[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] What is a game? (again)was:[Excellentcommentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system]

[Caliban Darklock]

On 4/5/07, Raph Koster <raph at areae.net> wrote:
>
> In almost every virtual world, the play field is not the entire space;
> in fact, it's typically a very narrowly defined space that often doesn't
> include much "space" at all.

And as long as the toy doesn't intrude on that space, it's not been
introduced to the game. But once it does, some amount of damage is
done. The harmonica player may only represent a minor distraction, but
a distraction of any size is destructive to the game. Once the
distraction is large enough, it makes playing the game impossible. It
may be a single distraction, or a collection of them. It's like the
Chinese "death of a thousand cuts".

> MMOs are not games. They are spaces into which games are put, just as
> playgrounds are spaces into which games are put. As such, the space is
> continually carved up by consensus and mutual accommodation, and any
> given game shifts its boundaries over time.

In a virtual world, how the playground space is divided up IS THE
GAME. (Games are defined by consensus on the rules. Mutual
accommodation is a form of negotiation by which consensus is reached.)
Within it there are subgames. That gets complicated; I've deferred a
detailed examination and consideration of this until I get a stronger
understanding of the implications with a single game. After all, when
you build an AVL tree, you start by building a single node - and then
you construct the tree from a collection of them.

Consider the combat game which also has travel, restocking, and
healing. Each of these is a subgame of a larger game. If one of the
games is disrupted, the larger game is also disrupted, and may indeed
be destroyed long before any of the subgames are themselves destroyed.
If healing is sufficiently disrupted that it takes twice as long, it
may no longer be possible to get enough healing in time for the next
combat - even though you can still heal, and there is no disruption to
combat itself, the overall game is destroyed by the lack of balance.

The rules need to change to restore balance, and in this way the game
evolves. It may evolve by forbidding whatever has disrupted healing,
or controlling it so it is less disruptive, or even assimilating it so
the disruption becomes part of the game. But the game MUST change, or
it cannot continue.

Again, I'm trying to avoid detailed exposition on the subgame front
until I've got a firm enough foundation on which to build. Things are
still a little wobbly and uncertain in the node structure, so I'm
resistant to the idea of building my AVL trees just yet. ;)