretty well, why wouldn't you be able to play
> a politician or a hooker in a virtual setting and learn the craft
> pretty well?

hrm... flying an airplane is a purely technical skill while being a
politican and being a hooker are primarily interpersonal.  Further,
being a hooker isn't a job that people normally aspire to as a
career choice, so while a player may learn a bit about how to hustle
other players from behind a computer screen, I doubt they could
learn anything about what it is really like to be stuck selling
their body for money.

>> And frankly, I'd worry about the state of a world where people
>> had to turn to an ORPG to learn that being a young, struggling
>> parent sucks.
 
> Better to learn it there than to learn it when it's too late.

But the children who don't have parents to teach it to them, and are
unable to figure it out without any help, aren't likely to be in a
position where they could play an ORPG designed to teach such
fundamental lessons.  And that's even if a child has the ability to
learn such things from an ORPG in the first place.

I think it's a good idea to explore virtual interactive learning,
but I also think the medium is more suited to some subjects than
others.  Besides, why stick a child in front of a computer screen
when there are real people who want to teach them things?

>>> Online Worlds are a serious learning tool and telling stories is
>>> not the way to go! Online worlds tell their story, offer an

>> I'm not sure I agree.  There's a place for storytelling in ORPGs
>> so long as the players are allowed to shape it.  And I think for
>> the most part players appreciate a contextual world.  It gives
>> them a sense of motivation beyond leveling or the need to one-up
>> each other in some Lord of the Flies-esque struggle for
>> supremacy.
 
> The contexts is mostly created by the players. For instance when
> you enter the world, you can get the story from another player
> about that world but it will mostly be about real players being
> described and responsible for the situation. For instance you get
> a story about his job, what perty and which major rues the city,
> what problems the city has. What rules there are, where you can
> drive your car, where you can buy food. All player created, with
> the tools we designers gave them. So you would get a contextual
> world that is varied, that lives, that is not static, that can be
> changed. Penty of things and situations that can motivate you for
> a thousand different actions and it won't be about leveling!

So when you say story, you mean whatever happens to come up in the
daily life and interactions of people in the game?  I'm sorry, I
misunderstood.  I had thought you meant constructing a static
storyline for the players to experience.
 
> What do you envision Sean with storytelling that is shaped by the
> players? I don't get that.

The designers give the world context and the players build off of
that.  That is, a fictional world may have an established history
and even NPCs that do things within the world.  Things happen that
no player may have initiated (natural disasters, an invasion, an NPC
doing something that has far-reaching consequences, etc), but the
players can choose how to respond to those situations and their
response determines the outcome.

Asheron's Call has a monthy event system where a new "chapter" of
interactive content was released each month.  Basically an couple
quests related to the main story-arc.  But each event assumed that
they players completed the quests from the previous event, and did
it in the manner proscribed (partially because nearly all the quests
had only one possible outcome).  So the players were allowed to
participate in the story, but not allowed to shape it.  One month I
briefly tried to get some support on a shard to ensure that no one
completed the core quest.  It was obviously doomed to failure but I
really wanted to see what the designers would do if a quest the next
event relied on was not completed.  Would they ignore the actions of
the players, release an announcement about the actions of a
fictional party and cram the next set of content down our throats or
would they try to adapt their story to the actual actions of the
players?  In AC's defense, as the game progressed there was more
effort to give the player's actions some impact on the evolution of
the story, and it was a multishard game so they couldn't cater to
the actions of one specific shard.  Still, the experience was
frustrating and was ultimately one of the primary reasons I left the
game.

>> As for learning -- I agree that the players will learn something
>> by figuring out how your universe works, but what they learn is
>> how to navigate the world and manipulate it to their advantage.
>> I've learned strategy and problem-solving from games but I've
>> never learned any sort of life-lesson.

> Life lessons can be learned through a story and they can be
> learnde through a simulation. Simulations, or alternate worlds, or
> not deep enougyh yet to be able to learn you the life-lessons
> story can learn you but they will in the future. For instance if I
> play politician in a world and i do some stupid moves and because
> of that lose the elections I can learn something valuable from
> that.

You learned additional problem-solving skills, which I agree can be
taught in games even as they are today.  My question is whether more
funamental life lessons can be learned and whether their teaching
even has a place in ORPGs.
 
>> And I have the feeling that if I felt that a game was trying to
>> impose a lesson on me I'd probably quit playing it.
 
> That's what I feel everytime I play a lineair game, designed from
> a 'storytelling' approach.

I've been an avid book reader my entire life.  I tend to enjoy
linear games as they are to a great degree the same thing.  Also, I
think a sufficiently compelling story can teach the reader/player
things because they tend to identify on some level with one or a
number of characters in the story.  Still, when I play a game that
claims to be non-linear I tend to go into it with completely
different expectations.


Sean


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