Relatively new site on MMOG theory and design.

[Nebu]

I don't know that I can agree with the "doing normal shit" since anonymity allows most gamers to do shit in games that they would NOT normally do given "normal" levels of accountibility. 

[HaemishM]

I'm still standing by my definition of people doing normal shit in a game.

You can challenge me on that.

But you'd be wrong.

You are correct. As I've said before, the social part is just natural, it happens in games that aren't even built with social components, such as FPS games. Why do people form clans in FPS? There are no real resources to speak of or fight over, other than efficient gameplay, so why form clans at all? Because that's what people do.

Wrapping it in buzzwords just makes it seem like overintellectualizing wankery.

[Montague]

Wrapping it in buzzwords just makes it seem like overintellectualizing wankery.

Forum-emergent bullshit, as it were.

[Venkman]

Why do people form clans in FPS? There are no real resources to speak of or fight over, other than efficient gameplay, so why form clans at all?

I agree with you and schild, but I wanted to dispute this point.

FPS clans are formed for largely the same reasons Guilds are formed in MMOs. It is about resources,  just a different type. Clans are looking for consistent performance either on a personal/ego level or in brackets/tournaments. Guilds are looking for consistent acquisition for their members to increase their aggregate performance at future acquisition. Both methods are far better served by having a consistent group you can train up with and grow to know and/or trust.

That's the long way of saying it's because we do it in life too.

[lamaros]

ALSO:

social based emergent gameplay

King Pussy is sounding like that other retard with his nonsense words of a while back.

Think about what you say and don't use stupid fucking expressions like that. Or you will keep getting cockstabbed.

Not trying to be rude, but you might want to back off a bit. It's an excellent description of a phenomenon first seen in EQ 1 (from my perspective at least), and demonstrated extremely strongly in ShadowBane, and currently Eve.

The "politics" around wars, events, and subterfuge that happen external to the game itself (forums mostly) is almost certainly social based emergent gameplay, and just because you don't like the term doesn't mean it's wrong.

I don't mind the discussion. It's nothing words, politic and business speak as you like, that I am annoyed about. And what other in this forum also get annoyed about. You don't have to use wank-words to describe things just for the sake of it. Sounding like a press release doesn't really facilitate decent discussion.

( See this book: Death Sentences: 'How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language'  by Don Wtson for some discussion on this issue. Note that the book itself isn't all that great beyond the initial discussion it raises. )

[lamaros]

I'm still standing by my definition of people doing normal shit in a game.

You can challenge me on that.

But you'd be wrong.

You are correct. As I've said before, the social part is just natural, it happens in games that aren't even built with social components, such as FPS games. Why do people form clans in FPS? There are no real resources to speak of or fight over, other than efficient gameplay, so why form clans at all? Because that's what people do.

As I said earlier in this thread. 'Rescources' here is being understood too specificaly. Positions on competitive ladders, bragging rights, envy, power, etc etc are all things you can consider 'rescources' in this vein. Whenever there is something that two or more people consider of value, the right to call themselves 'the best', for example, then you will see this competition taking place. This is a social component. Note, for example, how schild posed the screenshot of him owning in that Zombie game in the other thread - you might think that game has no social components but it does. Simply being a multi player game gives it such.

Rescources is not just gold, silver and 'loot', it's much much more (or less, depending on your viewpoint).

[Stephen Zepp]

ALSO:

social based emergent gameplay

King Pussy is sounding like that other retard with his nonsense words of a while back.

Think about what you say and don't use stupid fucking expressions like that. Or you will keep getting cockstabbed.

Not trying to be rude, but you might want to back off a bit. It's an excellent description of a phenomenon first seen in EQ 1 (from my perspective at least), and demonstrated extremely strongly in ShadowBane, and currently Eve.

The "politics" around wars, events, and subterfuge that happen external to the game itself (forums mostly) is almost certainly social based emergent gameplay, and just because you don't like the term doesn't mean it's wrong.

I don't mind the discussion. It's nothing words, politic and business speak as you like, that I am annoyed about. And what other in this forum also get annoyed about. You don't have to use wank-words to describe things just for the sake of it. Sounding like a press release doesn't really facilitate decent discussion.

( See this book: Death Sentences: 'How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language'  by Don Wtson for some discussion on this issue. Note that the book itself isn't all that great beyond the initial discussion it raises. )

The point I was trying to cover is this:

How else do you describe players spending in some cases more time posting about the game than actually playing the game? When I lead my nation in Shadowbane, a fundamentally necessary part of "playing the game" was posting on the forums--establishing points of belief, diplomatic treaties, answering challenges, negotiating conflict resolutions, and a host of other "emergent activities that were social in nature" that weren't core game mechanics within the game itself.

Can someone come up with an equally descriptive yet less flamboyant phrase to describe this? I'm honestly curious.

[schild]

Posting about all games is nearly as much fun as playing them.

You're talking to living, breathing, humans (human, most of the time) who share an interest with you.

As humans, we seek conversation. I can say that, because anyone who reads or posts on a message board seeks conversation.

A bond. What have you.

The reason people stay in MMOGs past the honeymoon period is other people.

They'll still talk about it on boards. See: SW:G.

So, less flamboyant?

People like talking.

[lamaros]

ALSO:

social based emergent gameplay

King Pussy is sounding like that other retard with his nonsense words of a while back.

Think about what you say and don't use stupid fucking expressions like that. Or you will keep getting cockstabbed.

Not trying to be rude, but you might want to back off a bit. It's an excellent description of a phenomenon first seen in EQ 1 (from my perspective at least), and demonstrated extremely strongly in ShadowBane, and currently Eve.

The "politics" around wars, events, and subterfuge that happen external to the game itself (forums mostly) is almost certainly social based emergent gameplay, and just because you don't like the term doesn't mean it's wrong.

I don't mind the discussion. It's nothing words, politic and business speak as you like, that I am annoyed about. And what other in this forum also get annoyed about. You don't have to use wank-words to describe things just for the sake of it. Sounding like a press release doesn't really facilitate decent discussion.

( See this book: Death Sentences: 'How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language'  by Don Wtson for some discussion on this issue. Note that the book itself isn't all that great beyond the initial discussion it raises. )

The point I was trying to cover is this:

How else do you describe players spending in some cases more time posting about the game than actually playing the game? When I lead my nation in Shadowbane, a fundamentally necessary part of "playing the game" was posting on the forums--establishing points of belief, diplomatic treaties, answering challenges, negotiating conflict resolutions, and a host of other "emergent activities that were social in nature" that weren't core game mechanics within the game itself.

Can someone come up with an equally descriptive yet less flamboyant phrase to describe this? I'm honestly curious.

Well, first of all calling such activities "emergent" is not only false, for such activities have existed in games from the get-go, but it is also redundant. Even if they were only emerging now the activities themselves are not necessarily emergent - that is just the stage they might currently be at. So it would be much better to say that there has been a rise in "social based gameplay".

But of course that is still very vague and doesn't really isolate the point of discussion we're trying to isolate.

We might instead describe it as "social-politics as gameplay". That is, where the political aspect of social interaction around the game (within and without) is an attraction - deliberate or otherwise - rather than a consequence.

But to really describe this is detail we're going to argue over these terms too. Such a discussion - attempting to coin an expression to describe something we havn't described before, will result in such a back and forth until we've decided on appropriate terms. And it might be that we'll agree the the words we're using currently aren't adequate and that we need to generate a more specific and technical language for these general concepts, through these discussions, before we can come to this agreement.

This is why most specific fields have their own language, for discussions within the field. But that language is not decided upon by the first guy to come along and coin a phrase, and it is not used appropriately when trying to communicate with those who aren't members of the field familiar with this particular language.

Using expressions such as "social based emergent gameplay" might begin to have some meaning if we discuss it for a while and agree that it is an accurate term for what we're attempting to describe (and I don't agree it is), but just throwing it out before we get to that point confuses the issue and is an impediment to genuine communication.

Let me know if that made any sense.

[Lightstalker]

How else do you describe players spending in some cases more time posting about the game than actually playing the game? When I lead my nation in Shadowbane, a fundamentally necessary part of "playing the game" was posting on the forums--establishing points of belief, diplomatic treaties, answering challenges, negotiating conflict resolutions, and a host of other "emergent activities that were social in nature" that weren't core game mechanics within the game itself.

Can someone come up with an equally descriptive yet less flamboyant phrase to describe this? I'm honestly curious.

That's called metagaming (if you need something more precise than people liking to talk).

When people play games they tend to metagame, some even like it more than the game itself.  In Shadowbane you tried to control public opinion and put out fires (sewing Fear Uncertainty and Doubt was an important component of many successful national fronts).  Playing poker one might try to entice the other guy into laying down in response to your bluff or swooping into your feigned weakness.   Playing Basketball or Football one might thumb their chest, trash talk, or otherwise mock your opponent's weakness or lack of game.  Each of these behaviors is outside the established rules of the game, but they are intended to influence the run of the game none the less.

Metagaming isn't new, nor is it limited to online games.  And it happens because people like to mess with each other.  The context of the game just provides a measurable impact of one's metagaming effectiveness.

Edit: Spelling, still hard.

[Arthur_Parker]

On the subject of phrases that don't really add anything to the discussion.

short words are best and the old words when short are best of all

An example of metagaming from the Eve forum.

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=527

[schild]

That's called metagaming (if you need something more precise than people liking to talk).

Metagaming is a thousand times less precise than people liking to talk. Economics was metagaming in SWG, as was watching resource location. Inter-guild politics is metagaming in Eve. Playing the card game in EQ2 will be metagaming in EQ2. Also, talking about shit in a game on a forum instead of in the actual game can be considered metagaming.

But, SPECIFICALLY, what he's looking for is "birds of a feather." People who like to talk about one thing must like to talk about other shit. Here's the thing, VERY VERY few people talk more on forums ABOUT a game than they do play the game. But people on forums talk much more about the game AND OTHER SHIT than they play the game. This is because they want to interact with likeminded individuals. It's not metagaming at that point, it's being human.

Though, I suppose working in the online gaming industry can slowly kill that side of you while you search for the perfect virtual world and forget that you're living in it already.

[Venkman]

Well, first of all calling such activities "emergent" is not only false, for such activities have existed in games from the get-go, but it is also redundant.

How is it false? There is a point in time when weddings and funerals did not take place in virtual worlds. There was a point in time when kiting, perching, monster blocking, and trains did not exist, neither as an activity nor as a term. These play patterns were largely invented by players and then either featured or removed from future games. Heck, I read once that friggin' song twisting in EQ1 was more a result of a mistake in programming than something intended by the designers.

The way I understood it, "emergent behavior" was coined to label activities that the designers did not intend for the game, and which resulted in new behaviors.

[Stephen Zepp]

Well, first of all calling such activities "emergent" is not only false, for such activities have existed in games from the get-go, but it is also redundant.

How is it false? There is a point in time when weddings and funerals did not take place in virtual worlds. There was a point in time when kiting, perching, monster blocking, and trains did not exist, neither as an activity nor as a term. These play patterns were largely invented by players and then either featured or removed from future games. Heck, I read once that friggin' song twisting in EQ1 was more a result of a mistake in programming than something intended by the designers.

The way I understood it, "emergent behavior" was coined to label activities that the designers did not intend for the game, and which resulted in new behaviors.

Exactly.

Select quotes from the Wikipedia article on emergence:

In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a much stronger claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole.

An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales.

Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event or rule. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern. Instead, the interaction of each part with its immediate surroundings causes a complex chain of processes leading to some order. One might conclude that emergent structures are more than the sum of their parts because the emergent order will not arise if the various parts are simply coexisting; the interaction of these parts is central.

[Merusk]

Seems like some of you are calling mechanics-twisting and exploitation as "emergent behavior" while others are protesting calling social activity and meta-gaming "emergent behavior." 

You're not discussing the same things at this point.   

The original protest was calling social activities as emergent behavior, not twisting, kiting, etc.  Those are mechanics aspects, not social ones.

[Stephen Zepp]

Seems like some of you are calling mechanics-twisting and exploitation as "emergent behavior" while others are protesting calling social activity and meta-gaming "emergent behavior." 

You're not discussing the same things at this point.   

The original protest was calling social activities as emergent behavior, not twisting, kiting, etc.  Those are mechanics aspects, not social ones.

Darniaq was simply trying to stress the "things that designers didn't plan for becoming gameplay". Personally, I agree with you and twisting is probably on the far line of "emergent"--it was just unexpected. It very well could be argued successfully on both sides however, since the concept of having multiple spells active all at once form a single bard was not something the designers planned.

[HaemishM]

That's the long way of saying it's because we do it in life too.

Which is exactly what schild and I said. Thanks for agreeing with me. 

[schild]

Here's the goddamn problem though.

People aren't creating more complex shit.

Am I not getting through to you all? Emergent behavior is the type of bullshit you talk about when you don't want to get anything done in a design meeting. It's the kind of words you throw around to impress Investors who like FEELING SMART. It doesn't mean a fucking thing in games! People in games just act as they'd act in real life given the same circumstances.

How about this, you can call it "emergent behavior" but you say that with the full understanding that it simply implies that people will do what they do, in any system.

As for meta-gaming, well, that's a pretty easy one, isn't it? Anything a player does to support his fun in the game or support the main "game" of a game, without it being the main game can easily be considered metagaming.

Stephen, I figured why those 4 words set us all off.

IT'S BECAUSE WE COULDN'T PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE.

[lamaros]

Seems like some of you are calling mechanics-twisting and exploitation as "emergent behavior" while others are protesting calling social activity and meta-gaming "emergent behavior." 

You're not discussing the same things at this point.   

The original protest was calling social activities as emergent behavior, not twisting, kiting, etc.  Those are mechanics aspects, not social ones.

Darniaq was simply trying to stress the "things that designers didn't plan for becoming gameplay". Personally, I agree with you and twisting is probably on the far line of "emergent"--it was just unexpected. It very well could be argued successfully on both sides however, since the concept of having multiple spells active all at once form a single bard was not something the designers planned.

This is the problem with using the word emergent. It is so general we are all right and wrong at the same time. It adds nothing to meaningful discussion.

This is the point of the complaint.

[Arthur_Parker]

I think he's gone now, pity I was on a mission to get him talking about trammel, guess it was before his time.

[Murgos]

I'm not sure how Stephen managed to quote the relevant points of the emergence article and yet still miss what it means.

Emergence is the collection of rules that when applied creates a superset of complex behavior or patterns.  Social gaming is not emergent behavior.

100,000,000 Termites, each one building according to innate rules that results in a cohesive 30 foot high tower is emergence.  A flock of birds that turns simultaneously to avoid a threat as though some force guided the action of every bird simultaneously is emergence.  People in different crowds filing into lines going in alternating directions to walk through each others center mass is emergence.

Saying, "I am going to form a group of friends and we shall all play together to accomplish common goals" is not emergence.  It's planning.

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm not sure how Stephen managed to quote the relevant points of the emergence article and yet still miss what it means.

Emergence is the collection of rules that when applied creates a superset of complex behavior or patterns.  Social gaming is not emergent behavior.

100,000,000 Termites, each one building according to innate rules that results in a cohesive 30 foot high tower is emergence.  A flock of birds that turns simultaneously to avoid a threat as though some force guided the action of every bird simultaneously is emergence.  People in different crowds filing into lines going in alternating directions to walk through each others center mass is emergence.

Saying, "I am going to form a group of friends and we shall all play together to accomplish common goals" is not emergence.  It's planning.

Different perspective. Fundamental game play (treaties, politics, diplomacy) that self-generates outside of the delivered media (the game itself) is both:

a) An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole.

and

b) An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective.

That's straight logic, and while you may argue that to "be emergent behaviour, it has to do more than that", that's completely within your rights. Doesn't make you correct (and doesn't make me correct, either).

[Venkman]

This is the problem with using the word emergent.

And "fun", and "good", and "MMO", and "crafting", and "player-driven economy". We're a genre of labels nobody agrees on :)

Am I not getting through to you all? Emergent behavior is the type of bullshit you talk about when you don't want to get anything done in a design meeting

If you're using the term "emergent behavior", it's not really "emergent behavior" anymore, because you're planning for it. Now it's just "contrived" or "directed". You don't sit in a design meeting and say "ok, we'll just leave that one up to the players and see what what happens, EULA, TOS and Lawyers be damned" unless you're Linden Labs.

Look, I know some people don't respond to high mucky-mucky stuffed-shirt suit speak, but a) language is fluid; and, b) it helps train folks to be able to talk to high mucky-mucky stuffed-shit suits. Someday when code jockies are controlling the purse strings on big ass budgets we might get back to "player does A, result B happens, and if that's not the case they're cheating so ban their ass".

Until then, count your blessings that we haven't begun using words IP developers use. Christ, even I have a low threshold for that abstract stuff. "But Bobo wouldn't do that! His {clearly never defined but entirely invented at that moment to make some stupid irrelevant point to win ego points} family didn't bring him up that way back {at some just-invented previous point in time that'll be hastily scratch into some Powerpoint in about 6 minutes} in {some place that'll be entirely reimagined if this IP ever goes to the big screen}.

[schild]

Oh, I agree Darniaq, it's perfect for those sorts of MEETINGS. But here, comeon, it's just more bullshit to cut through. Bullshit that 90% of the people here can see coming a mile away. Especially from someone who started a NEW website about MMOG theory and design.

[Murgos]

a) An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole.

I disagree that the given definition is is applicable in this context.

The guilds in MMO's are planned constructs, that the developers knowingly leveraged existing internet infrastructure (i.e. they consciously decided not to provide guild forums) as a cost saving mechanism does not make the fact that they exist anyway 'emergent' behavior.

Eve's devs planned for extended groups to form and claim ownership of systems, they planned that battles would be fought between those groups and they anticipated that the stronger groups would be more organized and thus provided mechanisms that can only be exploited by large groups of well organized players (Titans, stations and et al).   They also provided numerous mechanism to facilitate the formation of those large organized groups.

The ENTIRE design of the game (and all MMO's to a greater or lesser extent) was directed toward creating this style of game play and every participant is a willing and knowledgeable actor.  The complex behaviors seen in EVE among groups didn't emerge from the components in the system automatically so much as they were enacted by the conscious will of every individual involved.

To my understanding that is the direct polar opposite of emergence.

[lamaros]

This is the problem with using the word emergent.

And "fun", and "good", and "MMO", and "crafting", and "player-driven economy". We're a genre of labels nobody agrees on :)

Am I not getting through to you all? Emergent behavior is the type of bullshit you talk about when you don't want to get anything done in a design meeting

If you're using the term "emergent behavior", it's not really "emergent behavior" anymore, because you're planning for it. Now it's just "contrived" or "directed". You don't sit in a design meeting and say "ok, we'll just leave that one up to the players and see what what happens, EULA, TOS and Lawyers be damned" unless you're Linden Labs.

Look, I know some people don't respond to high mucky-mucky stuffed-shirt suit speak, but a) language is fluid; and, b) it helps train folks to be able to talk to high mucky-mucky stuffed-shit suits. Someday when code jockies are controlling the purse strings on big ass budgets we might get back to "player does A, result B happens, and if that's not the case they're cheating so ban their ass".

Until then, count your blessings that we haven't begun using words IP developers use. Christ, even I have a low threshold for that abstract stuff. "But Bobo wouldn't do that! His {clearly never defined but entirely invented at that moment to make some stupid irrelevant point to win ego points} family didn't bring him up that way back {at some just-invented previous point in time that'll be hastily scratch into some Powerpoint in about 6 minutes} in {some place that'll be entirely reimagined if this IP ever goes to the big screen}.

But that's the point I was trying to make. We're not a bunch of Devs who've agreed on these terms between ourselves and can thus throw them out willy-nilly. Unless we're having a closed discussion with those who agree to these terms and understand them using them has no point. Now that the conversation has gone a little further (and we're still arguing over definition a bit) we might all have an understanding of what Lindorn meant when he used the term, and thus using it again might have some meaning where it didn't before, but that's now.. and he said it... before...

[Amaron]

Wow I didn't know this thread had devolved into my favorite topic of nerd rage (word usage).

In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a much stronger claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole.

This is the proper usage of the word.  If you hear someone use the word seriously and you think it means something else, then you are wrong.  It has nothing to do with being "new".  Edit: It also has nothing to do with being unplanned for, although unplanned for emergence is supposed to be the best kind as far as investors are concerned.

Schild is right that it's just crap for business meetings though.  Most likely when game investors hear "emergent" the words "stuff I don't have to pay for" pops up in their head and dollar signs start spinning in the location their eyes once occupied.

[schild]

Most likely when game investors hear "emergent" the words "stuff I don't have to pay for" pops up in their head and dollar signs start spinning in the location their eyes once occupied.

[Amaron]

Indeed my knowledge of this word is strongly related to my desire to own and wear money hats.

[Lindorn]

Wow.... Sorry I couldn't reply earlier but it seems all I missed was another onslaught of all of your vitriol.  Social interactions between players that utilize the tools within a game that result in events the developers DO NOT EXPECT IS CALLED EMERGENT GAMEPLAY.  I did not overblow the english language, I did not use words that did not accurately describe the concepts I meant to convey.

It's a terrible shame that you fill in the holes in your arguments with blatant personal attacks and insults.  What's even more sad is that a good chunk of it comes from staff members from this site, in response to someone that has done nothing but tried to be a productive member of your forums.

[Lindorn]

Eve's Devs planned everything?  Have you even followed that game?  Have you seen the many community uproars as a result of meta gaming relationships with devs, player owned banks, and other things that really have never before occurred in an MMOG environment?  You've got to be insane to make a statement like that.

[Arthur_Parker]

Wow.... Sorry I couldn't reply earlier but it seems all I missed was another onslaught of all of your vitriol.  Social interactions between players that utilize the tools within a game that result in events the developers DO NOT EXPECT IS CALLED EMERGENT GAMEPLAY.  I did not overblow the english language, I did not use words that did not accurately describe the concepts I meant to convey.

It's a terrible shame that you fill in the holes in your arguments with blatant personal attacks and insults.  What's even more sad is that a good chunk of it comes from staff members from this site, in response to someone that has done nothing but tried to be a productive member of your forums.

[WindupAtheist]

[tkinnun0]

Rejecting emergent behavior after the fact as too obvious and rejecting evolution as too unobvious: two sides of the same coin.

[Venkman]

It's a terrible shame that you fill in the holes in your arguments with blatant personal attacks and insults.  What's even more sad is that a good chunk of it comes from staff members from this site, in response to someone that has done nothing but tried to be a productive member of your forums.

Yes, but are you intrigued or appalled?  :-D