[MUD-Dev2] Player Choice - How Much is Too Much?

[Sean Howard]

"cruise" <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
> Since everyone's run out of things to say, I figured I might as well
> start another argument :P

I'll throw in my two cents so that there is sure to be long thread of
arguments to follow :)

> It's been stated several times by various people that a game designer
> shouldn't tell players how to play the game. That players should have
> the choice to play like they want to.

Players cannot play a game the way that they like. As per your own
examples, the second you break fundamental rules, you aren't playing that
game anymore. There are, of course, secondary, almost optional rules that
you can break, but don't break the backbone of the game.

That's why I think we should stop thinking of MMOGs as games. What they
really seem to be are shared environments in which a game (or two or
three) take place. For instance, in WoW, you could grind up your levels
and do raids for uber-loot (that's one game), battle in the PvP areas (a
second game), or just sit around and tell stories around the campfire (not
a game at all).

Probably the greatest problem facing MMOG designers today is how to
connect the games they want to be played with the community and the ways
they want to experience the shared community. My classic example is that a
solo player may just want to play the game, but forcing them to group to
play puts them into social situations they might find offensive,
uncomfortable, or just plain boring. Likewise, social players might want
to solve problems together in their clique (be it group, family, guild, or
immediate zone), and even if the game is largely single player, they'll
still communicate solutions, hints, tips, and exploits to each other
outside of the game parts.

> Players do not know what will be fun. That's why game-design is hard.

Game design is easy. Have you ever seen some of the successful game
designers in the game industry? Some of them can barely string two words
together. Community design (and control) is hard.

Controlling a community is literally a problem as old as life itself.
We've never figured out how to do it well. We've found ways to make it
easier on those in power (totalitarian control, like most MMORPGs employ)
or allow those in the community to have a minor effect on their destiny
(democracy, republics). But finding that perfect medium where everybody is
happy is impossible. So the trick is to find the right form of community
control for the game you are building and the game you want people to
play. More often than not, totalitarian control is the absolute best
choice here. You can play the game like you want (within the borders we
set for you) and you can enjoy the community as you'd like (within the
borders we set for you). Step outside those borders, and you get banished.
Do something that makes us uncomfortable, banished. Bring shame to the
community. Banished. Almost all solutions are exile and very rarely is the
community rewarded or otherwise have their life improved by "proper"
behavior.

-- 
Sean Howard