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

[John Buehler]

Hideto Koudanshi writes:

> On Mon, 9 Apr 2007, John Buehler wrote:
>
> > Conflicting agendas do cause problems by definition.  The agendas
> > conflict. If I want to walk through a city and get a sense of it
> > being an actual > fantasy setting, then having some joker dancing
> > naked in public is going to be disruptive to the experience that
> > I'm seeking.  The game permits me to follow my agenda.  But it
> > also permits the joker to follow his.  They conflict, and it may
> > produce a confrontation.  We've all seen them.
>
> What game designers need to decide and need to IMPLEMENT are FIRM RULES
> onwhat is acceptable play behaviour. Believe me. I started UO with
> theintent of being a medieval merchant with a little shop, making and
> sellingmy poorly-made junk on my way to master craftsman as I chatted
> whith "yoncustomers whot be upon my establishment forthwith."

Instead of throwing everyone into one arena and telling them all to behave
in certain ways, I think it makes a bit more sense to let people tell the
games who they want to play with.  This is the idea behind guilds.
Characters are let in or not based on whatever factors the guild members
deem important.

Give the social network a wild and woolly central point, where everyone can
interact with everyone else.  That central point lets people figure out who
they want to share their entertainment time with.  The result is that only
players who want to play together get to play together.  Provide enough
tools and players can make decisions about things like "friends of friends",
"griefer of friend" and so on.  The techniques are out there.

> One of the other problems, as has been said, is the MASSIVEly in
> MMO.Unless a game company is willing to have more game moderators
> stopping thesilliness and enforcing more thematic actions and play by
> constantlymonitoring and following groups of players to keep an eye on
> that, withthousands of players, you'll get hundreds of
> theme/consensus-breakers.That's a large number.

Games become self-moderating when players choose their playmates.  If I am a
member of a guild, that means that I can enter virtual settings that are
accessible to that guild.  If the guild decides to kick me out, I'm out.  I
might lobby to get back in, but the guild has the final say over who they
play with.  Players moderate themselves.  They visit the nexus of the social
network to recruit new guild members when they're of a mind to, and the
responsibility for keeping track of membership is theirs.

> > Per the above example, your antics could be damaging to the
> experience of
> > other players who are seeking some kind of immersion in that medieval
> > setting.  It's all about the agendas that people are pursuing.  They can
> > be completely arbitrary.
>
> > Given that most people subscribe to contextual ethics, seeing
> the majority
> > of people acting silly is going to inhibit any thought of protest by
> > someone who doesn't think silly is a good thing at that moment.  I
> > wouldn't expect many people to confront a large group of people acting
> > in concert.
> >
> > That said, if the individuals coming by saw your antics, they might find
> > them very entertaining.  But some may not.  What the percentages are
> > depends completely on the players and their agendas.
>
> So are MMOs "minority wins"? If over 50% of the players in attendance
> atany one game location decide to hold a roleplayed wedding, and Old
> ManCurmudgeonly thinks it's a stupid idea because it's only a GAME, he
> shouldfeel assured he can stop it? UO was not built with weddings in
> mind, touse it as an example, so it's "un-thematic" to get married when
> everyoneis REALLY supposed to be out there KILLING THINGS, MAKING
> THINGS,GATHERING MATERIALS/REAGENTS/WHATEVER!!11!1! Those people
> ultimately infinal control of the game once it's released need to decide
> how far into apolice state do they want to go. Do they want a scripted
> play, do theywant a shared thematic experience, do they want guided
> freeform, or dothey want a chaotic free-for-all?

If a larger group comes along and decides to dance naked on the same spot,
does that mean the wedding group should dance naked?  Is it "majority wins"?

Group size is not the issue.  Player pursuit of entertainment is.  As per
the above, if the wedding group is in one instance and the griefer group is
in another, then they don't interfere with each other.  Each gets the
entertainment that they want.  They have conflicting agendas and should
never have been put into the same environment.

And instead of guild membership for the wedding, it could be "Invitation
Only", permitting a kind of temporary guild to form for the purpose of
having certain people at the wedding.  Friends from many different groups
could then be at the wedding.  The same could be true for a "dance naked"
party.

> > "Massive" worlds are a great idea, but they work about as well as
> > anarchistic societies.  Unless they're populated by altruists,
> the result
> > is chaos.  Either strict rules have to be put in place to establish the
> > exact ethic that players are permitted to follow with their characters
> > (e.g. a coarse example: no player killing), or the ethic has to
> be agreed
> > upon by the players themselves.  In-depth agreement is usually something
> > that comes only with small groups, suggesting that small game instances
> > are the way to go.  They let people with the same agenda play in an
> > environment that isn't polluted with people of differing or conflicting
> > agendas.  No Sad Sacks glumly telling me to stop being silly in town.
> > No silliness for the roleplaying group doing a serious quest in town.
>
> Again, you need to decide not what the THEME is. You need to decide
> howmuch CONTROL you wish to force on players if you choose a
> giant-sizedplayerbase. THEN you worry about your theme. The fewer
> players you have,the easier it is to police the theme. Look at private
> NeverWinterNights/UO shards run under a theme. The good games have game
> mods who keepan eye on the relatively moderate-to-small-sized playerbase
> to make surethey're playing in-theme. If you can't afford enough mods to
> keep playersin line, then you deserve whatever you get. You can't ASK
> players to "playnice". Look at griefer guilds for proof of that. It's
> all or nothing,IMNHO.

I'm growing uninterested in massive games because they have the inherent
problem of picking a THEME and then trying to figure out how to CONTROL
dissimilarly-minded players into sticking to that theme.  Obviate the
problem by giving all players the theme that they want without any controls
by the game publisher.  Give them the content and let them play with it as
they like.  Doing that should produce a short-cycle learning experience,
where the game designers will find that the ability to create a flexible
environment is probably the best way to go.  That, instead of linear
tracking players through one defined experience.

JB