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

[John Buehler]

Cruise writes:

> Thus spake Lachek Butalek...
> > Create the system well and it will self-adjust. Make the players
> spend
> > their own resources on the rewards (or a 1:1 convertible resource,
> > like 1GP = 1XP) so you don't have unnecessary inflation. Ensure that
> > it is beneficial for more accomplished players to create quests for
> > less accomplished players rather than performing the task themselves.
> 
> See, it's that "Ensure that it is beneficial" bit I'm asking about :P
> What incentives can you offer the quest-creating player? If there's a
> reward, how do you stop players from starting numerous easy quests for
> the reward they get back?
> The thought I keep coming back to is some way of automatically rating
> the difficulty of content, but I can see that being fraught with issues
> - has anyone tried that before?

Lachek mentioned Eve Online's shipping contract system, which answers these
questions.  With contracts, there is a business deal between two players.
It is beneficial when the two parties agree that it is beneficial.  That's
what makes the system work so well.  People come to understand where a
viable risk/reward balance is when it comes to those contracts.  They may
involve moving a shipment that isn't in the "sweet spot" for small-scale
shippers.  Or it may go through space where there's a war going on at the
moment.  Changing conditions and aspects of the contract determine whether
anyone finds it attractive enough to undertake at any given time.

There's no issues of cheating or exploiting because if I want to give
anything to another character, I just do it.  If I want a service performed,
then it's a matter of hiring somebody.  If the game doesn't mess up the
implementation of the system, then market forces will determine how much a
given service is worth.

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.

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.

Rating the exact difficulty just shouldn't be on our radar.  Players should
be able to infer the ballpark and the ballpark should be all that matters.
Further, the consequences of getting it wrong should not necessarily involve
penalties unless the task is truly an achiever task.  An explorer might be
able to wander through the whole of the Haunted Castle so long as he never
draws a weapon, tries to take anything or does anything else offensive to
its residents.  Stepping into wrong room might get the character flung
forcefully out of the room, stunning his senses for a few moments.  That,
instead of having every member of that room converge on the character, kill
it, and force it into corpse retrieval or walking back to the Haunted
Castle.

> > You may be able to create a user rating system to rate what quests
> are
> > worth compared with how difficult they are to carry out. Let's say X
> > makes a quest "bring 100 lumber from A to B, reward is 50 gold". Y
> > might come along and go "huh? that's really hard, and should be worth
> > much more". They vote "thumbs down" for the worth of that quest,
> > indicating to a novice that the quest doesn't pay out what it should,
> > and to the quest giver that maybe they should adjust the rate.
> 
> So players will simply "thumbs down" every quest so the reward rate has
> to go up before anyone does it. It's unforuntate, but you cannot ever
> trust the players, it seems. Unless we perhaps borrow the web of trust
> ideas from the social networking websites - players can be rated by
> others, and the higer their rating, the more their rating counts? Still
> abusable, but much harder, at least.

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.

> Another thought is perhaps to offer quests anonymously. If a player
> creates a quest and the reward, it goes up on the lists mercenary-guild
> (or whatever) with no name attached and you have no control over who
> can
> take it. If you create an easy quest with a fabulous reward then you
> can't guarantee the character you're trying to twink is the one that
> will get the quest.

When I start thinking along lines like this, I start to look back over my
system because something is wrong with it.  I'm trying to patch something
that is fundamentally sending me in a direction that I don't want to go.

JB