Raph Koster's _A Theory of Fun_ available for pre-order

[Paelos]

The issue with PvP isn't so much design (though that is a huge issue since modern PvP is all about time invested and not skill ) but with people. The only game I can think of that came close to fixing this issue is DAOC (and possibly WoW since it seems they are going the route of not letting the factions talk to each other). The problem is, in PvP, the lowest common denominator is going to set the tone. Period. There may be lots of decent people who enjoy PvP but it's the little retards that everyone remembers and that make it so only a small crowd will enjoy PvP.

The way to fix that is to give people ultimate player justice, and I think that would extend as far as to give the community the ability to ban someone for repeated griefing acts against the game. Nobody has figured out how to implement the idea of player justice yet because the penalties players can inflict upon others are very very minor. You'd need a player driven system of laws that could be voted on and enforced by the community to help alleviate the retard problem.

[Roac]

MMO:
1) lots of time investment in my character
2) Time invested = win

Entirely a design decision.  Well, partly on the first; part of the point of persistance is to allow your time investments to accumulate towards something, but that something need not be neccessary for PvP, PvE, etc.  That leads into the second point; all MMOGs I can think of require a massive time sink to have any shot at competing with other players.  Even a relatively quick ladder such as Shadowbane requires a month or so out of casual gamers.

But it doesn't have to be that way; it's only that way by convention.  For example, MxO allows players to swap out skills they've learned.  Presumably, you could learn everything in the game (equivalent of like a 30x GM in UO), but you can only "equip" x skills at a time.  What if every character you started with got a handful of max'd skills?  Say, UO's equivalent of 4x GM.  Pick whatever you want, and reroll whenever you like.  A design like that would reward people who invest time with more options (and to fill out 7x GM, if we were to continue the analogy), but even a day 1 character is viable.  

To pick another game, White Wolf has something similar in their system.  A day 1 character, if well designed, has enough abilities to be a serious threat to a year-old 150xp character (you may get only 2-4 xp per week in this system).  It's a bit different here, in that everyone gets the same amount of hp (excluding the "huge' merit).  A lucky dice roll can outright kill or seriously injure a player.  Of course, the focus here is a bit different from most MMOGs; WW games presume that people don't want to die because if they die they stay dead, so tend to avoid combat if possible.  But, it's an example how design can influence the importance of stats.

[Roac]

So it occurred to me, what if a game had no levels, but had *thousands* of silly "collectible" items, mainly for decorative and prestige purposes.

UO does this rather successfully, and I'm surprised that no one else (to my knowledge) has implimented any sort of rares system.  Some things are true uniques (or of an extremely limited set, like 3-10 items), some are daily drops, some are given out yearly, some are semi-recurring, and some are just difficult to get.  And people love them.  I mean some people are downright fanatical about getting these rares and spend tons of their time going after them.

[AlteredOne]

The DAOC trophies sound similar to the UO rares.  In order to make a trophy, you must hunt for components dropped off monsters, which are then combined by a legendary-skill alchemist to make a trophy.  The trophy can be wall-mounted or free-standing, and sits in your house.  

Some of the items are extremely rare, dropping only once every several days, and others are fairly common.  The common ones require less alchemy skill for the trophy.  I've seen the rare components/trophies sell for a fair chunk of cash, and there are definitely some fanatical collectors who cram a few dozen trophies into their houses.

[Roac]

Nobody has figured out how to implement the idea of player justice yet because the penalties players can inflict upon others are very very minor. You'd need a player driven system of laws that could be voted on and enforced by the community to help alleviate the retard problem.

Don't say nobody - nobody in the MMOG industry has implimented it, but various versions have been floated in MUDs for decades.  Before I continue, I'm going to note one item; player justice is not anarchy or a fully PvP+ environment.  Justice requires a method for limiting negative activities and bringing punnishment against offenders but NOT innocents.

Understanding player justice in this way, it requires code support.  There has to be some set of tools in place for victims to seek compensation and players to seek out criminals.  The former is required to be justice, and the latter to be player, as opposed to automated, justice.  A very simple such system would be to call up x number of players to be a jury for a crime.  I kill you, a vote goes up to the jury (all players, x random players, everyone in the realm where the crime occured, everyone in a kingdom, or whatever other criteria) as to whether I'm innocent or guilty.  I obviously killed you, but I may still be voted innocent if the jury feels I should not be held guilty; because there was an agreed upon duel, becaus we were at war, because they like me, or whatever.  It may be simple majority rules, or it may require a heavy majority (2/3 or whatever) to swing one way vs another.  Here, innocents never go up for trial, although the guilty may be free.  Punnishment is hard-coded (x gold, stat loss, etc).

Or it could be more advanced.  Victims may have to report their crimes before the process starts.  The jury could be automated, but the victim may have to be "brought in" by a player deputy in order to be tried, unless of course the criminal wishes to turn themselves in.  Laws may be global, or they may modified by player government.  For example, a player Guild Leader who rules a city and is a king may set the laws within his realm.  Killing Elves of any sort may be declared legal.  Assassinations under contract may incur reduced fines - if the assassin is caught.  War would void any relevance of a law system (all's fair...).  Certain criminal organizations may have their own "law" that crosses political borders.  Rogues would do well not to cheat The Organization.

[HaemishM]

Then you are also to blame, Faust.  It only sucked because you experienced the suck.  Had you not chosen to play those games, you would have been blissfully unaware of the suck.  You and Raph are equally at fault.

I hope I made you both feel better.

How the fuck did you come up with that full of shit argument ?

Ignorance is bliss?

[WonderBrick]

lots of interesting player justice approaches

Imagine the Yew courtroom in UO, running on a Unreal-based client.  The prosecution fires up the Sony Trinitron crystal ball and the jury gets to watch a demo-style playback of the crime, played back within the client, like UT and Quake demos are, complete with exchanged verbal text.  Goofy and far-fetched, but interesting to consider. :D

edit:  typo

[schild]

procecution

Wow.

[HaemishM]

So it occurred to me, what if a game had no levels, but had *thousands* of silly "collectible" items, mainly for decorative and prestige purposes.

UO does this rather successfully, and I'm surprised that no one else (to my knowledge) has implimented any sort of rares system.  Some things are true uniques (or of an extremely limited set, like 3-10 items), some are daily drops, some are given out yearly, some are semi-recurring, and some are just difficult to get.  And people love them.  I mean some people are downright fanatical about getting these rares and spend tons of their time going after them.

Try Everquest. There is a distinct "rares" market there, in the things that aren't no-drop items. The Bazaar just facilitated that further.

As for player justice, it all requires that players think of themselves as responsible members of the community. IN A GAME. People won't even consider being responsible members of their community in real life by serving jury duty. You think people paying to play a game will want their game time interrupted for even a second to try to determine if Willie McCrotchensniffer killed Bobby Poopiepants legally? It won't happen, ever, in any pay-for-play schema that involves more than 200 people. As long as the particular people are just random pixels on a screen and someone not personally involved with jury members, no one will give a shit about what happens to other people.

[Roac]

As for player justice, it all requires that players think of themselves as responsible members of the community.

No it doesn't.  If you use a jury, they can vote however the hell they want.  For some it may be like RL party issues - they vote guilty or innocent every time.  Some won't care, and may not even vote.  Some will.  Some may get bribed.  You can control some of this depending on how you narrow jury selection - for example, by picking people of the same guild/city/nation/realm as the defendant.

Or, go with an automated jury.  Should the defendant wind up in court, they're guilty.  The trick here would be to get them to court, which since we assume most criminals won't turn themselves in, requires a player bounty hunter / deputy.  Such people can be compensated for their efforts, with the amount being tacked onto the defendant's fines.  At this point, you have a system where every greedy bastard is going to hunt down the guilty party because they're greedy bastards.  Screw responsibility.  But if the "noble" guys want to play, they can donate their gold to charity or something.

As for the political law-setters, that's generally what GLs do right now, without a system.  If you're an asshat on the guild comm / forums / meetings, you get tossed out, sometimes with a knife in your back.  They also make determinations as to who is welcome, if there are any RP restrictions, who is KoS, etc.  The law-setting part is just an extention of this.

You think people paying to play a game will want their game time interrupted for even a second to try to determine if Willie McCrotchensniffer killed Bobby Poopiepants legally?

A few will, but most won't - which is why I prefaced the player jury portion with calling it "a very simple system".  At the absolute worst, that system wouldn't be any different than not having a system at all, because everyone would be voted free.  

no one will give a shit about what happens to other people.

Depends on who's involved, which is why I tossed in the suggestion of limiting who might be a jury member.  I very much care about what goes on in my guild, or with my allied guilds.  Unusual PK encounters wind up on our guild forums - and on the forums for about every guild I've been in.  "Normal" PvP encounters rarely make it past the comm/vent/icq, but usually get some notice.  No, I don't care two shits about something on the otherside of the map regarding two guilds I've never met.  Which is why I suggested limiting pools.

It's also why I'm more interested in justice systems that are a bit more advanced and take some of these things into consideration.

[Paelos]

I think a jury system could work if it were coded in with a couple things in mind.

1) Getting on a jury would be a voluntary action, like checking a box on your profile or signing up on an in-game list.
2) Selection of jury members would be quasi-random. The qualifiers should be that everyone in either parties guild and on their friends list would automatically be eliminated from the possible pool of choices.
3) There should be a time limit on the appropriate response from the jury involved, and it should be a straight majority vote on the offense. For example, those selected for the jury would have the facts available to them via in-game email and could cast their vote through that system. Votes would be tallied after a certain period of three days after the jury was selected or so.
4) If multiple offenses exist on the same person, they should be tried together by the same jury to decrease time.
5) There would have to be standards that would keep members of the community from bringing frivilous charges against others without due cause, ie. (they killed you, you have a chat log of offense, they stole something from you, etc.)

[AlteredOne]

Definitely, bail and bounty hunters are needed.  

As for making them "show up in court," obviously the average l33t ganker will simply ctl-alt-dlt out of the game, as soon as somebody tried to force him in front of a jury.  So you would need punishments that would be applied to an account, regardless of whether the player is online.

[Roac]

Definitely, bail and bounty hunters are needed.  

As for making them "show up in court," obviously the average l33t ganker will simply ctl-alt-dlt out of the game, as soon as somebody tried to force him in front of a jury.  So you would need punishments that would be applied to an account, regardless of whether the player is online.

Hmm.  I'd disagree.  There are a couple things you can do; one, not have logouts be an instant thing.  Several (most?) leave your avatar in-game for a certain amount of time.  The design could even be such that the time limit (30s-2m or whatever) is a bit longer if the toon is in combat / in the process of being arrested.  If there is a non-immediate process for the "trial", just save the char loc in the court.

Aside from that though, I think there would be some level of satisfaction in being able to keep someone off the game server just by walking up to them.  I mean, if someone commits a crime and has to quit everytime a law man came into view, that would go a fairly long way to help with keeping the peace.

[Jayce]

All this has been tried.

No matter what you do, it becomes a new toy for greifers to figure out a way to turn it against the innocent.  It ends up involving more greifers than simply doing nothing would, just for the challenge of turning a "justice" system into a mockery.

Eventually you end up with a system so Byzantine from trying to plug holes in it that no one can understand it but the dewds who use it against the innocent.

The one (possible) exception is the Justicar (or something) system that M59 uses.  I don't recall the details but I seem to recall it only being really useful in (guess what) niche game situations.

[Roac]

Paelos:
1-4, agreed.  I've seen a trial by jury implimented in a MUD and didn't care for it myself, but I wanted to toss the idea out since we're on the topic.  If it were to be built for a MMOG, I think all those are reasonable.

5: My thought was that the charges would be brought by the game system.  At least, that would be the simplest method, which is what I was trying to illustrate.  Alternately, victims would have to report crimes.  In that scenario, I'd suggest that the game system be the jury.

The reason to involve the game in one step or another is to limit abuse.  If the game brings up the charges to start with, there is no possibility of a false charge.  You already know the guy did it, and the only option left is whether you want to let him off the hook for whatever reason.  If the victim brings up the charge (my preference), you could for starters allow for a mini-game of investigation, if the criminal weren't known (you didn't notice the thieft, they used a disguise ability, etc).  In this scenario, the judge would be the game, and have perfect knowledge of whether the crime was committed.

One MUD implimented this second system, and players could indeed report other players for crimes they did not commit.  However, the accused could plead guilty, and the judge (having perfect knowledge) would indeed find them innocent.  The accuser could then be charged with false accusation by the accused.  The accuser could plead innocent, but the judge would always find him guilty AND raise his fine by some amount.

In all these cases I'm advocating for a mix of player and game support of a justice system, because between the two, the game element can be controlled by the devs.  Out of the entire justice system, my feeling is that the judge/jury portion is not much fun to participate in, and leaves the most room for abuse.  If that's the case, it should be automated.  

Out of that system, I think most victims would like to be able to "report" their crime.  I do know that a lot of newbies in UO attempted to do this through the counselor system.  The advantage here is that it gives victims a way to feel empowered.  I do know that a LOT of people would enjoy playing the bounty hunter / deputy role, and there is no shortage of people who want to be criminals, to include being able to run away from the law.  

It also leaves open the issue of reimbursement.  If I steal from you, and you know it was me, you are likely to feel that I owe it back.  Here is where devs (kings/guild leaders/whoever makes the decision) can throttle crime.  The penalty could be anything; a simple fine, a stat loss, etc.  If there is monetary reimbursement, some of it could go to the deputy, some to the victim, and some as a gold sink.  "Court fees".  Base the penalty on anything; number of past crimes, amount of damages done, etc, level difference between the criminal and the victim.

[Roac]

All this has been tried.

Not in a MMOG.  The particular system I'm advocating (not the jury one), has been done extremely well in a MUD, and was well received by PKs and carebears alike.

[Jayce]

All this has been tried.

Not in a MMOG.  The particular system I'm advocating (not the jury one), has been done extremely well in a MUD, and was well received by PKs and carebears alike.

MUDS are a) niche and b) frequented by more mature people (in general) than graphical MMOGs.

All the systems so far are full of holes that even I can see without playing around with an implementation.  Maybe though we should bring this to game dev and leave Raph's thread alone ;)

[Nebu]

Not in a MMOG.  The particular system I'm advocating (not the jury one), has been done extremely well in a MUD, and was well received by PKs and carebears alike.

Comparing what may work in a MUD to what may work in an mmog is a tenuous stretch at best.  The two existed in very different eras and were populated by a very different player base/community.  An abstract analogy for me would be like comparing knowledge of literature between people that had read the books vs folks that watched movies about the books.  The community that frequented muds were often computer nerds, fantasy fans, or RP geeks that were usually very computer savvy and often above average in intelligence.  Today's audience is a significantly more varied by demographic.  

I'm not trying to imply that one audience is better than the other, I'm just stating that the target audience is quite different.  There are a number of models that may have worked well in the MUD days that would never stand up today.  For example, the concept of a donation pit or sitting in a tavern chatting are foreign notions to many current gamers.

EDIT: Looks like Jayce beat me to the punch while I was typing this.

[Riggswolfe]

This will be a sort of summary reply re: PvP

About the MxO archetype of having a few skillsets to pick from that can be swapped out. Ok, that might work for balanced PvP. Where does the feel of advancement come from in that scheme?

About player justice/jury systems/etc:

Why should I have to take time out of my playing to go to an ingame trial? Again it is the PvP playstyle intruding on my playtime, twice if I am killed then have to take the killer to court. I can gurantee that if I had a choice I'd check "no don't put me in the jury pool" as well. So would the vast majority of other players.

I suspect if this would work someone like Raph would have already tried it. Didn't he come from a MuD background? I'm guessing he figured that the different playerbase and the larger size of MMOs make this idea impractical.

[Righ]

All this has been tried.

Not in a MMOG.  The particular system I'm advocating (not the jury one), has been done extremely well in a MUD, and was well received by PKs and carebears alike.

It was done here, but it presumably doesn't count, because you don't have a Mac

[Samwise]

I never got around to actually playing ATitD, but I remember reading material on their site indicating that players had the power to draft laws (according to an in-game political process) that would be enforced by the developers if they passed through all the appropriate stages.  Sounded very neat.

[HaemishM]

ATitD doesn't prove a case for player justice systems working because of its size. 3k at highest peak. Total. With smaller populations, AND lack of the PK playstyle, a lot of things will work that simply wouldn't work when you start taking in all the scum of the earth with a credit card. As for jury pools, real life has taught us that most people avoid jury duty like the plague. When people are paying to be entertained, the vast majority of them will not accept interruptions on their play time, especially to deal with problems of grief. The larger the population, the more grief. In the end, you'd be giving griefers not only the ability to grief their victims, but MORE victims in the form of a jury pool whose play time is constantly interrupted. The very people you should be rewarded, those who accept the responsibility of jury duty, would be punished with play time interruptions. 10 seconds is too much time to take.

Griefers are best handled by a paid CSR with the authority to perma-ban the credit card holder. Additional means of curbing grief are things like making all characters on an account share a common last name, single-character servers (a useless gesture if you can't control multi-account holders). Making the players control griefing just makes griefers an even bigger interruption in the community.

Populations less than 500 may allow this to work. Populations over that I don't think have much of a chance.

About the MxO archetype of having a few skillsets to pick from that can be swapped out. Ok, that might work for balanced PvP. Where does the feel of advancement come from in that scheme?

Advancement would have to come in the form of accomplishments, not things like levels.

[Roac]

MUDS are a) niche and b) frequented by more mature people (in general) than graphical MMOGs.

a) There are a handful of MUDs who have / have had more active accounts than the low end MMOGs, and I refer to these and not the 10-user ones.
b) Bullshit.

[Roac]

Comparing what may work in a MUD to what may work in an mmog is a tenuous stretch at best. The two existed in very different eras and were populated by a very different player base/community.

I disagree, based on experience.  I feel that a lot of the reason people make this claim (or similar ones) is because most MUDs have very small playerbases, with online counts being less than 50 at peak.  Nor do I feel that the date makes much difference; history has shown that it repeats itself.  The basic rules haven't changed any.  If you give people an opportunity to be an asshole, some of them will.  That factor scales squared to the number of people available to grief.  RL figured that one out millenia ago, when cities became crime centers with per capita rates far higher than what was found in sparcely populated areas.  Again, and again, and again, we have the same lessons beaten into us, but too many say in ignorance "well, there was nothing before to teach us these lessons."

[Roac]

All this has been tried.

Not in a MMOG.  The particular system I'm advocating (not the jury one), has been done extremely well in a MUD, and was well received by PKs and carebears alike.

It was done here, but it presumably doesn't count, because you don't have a Mac

According to their FAQ they don't allow non-consentual PvP, so I'm not sure how that applies at all to what I was suggesting.

[Paelos]

This will be a sort of summary reply re: PvP
About player justice/jury systems/etc:

Why should I have to take time out of my playing to go to an ingame trial? Again it is the PvP playstyle intruding on my playtime, twice if I am killed then have to take the killer to court. I can gurantee that if I had a choice I'd check "no don't put me in the jury pool" as well. So would the vast majority of other players.

I suspect if this would work someone like Raph would have already tried it. Didn't he come from a MuD background? I'm guessing he figured that the different playerbase and the larger size of MMOs make this idea impractical.

In my idea of a justice system you wouldn't have to take any more time than to read the cases brought to you via an in game email and vote. That's it. You wouldn't have to go through some convoluted journey to a courthouse and listen to some guy bitch about how daddy-done-wrong. The way to get people to participate would be to put a small incentive on taking part in the judicial process. Small monetary rewards or xp gains might be enough to make people want to flag themselves as potential jurors.

As to the second part, that's a straight copout. Just because one person hasn't figured out how to work it in yet doesn't mean its impractical or impossible. Hell, by that logic I'd still be washing my clothes in a bin and hanging them outside. Innovation is always possible with the advancing stages of player interaction in these games, and something like a judicial system is closely approaching as a necessity when you create these virtual worlds.

[AOFanboi]

In my idea of a justice system you wouldn't have to take any more time than to read the cases brought to you via an in game email and vote. That's it. You wouldn't have to go through some convoluted journey to a courthouse and listen to some guy bitch about how daddy-done-wrong.

But, roleplaying demands it!

[Raph]

(yes, I am going to have merchandise. Admit it, you want the "Online Roleplayers Rorshach Test" cartoon on a mug.)

Creeping Jesus, how'd you know?

OK, I have decided to test the water with some merchandise. If you go to http://www.theoryoffun.com and follow the link for "Stuff" you should come to a couple of t shirts and mousepads. Did you really want this one on a mug? Let me know. :)

[schild]

You're Raph Koster! You should have talked ot the people who make Gaming pads. Not the clothpad, secretary stuff. If you want. I can talk to them. ;) Maybe you could get a Theory of Fun Z-Board made.

Edit: I'd like the gator picture on a mug. But if you want it to truly be a theory of fun, send them shipped with 1lb of sweet sweet colombian coke in the cup.

[ajax34i]

For the mugs, how about quotes from the book and/or some of the graphics, and inside or on the bottom, the page number where that code is.  

Collectible mug sets and all that.

[Raph]

Er, there are MANY gator pictures in the book. Do you mean the color one that is on the website? That's from the back cover.

Ajax, I had been assuming people would mostly want the cartoons for the cartoons' sake...

[ajax34i]

Yeah, I imagined more like a fan-club for your book, full of fans who buy up all your merchandise, quote various phrases extensively, have trivia contests and insider jokes based on it, and so on.  ;-)

But I guess that has to be AFTER your book is released.

[Signe]

This is all so exciting.

[Raph]

I am going to assume that Signe wasn't being sarcastic--why burst my bubble? :)

A mug with the gator in color is forthcoming. :)

[schild]

I am going to assume that Signe wasn't being sarcastic--why burst my bubble? :)

A mug with the gator in color is forthcoming. :)

Awesome. Now put on some lipstick. Drink from the mug. Send it to me without washing. If you need a SASE, just ask.