[MUD-Dev] ghost mode (was Re: SW:G)

[Scott Moore]

From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>

> Exactly. Furthermore, Amandas contention that she wants to see the
> content without the grunt work required to do it, is part of the
> incentive a developer creates for people to actually play the
> game. The last thing you want is people being able to see and do
> everything as soon as they first log in. Its hardly likely to
> prolong subscription revenue is it?

At the risk of being trumped by comments from Randy Farmer, I'm
going to mention that Habitat and WorldsAway both had a "ghost"
mode. Randy mentions it in a post I found in the archives:

  http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2002Q2/msg00711.php

He points to the Habitat Papers and I recommend checking "Social
Dimensions of Habitat's Citizenry" for a good description and some
of the social behaviors that came about in Habitat.

I was an world builder/community manager in WorldsAway for 3 years
so I got pretty familiar with the behaviors of people using our
ghost mode. A quick background: WorldsAway had no combat and no
built-in score keeping - the goal was mainly a platform for social
interaction. The only areas that were content limited were private
homes/apartments (aka turfs), one mugwump-like maze and
administration areas.

Ghost mode allowed people to interact on their terms. It was
designed as a means of handling large crowds (for several reasons,
we limited the number of avatars on the screen), but people used it
to maximize their travel and to lurk in the community before they
stepped forward. Ghosts didn't have to walk across the screen to
travel so ghosting was a quick way of traveling and a way to travel
anonymously. At any given time, there were a good number of people
using the ghost mode in the world. Ghosts were never completely
invisible. When a ghost was around, users could see a static icon
representing all ghosts in the area. Users could also get the number
of ghosts above them, but had no other information unless someone in
the "ghost cloud" sent them a private message outing themselves.

The sense of being "spied on" did occur, but it was mostly when
there was obviously room for an avatar and the ghost icon "seemed"
to linger. At these times, avatars would react and speak to the
ghost cloud. The strongest reactions seemed to be when there are
only one or two avatars around. Not too different a situation from
what can occur physically.

Anecdotally, I wouldn't say there is an inverse correlation between
the ability to ghost and subscription retention. I think it has to
do with the power to become familiar with a space the way Tess
described. In my experience, new users tend to lurk, then learn,
then interact. Experienced users learn to control their environment
for maximizing positive social interactions or game experiences. I
think that some people will pay for features that allow them that
kind of control.

Cheers,
Scott Moore
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