[MUD-Dev2] Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguardreviews and rants)

[Mike Sellers]

Damion wrote:
> On 4/3/07, Mike Sellers <mike at onlinealchemy.com> wrote:
> > Imagine for example if "combat" was considered to be a lame and mostly
> > irrelevant addition to an otherwise social game -- depending on your
> > assumption set, almost anything can look like gameplay, or not.  Or
> > consider
> > that The Sims (a mildly successful game, if I recall correctly) was
> > almost
> > entirely social gameplay, using a model that hasn't yet been applied to
> > MMOs.
> >
> 
> Oh, I get what you guys are going for.  Still, one has to recognize the
> impact of crossing the streams.
> 
> A classic part of the ultima license is the 8 virtues, and completing
> quests to prove that you are honest, honorable, just, etc.  On UO and
> UO2, though, the designers really resisted adding these features in --
> in a social space, having the game say that you've proven yourself
> 'honest' MEANS something.  It's socially relevant.  And IMPORTANT.
> Sure enough, eventually a later UO team ended up putting in virtue
> quests, and sure enough, they were all catassable, and the virtue
> became a meaningless term.

Yeah, we played a lot with that to avoid just the problem you name: how do
you not set the players up for a disillusioning fall when someone whom the
*game* says is honest turns out not to be?  (And eventually of course, all
that was ignored.)

One solution is to not have the game make this kind of socially relevant
determination at all, but still have it be made by and relevant to the
players.  There are other solutions that don't involve devolving this to a
series of ultimately mindless quests-n-badges too.  

> The problem with this train of thought is that it feels like people are
> thinking that what socializers really want are achiever-like gameplay
> with a socializer veneer.  

Agreed, this is the typical response, especially from game designers who are
themselves most focused on achievement-type rewards: "those people are just
like us, only they don't like to kill things.  I know, let's give them
points every time they chat, and let them unlock new fonts to chat in!"
Hmm, no.  That's seriously missing the point.  

> What socializers want is (a) tools to aid and
> facilitate socializing and (b) to feel important in the world around them.

Yes, and I would add that providing ways for socializers and achievers
(among others) to be relevant to each other, without having to play  more of
each others' game than they want, is also important.  This means making
"socializing" more than just chatting.  It means adding gameplay that may
not be particularly interesting to achievers, even if they indirectly
benefit from it.

> We could be doing a lot more to make socializers happy, I'd grant,
> but if you're starting with 'let's give them gameplay', I'd argue we're
> sniffing in the wrong direction.

Only if you consider 'gameplay' to just or primarily be about achievement.
There's a lot beyond _agon_ out there that remains virtually unexplored in
MMOs in particular.

Mike Sellers