[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Player-generated content

[John Buehler]

Cruise writes:

> Thus spake John Buehler...

> > I think that the need to rate the difficulty of a task is declaring a
> > problem. It suggests levels. If not levels, then at least it suggests
> > that the game world is not intuitive to the players. The level
> > scenario is the worst, of course, where players are intent on tuning
> > the exact experience that they go through in order to efficiently
> > advance. I've ranted on that before and I won't again. In general,
> > though, rating the difficulty of task should be intuitive.

> This is a useful insight - I likewise much prefer level-less systems, yet
> I hadn't managed to make this final connection. Interesting how ingrained
> thinking in levels is...

I've noticed that myself.  I often find myself fooling with an idea only
to find that I have instinctively dropped into the level/achiever
designer trap.

> > If a task sends me into the local forest to find an herb, I shouldn't
> > have to worry about being attacked. Except by the traditionally-
> > aggressive denizens of a forest, which actually only act in defense.
> > If a task sends me across the world through the lanes of commerce,
> > I should expect to keep on my toes. The ship I'm on might be
> > attacked by bandits, but I would expect the ship to have proper
> > defenses for such things. The very existence of those defenses should
> > tell me something, too. If a task sends me into the Haunted Castle
> > far off in the boonies, I should expect that I'm going to run into
> > something unpleasant.

> The only objection to this is the scenario Tom Hudson gave in his reply,
> about deliberately setting up traps for players sent on your mission - I'm
> not entirely clear on what the trap-setter gets out of it, except what any
> griefer gets, but it's still a possibility. While that's the nature of the
> world in Eve, and so is arguably a non-issue there, it may well be in
> other, less...cynical...worlds :P

We've talked about griefing many times before.  It happens when player
agendas are at cross-purposes.  My solution to that is to let
like-minded players interact and to keep everyone else away.  When a
player or group of players goes on a mission, they are entering a
section of the game world that is reserved to them for the duration of
the mission.  Nobody else can be in that reserved content, so griefing
in that space is not possible.

That structure presents interesting opportunities to counter grief play
because griefers rely on the forms of player-to-player interactions that
a game supports to perform their acts of grief.  If the basic
interaction of players is limited in the commons areas and only
increases when entering one of these reserved areas, then griefers are
deprived of the means and opportunity to grief.  The reserved areas are
only entered by individuals or grouped players.  Griefers will be
limited to griefing their teammates.

Once that structure is in place, systems can be put in place to declare
who trusts whom.  With transitive trust, if I trust you and you trust
Tom Hudson, then I can trust Tom Hudson to some degree.  Finding
trustworthy characters should then be practical.

If missions are structured such that there is a complete spectrum of
fidelity, from low fidelity missions requiring little trust because
nobody can do anything bad to anyone, to high fidelity missions
requiring significant trust because character permadeath might be on the
line, then trust may be something that can be permitted to develop over
time.

Note that there is nothing in any of the above that suggests that an
area of the game world cannot be reserved for two large groups to mix it
up in PvP combat.  An entire island or a city (either would be
automatically generated) might be reserved for two guilds to battle it
out.  The essential point of the scenario is that the content is
reserved for their use for the duration of the interaction.  They want
to duke it out toe-to-toe in a completely unstructured way, perhaps
using every griefer nasty trick in the book, leading to permadeath for
characters.  The point is that they pick the rules and can interact in
that way.  Nobody else can come along and mess it up, including someone
who might want to use the reserved town's blacksmith to get his armor
fixed - without getting embroiled in the guild-on-guild scrimmage.

This also can serve as a money-maker.  Reserving the more sophisticated
content could involve a small fee.  Want to go on a Tyrannosaurus Rex
hunt? You and your buddies have to cough up $1 each for a four-hour
hunt.  You can go on a deer hunt once a week for free, but the big boys
are a bit more pricey. 

> > Per the Eve Online example, market forces decide when a task is worth
> > the effort. And market forces change over time, which is part of the
> > beauty of Eve Online. They address the issue of rating by saying how
> > many contracts a given player has issued/filled and leave it at
> > that. Players don't bother gaming that aspect as far as I know
> > because there's really no value in gaming it. Players abuse systems
> > when achievements are on the line. Games that are predicted on
> > achievement invite such attention from players. Levels. Grrrr.

> Interesting. I seem to have acquired from somewhere the inherent belief
> that players would be abuse such a system to twink their new
> toons/friends, and that this must be discouraged. Now I actually stop
> and consider it...why do I care? Why is it such an issue having an
> experienced player give a helping hand to newer ones? The feeling
> that that isn't "fair" seems to extend from the feeling that the
> other player has "acheived" something they haven't earnt; something
> that is redundant in a non-achievement based game.

This is the sort of thing that causes me to believe that
achievement-based games are inherently limiting to game designers.  They
have to concoct schemes that prevent players from violating the
sacrosanct tenet that achievement must be earned.  It's not only a
treadmill that must be run, but it must be run in a specific way.

I'm wondering if achievement entertainment shouldn't always be
predicated on player skill.  Achievements based on character 'skills'
certainly make a product marketable, but I wonder how far the genre can
go with that approach.

JB