Crossing the Chasm

[Krakrok]

I was reading the Interesting People mailing list and a part of one of the emails jumped out at me as a cool game idea.

There is a middle ground -- it doesn't just happen by accident. Someone has
to create a bridge. If the other "side" is visible then more people would
try. There is a book, "Crossing the Chasm", about getting people to make
the leap. More often we have to build the bridges before people know there
is even an other side.

I'm not proposing that these be a full on game in the breadth of WoW or even EQ but more in the same vein as ATITD or WWIOL. The basic premise would be you are on a strip of land that edges on a chasm and you can see the other side. There is a little village on your side of the chasm and some worldy gamey crap like chopping trees down and shooting deer. The real purpose of the game however would be for the "players" to band togather and build a bridge to cross the chasm. I don't know that this goal would overtly be given to the players or what would happen once they crossed the chasm (they have to cross a bigger one?). Would they only try to build one bridge or multiple bridges? If multiple bridges would they converge at some point half way across as players quit and new players joined? Would they even ever figure out that they should build a bridge? Should physics be involved?

I guess it could be something that was implimented in SecondLife or MultiVerse (if they ever release).

Thoughts?

[Roac]

Sounds like a multiplayer Lemmings game, where you are the lemming instead of getting to control them. 
 

[Krakrok]

It wouldn't have to be devoid of combat. In fact it would probably be better with combat (common enemy and all that). You could have some kind of flying enemy (vampires, harpies, cliff dwellers, whatever) that attacks the bridges and builders. Warriors would be needed to defend them. The opposing side could even be PCs who's mission is to stop you. It could be similar to the Planetside advancement system of increased breadth in versitility (hybrid warrior/builders). Add something in like hang gliders for the explorers to use and then add some kind of magic crystal that they have to go out and collect from the cliff face which is required to keep the bridge up. Maybe the opposing PCs or NPCs could destroy the newest parts of the bridge but only up to a point (have some kind of locking mechanism like iron cladding or something) so that not too much of the bridge could be destroyed after a milestone has been reached.

As far as setting goes I'm seeing some kind of tribal setting but it could be anything (WWII bridge building, 18th century fort building, 14th century castle building, alien planet base building, Mordor orcs building bridges to cross the river). I really like the bridge building idea because it's somewhat unique, allows players to be creative in the actual structure of the bridge, and allows a multi-pronged approach but something like the 18th century forts would probably work pretty well too.

Planetside+Savage+Castles with bridges. It would probably work in a non-persistant multiplayer FPS or RTS style map system as well but wouldn't be as cool.

[Samwise]

Massively Multiplayer Bridge Construction Set?

[Sunbury]

Actually that was part of Horizons.

They called it "Community Building", which I was always confused by, but they ment "everyone on the server coming together on a big crafting project"

There were bridges to repair, so you could cross to an island, where there were plots to build houses on.

There were caves to excavate, to open a passageway to do a quest to release a new character race that was playable.

These didn't happen until like the 2nd month of release, because everyone had to build up crafting and combat levels to do it.  Then people had to organize into gathering groups, transporting gathering to manufacturing sites, then from manufacture to final construction sites, groups to suppress mobs at those sites/routes, etc.

It took 1000s of trips to finish one of these things.

It was kinda fun to participate the first couple of times.

[Xilren's Twin]

It took 1000s of trips/mob killings/pvp battles/crafting progress bars/faction kills to finish one of these things.

It was kinda fun to participate the first couple of times.

That's a fairly nice summary of what's wrong with the MMORPG industry as a whole...

Xilren

[koboshi]

This would make for an interesting mechanic for "Newbie Islands" in conventional MMOGs to build in game connections and communities. Essentially when you enter the game you find yourself in some removed part of the world, separated from it by water, space, lava, astral planes of existence or what have you. You are joined by anyone who has joined that month (fortnight, week, day) and the lot of you must create the means to rejoin the world. 

The purposes of such a system would be:

A)  Create strong bonds between players by forcing them to work with each other and to depend on each other. This would also essentially create a new proto-guild every month alleviating the perceived need for a new player to glom on to an uberguild and "grow up quick" thus creating an alternative avenue of social/charicter/story progression.

B)  Create an intense "hook" story like that of SW:G's orientation battle, but one with a grander arc encompassing the social / multiplayer elements of the game rather than just the player controls.

[shiznitz]

People say they want to "affect the world" but it isn't that simple. SOE added under construction griffon towers to Nektulos Forest and Thundering Steppes at least a month ago and they still haven't been completed by the players. People would rather quest and exp.

[Krakrok]

What happens if they complete the towers in EQ you are talking about?

I don't think it is as simple as "Here is a static unbuilt structure. Bring wood for a good time." For starters, a player didn't choose the spot, there is no pressing need to finish the "tower" (or at least you didn't provide any information to that effect), it doesn't sound like there is any creative input, and there is no common enemy thwarting the building of the tower. I'll reference the "sculptures" from ATITD as a building project that people actively have to decide to take on. And they do and it's fun in the "what can I create with limited resources to design what I want" kind of way. I'll also reference the web where some people never put up their own website, some people put up a 1 page website on geocities then never go back to it, and other people launch the latest eBay.

I think in order for a crossing the chasm kind of thing to work you might need say 50% NPC peons doing the basic building. Players can either pitch in with the building to speed it up or they can fight off the enemy or do whatever floats their boat. With Savage you have NPC workers to mine crystal but players can do it as well and faster. The same goes for EVE. There are plenty of NPC stations but the option is there for the people who have to will to build their own station.

Edit: Watch this Killzone 2 trailer, make it massive multiplayer, ramp the frantic pace up by a factor of 10, and imagine trying to build/defend a bridge/fort in that kind of environment.

[Heresiarch]

It took 1000s of trips/mob killings/pvp battles/crafting progress bars/faction kills to finish one of these things.

It was kinda fun to participate the first couple of times.

That's a fairly nice summary of what's wrong with the MMORPG industry as a whole...

The Horizons details actually sound appealing to me. I think what Xilren is referring to is that it takes 1000s of boring repetitions of the same action to get something done. The rewards sounded great -- unlocking content. I always thought it would be neat to build a giant aqueduct in a game, some great standing structure that had a purpose.

WoW has somehow convinced millions of people to farm for hours every week. I think there's some way of convincing players to contribute. I think the primary issue is making the construction process itself fun, and not just 1000 progress bars.

[Yegolev]

I don't recall it being difficult to find people willing to repair structures in Horizons.  Honestly I'd submit that it was one of the more workable elements of the game.  For any MOG task, there is a matching catass.  Fun for some, to be sure.

[Telemediocrity]

Asheron's Call did this.  Unintentionally, but still.

There were several islands, islands you could barely make out through the ingame haze if you stood on the coast.  Chief among them was Asheron's Island.  Nobody had ever reached them, even though we saw them for a good few years.  AC had no swimming skill; eventually as you ran out into the water, you hit a concrete wall for the ocean.

AC also had a technology called 'portal storming' to help with lag - if you had a lot of people in a small area, you'd get messages that a portal storm was brewing, and eventually a few people would be randomly teleported in one direction or another.  It was a fun and interesting device, just part of the game world's fabric that nobody thought twice about - a mechanic that I've never seen used in a MMO before or since.

A few years into the game, some enterprising player got the idea that the island was just barely close enough, that if he gathered enough people in one place to trigger the random portal storm feature over and over, eventually he could get players onto the island.

At least half the server showed up, and it worked.  Exploring the island, players found Asheron's Castle - Asherons himself wasn't home, but it was a one of a kind experience nonetheless.

The devs never stated that the islands were there to be discovered - indeed, there's ample evidence the devs never intended for it to happen.  They simply beckoned to the players by their mere virtue of physically being there.

Like many things in AC1, it was one of those "happy accidents", as Bob Ross would say, that was the product of a dev team writing the rulebook for the first time, rather than starting with a list of preset assumptions based on the games that had come before.  I've never seen another MMO create the same feeling, before or since.

It's this sort of experience with my first MMO that makes me just shake my head when I hear about people farming raids for loot or whatever, and conclude that the genre is moving backwards.

[Llava]

I don't recall it being difficult to find people willing to repair structures in Horizons.  Honestly I'd submit that it was one of the more workable elements of the game.  For any MOG task, there is a matching catass.  Fun for some, to be sure.

It still SOUNDS like a great idea, to me.

I think that the major problem with it is that it is not profitable for the people who contribute any more than it is for the people who don't.  You're throwing money into a giant hole, and when something eventually comes out of that hole you're going to be sharing it with everyone else on your server.

If there was a meaningful reward for participating in these things (as opposed to a meaningful reward for having this completed on your server) I think it would be a very workable, fun way to encourage communities on servers.

Then again, didn't WoW just do this?  How'd that turn out?

[Heresiarch]

I think that the major problem with it is that it is not profitable for the people who contribute any more than it is for the people who don't.  You're throwing money into a giant hole, and when something eventually comes out of that hole you're going to be sharing it with everyone else on your server.

I hate using ATITD as an argument here cuz, well, they've only got singe-digit thousands of subscribers (2000-ish?). But players contribute to research at the Libraries or whatever, even tho your contributions are effectively anonymous. Everyone on the server gets a benefit. I don't think this mechanism adversely deters players. Guilds get together to form local alliancies, and they'll make unlock technologies by putting in a bunch of time to gather resources/etc.

The WoW example is probably similar. The reward is "my server was [one of] the first" or "we did it within a week of those catasses on X". It's the same sort of "reward" that people get when they root for sports teams, or "omg the guy who won the Oscar/Grammy/Lottery went to my high school!" Like wtf did YOU do to contribute to their victory? Fuck all. But that doesn't matter. People take pride in associating themselves with victors.

[Xilren's Twin]

AC also had a technology called 'portal storming' to help with lag - if you had a lot of people in a small area, you'd get messages that a portal storm was brewing, and eventually a few people would be randomly teleported in one direction or another.  It was a fun and interesting device, just part of the game world's fabric that nobody thought twice about - a mechanic that I've never seen used in a MMO before or since.

It's this sort of experience with my first MMO that makes me just shake my head when I hear about people farming raids for loot or whatever, and conclude that the genre is moving backwards.

Point of order.  You do realize that "portal storms" were not a benefical feature, they were a kludge work around for the idea that AC's severs couldn't handle more than X people in a local area before resembling a slide show thus most people hated them?

There's a reason you don't see this "feature" in any game since; two poorly designed factors interesecting to produce something memorable in a good way was sheer luck.

There have been games that have hidden zones/areas in them on purpose.  But generally, its not worth much dev time to program content no one will actually use...

Xilren

[Llava]

I think that the major problem with it is that it is not profitable for the people who contribute any more than it is for the people who don't.  You're throwing money into a giant hole, and when something eventually comes out of that hole you're going to be sharing it with everyone else on your server.

I hate using ATITD as an argument here cuz, well, they've only got singe-digit thousands of subscribers (2000-ish?). But players contribute to research at the Libraries or whatever, even tho your contributions are effectively anonymous. Everyone on the server gets a benefit. I don't think this mechanism adversely deters players. Guilds get together to form local alliancies, and they'll make unlock technologies by putting in a bunch of time to gather resources/etc.

The WoW example is probably similar. The reward is "my server was [one of] the first" or "we did it within a week of those catasses on X". It's the same sort of "reward" that people get when they root for sports teams, or "omg the guy who won the Oscar/Grammy/Lottery went to my high school!" Like wtf did YOU do to contribute to their victory? Fuck all. But that doesn't matter. People take pride in associating themselves with victors.

To a certain extent, yes, there are people who want to hold hands with everyone on their server and say "W3 pwn j00 oth3r s3rv3rs!"

But most people don't give a shit.  If a server unlocks something before another one and they're not already invested in their own server, they can and will just move on over.

Like I was saying, the game doesn't reward the actual act of working together.  It rewards the completion, but whether or not you contributed makes no difference.  In fact, it rewards you for not contributing because then you've still got all your gold/foozle guts/linen squares/wood while all the suckers who contributed are now broke and worked their asses off.  Meanwhile, you get to run right across the bridge, or into the dungeon, or play the new race, or whatever.

I'm saying the actual act of contributing to the effort should be rewarded in addition to the actual completion of the project.  This would lead to players working together much more frequently.  Instead, they punish the contribution but reward the completion.  That's bass ackwards.

[tazelbain]

The idea that someone who did nothing might recieve a benfit from your effort just chaps your acheiver ass.

[Heresiarch]

Instead, they punish the contribution but reward the completion.  That's bass ackwards.

The people that contribute don't view it as 'punishment', they view it as 'cost'.

And I really don't see it as "holding hands" at all. When rabid sports fanatics talk about how awesome [local sports team] is, they don't do it in a hand-holding, joint-contribution kind of way. It's all "I am awesome, see how well my team did?"

I think there's two other points here:

1) I agree with Taz, sounds like you've got some chafing there. Everything else in the game is solo-achiever stuff; we're specifically talking about something other than rewarding the player that does something and only that player.

If JoeBob completes difficult task X and gets 1000gp and three epics, and everyone on the server gets 2 copper, then who cares? Pointless mechanic. If JoeBob gets 2 copper, but everyone on the server gets 1000gp and three epics, then it sounds like you don't think that's rewarding enough for JoeBob and it's just a free-rider problem. I can see that. So the task needs to be somewhere in the middle; maybe JoeBob gets his epics, and it unlocks cool content Y for the entire server.

2) The process needs to be more fun than 1000 progress bars. I use that phrasing cuz I've already used it in this thread.