[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs

[cruise]

Thus spake Michael Chui...
> Let's see how many of these I can respond to today. I'm doing this
> backwards, by the way.
> 
> On 8/27/07, Lachek Butalek <lachek at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The only issue I can see preventing this from happening - on a
>> non-technical level - is possessiveness of success. If I brought my
>> hockey team a victory early in the playoffs, I would want to see them
>> all the way through to winning the cup. If I capture a flag in a WWII
>> sim I don't want some other idjit losing a critical bridge later on in
>> the war - that's my success to lose.
> 
> I agree that that's an issue, but I think that it can be mitigated or even
> wholly responded-to by encouraging players to train their own people and
> teach them how to play better. The idiot lost a key position? Have a
> debriefing session where it's explained how and why he lost it, then have a
> sparring session afterwards that lets him try the scenario again.

Think clans in Counter-Strike - there exists leagues and such for it - 
it's not hard for a "commander" to see the list, and assign the clans to 
different "campaigns" depending on their skill level/importance of the task.

> On 8/27/07, John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>> Although this is apparently little more than a variation on questing, the
>> sandboxing of players into temporarily-isolated experiences means that the
>> exact technology that is used in small-scale gaming can be used to
>> entertain
>> players who are ostensibly in a massively multiplayer setting.
> 
> True, it -is- little more than a variation on questing, but it's a really
> important variation.
> 
> One of the things I have always hated about MMOs is that you're cast into
> the role of Hero, but in truth, you're more like a camper obeying the "leave
> no trace" rule. We remember Einstein because he fundamentally changed
> physics; but I hear whispers of names of really, really old players and
> their mark on the world? Oh yeah, a really cool piece of custom fluff. What?

Lots of ways of doing this:
- The first player in an area gets it named after them in some way.
- Town Crier/Newsfeed relating the more epic (rare) events, and the 
players that achieved them.
- Weapons/armour that record any unique enemy victories into the 
description: "Emberthorn, Sword of Avaron, slayer of the Liche Lord 
Icefear" - such items, and the players referenced by them, pass into the 
actual mythology of the game.

> If you go and slay a dragon, it should stay dead. On one hand, this may mean
> that no one else can slay it. Well... too bad. Why should an MMO deliver the
> same content to everyone? People aren't all the same. (Counterpoint: people
> play because their friends want them to experience the same thing they did.
> Response: then make sure not everything is a quest?) If the dragon is dead,
> then perhaps a mountain pass opens up and a new kingdom is a possible
> starting point for new players.

Most fantasy games come pre-packed with their own mythology - what would 
happen if we actually used the players actions /as/ the games backstory? 
Or start with a minimal background that gradually becomes subsumed by 
the growing mythos that is the playerbase?

> On 8/28/07, cruise <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:
>> Thus spake Michael Chui...
>>> I see two paths for this. One is the "truly single-player" approach. In
>>> this case, you'd be doing what Spore is doing: making stuff, uploading
>>> it to a server for inclusion into others' games and that'd be the end of
>>> your contribution.
>> I see this only as an automation of the mapping/modding scene that
>> already exists, really; that has been happening for a long time.
> 
> On MMOs? Or even RPGs?

Yes :P Any game that supports modding (intentionally or otherwise :) is 
basically doing the same thing - all that spore is really doing is 
including the editing tool into the game, and automating the upload process.

Of course, the actual effect on gameplay and how it feels is much 
greater than the technical changes. But that's part of the skill of any 
good design - using small changes to make big effects.

> 1) Full-on storied events that effect overall strategy. Ignoring the
> combat-style RPGs and even the rogue-based RPGs (Hitman?), how about stories
> that effect the grand scheme of things? You know, diplomacy that consists of
> something more nuanced and human than "If we team up, we'll kick that other
> guy's ass." Perhaps painfully, but something like, "King Paul propositioned
> Queen Joan; therefore, I'm not going to ally with him because I consider
> that ungentlemanly."

Player-run governments? Or more generally, allowing players to set 
objectives for other players.

> 2) Adventure games? Quests! "George, go kill that dragon and fetch me the
> sword of a thousand truths." Then you can strategically hand it over to a
> warrior or commander on the front lines and they'll be bad-ass in combat.

By adventure games I was thinking more of the play style - exploring an 
environment, using objects and solving puzzles - rather than the stoy 
structure: "Our capital ship is under attack - keep the generator 
running no matter - jury rig it however you can, just keep our shields up."

> I like this idea, and noticed recently on Raph Koster's blog ("How much does
> the world matter?") where he writes: "The trend in future virtual worlds may
> be to remove the assumption of spatial relationships between nodes (rooms,
> zones, apartments, worlds, whatever) and instead have spatiality solely *
> within* said places. Patches of coordinate systems in a floating sea of
> hyperlinks. And likely, smallish patches focused around areas of interest,
> so that the spatial simulations are dense with stuff and stuff to do, rather
> than there being large swaths of empty coordinate space with nothing in
> them."

Space-based with jump-points? Fantasy world with magic teleportation? 
Archiplego with passenger ships?

All been done, successfully. It's not really a new idea. And of course, 
they all leave the vast empty spaces open and available for those that 
like vast empty spaces.

> On 8/29/07, Aurel Mihai <aurel.gets.mail at gmail.com> wrote:
> However, that leads to the issue of how a player chooses where to step
>> into the gameplay. If he wants a top level command position (the
>> 'chess' model), can he just pick that? Does he have to earn it through
>> lower level command? Through some sort of FPS squad leadership? In
>> that sense, is there a grind to get to where you need to go? That
>> could be a problem, but it would also be a bad thing to let just
>> anyone control where the battalion marches next.
> 
> Obviously, you should rarely, if ever, have a grind. To me, a grind is a
> demonstration that your design is deeply flawed. Daniel Cook's recent
> "Chemistry of Game Design" explains why.

If players fight in regular, known groups then the players will sort it 
out themselves. They will figure out who among them is better at 
shooting, and who's better left telling them what to shoot at.

Raids end up with leaders via exactly the same process.

> Also, how much meta gaming has to go on? Games like WoW that demand
>> hours of continuous time for a single activity are still in existence
>> and will be for a while, but an increasing portion of the gaming
>> community is getting older and working so they can't be sitting around
>> waiting for the commanding officer to get orders from the rear admiral
>> who needs to consult with his staff...etc... before the squad enters
>> 30 minutes of combat and takes out a flag.
> 
> Well, I can think of a couple solutions to this:
> 
> 1) Autonomous command. A squad leader can choose to make strategic decisions
> on his own initiative, as in Battlefield. A possible balancing mechanic:
> this player cannot do high-level commands, like airstrikes or fortification,
> in order to support his own forward motion.

Does it even matter, as long as the objectives are right? The combat 
squad can go off and fight as many battles as they like - when the 
commander needs something done, they can select a result from the pool 
of matches with the right objectives and the correct sides (assuming 
something like my earlier suggestion that "clans" would be assigned a 
campaign - a battle in a campaign would have to be fought between the 
two assigned clans from each side) - this creates a different kind of 
strategy, where you have to carefully manage your "victories" and use 
them where they'll have the most effect.

> 2) Real-time command. Look at web-strategy games like Utopia and Earth: 2025
> hosted by Swirve. These are played in real-time, except that the amount you
> can do per-hour is limited by resource constraints (you can only attack once
> per hour, for instance). If you fail to log in and make changes, the world
> goes on and your country gets stale.

Scheduled matches? Imagined in game as mercenary forces - the commander 
posts a "mission request" and the different "clans" vie to receive the 
contract, and then arrange between themselves when it is enacted.

> What's going to turn this around
>> and convince everyone that it's better now to have small group actions
>> contributing to a large group that nobody sees around all at once
>> anymore?
>>
> Well, most likely the same thing that got people into the bigger is better
> mindset in the first place: trying it, having fun, and getting their friends
> to try it. If it's fun and it's marketed, then it'll accrete. And the
> audience is there for it, I think; at PAX there was a moment where it was
> declared that "more save locations" was a potential selling point.

Having the outside resources for tracking the war and interacting with 
each other would help retain the community. But as you say, if it's fun 
then people will play it.