[MUD-Dev] Homogeneity and choice (Was DESIGN: Why do people likeweather in MMORPGs?)

[John Buehler]

Wayne Witzke writes:
> On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 21:54:51 -0500, John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>> Mike Rozak writes:

>>> In WoW I have a 16th level character and I'm unhappy that I
>>> can't wander anywhere I want in the world. I understand that the
>>> designers put the monsters in it for both fun (although I don't
>>> find them too fun) and as a challenge to slow me from reaching
>>> my goal to world exploration too quickly.

>> If you're unhappy at the experience you get from an entertainment
>> venue, then it's flawed.  It's that simple.

>> That doesn't mean that it's irrevocably busted and useless.  It
>> only means that it's flawed.  It can be improved upon.  When the
>> improvement comes, it will be called either the next incremental
>> step in gaming or the next generation in gaming.  Either way, it
>> would seem to be worth keeping an eye on the flaws so that
>> something better can be created.

>> I'm simply not a believer in the theory that sometimes
>> entertainment has to have lows so that the highs can have impact.
>> We HAVE the lows in our real lives.  That's why we look for
>> entertainment.  To seek a complete set of lows and highs from a
>> game suggests that something is out of whack.

> Does this really make sense, though?  I mean, people don't just
> consume entertainment to be "happy" all the time.  Some of my
> favorite movies, for instance, certainly didn't make me feel happy
> by the time the credits rolled.  Forgive me all of you who haven't
> seen it as this might give a tiny bit away, but American Beauty
> was far from being a generally "happy" movie, and ended on an
> extremely sad note.  In fact, I would say that it was very
> disturbing in many respects.  Yet, I consider it one of the
> greatest movies of all time, and many people agree that it was an
> excellent, well done, and well worth watching.

> Maybe it's possible to create a "virtual world" where everybody
> acted like they were on Prozac all the time.  Players never die.
> Combat is rewarding without having any risk.  The graphics are
> universally pleasing and beautiful to the eye, never dull, drab,
> dreary, disturbing, or "realistic".  When enemies are decapitated
> (which they always are, since it's certainly the most pleasing way
> of killing an enemy), a happy rainbow shoots out of their neck
> instead of yucky blood (my apologizes to Aqua Teen Hunger Force
> for this one). However, I am quite certain that upon encountering
> a virtual world such as this, I would quickly move on, and I'm
> betting that most people would do the same.  Where is the spice
> that keeps players interested if the game is one long, drawn out
> attempt just to make the players happy?

Consider that entertainment that is dull, drab, dreary, disturbing
or "realistic" garners awards from the enthusiasts, but that the
happy, fun, joyful, feel-good entertainment is where the people go
to spend their money.  What are the top entertainment venues in the
country?  What are the top grossing films?

Perhaps the reason that these games remain a niche of the
entertainment industry is because they have a little too much drab,
dreary, disturbing or "realistic" moments.

> I really don't think that it's possible to create a virtual world
> where there are no "lows", but only "highs".  One fundamental
> problem is that for every set of features that you include in a
> virtual world, there will be people that consider some of those
> features to be "low" inducing, even if the vast majority of people
> consider them to be "highs".

Again, this is returning to my premise: if it can't be done such
that it's entertaining, it shouldn't be done.

It may be that MMORPGs are a step towards a virtual community online
that has nothing to do with entertainment per se.  It may end up
being some basic form of The Matrix - because it just can't be
sufficiently entertaining, per se.  It holds the promise of
entertainment, but there's too much of the drab drearies for most
people to put up with it.

I don't actually believe that MMORPGs are a lost cause.  Only that
designers are a bit too intent on trying to create The Matrix and
not intent enough on providing an entertainment experience appealing
to the mass market.

> Another fundamental problem is that, if you're giving the player
> choices, then you are setting the character up for failure, and
> failure is a definite low.  It doesn't even matter what those
> choices are, or that every choice has a positive outcome.  If
> you're weaving a basket (this would be in the real world) and you
> have several colors to choose from, even if you plan things in
> detail and know what you're doing and are guaranteed 100% that you
> will get exactly the basket that you planned, there is still no
> guarantee that you will be happy with the basket you ended up
> with.  The basket may have looked good on paper, but somehow the
> finished product failed to live up to your expectation.  That's a
> low.  He can take the basket apart and try again, but that's a
> repeated attempt, and that can definitely be a low. The only way
> to remove this low is to make sure that the person making the
> basket has no choice in the matter and is forced to create a
> basket from the start that has been scientifically chosen to give
> the creator the biggest happiness factor, and then what's the
> point? Why not just go and buy a basket from "Baskets are Us?"

If basket making is so frustrating, why is it part of the
'entertainment'?  I can craft baskets in the real world and have the
same experience, only more complete.  The value of virtual worlds as
an entertainment venue is that they don't have to follow the
annoying checks and balances of the real world.  All of my choices
CAN lead to an entertaining outcome.  I would claim that that is the
implicit contract between designer and player.  The player will pay
money and the designer will entertain the player.  It's the same
contract that a moviegoer has with the filmmaker.  The moviegoer
will watch the movie and trust the filmmaker to provide an
entertaining experience.  One of the most universally appealing
experiences includes a happy ending.

> Now, apply this same idea to character development and you run
> into the same problem.  You cannot guarantee that a player will be
> happy with their character once the choices they've made
> accumulate into an end result, even if you have something
> extraordinarily flexible where the user can change courses
> half-way through the development process. The best you can do is
> let the player change directions, but that is almost certainly
> going to result in wasted effort, which is another definite low.

Designers should be working to reduce the impact of such lows.  What
I have heard on this list is that the lows are needed in order to
make the highs have meaning.  Consequences to choices and such.  I'm
quite sure that players can have an absolute ball in the game
without the lows of being unable to alter an uninformed choice that
they made when they picked up the game or when they started a new
character.

> Furthermore, I really don't think that lows *should* be
> eliminated. Without lows, a lot of the best, most memorable
> moments of a virtual world will go away!  I remember a time when I
> was playing a MUD and I was showing a new player around.  We
> stopped at a river, and I drank from the river to show him how to
> do it.  Well, instead of him drinking from the river, he jumped
> in!  My experience with swimming on this MUD was limited to the
> knowledge that it could be done, but that didn't stop me from
> jumping in and trying to save him and his stuff. About 30 minutes,
> and 7 or 8 deaths later, my character was a shuttering wreck of
> his former self and I ended up having to beg to a far more
> experienced player who happened along to "Please, please, please
> retrieve our gear!"  Was this fun?  No, it was nerve wrecking and
> guilt inducing, but the final experience, the bonds that I formed
> with the two other characters involved, and the knowledge that I
> gained about the system in general certainly justified as one of
> the most fondly remembered moments that I had from that MUD.  It's
> one of those things that seems a lot funnier after the fact then
> it did at the time.

I've had experiences like that as well.  Such experiences are
dwarfed by drab, dreary experiences that were simply drab and
dreary.  Even a blind dog finds a bone every now and again.  I'm
arguing in favor of coming up with a reliable, consistent way of
ensuring that players who want an experience like that can find it.
Reliability of service, and all that.

Consider an amusement park that takes you through a 'harrowing'
experience.  Your senses are convinced that you're going to die, and
the emotional rollercoaster is alive and well.  But the park is
making sure that you enjoy that harrowing experience because they
know that it's not really harrowing.  Movies do the same thing.
They KNOW what's going to happen next for your experience, so they
can formulate things any way they want.  Only the perverse
entertainer creates an entertainment experience where the
viewers/participants are upset at them for the experience.

In a multiplayer environment, the problem is fantastically more
complex to tackle if there is to be any reliability of service.
Other players cannot be permitted to substantially interfere with
the formulation of the entertainment experience that the game is
attempting to offer.  Kill stealing is a classic problem that
designers attempt to design around.  Why?  Because it is not the
entertainment experience that players want.  Even the ones who want
a challenge.

I will grant that running people on an emotional rollercoaster can
be appealing as a kind of entertainment.  But the entertainment
venue MUST MAKE SURE that the lows don't remain just drab and
dreary.  Blocking a pass when some number of players don't have a
natural and obvious course of action that they will find
entertaining means that the blocked pass is just drab and dreary.
Which takes us back to the original statement of 'vary, not impede'.

> Rather then just dismiss low points as things that are to be
> avoided at all costs, I think that instead it is better to analyse
> the lows and see if they enhance the overall experience of the
> player base (as some of the people who participate in this list
> have already said). That snow-blocked mountain pass that everyone
> keeps mentioning is an excellent example.  Now, if you just block
> that mountain pass without considering the consequences, I would
> argue that's probably a big mistake.  Having snow-blocked passes
> *just* for the purpose of having snow-blocked passes, or even just
> for the purpose of making it more realistic, doesn't seem like
> good enough justification.  However, if there is a war going on
> between two nations, and that pass is the only access that the two
> nations have to each other for several "leagues" along that
> mountain range, and players are participating in this battle, then
> suddenly the weather has made a major impact on the war. Now both
> sides have some time to prepare a detailed offense/defense on
> their respective sides.  Different skills and abilities come into
> play when preparing for battle, and the battle that occurs when
> that snow finally melts should be dazzling, something that will be
> remembered for several virtual years after the fact.

And I argue that just having a blocked pass so that there are
consequences still isn't enough.  The consequences must befit the
entertainment experiences that the game implicitly or explicitly
promises to the players.  Every player who encounters that blocked
pass should say to themselves 'Oh, okay.  That means that I can do
this, this or this, now.  And they're all good."  That doesn't make
it a Prozac Moment.  The players may actually be saying "Oh crap.
the rest of the team is already on the other side of the pass, and
if we don't reach the destination in time, the army might be
compromised."  The suspense is appealing to them.

If the suspense is replaced by a sense of inconvenience, then the
closure of the pass was a mistake on the part of the designers.

> If a virtual world supports war like this, that seems like good
> enough justification for supporting the "snow block pass" feature
> as well. Will some players be inconvenienced by such a feature?
> Of course. But in this scenario some players would be
> inconvenienced by NOT having weather effects implemented, because
> they would not be able to use their planning skills to set up a
> truly stunning offense or defense to come into effect at the end
> of the snowy season, and, given that the "snow blocked pass"
> allows for more variation and interesting game play then the
> alternative, I believe that such a virtual world would benefit
> more from its inclusion then from its exclusion.

Surely those planning types can be entertained without
inconveniencing other players.  If that were the goal, I'm sure it
could be accomplished.  But designers seem to look to the closed
pass scenario as something that will accomplish an end - but at the
cost of entertainment to other players.  I'd like to see designers
be a bit more stingy in their doling out of drab and dreary moments.

> I think the bottom line is for weather effects, lighting, or just
> about any other feature, if you have one or more good reasons to
> justify the inclusion, reasons that truly add something to the
> gameplay that makes it more interesting for the player base, then
> include the feature.  If you're just including it just to include
> it, or to make the virtual world "more realistic," then you'll
> probably only succeed in generating a design flaw.

My metric is stricter.  It says that the inclusion of a change must
constitute a variation on a theme for every thread of entertainment
promised by your game.  There's a kind of entertainment calculus
waiting to be discovered.  I look forward to hearing about somebody
figuring it out.

JB
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