[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Online adventure games
Mike Rozak
Mike at mxac.com.au
Wed May 12 13:30:52 CEST 2004
When Ubisoft cancelled Uru Live a few months ago, I began pondering
why online adventure games don't seem to exist, even though online
CRPGs (MMORPGs) do.
I began writing a short document to clarify my thoughts; it just got
longer and longer over time. It's so long now that I won't even
bother attaching it. However, the essay is available on
http://www.mxac.com.au/drt/TroubleWithExplorers.htm.
I'd appreciate comments/feedback from any willing to take a look.
Thanks
Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
<EdNote: Guess what's below?>
--<cut>--
The trouble with explorers
4 May 2004
Revised 7-15 May
by Mike Rozak
Recently, Ubisoft announced the cancellation or "Uru Live", an
online adventure game. I was saddened to hear the news because I
enjoy adventure games, and the online concept intrigued me;
particularly what kind of people would be attracted to such a
service.
I didn't even get a chance to try Uru Live out since Ubisoft
cancelled Uru Live while it was in beta; I was waiting for a
released version before trying it. While most of the discussion is
about online adventure games in general, any reference to Uru Live
details comes from other people's experiences with the beta; Uru
Live may have developed into a different beast if it had gotten past
beta. Therefore, don't read this essay as post-mortem of Uru Live.
I was interested in Uru Live because I have played a couple MMORPGs,
found them to be poorly implemented on-line versions of off-line
CRPGs (such as Elder Scrolls: Morrowind or Dungeon Siege), and was
underwhelmed. Not only did I get bored of killing orcs after the
tenth one (let alone the 10,000th), but MMORPGs tend to attract
people whose personalities don't match my own. Off-line CRPGs are
only populated by me and a few thousand NPCs; they are devoid of
bloodthirsty teenagers.
I have also been considering writing my own online adventure game
platform (aka: interactive fiction, or IF) targeted at hobbyist
authors. I was hoping to see what problems Uru Live encountered and
how they dealt with them. Obviously, they encountered insurmountable
problems. From what I've heard, they didn't have enough on-line
users to make the venture worthwhile. Since then I've wondered why
they didn't get enough players.
Rather than investing a few million dollars to produce my own
adventure-oriented online world only to have it fail, I decided to
undertake some thought experiments and try to understand the reason
for Uru Live's failure. This document is the result. It is not "the
definitive work" for online adventure games, but merely intended to
propose some ideas and start a discussion.
Multiple models
I have taken too many years of physics. Consequently, I am a strong
believer in particle/wave duality. For people that have forgotten
their physics, particle/wave duality an odd tendency for light to
act as a particle when physicists do experiments that try to prove
that light is a particle, and to act like a wave when the
experiments try to prove that light is a wave.
I apply this understanding to the modelling the universe in general:
I don't believe in a grand-unification theory of anything, since no
model can completely describe the universe. I prefer to approach a
problem that requires modelling by creating several different models
and seeing what each has to say.
For my thought experiments I have used or created several different
models. The models are:
1. Not enough content - The effect of content generation costs on
on-line adventure games.
2. Explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers - Richard
Bartle's model.
3. Keeping players interested - Since I volunteer at zoos and have
dealt with a number of species, I often view humans as intelligent
primates. This model tries to gain some insights by mixing
primates' interests and virtual worlds.
4. Achiever vs. explorer content - And how they differ.
5. The nightclub model - Virtual worlds and nightclubs both
involve socialisation.
6. A God-game made real - Sim City with real life people.
7. A virtual world is a platform, not a place - A marketing model.
8. Playgrounds, Disneyland, and the Holodeck - Adding story to
virtual worlds.
(Documentation note: From now on I will use the term "virtual world"
or "VW" in place of MUD or MMORPG, unless I specifically mean a MUD
or a MMORPG.)
Model 1: Not enough content
The original MUD was created by Roy Trubshaw because he " enjoyed
single-player adventure games (Crowther and Wood's ADVENT, Aderson,
Blank, Daniels, and Lebling's ZORK, and Laird's HAUNT)." (Designing
Virtual Worlds, Richard Bartle)
MUDs, as they exist today, are nothing like Adventure or Zork. (I
haven't tried Haunt.) While some still retain the text interface,
they have almost completely discarded the adventure components in
favour of CRPG and socialisation elements.
Why did this happen?
Roy Trubshaw's original MUD was eventually inherited and maintained
by Richard Bartle. When asked why adventuring took a sideline to
socialisation, Richard Bartle stated that he intended to use MUD
more as a social tool than just an adventure game, and suspected
that people who wrote MUDs after him just followed his example,
perhaps blindly.
Thousands of virtual worlds are now run by hobbyists (as MUDs), and
a few dozen by corporations (as MMORPGs). The vast majority of
virtual worlds are still more closely related to CRPGs than
adventure games.
Could a successful virtual world model exist that emphasises
adventure-game aspects but which no-one has yet discovered? The Uru
team obviously thought so; but they cancelled Uru Live due to poor
attendance.
So why did no adventure virtual worlds exist?
I did a thought experiment... (Just to emphasise, this whole article
is one long thought experiment.)
I imagined that I wrote on adventure game (like Zork), and put it
online. What would users think of the experience? What features
would they request? Here's what happens (in my thought experiment):
1. The first feature I'd add would be the ability for users to
"chat", since it seems silly that people wandering around the
adventure game couldn't talk to one another.
2. Next, I'd add the ability for players to work together on
puzzles and hand each other objects.
3. It takes 20-40 hours to complete Zork (or any adventure
game). After that, players run out of stuff to do and stop
playing. In an online environment, players would complete the game
in half the time (or less) because they'd give each other hints;
then they'd run out of stuff to do, but rather than stop playing,
they'd start whinging about lack-of-content.
In other words, after working on content for a year, I'd have
one week of public release before some players would be asking
me for more. So much for my long-awaited holiday...
At this point I have a problem. It takes approximately one man year
to produce a text adventure game that keeps someone occupied for
20-40 hours. In a week's time I'd be able to produce 30-45 minutes
of content. The average VW player is on 20-40 hours a week. For me
to keep them all entertained with adventuring content I'd need to
hire a staff of dozens. (By the way, graphical content, such as what
Uru Live was producing, is at least 10x more expensive to create; my
guesstimate is 1 man year of development for 1 hour of
entertainment. Raph Koster presents similar numbers at
http://www.legendmud.org/raph /gaming/contentcreation.html.)
So what are the solutions?
1. Do nothing (but socialise) - If I do nothing (except produce
content as fast as I can) users will eventually consume all the
content. Most users will leave. Those that stay will sit around
and chat. They will request even more chat functionality, so I'll
stop working on content and emphasise socialisation
features. Eventually, the adventuring component would fall
completely by the wayside (except as different scenery for chat
rooms.)
I could always keep producing content at full speed, regardless
of what features players were using. After a few years I'd
eventually get a decent amount of adventure content. The
question is: In the meantime many users would be attracted to
the virtual world because of the socialisation, not the
adventure content. If I suddenly began emphasising the adventure
content, would my existing users leave? Would potential
adventure-gamers think about visiting when all the virtual world
directories indicated my world was targeted at socialisation?
2. Rely on user created content - Since I can't create all the
content myself, I provide tools so the users can create their own
content. Some MUD authors took this approach creating MUSH's. The
problem with this approach is that 99% of what users create is
junk, and if it isn't junk, it will probably clash thematically
with the content created by the other users. Chaos ensues and
users leave. (Just imagine a Jazz band with 1000 players, only 20
of which are good. For that matter, just imagine a Jazz band with
20 good players, each trying to do their own thing.)
As Andrew Plotkin pointed out, an Uru Live beta-tester, I am
overstating the "chaos" aspect. When the author-created content
runs out, people will find ways to amuse themselves by creating
"content", either through socialisation, creative uses of world
physics, or out-of-game venues, such as web-pages. Some of it
may even be enough to keep the virtual world alive. Relying
solely upon user created content worries me though, because if
not managed properly, the user created chaos has the potential
to destroy a world.
3. Automatically generated content (monsters) - Rather than trying
to create the content myself, I'd have it randomly generated and
spend my time improving the random generators.
The easiest randomly generated content is to create monsters. If
I place enough monsters between puzzles in my adventure, then
players will spend so much time fighting the randomly-generated
content that my 45 minutes of new content every week will take
them 20-40 hours to get through.
Monsters introduce some issues of their own; they imply that
characters have skills (namely combat skills), and that the more
monsters that characters kill, the better they get, and the
tougher the monsters must be. I have just (unintentionally)
introduced levelling and the levelling treadmill.
Magic spells aren't far behind.
All the loot that players collect, and their need for bigger and
better armaments leads to an economy, and maybe even crafting.
Furthermore, if player characters can kill monsters, players
will ask for features so player characters can kill other player
characters... and in turn, enable griefers. Griefers cause all
sorts of other problems that eventually lead to guilds and
numerous other constructs that are now commonplace in virtual
worlds.
Interestingly, but the time all is said and done, the adventure
component of the virtual world disappears and is completely
replaced by an online CRPG.
4. Mix of socialising and monsters - I could also take the
direction of supporting socialisation and combat
functionality. Or, I could mix socialising and user-created
content. (I couldn't, however, mix user-created content with
combat because users would exploit the user-created content to
make their own characters stronger.) Both of these models exist as
virtual worlds.
In "Designing Virtual Worlds," Richard Bartle points out that there
are four stable configurations for virtual worlds. Interestingly,
these correspond to my four solutions for the "not-enough content"
problem:
1. Type 1: Killers and achievers in equilibrium. (What I have
labelled "Automatically generated content.")
2. Type 2: Socialisers in dominance. ("Do nothing (but
socialise)")
3. Type 3: A balance between all four types, with enough explorers
to control the killers. ("Mix of socialising and monsters")
4. Type 4: An empty virtual world. ("Rely on user created
content")
Richard Bartle has some other relevant observations...
Model 2: Explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers
In 1996, Richard Bartle published a paper, "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds,
Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs", (http://
www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm). If you haven't read it, I suggest
you do so before continuing on.
The gist of the paper is that players of virtual worlds (online
adventure or CRPG games) fall into four general categories that can
be arranged into a 2x2 matrix. These categories are:
- Explorers - Users who like to explore the world. In off-line
terminology, these people like playing adventure games, like Myst.
- Achievers - Users who like accumulating points or money, usually
by killing hordes of monsters. CRPGs are offline games targeted at
achievers.
- Socialisers - Users who like interacting with other users. They
have no off-line equivalent.
- Killers - Users who like acting on other users, often by killing
their characters or causing them grief. Killers have no off-line
equivalent.
One minor point about explorers from Bartle's book, "Designing
Virtual Worlds", is particularly important to me: "Explorers are a
rare occurrence in virtual worlds."
Why? I'll get to this in a minute.
Note: Throughout the document I use a different definition for
"explorers" and "achievers" than Richard Bartle provides. In "HCDS:
Players who suit MUDs", explorers are defined as players who try to
find out as much as possible about the virtual world, while
achievers are people who give themselves game-related goals and set
out to achieve them. Instead, I equate explorers to the online
equivalent to people that like adventure games, and achievers to the
online equivalent to CRPG players. This does twist the model
around, in the same way that using a piano to play music written for
harpsichord affects the music of Bach. You might even argue that it
invalidates the model, although I would disagree. I found such a
transposition of the original to be useful to the problem I'm
addressing: why online adventure games seem to fail. If my
adjustments offend you then pretend there's no connection between
what I'm describing and Bartle's model.
My take on player types
Richard Bartle's paper goes on to explain how a virtual world can
modify its design to attract different player types, and how each
player type affects the other player types. For example: If hordes
of killers move into a virtual world, all the achievers and
socialisers will leave, shortly followed by the killers (because
they have no-one left to kill but themselves.)
Although Bartle lists the reasons why one player type affects
another, I thought I'd examine the subject from a different angle
and see if the results were the same.
The first question I asked is, "If I'm player type X what do I think
of player type Y? Do I want more of them in the game, fewer of them,
or don't really care?" This could be tested by identifying players
as explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers, and then asking
them if they'd like to see more or fewer (or don't care), explorers,
achievers, socialisers, and killers in the world.
Here is my guess at how it would turn out:
- Explorers would like to see mostly explorers in the world, don't
really care how many socialisers or achievers there are, and don't
want any killers. (What explorers think they want and what they
really want isn't always the same; see below.)
- Socialisers would like to see more socialisers in the world,
don't really care how many explorers or achievers there are, and
don't want any killers. (See below.)
- Achievers would like to see more explorers and socialisers in
their world because socialisers and explorers don't try to climb
the levelling ladder. The more of them, the better an achiever's
level ranking (compared to the population in general). Achievers
do not want many other achievers around since too many achievers
makes it too difficult to be number one. Achievers don't mind
lower-level killers, but they don't want any killers that could
actually kill them. (See below.)
- Killers would like to have socialisers around because they're
easy prey. Achievers and explorers are a don't care. They
definitely don't want any more killers since that would provide
competition.
Sometimes, what people think they want is not what they really want:
- Explorers don't mind having a few other explorers around, but
don't want hordes of them. Why? It ruins the immersion. Just think
of explorers as adventure tourists, the sorts that take safaris in
Africa, canoe down the Amazon, or visit Antarctica. (I know quite
a few people like this.) They love it when they're the only ones
there, are okay if a handful of other people show up, and whinge
if there's a crowd (ie: more than 10 tourists visible. Locals are
considered part of the experience, so there's no limit on them.).
Creating a virtual world exclusively populated by explorers
would be a problem since it would need to be a very large
virtual world (or with many shards) to ensure that they only
rarely run into one another.
A few users on Uru Forums commented about this issue, stating
that they often prefer to play alone.
- For reasons I'll explain later, socialisers need achievers and
killers (although too many killers will scare them away.)
- Achievers need some killers because killers make the game more
exciting and challenging, which is something that achievers
like. Achievers don't like being killed by killers though,
especially when the killers so overpower the achievers that they
have no chance to recuperate and eventually level-up to overpower
the killers.
How many explorers are there?
My comparison of "explorers" to "adventure tourists" brings up
another interesting issue: How many explorers are there in the real
world? How many achievers are there? Socialisers? Killers?
You can answer the explorers vs. achievers ratio by visiting your
local game store and seeing how many adventure games are on the
shelf compared to the number of CRPGs. In my favourite computer-game
store, there are usually one or two adventure game boxes per ten
CRPG boxes, implying that there are 5-10x as many CRPG players as
adventure game players. Or, in other words, there are 5-10x as many
achievers as explorers. (Note: This is only a guesstimate. As a
reviewer noted, explorers may take longer to finish a game than
achievers, or may not play as many games. Or vice versa. My game
store may be atypical. Etc.)
Another way to answer the question is to see where people holiday
(assuming they have the money). Do they go to Florida, Spain, or
other safe destination, or to search for gorillas in Africa or trek
around Nepal?
How many killers are there? This is more difficult because killers
only show their true colours when they have power or anonymity. In
real life, that means people in management positions and prank phone
callers. My guess is that 5%-10% of the real-world population are
killers (not literally, but in the player-types sense).
5%-10% of the population are explorers. The rest are evenly divided
among achievers and socialisers, 40%-45% each.
Anecdotally, I've observed that some populations are skewed towards
explorers, socialisers, achievers, or killers:
- Killers are more common in online virtual worlds (10%-20% of the
population) because they're anonymous. They cannot exhibit killer
behaviours in the real world without negative consequences so
their only outlet is in a virtual one. Explorers are less common
(2%-5%), for reasons that I'll explain.
- Teenagers seem to lean towards killer or achievers player types,
or at least that's how I recall my high school
experiences. Teenagers are also the majority of game players, so
any virtual world that ignores the achiever and killer market also
loses much of the very-large teenage market.
- Managers and politicians tend to be killers or achievers.
Why does the number of explorers in the real world matter? It
affects the potential market size for products targeted at
explorers. This, in turn, affects what type of companies will target
them, and how.
The cost of content
Virtual worlds are in competition with the real world, television,
and other virtual worlds. If the content (what draws the player to
the virtual world) is not compelling enough, the player will
leave. All player types need content. All content costs money.
- Explorers need adventure-game style content.
The cost of explorer-targeted content depends on the number of
hours of entertainment provided as opposed to the number of
explorers. For the most part, explorers are okay with other
explorers using the same content as long as the other explorers
don't show their faces and disrupt the illusion of
isolation. Virtual worlds can easily solve the illusion of
isolation by creating numerous shards. African safaris can't;
they must limit the number of explorers roaming around in 4WD
vehicles.
Explorer content (adventure games) is the most expensive to
create, about 2x-4x times as expensive per hour of play as CRPG
content. Myst III (adventure game) was 2.5 years of development,
maxing out at 25 developers, and providing 20-40 hours of
play. Diablo II (CRPG) took 3 years and maxed out at 40
developers, providing 50-200 hours of play. The arithmetic shows
that Myst III was 2x as expensive as Diablo II for every hour of
expected play. Because explorers will give each other hints in
an online adventure game, the content of an online Myst III
would only last 10-20 hours, making it 4x as expensive per
hour. (Developer numbers from "Postmortems from Game Developer",
CMP Books.)
- Achievers need CRPG-style content.
Like explorers, achiever content also depends upon the number of
hours of entertainment, not on the number of achievers.
- Socialisers also need content. They need to be given new things
to talk about and new people to talk with.
Just think of parties/socials you've put on. You invite a dozen
people to your house, eat some dinner, and they spend the night
talking. Imagine if you invited the same people to your house
the next night, and then the night after that, etc. They'd soon
run out of things to talk about. There is only so much
discussion-worthy news a day. To liven up the party you bring
out some games (cards, Pictionary, etc.), or invite some new
blood (newbies). Even that runs out of steam eventually.
A virtual world's customer-relation team can spend lots of time
coming up with entertainments for socialisers, such as
get-togethers, costume parties, weddings, etc. This, however,
gets expensive, especially since the costs are related to the
number of socialisers. (Costs for explorers and achievers are
related to the number of hours of entertainment, not the number
of players.)
This is where achievers, explorers, and killers come in; they
provide something for socialisers to talk about. Killers are
especially good subjects, because not only do they do
gossip-worthy things, but they're dangerous to the socialisers,
forcing socialisers to pay attention to their antisocial
activities. (Just consider: How much of the nightly news is
created by people that are literally killers, or figuratively
killer player-types?) If the socialisers also do occasional
exploration, achievement, or killing, all the more to discuss.
- Killers use other players as their content. They are expensive
because they produce customer complaints and/or cause paying
customers to leave the game.
Targeted virtual worlds
Using the new observations, let me re-explore the fate of virtual
worlds targeted at specific player types:
- Explorers - Virtual worlds targeted at explorers don't work well
because a) there aren't many explorers in the general population,
b) explorers don't really require the online experience (unlike
socialisers and killers) so they can just as easily have fun
offline for less money, and c) explorers cost a lot of money to
keep happy.
- Achievers - Virtual worlds targeted purely at achievers do work
(kind of).
The content is relatively cheap (compared to explorers) because
the per-hour cost is low (1/2 to 1 /4 the price) and there are
so many more achievers than explorers. (5x to 10x as
many). Multiply these together and you'll see that an
achiever-hour is 1/ 10th to 1/40th the cost of an explorer-hour.
Achievers greatly prefer to have socialisers and explorers
present so they have a higher character rank. Killers aren't
necessarily desired, but they come along for "free", and do make
the achiever's experiences more exciting.
The combination of cheap (and everlasting) content, killers for
excitement, and the ability to occasionally socialise with one's
friends make virtual worlds an ideal place for achievers,
despite the fact that achievers don't want too many other
achievers around.
- Socialisers - Virtual worlds targeted at socialisers don't work
(according to this theory). It costs too much money to entertain
the socialisers properly, so eventually socialisers will leave.
Some out-of-theory effects do exist though: Some socialisers
like organizing their own social events, effectively providing
free content. Virtual worlds always have newbies coming in, and
if they can be introduced to the other socialisers they will
provide new topics of discussion. Most importantly, socialisers
develop relationships that keep them in the virtual world even
though they're bored.
- Killers - Virtual worlds targeted solely at killers don't work
because killers like to have easy prey around, such as herds of
socialisers.
- Mix of achievers, socialisers, and (a few) killers - According
to my theory, and apparently in real life, this is the most stable
configuration. The achievers are happy because they're getting
lots of content for low cost, and have plenty of socialisers under
them that boost their player ranking. Socialisers have all the
achievers and killers to talk about. Killers have all the
socialisers and achievers to harass. According the Richard
Bartle's model, derived from experience as opposed to merely a
thought experiment, adding explorers will control the number of
killers, so explorers would be necessary for stability.
- Mix of explorers and socialisers - This is what Uru Live
attempted, but aborted during the beta. Explorer content
(especially in a graphical game) is incredibly expensive, and the
explorers' activities wouldn't provide enough gossip for the pure
socialisers (only a few minutes of the nightly news is dedicated
to explorer-generated news), so funds would be needed to entertain
them. Uru Live included actors to give the socialisers something
to talk about (and provide story). Content expenses eventually
kill the operation.
The problem with targeting
Even if targeting a virtual world at a specific category of player
works (such as for achievers), targeting a virtual world at a mix of
player-types works better for a few reasons:
1. The explorer, socialiser, achiever, killer matrix is actually a
two dimensional continuum. Many people fall in-between explorer
and socialiser, or explorer and achiever, etc. Virtual worlds
targeted exclusively at one player type will lose those players
that fall between.
2. Players' types (explorer, socialiser, etc.) change depending
upon their moods. (For example: While I usually like playing
adventure games, I still go for the occasional CRPG.)
3. Players have friends who may not all fall into the same player
type. If a virtual world is exclusively targeted at one player
type (such as explorers) then players will find it harder to get
friends to play. If their friends get involved in another (more
generalised) virtual world, they are more likely to follow their
friends.
This follow-ones-friends issue has other ramifications for
virtual worlds, namely that of critical mass. A commonly
accepted "rule" of MMORPG marketing is that if it doesn't
achieve 100K users in a year its subscription rate will
gradually decrease and the MMORPG will fail. Fixed costs are one
reason for failure, but people following their real-life friends
is a positive feedback loop that causes large MMORPGs to get
larger, and small MMORPGs to get smaller. While a virtual world
that only targets a sub-set of player types can exist, it's an
uphill battle that ultimately reduces the number of players
attracted to the virtual world.
Model 3: Keeping players interested
After having a stress dream that the achievers and socialisers of
the world got together and kicked out all the explorers because they
were useless (similar to how the Golgofrinchians kicked out the
telephone sanitisers in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), I decided
that I wasn't entirely happy with these bleak conclusions.
A few months ago I wrote up a short article about an "Evolutionary
explanation for entertainment". See http://
www.mxac.com.au/drt/NaturalEntertain.htm. In the article I produced
a list of stimuli and drives that hold a primate's (aka: human's)
attention.
Below (in the first column) is a list of those stimuli and
drives. The other columns show how well these stimuli and drives are
satisfied by a number of different entertainments, including
TV/movies, adventure games, CRPG, and virtual worlds. The more
stars, the better the entertainment fulfils the stimulus/drive. Red
(stars) indicates that the entertainment is the best at this type of
stimuli/drive. (You may disagree with some of the stimuli/drives or
scores. If so, trying making up your own graph to see if the results
change.)
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| | TV / | Adventure | CRPG | Virtual |
| | Movies | games | | world |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Food | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Narcotics | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Danger | - | | - | (**) |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Socialisation | | | | (**) |
| - politics | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Socialisation | - | | | (**) |
| - friends | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Socialisation | - | | - | (***) |
| - status | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Socialisation | - | | - | (***) |
| - competition | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Socialisation | - | | | (**) |
| - gossip | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Something new | (**) | (**) | - | - |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Sex | (**) | | | - |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Ferreting | | - | (***) | (***) |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Hunting and | | - | (**) | (**) |
| gathering | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Migration | - | (**) | (**) | (**) |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Money | | | - | (**) |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Learning | (**) | - | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Creation | | | | (-) |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Exploration | - | (**) | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Problem | | (***) | - | - |
| solving | | | | |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Escapism | ** | (***) | ** | - |
|---------------+---------+-----------+---------+---------|
| Stories | (***) | - | - | |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
Not surprisingly, CRPGs and virtual worlds are very similar. Virtual
worlds equal or outscore CRPGs on every category except two:
- Escapism - Virtual worlds aren't as good at escapism as CRPGs
because they break the user's immersion more. This happens when a)
a player enters a medieval town that is overwhelmingly populated
by people (other players) sporting weapons and armour, (in a more
realistic world most citizens would be unarmed) and b) all the
other people (other players) talk and act out of character. CRPGs
have neither of these problems because there aren't any other
players.
By the way, if you think of explorers as being synonymous with
real-life adventure tourists then you'll realise that worlds
wishing to attract explorers either need a huge number of NPCs
wandering around to dilute the number of players (tourists), or
the worlds need to enforce role playing.
- Stories - A CRPG can maintain a weak storyline that the player
can experience, such as "save the world from the evil
overlord". Virtual worlds cannot because in a VW one player's
actions cannot affect the world's storyline, except in very rare
circumstances. Players in a virtual world can create their own
"stories" through their own activities though; while such stories
are compelling because the player is part of the action, they are
not the same finely crafted story that occurs in a professionally
authored novel.
Looking at how a CRPG's scores change when on-line functionality is
added (turning them into a MMORPG or MUD), one can guess how an
adventure game's scores will change. Below is a table listing how
on-line functionality can be used to improve an adventure game:
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| | Adventure games |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Food | - |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Narcotics | - |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| | Online-content can increase the danger |
| Danger | if players are allowed to attack one |
| | another, and if there are tangible |
| | consequences for losing. |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Socialisation | |
| - politics | |
|---------------| |
| Socialisation | |
| - friends | Players will be able to communicate |
|---------------| just like in a CRPG virtual world. They |
| Socialisation | may be more limited in their ability to |
| - status | grief one another, diminishing the |
|---------------| benefits for status, competition and |
| Socialisation | gossip. |
| - competition | |
|---------------| |
| Socialisation | |
| - gossip | |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Something new | CCD (See below) |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Sex | Virtual sex? |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Ferreting | - |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Hunting and | - |
| gathering | |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Migration | CCD (See below) |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Money | On-line economics make money more |
| | interesting than in off-line play. |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| | Players can "learn" from one another by |
| Learning | having interesting conversations. |
| | |
| | CCD (See below) |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Creation | Players can share their creations |
| | on-line. |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Exploration | |
|---------------| CCD (See below) |
| Problem | |
| solving | |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| | If all the players role-play then an |
| Escapism | on-line system can improve escapism. If |
| | player's don't role-play then escapism |
| | will be harmed. |
|---------------+-----------------------------------------|
| Stories | CCD (See below) |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
For an adventure game, the bulk of the stimuli/drives cannot be
improved by going online. Many of the categories are marked as
"CCD", which is short for "Cheaper content delivery". It's the only
thing that online content has to offer for the given stimulus/drive.
Basically, if putting an adventure game online can make it cheaper
(or better for the same cost) then players will go online. If going
online does not reduce cost then online adventure games have little
to offer, and explorers would prefer to play off-line adventure
games.
The perils of online distribution
The Internet promises to be a frictionless (ie: cheap) distribution
system. While a game may be sold for $50.00 at a store, the game
company only gets (approximately) $15.00 of that due to COGs,
distribution, and the supply chain. Theoretically, a game company
could just distribute its game on the Internet, bypass all the
expenses, and pocket the $50.00.
As seen in the stimuli/drives list, potentially cheaper distribution
is the main way an on-line adventure game can improve upon an
off-line adventure game.
Distributing on-line comes with a heap of problems though:
- Renting vs. buying - To a customer, on-line distribution feels
more like renting than buying because a) they don't actually get
anything to hold, and b) as you'll see later, on-line distribution
practically forces you to create a pay-as-you-play model.
How much are people willing to pay for a rental? A lot less than
a purchased product. People will pay $20 for a DVD, but are only
willing to pay $5 (or less) to rent it. Does that mean that
people willing to pay $50.00 for an off-the-shelf game will only
be willing to pay $15.00 for the downloadable version? I hope
not, but I'll assume this is the case.
- Narrow-band - Most of the world is serviced by traditional 56K
modems. Even people with broadband will find a 5GB DVD-sized
download overwhelming. For on-line distribution to work, an online
adventure game must be (relatively) small. Uru (which included Uru
Live) fit onto one CD, much smaller than previous versions of
Myst, because Uru replaced the movies and 360 degree bitmaps with
real-time 3D animation.
Reducing an adventure game's download size is a large task. The
texture maps, 3D models, sounds effects, recorded speech, and
cut scenes increasingly require more and more CD-ROMs in the
package. (Although Uru Live is only one CD, if there were an Uru
Live II that had the graphics quality of upcoming games like
Everquest II, it would certainly require more data.) To produce
an adventure game small enough to download, developers may need
to replace many hand-painted texture maps with procedural ones,
use more procedural models, reduce the number of sound effects,
use text-to-speech with transplanted prosody, and animate
cut-scenes on the fly.
Ultimately these changes will reduce the visual and acoustic
quality of the game. Players won't be willing to spend as much
money without the eye candy. The $15.00 price-point might drop
to $10.00 or even $7.00. (The only bright side is that the
lower-quality graphics will reduce development costs.)
- Bad purchases - Before I purchase a game I read reviews of the
game to see if it will interest me. Even with that, I still "toss
out" half the games I buy. Within an hour of opening the box I
know that I don't like the game. The only reason I persist is
because I just paid $50 for the game and I'm going to get as much
enjoyment out of the game as I can, even if it bores me to death;
I usually give up after about 10 hours of play. On-line players
will give up before their trial-period ends.
Therefore, if I had a chance to try a demo of every game first,
I'd buy half as many games. If other players are like me then
games distributed on-line would sell half as many copies as they
would through retail.
The only up-side to the equation is that free demos can catch
players that wouldn't be willing risk $50 to try the game, but
who end up liking it and are willing to pay for it. I suspect
this is a false hope: Of all the games I've played from demo CDs
or downloads, I have only bought one or two.
- No commitment - When someone pays $50 to play a game but doesn't
like it, they're going to stick with it for at least a few hours
before giving up in disgust. (In my case it's about 10 hours.)
However, when someone downloads a demo game, they don't have $50
of expenses that they feel compelled to "enjoy". Consequently, if
the player's attention is not grabbed within an hour (sometimes 10
minutes), they're lost.
What does this mean? A retail virtual world has approximately 10
hours to get the player hooked, so that they'll sign up for a
further 20 months. A downloaded virtual world has only 1 hour.
- Just browsing - Once software can be downloaded for free, you'll
also get "browsers" who download the game even though they don't
expect to pay for it. Shareware software has a browse-to-buy
ratio of 20:1 to 100:1. If an adventure game is a 1GB download,
20GB - 100GB will be downloaded for every copy sold. If bandwidth
rates are $1-$3 per gigabyte there isn't much hope of making a
profit.
Browsers cost money because downloads cost money, and their
calls/E-mails to customer support cost money. To minimise these
costs an online adventure game must be a small core that
downloads on demand, and downloads the bulk of its data when the
user pays.
- Piracy - Piracy affects every game.
Retail games experience three forms of piracy: 1) Organized
crime that makes and sells 10's to 100's of thousands of copies;
while not common in the US or Europe, such piracy is very common
in Asia. 2) Friends making copies for friends. 3) People selling
or giving away the game once they're finish. (Item 3 is
technically not piracy, but it has the same effect.) I haven't
heard recent piracy statistics for software, but the music
industry estimates a 40% loss of revenue due to piracy.
When a game is small enough that it can be downloaded, pirates
have a feast. I have never heard piracy rates for shareware
(aka: downloadable games), but rates are intuitively much higher
than software that's too big for a download. Just look at the
popularity of (illegal) music downloads to get an idea.
Luckily, there is a solution to this: An interactive experience
cannot be pirated if important parts of the content are safely
stored (and guarded) on a remote server. Anyone can pirate
Everquest's client. They can't get hold of the server software
or content though, so to play Everquest, a person must pay SOE
money. (This is a bit of lie. It is possible to reverse engineer
the Everquest server, but the user-experience won't be the
same.)
Conclusion: If an adventure game is distributed online, it
should include a client/server model so that piracy is
eliminated. The reduction in piracy might improve sales enough
to offset the lower price-point.
- Extra costs - Producing a client/server game is expensive. Not
only are development costs higher, but network bandwidth and
continuing product support are issues. See "Developing Online
Games" (New Riders) for a detailed enumeration of the costs.
Lower prices might have one advantage here: If customers are
paying less money for a product, they generally expect less
customer support. (This is not always the case. While working at
McDonalds in high school, I encountered people that would whinge
like crazy when their 59 cent coffee was too warm or too cold.)
- Players give each other hints - Once a game allows chat (which
an online adventure game will), players will give hints to one
another. This will (at least) double the speed they chew through
content. That means the adventure game must provide twice as much
content, basically doubling its cost of development. (This is in
addition to the costs incurred by adding Internet support.)
- Advertising - If a game is only distributed online, advertising
is more difficult. Retail games are advertised in magazines,
internet-sites, etc. They are also "advertised" by their mere
presence in a game store. Online distribution misses this second
form of advertising.
- Credit cards - People are not eager to give their credit-card
details over the Internet. They are even less eager to sign up for
a reoccurring credit-card payment over the Internet for a product
they can't hold in their hands. Low monthy credit-card fees also
result in a higher percentage of the payment going to the bank.
What happens when all these issues are added up? An on-line
adventure game requires 2x as much development time (because of hint
giving and on-line development costs, but lower eye-candy costs),
for one quarter the revenue ($7-$10/copy, and no revenue from bad
purchases). A subscription service will bring in more revenue, but
will also incur on-line service costs and continual need for new
content. The number of paying players might increase because of much
lower piracy rates and browsers that unexpectedly liked the game.
Model 4: Achiever vs. Explorer content
Throughout this document I've been claiming that achievers are
people that like playing CRPGs, and explorers like playing adventure
games. Although everyone reading this has played CRPGs and adventure
games, I haven't given a detailed description of a CRPG or adventure
game. Doing so provides some interesting results...
CRPGs are games involving repetitive tasks with a variations on a
theme that result in the character's skills improving, such as
killing monsters using various weapons and spells. In other words,
"Practice makes perfect." In a CRPG players learn a skill (killing
things with a dagger), apply it (kill 100 rats), improve upon the
skill (learn how to use a longer dagger), and repeat. The process
of applying the skill results in a reward of experience points or
money for the player. Both rewards allow the player's character to
use new-and-improved weapons and armour, or enter new regions of the
world, allowing the character to attack new-and-improved
monsters. The reward also acts as a metric to tell the player how
well they're doing. (For a detailed description of this process, see
"Swords and Circuitry: A designer's Guide to Computer Role-Playing
Games", Prima Tech.)
CRPG authors control development costs by having the player kill the
same monster 10-1000 times, as many times as possible before the
player gets bored with the activity. To prevent boredom, and keep
costs low, variations are added to the monsters, world, and
player-character's abilities. Instead of attacking rats with a
dagger in a house, the PC now attacks "giant rats" with a "short
sword" in a "basement". This cycle of "kill monsters", "get bored",
and "add new variation" are repeated until the player wins (at which
point he/she can start playing over again), or the player gets
completely bored and quits the game. Typical CRPGs last 50-200
hours.
The repetition-with-variation model can be applied to more than just
CRPGs. MMORPGs use a similar approach for crafting, or in the case
of "A Tale in the Desert" for building a virtual Egypt.
Adventure games, on the other hand, involve a world with puzzles
that must be solved. Each puzzle is unique; in adventure games, once
a puzzle is solved (such as killing Zork's troll with the nasty
knife) it is frowned upon to have another puzzle involving a similar
solution. (In Zork, the thief can be killed, but the cyclops and bat
cannot.) There is no possibility for "practice makes perfect"
because every challenge requires a different
solution. Adventure-game players are rewarded for their
puzzle-solving ability by learning new information or being allowed
into new areas of the game, where they encounter bigger and better
puzzles.
Adventure games reduce their costs by making their puzzles more
difficult, since difficult puzzles require players to (figuratively)
bang their head against the wall longer until the solution is
discovered. (A typical 40 hour adventure game only takes one hour if
the player follows a walkthrough that gives the solutions to every
puzzle.) The cycle in adventure games is: "present player with
puzzle", "player character wanders around the world looking for
clues", "player solves puzzle", and repeat. Adventure games repeat
until the player wins or gets bored. (Interestingly, as the player
wanders through the same environment time after time, he/she notices
new aspects about the world that he/she had missed before and which
certainly would be missed in the walkthrough. It's a bit like
reading a good book for the second or third time. The only
difference is that adventure games force you to re-read.)
Achievers (who play CRPGs) do not like explorer content (adventure
games), considering adventure games tedious and
unexciting. Explorers do not like achiever content, considering
CRPGs to be mindless and boring. This isn't completely true: Some
CRPGs include some relatively-easy puzzles (adventure game content),
and some adventure games include simplistic combat (CRPG
content). The middle-ground, an even mix of CRPG and adventure
games, is fairly rare on the PC. (One reviewer, M. D. Dollahite,
pointed out that the Final Fantasy series contains a mix of both
adventure and RPG, but it's console only.) I'm not sure exactly why
the two genres don't mix, but I have a theory:
Induction and deduction
So how are puzzles different than killing monsters?
I was going to write that achievers liked the danger element, but I
don't think this is true. A CRPG has just as much danger as an
adventure game; namely none. Achievers can pace themselves so
they're only every fighting monsters that are clearly weaker, so
they have no chance of losing. (The only time they cannot do this is
in a PvP game, which is exciting.) Besides, adventure games can kill
PCs just as easily as CRPGs, if not easier; Zork killed your PC if
his lantern went out.
Some other differences also exist:
- CRPGs use a lot of automatically generated content (monster AI
and even monster creation) while adventure games leave little to
chance.
- CRPGs are about "hunting and gathering", while adventure games
are about "problem solving" and "exploration".
- CRPGs include lots of action (combat), while adventure games are
slower paced.
I don't think any of these are the defining issue though.
The real difference between a CRPG and an adventure game is the type
of reasoning used to solve problems. CRPGs use "inductive"
reasoning, while adventure games use " deductive" reasoning. Just in
case these terms are a bit fuzzy, or you never took a logic/math
course using them, here are some definitions from Dictionary.com:
- Induction
+ Logic - The process of deriving general principles from
particular facts or instances.
+ Mathematics - A two-part method of proving a theorem
involving an integral parameter. First the theorem is verified
for the smallest admissible value of the integer. Then it is
proven that if the theorem is true for any value of the
integer, it is true for the next greater value. The final
proof contains the two parts.
- Deduction
+ Logic - The process of reasoning in which a conclusion
follows necessarily from the stated premises; inference by
reasoning from the general to the specific.
Basically, induction identifies a pattern, and from the pattern more
general conclusions can be drawn. The "mathematics" definition is
strikingly similar to my description of a CRPG. "First the theorem
is verified for the smallest admissible value of the integer."
corresponds to "Start the player character with a dagger and have
him kill a rat." "Then it is proven that if the theorem is true for
any value of the integer, it is true for the next greater value."
corresponds to "Once the PC kills the rat, teach him how to kill a
giant rat with a short sword." "The final proof contains the two
parts." means "Repeat."
Deduction is what Sherlock Holmes does, aka: an adventure game. "The
process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from
the stated premises" corresponds to "The process of solving a puzzle
by combining the hints in the game.". "Inference by reasoning from
the general to the specific." means "Using the generalised hints to
solve a specific puzzle."
Note: This is a completely different dimension that Richard Bartle
uses to differential achievers (CRPG) from explorers (adventure),
which is "action vs. interaction". The "world vs. players" axis
doesn't even exist in this model, except for the alpha-(fe)male
discussion, below.
(Anyone with a mathematics degree is probably cringing at my
distortion of the mathematical terms, induction and deduction, into
game-play.)
Biologically, induction is often thought of as left-brained while
deduction (intuition) is right-brained. Could there be a biological
reason explaining the difference between player types? (Women are
supposed to be more right-brained than men. I wonder if women are
more likely to play adventure games than CRPGs?)
What does induction and deduction have to do with explorers not
liking online virtual worlds? I'm not really sure.
Here's a half-baked hypothesis though: Content that's mid-way
between pure adventure game and pure CRPG requires both inductive
and deductive reasoning. The human brain might find it difficult for
both modes of thinking to be active at once. I know that if I'm
playing a CRPG and run across adventure game puzzles the "flow" is
broken, just as if I'm in an adventure game and run across combat
the flow is broken. I couldn't tell you what the "flow" is though,
except that maybe it's related to which side of my brain is
dominant.
Perhaps a mid-point between a CRPG and adventure game is not
advisable. If this is true then content cannot be a mix of CRPG and
adventure game, and therefore achiever content must be completely
separate from explorer content.
Watering down content
Having explained that CRPGs rely on induction while adventure games
use deduction, let me return to my discussion of achiever
vs. explorer content.
If an achiever comes across explorer content while playing, they
won't find it interesting (or will find it too difficult) and are
likely to "cheat" by downloading and following a walkthrough for the
game until they get back to the CRPG part. If an explorer encounters
achiever content they too may "cheat" and find a way of avoiding the
combat, such as getting a gang of friends to safely defeat a monster
that an achiever would have taken on by themselves. (This only works
in online worlds. In offline worlds an explorer will get bored with
the combat and shelve the game.)
If both sides cheat when they get to the content that they don't
like then what's the big deal? The problem is that achievers not
only like to use induction, they like to "win", which means being
the best at the game and beating out all their
competitors. Achievers that encounter puzzles and use walkthoughs to
save time (and boredom) will level-up faster, obtaining an advantage
over other achievers. As a result, all achievers will cheat and use
walkthroughs. Explorers that are intent on "winning at all costs"
can just as easily use the walkthoughs, but it becomes a very hollow
victory. Consequently, there are no explorers that play to "win".
This isn't exactly true, but before explaining why, I must digress.
Let me return to the issue of costs: A CRPG's cost-per-hour-played
is controlled by how often a player is forced to fight the same
monster. If a player must fight a monster 1000 times instead of 100
times, the CRPG costs 1/10th as much to develop. An adventure game's
cost-per-hour-played is controlled by how difficult the puzzles
are. The more difficult, the longer it will take players to figure
them out, and the cheaper the content. Harkening back to pubs in
the wild west, let me call this process "watering down the content".
For both achievers and explorers, the more watered-down the content,
the less interesting the game. If an achiever's content is watered
down too much they will quit. If an explorer's content is watered
down too much they will use a walkthrough to get through the
difficult bits, and then quit.
Making the content too easy (killing only 10 rats instead of 100
levels one up, or making puzzles trivial) isn't good either. It
makes game development more expensive and reduces the satisfaction
players feel upon completion.
Virtual worlds water down content. When I play a CRPG I usually get
half way through it before I get bored, playing for about 20
hours. When I played Asheron's Call 2, I played about 40 hours and
only got 1/8 way through the content. There was more content (I've
heard about 2-3x as much as a typical CRPG), but I also noticed I
had to kill more monsters of the same type before moving onto a new
class of monster. I'm not the only one; many people complain that
virtual worlds require too much work to advance.
Virtual worlds do this on purpose. While a typical CRPG needs to
last 50-200 hours, a virtual world must last 400-800 hours (20
months x 20-40 hours/month). After all, in a virtual world, players
are paying by the month. Additionally, those virtual worlds that
make levelling too easy find that some players quickly max out and
then either whinge about the lack of content or leave, neither of
which are good.
What happens to players like me when we conclude that the virtual
world has watered down its content? We leave the virtual world and
go back to playing offline CRPGs. The people that remain in the
virtual world are playing for one or more of the following reasons:
- They don't get bored with repetitive tasks, and they've already
played through all the existing CRPGs a few times.
- They're addicted to the levelling treadmill. But why aren't they
addicted to the levelling treadmill in CRPGs? Perhaps because
virtual worlds are always expanding their high-level content,
allowing for even higher levels, while CRPGs just end.
- They are power gamers. CRPGs are too easy and their content is
exhausted too quickly because it is not watered down.
- They like the excitement of PvP. CRPGs cannot offer this.
- They want to be the alpha-male (or female). There is glory in
being #1 in a virtual world, but none in a CRPG.
- They like the virtual world's additional social content.
What about online adventure games? If they were cheap enough to be
feasible, what kind of explorers would stick around for watered down
content?
- Those that don't get bored playing the same adventure game over
and over. (This is almost an oxymoron, because the defining
feature of an adventure game is the fact that every puzzle is
unique. Going back and re-playing the same adventure is not much
of a challenge unless it's been years.)
- People addicted to adventure games (do such people exist?) might
stick around because online adventure games keep adding content,
although never quickly enough because the content is more
expensive and has a smaller market than CRPG content.
- Online adventure games (could) be watered down with more
difficult puzzles, providing more of a challenge for power gamers.
- They like the excitement of PvP. (Although I haven't seen any
adventure games with PvP, this is possible. PvP in an adventure
game would rely solely on wit; PvP in CRPGs requires wit and
high-level characters.)
- They want to be the alpha-male or alpha-female. (I'm not sure
how well this one works in an adventure game. In a virtual world,
a higher character level provides a player with more power to
dominate other players. An online adventure game could be written
so that players who had gone through more of the game would have
more power over other players, but walkthoughs would enable anyone
who craved this power to instantly get there. The world would be
filled with too many alpha-(fe)males (aka: killers) and everyone
else would leave.)
- They like the online adventure game's additional social content.
As a result, people that play the online CRPG portion of virtual
worlds are mostly achievers (levelling treadmill and power-games),
killers (PvP and alpha-(fe)male wannabes), or socialisers.
So what does this say about the feasibility of explorer content?
This model indicates that I can create explorer content as long as I
don't expect players to stick around. Watering down the explorer
content does retain some player personalities (power gamers), but
most will revert to a walkthrough for content that is too difficult.
Can I mix achiever and explorer content? The induction vs. deduction
thought-experiment implies that I cannot have explorer and achiever
content in the same "quest", but that's a half-baked idea. I could
always have two separate quests, one targeted at explorers and the
other at achievers. Most players would play only those quests that
interested them, However, alpha-(fe)male wannabes would use
walkthroughs to cheat on the adventure game content if it provided
them an advantage (such as experience points or special items).
Model 5: The nightclub
Online worlds are a lot like nightclubs.
People visit nightclubs to drink, dance, listen to music, partake in
velcro suits (or other trendy activity), and to meet other
people. People visit virtual worlds to kill things, explore, get a
sense of accomplishment, and to meet other people.
Nightclubs are often "themed", being western, pop, punk, under-18,
classical, etc. People pick their nightclub based on the theme. Each
theme, of course, is associated with a style of music. More
importantly, each theme is associated with a style of patron.
One of the reasons I don't like MMORPGs is because they're filled
with teenagers (or teenage-minded people). I don't care to talk to
most teenagers. I didn't care to talk to teenagers when I was a
teenager. The entire MMORPG environment, especially the
achiever/killer features, is targeted at teenagers. If I were
producing a MMORPG I'd make this decision too, since teenagers are a
very large percentage of gamers and their personality works well
with MMORPGs.
One of the reasons I was interested in Uru Live was because
teenagers would stay away from it, leaving adults (or adult-minded
teenagers). It didn't provide the action or reptilian-brained
activities that so attract teenagers.
I suspect that if explorer-oriented worlds are ever commercially
viable they will be targeted at adults, and achiever-oriented worlds
will be targeted at teenagers. Uru Live was clearly targeted at a
different demographic than MMORPGs, and many customers liked it
specifically because it didn't include teenage-minded MMORPG
players. (See Uru Forums) (If this is so, my earlier question about
whether it's possible to mix explorer and achiever content is moot;
they won't be mixed because each one will be targeted at a different
demographic.)
Some nightclubs include another useful "feature" that many virtual
worlds already copy; they have a person who stands at the doorway
and only lets desirable people in.
Model 6: A God-game made real
In a "God-game", such as Black & White or Sim City, the player
pretends to be God. His subjects are thousands of electronic AI's
that he must keep happy and healthy. If he doesn't they either leave
or die.
Oddly, virtual worlds are God-games for the authors. The virtual
world author must act through his virtual world tools to keep his
virtual world's inhabitants happy, or they'll leave. Unlike a
God-game, the inhabitants of virtual worlds are real people. The
God-game nature of running a virtual worlds is a well known to MUD
wizards, although not necessarily stated in such a blunt manner.
Of course, real-life players are infinitely more complex than the
AIs used for God-games, and it takes more than a few well-placed
roads and skyrises to keep real people happy. However, the God-game
analogy raises some interesting issues:
First, some players really enjoy playing God, in God-games, and as
virtual world authors. A virtual world could include sub-worlds
where players act as Gods and invite other players in to enjoy what
they have created. This, of course, is player created content. It
has a few problems:
- Legal issues, as discussed in "Designing Virtual Worlds" and
elsewhere.
- Most user-created content is lousy, or is a slightly-modified
copy of another virtual world (most amateur MUDs being minor
variations on other MUDs).
- Even the good stuff will clash thematically with other
user-created content and the world's content.
- Authoring systems that allow for content to vary significantly
from world to world also require a large amount of time for the
author to learn and use. Those systems that make world generation
relatively easy (such as Neverwinter Nights or Morrowind) result
in mostly similar worlds.
- Players will use their God-hood as an exploit to improve their
own (or their friends') characters.
I don't have any novel answers to these solutions except for the
exploit problem... CRPGs encourage exploits because experience,
gold, and items translate from one sub-world to another. (If they
don't transfer then many CRPG players won't bother investing time in
the other world.) In an adventure game, exploits are much less
likely since there is no experience or gold (usually), and items can
logically be kept in the world where they were created.
The second observation is this: The real God (or deities of your
choosing) uses people to accomplish his (or her) goals, often by
"working in mysterious ways" through luck, voices, dreams, and
visions. How can a virtual world author (aka: "God") manipulate
players to improve the world experience?
- By coding the world physics to encourage, discourage, or prevent
certain behaviours. Virtual worlds already employ this tactic.
- By encouraging role playing, which is virtually impossible in a
large virtual world, but doable in smaller ones. Some virtual
worlds encourage role playing; most have given up on the idea.
- By sending virtual visions to the characters. I suspect most
players will ignore such visions and go on doing what they were
doing. "Hearing voices" might make for a good psychological-horror
film though.
- By paying players to behave in certain ways...
When I say paying, I don't mean with real money, but with game money
or goods. Here's an example:
Current virtual worlds "pay" players to go on quests, such as
killing all the rats in the farmer's basement or rescuing the a lost
villager. Payment includes experience, in-game money, and
equipment. Many players like quests because they give the players
goals, and some additional pocket money.
Virtual world authors should be yelled at by their accountants for
such quests. It costs 100 g.p. (of virtual money) to hire a player
to kill the rats. This is a waste of money, since the virtual rats
don't really need killing. After all, they were generated for the
sole purpose of being killed by the questing character in the first
place. It's like creating make-work for employees, and doesn't make
economic sense.
Why not "pay" players to entertain each other? It's easy; just twist
the quests a little. Have one NPC, someone in organized crime, hire
players to steal chickens from all the farmers in town, for a cash
reward of 100 g.p. The farmers, in turn, hire different players to
protect their chickens, for 100 g.p. Only one of the player
characters gets the reward. Both get entertained.
The plot can be extended: A third PC, the local mayor, may pay
someone 1000 g.p. to knock off the organized-crime PC. When that
happens, the market for chicken stealing and protecting dries up
until a new NPC fills the old one's place. Maybe a NPC that was
previously a pick-pocket is promoted to being the new
chicken-stealer. (One reviewer mentioned that http://
www.skotos.net/articles contains articles with similar concepts,
although I haven't spent the time looking for them.)
Repeat ad infinitum.
Of course, this is very manipulative. Players are being objectified
by the NPCs. (Which is probably just, because NPCs are objectified
by the players.) Will players like the scheme? Who knows. Some may
object, but I suspect many of them will find it more interesting to
be part of the larger story that to pout that they're being used by
the authors to enhance the virtual world.
The author, playing god, is responsible for programming in the major
NPCs' goals. The NPCs, in turn, manipulate the players and drive the
world story. When an NPC reaches its goals, or is killed by a PC,
the author jumps in and adjusts the story.
What does this second observation have to do with explorers? The web
of NPCs hiring PCs to do odd jobs might actually add up to an
important story. Maybe a wizard keeps hiring PCs to acquire various
magical ingredients. If someone is smart enough to observe, they may
realise that the wizard is building a special magical item, or is
casting a powerful spell that allows the wizard to take control of
the city. Or maybe the wizard is being controlled by the Boy
Sprouts, who are in turn controlled by the UFOs. (If you don't get
this joke you've never played the "Illuminati" card game.) If the
wizard is stopped, do the future events of the world change? This is
all explorer material.
The system also requires relationships between individual NPCs and
individual players. A NPC will learn how reliable a player is, and
give the more difficult tasks to the more reliable
players. Achievers will like this, at least until their patron is
killed by a griefer or another achiever.
The revised quest system has at least two problems:
1. It's a bit too much like real life. Most people are already
pawns of others in real life, and may not wish to play the same
role in a virtual world.
2. It's open to numerous exploits that may doom it from the start.
Model 7: A virtual world is a platform, not a place
This title isn't exactly correct... To the players a virtual world
is a place. To the developer it's a platform. I'll explain why, and
how this affects virtual worlds targeted at explorers.
If you think that a virtual world is solely a game, then what I'm
about to say won't make much sense. I view a virtual world as a
place that allows players to partake in activities, some of which
may be games, some socialisation, and other forms of
entertainment. The game is just a portion of the virtual world's
experience. It's not even one game, but many games, such as CRPG,
economics, and flight simulators all rolled into one. If you haven't
heard this concept before then do some searching on the web or read
"Designing Virtual Worlds." If you don't agree with my assumption
that a virtual world is a place, this model won't bear any weight.
Back to talking about "place"... Assume that a virtual world were
just a place, such as the Earth stripped of all people, animals, and
potentially plants. What could an individual do in it?
- Enjoy the ambience... Antarctica evokes distinctly different
emotions than a tropical rainforest.
- Wander around and explore the scenery
- Create or build works of art for no-one to see
- Explore the back-story of the world
- Explore the physics of the world
This would quickly get boring. (Anyone who doesn't think so has a
much longer attention span than I do. For those who don't believe
me, try one of the many 3D chat virtual worlds during off-peek hours
and see how entertaining vacant worlds are.)
A developer could make the world more interesting by adding sentient
creatures, like other players. This would allow for another
activity:
- Chat
When people run out of stuff to talk about, chatting too gets
boring. In the real world, bringing people together to chat is
called a party. It is accompanied by food, alcohol, and games (such
as cards and twister) in order to liven things up. Since food and
alcohol aren't viable on-line services, a developer can only use
games to make the virtual world more interesting.
- Games - Such as cards, chess, and virtual twister.
Existing virtual worlds have added games that go well beyond card
games in scale and complexity. These new games are:
- Multiplayer CRPGs - The standard game in a virtual world.
- Economy - Almost all virtual worlds include an economic game of
acquiring goods from monsters (or crafting goods) and selling the
goods to other players.
- Player vs. player kill-fests - A very common game in virtual
worlds.
- Adventure games and puzzles - Herein lies the problem. This is
what many explorers want, but which don't exist in sufficient
quantities or densities in existing virtual worlds.
- Vehicle simulations - Star Wars Galaxies has recently added
space combat. There's no reason other vehicles can't be simulated
in a virtual world, including autos, planes, and dragons.
Virtual worlds could also incorporate other computer genres:
- Real-time strategy games - RTS games in a virtual worlds would
probably be more interesting if they weren't real time, but
occurred over weeks/months and the action occurred in the same
virtual world as everything else. This is problematical since only
a handful of people would be able to participate, and they would
need patience.
- Sports games - If a Harry Potter virtual world were ever created
it would have to have quiddich matches, with each team member
being a player character. Matches would be organized for specific
times so the players could make sure they're online. There's no
reason a virtual world couldn't include other sports games such as
football, basketball, dragon polo, etc.
- Other genres - There aren't many left, except God-games (like
Sim City = be mayor of a virtual city, but only one player at a
time), first-person shooters (online kill-fests are fairly close),
and puzzles (crosswords in a virtual-world paper, or adventure
game puzzles).
Notice the trend: Because a virtual world by itself is fairly dull,
developers add various sub-games (and activities) to the world. As
players get bored with those sub-games, developers either expand the
existing sub-games (such as adding more levels to a CRPG), or
incorporate new sub-games (such as Star Wars Galaxies' recent
addition of space combat). This becomes an infinite cycle.
Most game genres that have been incorporated into a virtual world
originally existed off-line, and are still sold as such: CRPG,
adventure, FPS, cards, etc. When an off-line game is incorporated
into a virtual world, the user's on-line experience is often
inferior to the off-line counterparts:
- Chat, card games, and economy games can be played for free
elsewhere on the net. Why pay a virtual world to provide them?
- CRPGs, adventure games, vehicle simulations, RTS, FPS, and
sports games are (for the most part) better off-line than on-line
because of problems with latency, griefers, and the fact that the
on-line player can't be the saviour of the virtual world.
Virtual worlds offer only a few games that are better on-line than
off. Such sub-games rely on large numbers of online users, such as
kill-fests, crafting, and the economy.
Despite the inferiority of many virtual world sub-games, people are
still willing to pay a lot of money to play. Why?
It's because of synergy. The combination of several off-line games
(or free on-line games) into one virtual world produces a better
experience. The whole becomes more valuable than the sum of its
parts. Here are some examples:
- Chat gets boring because there's nothing to talk about. A
virtual world that encourages players to form groups provides
players with issues worth discussing, increasing the value of chat
and making the multiplayer games more fun.
- A free on-line card game allows users to play against one
another, and potentially even gamble fake money. Once the player
has accumulated stacks of money, though, he has nothing to spend
it on, other than more gambling. In a virtual world, the player
can spend winnings on weapons and armour, affecting his CRPG or
PvP game.
- A player can use the CRPG aspect to increase his character's
skills and weaponry. Once they're high enough, the player can use
those same skills and weaponry for the PvP kill-fests.
- If a player holds a grudge against another player, he can not
only attack him physically (in virtual world terms), but also
economically and socially.
Interestingly, if you apply the synergy concept to an adventure game
(such as Myst) you'll see that an adventure game is a virtual world
containing sub-games of puzzles. The two elements have a positive
impact on each other. The virtual world element gives a purpose to
the puzzles. The puzzles make the player spend more time wandering
around the virtual world and discovering the scenery. Myst, if
broken down into scenery and a set of puzzles, is much less
interesting than the whole. (Myst also includes a story component,
which I'll discuss later.)
So, let me rephrase the question a bit: How does a virtual world
provide value-added to the player?
- It's a nice place to walk around, etc. (As above.)
- The whole is more valuable than the sum of its parts (sub-games)
because of the synergies provided by the virtual world. (As
above.)
- Once a player is a member of a virtual world, he becomes part of
the community and befriends many of its users. When new sub-games
are added, the player can then play with people he is familiar
with. If the sub-games were separate services then a player would
have to find a different group of friends for every activity,
something that most people don't like to do.
- A player purchasing a virtual world that provides 10 sub-games
(such as a CRPG, vehicle simulator, chat, etc.) pays for only one
software package and one monthly fee. Most people would rather pay
$10 per month to one company than make 10 x $1 payments to ten
companies.
- People are more likely to watch a Disney movie than an animation
from a random company because they know the Disney name, and have
expectations about the Disney quality and style. The same will
apply for virtual worlds and the sub-games they add. Why should a
customer buy a racing game from game company X when they can use
the one built into their familiar virtual world?
A virtual world indirectly provides value-added to the player by
being a good platform for the developer:
- Once a developer has produced all the components, artwork, and
content to develop a virtual world, adding new sub-games (such as
a sports) is incremental work. The developer could even use some
of the components, artwork, and content to produce self-standing
retail games, such as a RTS game. (Sound familiar?) A retail CRPG
would be even easier for a virtual world developer to ship, but
that might cannibalise their virtual world market.
- Once a developer has produced one virtual world, the next five
(or more) are incremental. Turbine, SOE, and NCSoft are all taking
this approach. I suspect that in the future, each major virtual
world developer will produce a handful of virtual world genres,
such as fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc. Each of these genres will
include a standard set of sub-games, such as CRPG, economy, PvP,
vehicle simulation, etc. The sub-games will vary depending upon
genre though, so vehicle simulation in a fantasy world will
include dragon-riding aerial combat, sci-fi would be spaceships,
and horror could have racing through a zombie-filled city with a
beat-up 4WD.
- The virtual world's community is a valuable list of customers
that might wish to play other (retail or virtual world) games that
the developer offers.
- A virtual world is pirate resistant. (As discussed earlier.)
CD-ROMs and DVDs are not, especially when broadband becomes
common.
Virtual worlds are "platforms" because the virtual world, which is
mostly worthless stand-alone, provides the structure upon which
other games are built and marketed.
I can imagine a future where the top three virtual world developers
morph into something like cable providers... Consumers pay a
monthly fee. For that fee they get to play any of 50-500 games (as
opposed to cable providers, which provide 50-500 TV channels). The
game company's marketing model would change from a per-unit model to
an annuity... If you were a large corporation, would you rather have
a risky hit-based model, or a stable and profitable annuity? I know
Bill Gates' answer to that question.
In "Playgrounds, Disneyland, and the Holodeck" I discuss a variation
on the cable-TV model.
Here is a thought: How many people have more than one cable
provider? How many people have both cable and satellite TV?
Approximately none. Apply this same thinking to virtual worlds: How
many people will pay to be members of two virtual worlds at once?
My Microsoft-trained mind does the math and comes to the following
conclusions: In the future there will be three (maybe five) virtual
world companies that own 80%-90% of the market. They won't own just
the virtual worlds market, either. They will also own most of the
retail games market. The Big Three will dominate any customer
segment they're interested in; this means mass market. They will
dominate any market where throwing money at the problem improves the
user experience; such as modelling and animation. (Just think: large
virtual world providers = mass market = Hollywood.)
The remaining 10%-20% of the market will eke out an existence by
targeting consumers that don't like the mass-market content provided
by the Big Three. They won't have enough money to provide the
dazzling visuals and animations that the Big Three will. Nor will
their worlds be as large. They probably won't even get shelf space
on retail stores, so they'll have to provide internet distribution.
Am I right about this? (I hope not.) Would anyone believe me if I
were right? (Probably not. People don't like considering dire
predictions, especially if they're the ones whose doom is
predicted. If they did listen, though, they might be able to protect
themselves.)
If you agree with me and follow my line of thought then you'll
notice many ramifications for virtual worlds. However, I'm
discussing virtual worlds targeted at explorers here. How does all
of this affect them?
- Puzzles are just one of the sub-games included in the virtual
world targeted at explorers. Developers will need other sub-games
that are targeted at the same people that like adventure games,
and which synergise with the adventure sub-game.
For example: One such "sub-game" that adventure game players
seem to be interested in is a better story, which could mean a
running story (not necessarily about the PCs) in the virtual
world. Uru Live, for example, was using actors to add more story
to the world.
- Explorers are a niche market. Companies targeting them will be
small. Explorer-targeted virtual worlds will compete on quality of
puzzles, game, community cohesion, and customer support, not with
eye-candy or world size.
Model 8: Playgrounds, Disneyland, and the Holodeck
After posting a draft of this document on rec.arts.int-fiction,
several reviewers pointed out that I didn't mention author-created
stories, and that I didn't discuss some of the future possibilities
of virtual worlds. Originally, I hadn't touched on author-created
stories because they're not currently possible in virtual worlds.
However, I forgot one very important thing: Stories and adventure
games are linked. Except for the first few adventure games, the
puzzles have not only been linked into the world, they've been
linked with the story surrounding the world and immediate
happenings. Some adventure games rely on a story that happens before
the game starts (such as Myst or Deadline), while others use the
puzzles as a means to advance the story (Syberia).
One reason that off-line adventure game players may not want to go
online is that virtual worlds find it much more difficult to include
a personalised story; 100K players running around makes plotting a
personal storyline very difficult.
Traditionally, virtual worlds are devoid of author-created stories
and instead rely on players to create their own "stories" through
their activities. While such "stories" are compelling because the
player is part of them and influences the stories, they do not
compare with a story created by a professional author.
In a large virtual world, personalised (author-created) stories are
not possible. Backstories are certainly possible. Stories that
affect the world as a whole can also be done. (From what I've heard
about the beta of Uru Live, the team was incorporating a running
story into the world, much like Asheron's Call does. Neither Uru
Live's nor Asheron Call's author-created story can be personalised
for every individual though.)
Maybe adventure game players want a more personal story?
If this is so, then online adventure games are still-born. Here's
why:
1. An author writing a linear novel (or movie) can create a very
good story.
2. An author writing a nodal novel (Choose Your Own Adventure),
cannot create quite as compelling a story as the linear one
because the author can't control all the reader's choices; good
stories often hinge on choices. The loss in story quality is
(hopefully) made up for the enjoyment of interactivity.
3. In a face-to-face RPG, the game master can maintain a decent
story with six players, even if the players decide to derail the
story. The game master, being human, has enough intelligence to
either get the story back on track or invent a new one. The game
master cannot, however, manage the story if all six players go in
different directions.
4. An offline CRPG or adventure game can maintain a poor story if
the player implicitly agrees to stay on track and not try to break
the storyline (or if the world prevents the story from being
broken). As soon as the player tries to diverge from the current
story the whole system collapses.
5. Many MUDs, such as those from Skotos, provide storytellers
(real people) that provide more individualised stories. The
storyteller, of course, can only handle so many players, and those
players must be amenable to provided the story, just like
face-to-face RPGs. (Uru Live had actors that helped develop and
personalise the story.)
Analysing the above results produces a few rules:
1. The more players in a virtual world, the more difficult it is
to maintain a story.
2. The more choices that players have, the more difficult it is to
maintain a story.
3. Players that try to subvert a story make it more difficult to
maintain a story.
4. The only way to mitigate the above difficulties is to have more
intelligence behind the story generation, either more storytellers
(real people) or a more-intelligent storytelling AI.
A large virtual world is problematical because of the number of
players and the number of choices each player has. To provide author
created stories at an individual level (as opposed to world-based
plotting), the virtual world must either hire an army of
storytellers and hope their stories don't collide with one another,
or produce a really good AI that can create non-colliding stories
for 100K players, many of which will be trying to break the AI for
fun and profit.
An army of storytellers is possible, although very expensive;
undoubtedly some virtual worlds will cater to this market, but
they'll charge more for it. The other approach, AI, requires
technology that doesn't exist.
Personalised stories for large virtual worlds seem doomed...
However, approaching the problem from a different direction provides
an answer that isn't quite so bleak:
Playgrounds
A playground is a piece of land (place) with numerous mechanical
contrivances (world physics) that lets kids (players) interact with
one another. A contemporary virtual world is a virtual
playground. Instead of merry-go-rounds and see-saws, virtual worlds
have combat and trading. Playground PvP involves pushing kids off
the merry-go-round, throwing sand, calling kids names, and
occasional fights. Virtual world PvP is based on virtual combat,
virtual economics, and social abuse.
Adults build playgrounds for kids so that the kids will be
entertained and physically worn out after the experience, providing
the adults with some rest. Playgrounds also serve a socialisation
purpose, teaching children how to interact with one another. Richard
Bartle presents socialisation experience as an important aspect of
virtual worlds.
A playground has no author-created story, even though stories are
created by the kids in the playground. Playgrounds are not usually
themed, other than an occasional colour scheme or painted smiley
face.
Disneyland
Disneyland is a playground, kind of. Actually, it's a "theme
park". However, it has many elements of a playground: lots of
mechanical contrivances that are either designed to entertain or
make one feel sick. The contrivances, such as Space Mountain, are
more complex than a playground, but Space Mountain is essentially a
really big and really fast slide.
Disneyland is not designed so that kids interact with kids
though. It's designed so parents and kids enjoy quality time
together. The quality is so compelling that some people travel half
way around the world to enjoy it.
Unlike a playground, Disneyland has an author-created story, or
rather, stories. When people wander around Disneyland they are also
wandering around many of Disney's movies and television shows, such
as the tree-house in the "Swiss Family Robinson" or the castle from
"Sword in the Stone". Not only are many of the rides based on Disney
stories, but NPCs (such as Mickey Mouse and Goofy) are right out of
the stories. Because visitors to Disneyland have been previously
exposed to Disney stories, the act of climbing up the "Swiss Family
Robinson tree-house" somehow includes the visitors in the story of
the "Swiss Family Robinson".
Star Wars Galaxies and Middle-Earth Online are both using the
Disneyland model to enhance their virtual playgrounds. They may not
do so successfully, but both virtual worlds are only the first
generation. Give them time. (Uru Live was also heading in this
direction, building upon the stories established in previous Myst
adventure games and books. Uru Live also had actors.)
A quick comment about actors: Uru Live hired human actors to wander
around their world and give speeches that advanced the world's
plot. While this has advantages of realism, it is
problematical. Players that were not around when the actor was
online felt like they missed out. Such feelings will either cause
all players to be online and in the same area where actors will
appear (which is a technology issue), or leave players feeling like
they're on the outside looking in (for those people living in non-US
time-zones). Things can get even worse: As the infamous
assassination of Lord British in Ultima Online shows, someone will
try to derail the actor's actions just for the fun of it.
In "A virtual world is a platform, not a place" I discussed the
possibility of each of the Big Three producing a fantasy, science
fiction, etc. virtual world. They could go a step further than
this, producing several science-fiction worlds (or one
science-fiction virtual world with several sub-worlds), each one
based on a different author's works. One science-fiction world could
be based on Star Wars, while another on Larry Niven's works, and
another from Farscape. The virtual world could either license the IP
from the author, or the author could license the space from the
virtual world.
Of course, the themed virtual world would be tied into the
appropriate books or movies. Players could wander through the themed
world, enjoy the themed activities, and even interact with actors
playing important characters from the books/movies. The virtual
world might even include linear narratives that further the story,
presented as cut-scenes or conversations with NPCs. Maybe the Han
Solo NPC would relate a short anecdote (a 10 minute cut-scene) to
any visiting player about how he acquired the Millennium Falcon.
Is a themed world with cut-scenes enough story to make everyone
happy? Probably not, but it's a start.
Holodecks
At first glance, Star Trek's Holodeck is the ultimate in virtual
worlds, not only because of the stupendous graphics, but because the
Holodeck is smart enough to tailor an experience to a user. (It's
even smart enough to take over the Enterprise a few times.) Oddly
enough, Star Trek's Holodeck doesn't include avatars of users from
all over the galaxy, like a MMORPG does; such additional "features"
can easily be imagined though.
The Holodeck may seem like the final word in virtual worlds, but
such appearances may be deceiving. Even if the Holodeck were
possible today, it might not "work". Here's why I have my doubts:
Over the course of the 1980's I wrote a number of amateur games,
including text-adventure games, a Wizardry clone, an Ultima I clone,
and an adventure BBS. I also did some thinking about where these
games were going. What I imagined then was similar to what we have
in contemporary MMORPGs. (Actually, current MMORPGs have much better
graphics and many more users than I ever dreamed of.)
However, I am dissatisfied with current MMORPGs; they feel soul-less
to me. This is not something I anticipated, but is a consequence of
having 100K players in a world being run by a corporation bent on
maximising sales. While my predictions were right on one level
(graphics), they completely missed the mark on another
(user-experience).
Twenty years later, I can imagine a Holodeck-generated virtual
world, but I don't think a Holodeck will turn out as I
expect. Obviously, some technologies won't exist in 20 years:
Transporter-fabricated matter is a bit undo-able, so I'll have to
settle for a 3D virtual reality headset with a data suit, or a VR
room. The AI is also near-impossible, requiring some human
intervention in a Holodeck experience. The fundamentals are there
though.
I suspect that the Holodeck experience won't be the ultimate virtual
world experiene, for the same reason that kids rebel against their
parent's dreams of having them become a lawyer or doctor. Simply
put, people don't like being told what to do. They like being
manipulated even less. Any attempt by an AI or real person to impose
a story on a virtual world is an act of manipulation, even though
players may wish for some form of story.
Game masters in face-to-face RPGs know they walk a fine line between
creating a good story and forcing players' hands. Players that feel
like they've been wronged will make a fuss and/or leave the
game. Part of the reason that face-to-face RPGs work, and holodecks
may not, is that the player and GM know and trust one another; If
the player feels they're being forced to do something they don't
want to, they will be more forgiving because they know the GM has
their best interest at heart, and making a stink could hurt a
friendship. Similarly, the GM knows enough about the player to know
what buttons not to push. Getting an AI or paid professional to
fill the role of friendly GM is very difficult, although not
necessarily impossible.
I can imagine myself going along with the Holodeck story some days,
while spending other days seeing how far I can go before I break the
AI or make it go crazy. What happens if I replay the murder mystery
and hide the murderer's weapon? If I jump off a cliff, what does the
AI do to realign the story, have Superman catch me? Basically, I'll
turn the original virtual reality game into a new game, push-the-AI.
Does this mean that holodecks won't "work"? Maybe they will and
maybe they won't. Unexpected effects are bound to appear though. The
potential problem of players resisting story-manipulation is only
one example. More issues are undoubtedly lurking.
Mix and match
A virtual world doesn't need to pigeonhole itself into just being a
playground, or just a Disneyland, or just a Holodeck. It can be a
combination of all three, using elements where appropriate.
The "playground" aspect of a virtual world is the world's physics
and mechanics, determining how players (and NPCs) can interact with
one another. Playground "stories" are all player generated using the
world's physics. Contemporary MMORPGs are virtually all
playground. Uru Live had relatively little playground, other than
chat and cone soccer.
The "Disneyland" dimension is the amount of author created
stories. Being created by a person, the stories are expensive, so
must be reused by players. As a result, either the story must be
outside the player's control (such as story that happened before the
game began, as in Myst), or the player must be willing to follow an
essentially linear story path (Syberia).
Unlike a traditional adventure game, the "story" doesn't have to
limit itself to one subject. Hundreds of stories can populate a
world, creating a world of stories, much like Tolkien's Silmarillion
or Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime stories. (Most Dreamtime stories
are associated with places, so as Aborigines move through their
countryside they are also moving from one Dreamtime story to
another.)
Finally, the "Holodeck" dimension of storytelling is the amount of
intelligence (human or AI) used to provide a more personalised
story. For a long time to come, this will be a person, not
AI. Although, a simple AI or well-built tools could aid the human
storyteller. Traditional pen-and-paper RPGs use this form of
storytelling.
Each form of story has its own advantages and disadvantages:
Playground stories are compelling because the player is part of them
and creates them, although the stories are not refined. Disneyland
stories are refined and polished, but immutable. Holodeck stories
are a compromise, allowing users to affect the story, but at the
expense of story quality and human intervention, which introduces an
element of conflict between the player and the storyteller.
Different players prefer different story types. Providing only one
form in a virtual world will alienate some players.
For example: Many off-line CRPG players accept a world with only
playground stories (Diablo or Dungeon Siege - both of which are very
weak in the author-created story department). Such players have no
problem adapting to a MMORPG (which lacks Disneyland and Holodeck
style stories). Since most adventure games include a strong
author-created story component, I suspect adventure game players
prefer author-created stories (Disneyland or
Holodeck-style). Consequently, they're alienated by the
playground-style stories in MMORPGs.
Not modelled: Poor launch for Uru Live?
Uru Live was officially cancelled because not enough users signed
up. However, part of the reason they may not have had enough users
is because of a poor launch strategy: Uru, the retail package, was
available on store shelves in November 2003, just in time for
Christmas. Uru Live, the online portion, wasn't scheduled to go
public until February 2004.
Uru Live (online) shipped after Uru (offline). In the user's mind,
Uru was synonymous with Uru Live. Users probably expected that when
they installed Uru, they'd have access to Uru Live; I know I
did. This wasn't the case, since the team (or at least marketing)
considered them two separate beasts. Therefore, Uru had shipped, but
Uru Live was in beta until February, and perhaps later. This is a
bit confusing for users, even me, and I work in the computer
industry.
I suspect that management decided to ship Uru "separately" from Uru
Live so that Uru would be out in time for the Christmas market, even
though Uru Live wouldn't be ready in time.
This decision had several ramifications:
1. Loss of marketing momentum, since much of the hype over Uru
would have dissipated by the time Uru Live was ready.
2. People that purchased Uru expecting to play Uru Live right away
would be upset, producing expensive support calls and user
dissatisfaction.
I resemble this item. In Australia, the Uru package didn't
include the registration code I needed to sign up for Uru
Live. I called the computer store where I purchased the game,
only to learn I had to call a 1-900 Ubisoft number, which would
cost me money, four or five dollars I think. After two calls I
eventually got my registration number, only to learn that Uru
Live wouldn't be available until February.
3. By the time Uru Live would ship, many Uru players would have
finished Uru and moved onto other games. Getting them to come
back and sign up for Uru Live would be difficult. If beta took
longer than expected, which seemed to be the case from Uru Forums
posts, then getting users back would be even more difficult.
4. Some users may have known about Uru Live's delays and not
bothered to sign up for their free month until Uru Live was
officially released. After all, why waste a free month? The Uru
team would have no idea how many users were waiting in the
wings. (This is exactly what I did.)
5. Because the game contained both an online and offline
component, some people may have left the online portion until they
were finished with the offline game. Again, why waste a free
month? And again, the Uru Team would have no idea how many users
applied this strategy.
Combined wisdom/folly of the models
Now that I have examined explorers from every possible angle, does
this thought experiment give me any useful information?
Here are some possible ways to get explorers using on-line virtual
worlds:
1. Make content creation as cheap as possible (easier said than
done), and/or allow blessed users to create their own content
(fraught with problems).
2. Produce puzzles that still require work to complete even if the
solution is spelled out to a player in a walkthrough. This could
be accomplished using automatic content creation or dynamically
changing puzzles.
3. Reduce the player's cost by eliminating the retail
package. (This then requires a small download and/or broadband.)
Price the game so that the player sees the monthly fee as good
value for money.
4. Produce a world with private regions, or a mechanism so
explorers will know how crowded a region is. If a region is too
crowded they can spend their time exploring an emptier one.
5. Emphasise exploration and socialisation. Limited achiever and
killer functionality could be provided, but it may not be worth
the development, content, and headache costs.
Some less-obvious solutions might also work:
1. Find a business model that allows players to stay for only a
couple of months, or only play for a short while (5 - 10 hours)
each month. (So much for a monthly fee. TV-style ads won't work
because the online service will only be paid for click-throughs,
not eyeballs. People are not likely to click on an ad and
interrupt their immersion. In-game advertising could work for
modern or futuristic worlds.)
2. Since players will only log in once in awhile, provide
automatic E-mail alerts to players when new content is
added. (Think weekly/monthly episodes, just like TV and E-mail
being the TV-Guide.)
3. If players only log in a few hours each month, they won't build
any social contacts, and the socialisation features wouldn't be
used (except for people that know each other outside the virtual
world). This could be solved by co-marketing with several other
virtual world providers and encouraging players to distribute
their play time amongst them, perhaps one night a week in
each. Encourage players to play on the same night each week so the
same faces will be around. (Sounds even more like TV.)
4. Expect and encourage explorers to make on-line friends and meet
up with them in the different worlds. (Do not expect explorers to
bring their real-world friends into the game.) Provide "dating"
features that let explorers group up based upon which content they
haven't yet explored.
5. Include "games of skill", like card-games and chess. The allow
for limited PvP and encourage socialisation.
6. Find a way to include more "story". Adventure games, CRPGs, and
virtual worlds are all beaten by TV's story-telling
ability. Adding stories may draw more users into the game. (The
stories do not necessarily need to involve the players'
characters, but can be about the world's famous NPCs.)
7. Use the adventure-game nature of entertainment to weed out
undesirable player personalities. (Or just have someone that only
lets desirable people into the game.)
8. Either encourage or enforce role playing (to benefit immersion
and escapism), or admit that users will socialise out-of-context
and add more NPCs (with in-context conversations) to repair some
of the lost immersion.
9. Have the NPCs manipulate the players into role playing.
Would enough explorers be attracted to a virtual world even with the
above changes? I'm not sure.
>From my perspective there isn't much of an alternative. Achievers,
killers, and socialisers are having their needs catered to by 100+
MMORPGs and 1500+ MUDs. The explorers are left out in the cold.
Interesting links...
- Editorial about the cancellation of Uru Live
http://www.gamerseurope.com/articles/464
- Wired article about the cancellation of Uru Live
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,62253,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5
- Uru Forums - Read what the players had to say
http://ubbxforums.ubi.com/6/ubb.x?a=cfrm&s=400102&f=1011024
Thanks to...
Thanks to the following people for reviewing and
commenting on this awfully long document. (Said following
people do not necessarily agree with all or any of my
conclusions. You can read their responses in
rec.arts.int-fiction, under the "Thought-experiments
about the failure of Uru Live" thread begun 5-May-2004.)
- Aaron A. Reed
- Adam Thornton
- Andrew Plotkin
- David Doty
- Greg Ewing
- Irfon-Kim Ahmad
- John Prevost
- Mean_Chlorine
- M.D. Dollahite
- Richard Bartle
- RPGMan
- 5parrowhawk
- Stas Starkov
- Uli Kusterer
Copyright 2004 by Mike Rozak. All rights reserved.
Mike at mXac.com.au
mXac Home
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