The Laws of Online Gaming Revisited...

[Rasix]

SEMANTICS FOR THE WIN.

Fucking christ on a stick.  Weren't your first posts actually insightful?

[Djamonja]

That's interesting since I consider SWG to have about the shortest treadmills and least tedious advancement I have come across in an MRPG (least tedious because it is short).

And no endgame. So, whats the f'in point?

What is the endgame in CoH? "Endgame" is such a strange concept anyway in an MRPG -- I think of them more as a continiuum where you can do whatever interests you at the time (some have more options than others obviously).

[dogles]

Whatever. Feel free to add to the conversation, instead of flaming everyone who responds to your posts. I'm here to have a conversation, and you seem too pissed off to talk.

[dogles]

The fact that you have to build a virtual world before you can create the purpose for the virtual world (the game) seems to me self evident. As someone else has already said, the game is the thing.

Agree.

Besides, online or virtual communties will always fail to emulate real relationships.

Please explain. I agree communication in online communities will never (at least any time soon) be as good as face-to-face contact. But just as strong relationships can form - lots of people have gotten married to people they met in games, for instance.

If this is true, then why spend so many resources in a futile endevor? Perfect the current paradigm, stabalize the market and hope for slow incremental change. In the end, just keep the players happy.

I think a lot of people are unhappy with, or just tired of the paradigm. Personally, I don't think the laws are the big problem, I think the problem is that you're not going to automatically have a fun game just by following them. One could argue that means we need more/better laws. :)

I agree there is room for slow incremental change to the existing paradigm. I think it will become more and more of a niche audience though. The standard MMP combat mechanics pretty much suck (or at least they're getting old), designers haven't figured out how to make new/better types of group play, and the costs of building the content for these worlds is so massive that you typically end up with lots of story-light, uninspired, and shallow scenarios that you have to repeat over and over again to advance.

That's a bad recipe for an RPG, which is what most people come into the genre expecting (for obvious reasons :).

Personally I'd like to see developers take/steal aspects of other genres and put them in an online world setting - RTS, shooter, adventure/puzzle, 'pet' games (sim city, etc), turn-based strategy, and so on. There are a ridiculous number of straight-up MMORPG's in development, and little else.  Nearly everyone is catering to this small niche, when there is a whole platform to explore.

dan

[Tebonas]

Explorers take pride in displaying their knowledge of the game and making new discoveries.

I am an explorer that fucking doesn't care if anybody knows what he discovered. New discoveries have nothing to do with pride, but with my curiousity. Discover what a new skill can do, discover how a new area is, discover what a new item looks like. They are all satisfactions in themself. But I admit I am not at typical mmorpg-player. I discovered I get better mileage out of my gaming experience by playing Single Player games while chatting with my old EQ-buddies via eqim or skype. I would be quite satisfied with small scale group crawls through new areas without a thousand social retards waiting at the fringes of my vision to disrupt my gaming experience.

[Snowspinner]

SEMANTICS FOR THE WIN.

Fucking christ on a stick.  Weren't your first posts actually insightful?

I'm not sure if you were flaming me there or not, but I think the point is important. Socializing, exploring, and killing are all things that are, to varying degrees, out of game play. You can't design a game to cater just to one of them. (There's an arguable exception here about killers that I'm going to avoid unless someone presses me on it.) That doesn't make them invalid playstyles. But it does make them something that can't be planned for.

It is, to go back to the larger debate, a part of world design, instead of game design. So the question, for all of those playstyles, becomes whether or not online worlds are possible, or whether those playstyles are, at least for the time being, permanatly relegated to second class citizenship

My bet is on B.

[HaemishM]

Next motherfucker brings up a golf analogy will be stabbed in the eye with my rigid cock. Most analogies suck for MMOG's.

Games of all stripes can be played multiple ways according to the needs of an individual player, whether he's in a group or social, etc. The rules can often be peripheral to the entire game experience, depending on how many want to be followed by the players. Games build social connections of their own accord, and the strength of those social connections is a function of the depth of the game. While you don't see many communities form around Solitaire, MMOG's spawn guilds, golf spawns a group of friends, tournaments, pro tours, amateur tours, etc.

I'll just go ahead and make up a law of my own, which unless someone else has said it, will heretofore be known as Haemish's Law of Frank. Why Frank? Frank's a great name... Robin Day has a hedgehog named Frank.

Code:

Games build communities. The strength of those communities is directly proportional to the level and amount of direct competition the game requires.

Maybe that's just human nature, but the more a community has to struggle against something, such as another community, the stronger the bonds between individual members of that community have to be. PVP+ games need guilds who have trust between their members, who organize and work well together. As a result, the better (as in more effective) PVP guilds can move between games as a unit instead of as stragglers.

I'm rambling, because it's that type of morning, but I think you get my drift.

All games have goals, but not all gamers are as emotionally invested in these goals as others. Thus, DV feels shame when he gets PKed and joy when he wins, while Sky shrugs his shoulders when he gets PKed and smiles when he turns the tables on the cockgobbler who PKed him.

[Rasix]

I'm not sure if you were flaming me there or not, but I think the point is important.

Not you, if it makes you feel any better.  I just get rather annoyed when people miss or ignore the entire point of my post and start arguing over definitions.

I think there's only so much planning your can do with catering to the different play styles.  But a mass market game needs to enable these as much as possible.  However, certain developers are going to have differing views on to do this.  Take for example global chat channels.  One dev might consider this a neccessary to allow people to form social groups.  Another dev might consider it a hindrance from forming tight knit social communties.  

It largely seems to be a system of trial and error with the successes being emulated across the board.

[Glazius]

You want a game to play without goals? Why not go play There or Second Life or something? Games need goals, it's mandatory.

Representative but not wholly comprising the reason for this rhetorical torrent.

Nice theory of human action there, chief. But you're missing about three-fourths of the picture. Goal-oriented actions (what the German theorist Max Weber would toss into his mental bucket labeled "instrumental-rational" or whatever the heck the thirty-letter German analogue is) aren't the only type, the major type, or even the final type of human action.

Value-rational is another type. Doing something because it's the right thing to do. (Thank you, Spiderman 2.) Before you say, "well, isn't the goal to do the right thing?", no, it isn't. Because it's not a goal in any but the most ephemeral sense. I can't say "okay, I helped that old lady unload her packages, I am now officially a good person! Time to eat this kitten!" The people who play City of Heroes and oneshot villains they gain _nothing_ from, just to save the NPCs, can loosely be said to engage in this type of activity.

Traditional is a third type. Doing something because "it's done". When the anime club you just joined hauls you into the college arcade, cues up DDR MAX, and shoves you onto the pad, it's a sort of trial-by-blinkies, and the point is not to win, but to _experience_, and to share the experience with others - including, six months later, the poleaxed newb who _you_ push onto the pad.

The final type is affective - doing something just because it feels good. Believe me, when Arsenal wins and a screaming crowd of hooligans hits the streets and shoves a bus over, they're not following some cosmic timetable. If games "have" to have anything, it's this. They have to be fun.

(It occurs to me that you or I are confusing goals with ends. Putting a ball in a hole (I'm so sorry, Haemish) isn't necessarily the goal of golf, but it is an end. )

Anyway, back to the types of action - and why the last is the most important. The sort of leader who appeals to that last type of action - who organizes people with charisma and makes them feel good about what they're doing - history will bear out that he, not the guy with the 800-page rulebook, is the first to bring order out of chaos, even if it's only momentary, even if it's only coalesced around him. Without that charismatic seed, you can't bring people together.

--GF

[Krakrok]

Code:

Games build communities. The strength of those communities is directly proportional to the level and amount of direct competition the game requires.

How about I shorten that:

Code:

Without an enemy, the enemy is your friend.

[Alkiera]

Time to eat this kitten!

No way man, that's Just Wrong.

As for the topic at hand, I think Bartle missed a few types, or perhaps, rather, his types are limited by the playerbase he studied.  As 'world-game combination' subscription base has grown, the genre has appealed to people who do not neccesarily fit into his cute lttle scheme at all, not even poorly.  I don't know that I'm familiar enough with the groups in question to add titles for them.

As far as different groups and how they interact with the 'game' portion of an MMOG, I think it's pretty obvious that the acheivers are going to be the most besot with the 'game'.  Killers will be too, if that's the only/best way to be good at defeating other players.  The group that Sky is in probably gets alot of milage from the 'game' portion too, but without the addictive attachment that acheivers get.  Other groups find the game to be a useful plave to hang out due more to the 'world' aspects, in that explorers generally want to see new stuff, the whole world if possible, and socializers need the world to hold all the people they want to interact with.

I'm not sure what all that has to do with the laws of world design, tho.  I'm still of the opinion that as a developer, you need to pick a battle, or maybe two, and fight those to completion.  There is too much competition in the field, some of whom have HUGE bank accounts to spend, to try to become the next EQ or early UO.

--
Alkiera

[Raph]

Bartle's model now has way more types in it, actually. I'm disappointed that everyone on this forum hasn't gone and read his book yet. Shame on you, I thought you were MMO freaks. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131018167/qid=1088790773/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1231349-8872743?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[HaemishM]

I tend to fall asleep when the real heavy academic-type discussions come around. That's a book I would like to read, just not sure I could actually wrap my mind around it.

[Alkiera]

I remember seeing a post here when the book came out.  Some people discussed it.  I haven't gotten around to picking it up, tho I should prolly check local bookstores.  I'd order online, but shipping companies don't like my neighborhood, for some reason.  FedEx is just shy of hurling your packages out the window as they drive by, they're here and gone so quickly.  And everyplace demands signing for packages now, and I'm not home when they deliver ever.

But yeah, it's on my list of things to do.

--
Alkiera

[Snowspinner]

Bartle's model now has way more types in it, actually. I'm disappointed that everyone on this forum hasn't gone and read his book yet. Shame on you, I thought you were MMO freaks. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131018167/qid=1088790773/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1231349-8872743?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Sorry. I bought http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262232324/qid=1088792021/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-3329278-8116855?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 instead.

[schild]

Bartle's model now has way more types in it, actually. I'm disappointed that everyone on this forum hasn't gone and read his book yet. Shame on you, I thought you were MMO freaks. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131018167/qid=1088790773/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1231349-8872743?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Why read a book when we can experience the shit that is produced by people who read his book? I mean seriously, 99% of the virtual worlds out there are absolute crap. And aside from backseat driving, I don't see Bartle contributing much. His 'test' is about as accurate as a dart from 7 miles now.

So erhmmmm, what were you saying?

Edit: To add to this though, all of the big MMO devs can talk the talk. They can talk up a great virtual world where magical things happen and players swoon over the endless possibilites. Then when it comes to hiring people for implementation, it seems you shut off your brain, cover a wall with resumes, and throw darts at it. It's not the concepts that suck, though some do (i.e. Monsters that spawn in the same place every time but only have a 1% chance of dropping necessary loot) - but rather, the implementation that never ceases to make my anger reach new heights. I mean who the hell is working at some of these offices? I mean with every game that's released, the majority of the amazing ideas we heard have been implemented in such a way that even the most drug addled brain would find them annoying.

[Snowspinner]

Bartle's model now has way more types in it, actually. I'm disappointed that everyone on this forum hasn't gone and read his book yet. Shame on you, I thought you were MMO freaks. ;)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131018167/qid=1088790773/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-1231349-8872743?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Why read a book when we can experience the shit that is produced by people who read his book? I mean seriously, 99% of the virtual worlds out there are absolute crap. And aside from backseat driving, I don't see Bartle contributing much. His 'test' is about as accurate as a dart from 7 miles now.

So erhmmmm, what were you saying?

For one thing, Bartle never designed a test. Some other guys designed a test based on Bartle's conception of player types. So you can't really blame him for that one.

For another, to accuse Bartle of backseat driving is kind of spurious, what with him inventing the fucking genre. I mean, criticize him as much as you want, but he did invent the MUD. That pretty much makes him get a place on any list of ten most important online world designers.

And for a third, Sturgeon's Law applies to online worlds too.

[schild]

I'm talking about Bartle's contributions to the innovation of today's MMOGs. I give him credit for what he did. But I'm talking about where the genre needs to go, not the shoddy state it's in.

And ok, I won't blame Bartle for the test, but if it was made using his ideas, I do blame him for trying to pigeonhole the player types. When really a pvp type (me) can go to being a crafter in SWG and enjoying it 10x more than the combat - and both were pretty much equally crap (though the resource system was absolutely fantastic).

If Stugeon's Law applies to online worlds, which one is the 10%? Seriously, I'd like to know. Right now I'd give Magic: The Gathering Online that prize.

[Snowspinner]

And ok, I won't blame Bartle for the test, but if it was made using his ideas, I do blame him for trying to pigeonhole the player types. When really a pvp type (me) can go to being a crafter in SWG and enjoying it 10x more than the combat - and both were pretty much equally crap (though the resource system was absolutely fantastic).

I never really read Bartle as pigeonholing player types. Or, at least, I never read him as closed off to the idea that a given player will move among player types.

[Dark Vengeance]

All games have goals, but not all gamers are as emotionally invested in these goals as others. Thus, DV feels shame when he gets PKed and joy when he wins, while Sky shrugs his shoulders when he gets PKed and smiles when he turns the tables on the cockgobbler who PKed him.

To simplify the point here, my position was that we both feel the same thing, we just feel it to varying degrees. And as you point out, we feel it to different degrees proportional to our emotional investment in the game, character, and present objectives.

For some, that does indeed mean shrugging their shoulders, for others it means an "ah fuck" response, for others it may mean throwing a temper tantrum of some variety. My personal reaction to being PKed was in the "ah fuck" range, because I played as an anti, and enjoyed PvP. Even still, nobody likes to lose/get killed/screw up unintentionally.

The term shame is used to represent that negative emotion or feeling of dissatisfaction, just as pride represents the positive emotion or feeling of satisfaction when they are playing well. The mini-battle that ensued over nomenclature is pretty much irrelevant.

Too many folks got hung up on the terminology, and took them to extremes....then pointed out that upon being PKed they don't say "dear god I was PKed, I AM SO ASHAMED, LET ME LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE IN MOURNFUL SECLUSION", just as their every activity was not a conscious effort to serve their ego. Well no kidding....those are ridiculously extreme positions, just as someone implying they literally never experience ANY change in emotion when they accomplish a goal, or experience a setback.

If you really think about it, Baron's law is basically saying that the presence of other players is a double-edged sword. It plays a dual role....it regularly makes multiplayer gaming more enjoyable, and more aggravating than single-player gaming.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Dark Vengeance]

I tend to fall asleep when the real heavy academic-type discussions come around. That's a book I would like to read, just not sure I could actually wrap my mind around it.

I agree. As much as it may be true that there are pitfalls both in restricting and allowing duplicate names, I have a hard time staying awake through an entire chapter about it.

The academic-type writings on MMOGs are good, sound theory and all....but like most academic-type writings, they are fairly obtuse to the layperson.

I think that's why the Laws have gotten so much attention over the years...they're written in simple English, and are explained in a way that most people can at least grasp the basic concepts behind them. Write a book in that style, and I think it'd do quite well among MMOG fans....likely better than the more academic MMOG books on the market.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

[Seeker]

To simplify the point here, my position was that we both feel the same thing, we just feel it to varying degrees. And as you point out, we feel it to different degrees proportional to our emotional investment in the game, character, and present objectives.

For some, that does indeed mean shrugging their shoulders, for others it means an "ah fuck" response, for others it may mean throwing a temper tantrum of some variety. My personal reaction to being PKed was in the "ah fuck" range, because I played as an anti, and enjoyed PvP. Even still, nobody likes to lose/get killed/screw up unintentionally.

The term shame is used to represent that negative emotion or feeling of dissatisfaction, just as pride represents the positive emotion or feeling of satisfaction when they are playing well. The mini-battle that ensued over nomenclature is pretty much irrelevant.

Too many folks got hung up on the terminology, and took them to extremes....then pointed out that upon being PKed they don't say "dear god I was PKed, I AM SO ASHAMED, LET ME LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE IN MOURNFUL SECLUSION", just as their every activity was not a conscious effort to serve their ego. Well no kidding....those are ridiculously extreme positions, just as someone implying they literally never experience ANY change in emotion when they accomplish a goal, or experience a setback.

If you really think about it, Baron's law is basically saying that the presence of other players is a double-edged sword. It plays a dual role....it regularly makes multiplayer gaming more enjoyable, and more aggravating than single-player gaming.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

People did not take your definitions of Pride and Shame to extremes, it was you who used extreme terms and failed to properly define how you were using them.

Pride: A sense of worth, dignity, self-satisfaction.
Shame: A sense of humiliation, degradation.

Your switching of Pride to mean Satisfaction and Shame to mean Dissatisfaction this late into the argument leaves you as the person at fault for the misunderstanding. People correctly defined Pride and Shame when responding to you because you neglected to define your terms before, or shortly after, their use in your argument. If a term is not defined then people (be they readers or listeners) must accept the terms on their common definition, even if that is not what  the arguer intends them to be. Had you instead used the much clearer terms of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction, or properly conveyed the meaning you intended Pride and Shame to have, there would not have been so many posts claiming your stance about Pride and Shame to be invalid.

Note: Pride does not mean just Satisfaction. A person takes pride in how they accomplish something, or they can take pride that they accomplished something. A person does not have to take pride in the end result of something.  A person can have plenty of satisfaction and have no pride in what they have done to attain it; an example being if one continually fumbles over a task but manages to still accomplish it correctly they could be quite irate at themselves for how they performed but still be satisified the job was done correctly. Shame clearly goes beyond a sense of dissatisfaction down to a sense of worthlessness.

Whether you like it or not terminology is vitally important in a debate of any kind. People get hung up on it because if one person takes a word to mean one thing and another person intends the word to mean something else entirely then there can be no consensus on which to base an argument. In the end an argument can be rendered invalid by one mis-defined term.

If you wish to argue from the stance that Satisfaction is what keeps players playing a game, and that Dissatisfaction is what makes players become annoyed or even leave a game, well, that is a strong case to argue; just use the proper, or properly defined terms to do it.

[dogles]

Nice theory of human action there, chief. But you're missing about three-fourths of the picture. Goal-oriented actions (what the German theorist Max Weber would toss into his mental bucket labeled "instrumental-rational" or whatever the heck the thirty-letter German analogue is) aren't the only type, the major type, or even the final type of human action.

That's true! But I argue that you aren't going to have a game if you don't provide goal-oriented actions for a player to do. That is the only point I was trying to make (i.e., goals are mandatory for games). If the goal-oriented actions aren't a requirement, then you could say doing drugs is a game, or masturbating (both affective actions, generally speaking). In which case you have a broader definition of "game" than I do. :)

(It occurs to me that you or I are confusing goals with ends. Putting a ball in a hole (I'm so sorry, Haemish) isn't necessarily the goal of golf, but it is an end. )

Perhaps so. To be specific, I'm talking about what the game rules provide you in terms of milestones or win/lose scenarios. I think you're saying that a player's goals while playing might not align with the game's provided goals, which I agree with, but I think it is mostly beside the point of "what makes a good game".

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but as a game designer, one has to assume that the player at least has some willingness to reach the goals provided by the game. Otherwise, they're just there to hang out with friends, or look at the pretty colors or whatever, in which case the game itself doesn't enter the equation.

Anyway, back to the types of action - and why the last is the most important. The sort of leader who appeals to that last type of action - who organizes people with charisma and makes them feel good about what they're doing - history will bear out that he, not the guy with the 800-page rulebook, is the first to bring order out of chaos, even if it's only momentary, even if it's only coalesced around him. Without that charismatic seed, you can't bring people together.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying affective actions are the most important things for a game to provide, because they're "teh fun". I think there is an important distinction here - playing a game should be an affective action (you're generally not going to play because it's the right thing to do, or that it is the tradition of your peoples ;), but the actual actions that a game provides for you are goal-oriented. I don't think you'll find games that provide actions that are inherently affective, or at least they won't stay as such for long.

You could say that while playing KotOR, that a player makes value-rational actions while role-playing as a lightside/darkside Jedi, but I would guess that for most players this breaks down pretty quickly once they realize that the outputs are generally pretty-clear cut - you either add Light Side Points, or Dark Side Points to your character's alignment. There are very little shades of grey in the Star Wars universe, by design. Furthermore, I think players will generally realize how this ties into the rules of the game and optimize to one of the extremes, because that is the optimal path. I.e., the designers made them goal-oriented actions, so player choice of action eventually devolves into goal-oriented, even if it wasn't in the first place.
(Raph talks about pattern recognition and how players naturally optimize within a rule-space in his "Theory of Fun" doc he linked earlier, which is a great read imo).

Online worlds make things interesting, in that you can participate in them theoretically without ever playing the game(s) provided, or without there even being a game provided. I think it's important to distinguish between the two, given that one encompasses the other. I am speaking about games, in the broad sense.

Thanks for the response,
dan

[dogles]

Most analogies suck for MMOG's.

Most analogies suck for most things. That doesn't mean they're not a useful tool. Analogies are just like golf. :P

Games of all stripes can be played multiple ways according to the needs of an individual player, whether he's in a group or social, etc. The rules can often be peripheral to the entire game experience, depending on how many want to be followed by the players. Games build social connections of their own accord, and the strength of those social connections is a function of the depth of the game. While you don't see many communities form around Solitaire, MMOG's spawn guilds, golf spawns a group of friends, tournaments, pro tours, amateur tours, etc.

I'm not sure this is correct. Tetris, for example, is a pretty deep game, if I understand your meaning of "depth" correctly. It has considerably more depth than most MMP games. There isn't this huge social community of Tetris players, afaik.

When you say "depth", I'm interpreting it as "how difficult it is to play within the game's rules to come up with the optimal path". For example (hehe), the depth of golf is the difficulty of getting a hole-in-one on all 18 holes. For most MMP games out now, the depth, in this sense, is really shallow.

dan

[edit fixed quote]

[dogles]

And ok, I won't blame Bartle for the test, but if it was made using his ideas, I do blame him for trying to pigeonhole the player types. When really a pvp type (me) can go to being a crafter in SWG and enjoying it 10x more than the combat - and both were pretty much equally crap (though the resource system was absolutely fantastic).

I agree, the test doesn't make any sense. People aren't going to go and play your game with a singular goal in mind for all of eternity, and I don't think that was what Bartle was implying. The reason a person plays changes over time, and naturally changes based on the game s/he is playing. He's just trying to categorize the reasons why people play online games, not the people themselves. At least, that's my interpretation.

dan

[Raph]

Actually, in the book, Richard advances some notions about what the natural arc of change is for a player. The core of his book is that argument that the "point" of MMOs is for players to undergo an arc of learning about themselves, and that they should nturally exit when they finish.

[schild]

Raph, thanks for making it so I don't have to read that book. Screw learning about myself in a game. That's just a stupid idea. I wish I could be more reasonable about it, but I play games for fun, if I want to learn about myself I'll do something extreme. Including, but not limited to, trying to kill someone with no motive or going to bed with a disease ridden prosti....oh wait - lately, that's what MMO's have been like.

It's almost depressing.

Edit: Raph, that wasn't a stab at you. That idea though, I just don't think that's possible to achieve with an MMO. I mean, people play MMOs to escape the real world - that's why a virtual world is fun. I really just can't see anyone, anywhere at ANY TIME ever saying "wow, this MMO has unvealed new truths about my being." Or anything like that. Could you elaborate more on the idea Bartle was trying to convey? Sure, I could just go buy the book, but - well, it's easier this way. I have a pile of books I still need to read.

[Snowspinner]

Raph, thanks for making it so I don't have to read that book. Screw learning about myself in a game. That's just a stupid idea. I wish I could be more reasonable about it, but I play games for fun, if I want to learn about myself I'll do something extreme. Including, but not limited to, trying to kill someone with no motive or going to bed with a disease ridden prosti....oh wait - lately, that's what MMO's have been like.

It's almost depressing.

You'll get a lot further in life when you stop making sweeping and critical judgments based on two sentence summaries.

[Margalis]

What have you done for me lately, Bartle?

Really, I hate to sound all mean and such but...who here can name a great Bartle-made game? The idea that MMOPRGs are just MUDs is a dumb one, and leads to things like the SWG HAM. What is so hard to get about the fact that having graphics vs. no graphics really DOES make things different?
----
The whole "world first" vs "game first" argument is an amazing waste of time anyway. The goal is a fun game. The end. If you don't make it it doesn't matter why. If you are willing to ship things you KNOW are broken and KNOW aren't fun, it really doesn't matter what your approach was. In that case the approach was not the flaw. If you don't really even *intend* to make something fun, no theories can save you.

Which works better, game first or world first, maybe is an interesting question but it isn't the right one, or at least the most relevant one. SWG HAM sucks because SWG HAM sucks, they knew it sucked, and they didn't care to change it. The problem there was not game first vs. world first.

If you can spot fundamental flaws in your game that make it much less fun than it should be, but not be bothered to fix them, what books you read before you started don't matter.
---

Today my friend and I were talking about how games made by Nintendo are always polished and fun to some degree. They may not be your cup of tea, but generally you can see where the enjoyment would come from, even if that genre doesn't really appeal to you. You can go a long way by doing all the little things right. In the end, their games reach a certain standard for quality because that's what they aspire to.

It's one thing for your game to be poor because it is a genre nobody cares about or is too bland or too similar to other games. It's quite another thing for your game to be poor because you didn't care to fix up the details you *knew* were wrong. In my mind, #2 is much worse because it's preventable. It's one thing to say "hey, this game where you beat congo drums to move is really fun, but nobody seems to be getting excited about a congo-drum based game." It's another to say "yeah, we shipped this game with 10 broken professions and sucky combat - we'll patch in a year."

[Sky]

Actually, you do indeed learn a lot about yourself by playing mmogs if you pay attention. You are thrust into a social situation where there is almost no accountability for your actions, you can pretty much act however you feel.

Some people take that to mean they can act out their every twisted fantasy and treat others however they want, because others are faceless.

Some find that it strengthens their own moral code, and act like a mature and ethical person even when you don't have to at all.

When you find that you can be a good human being, even when nobody would know who you are and you don't know anyone else, that's something imo.

Mmogs made me realize I'm a much better person than I thought I was, and also that a lot of people, given the opportunity, are real shits.

[nesta]

Actually, you do indeed learn a lot about yourself by playing mmogs if you pay attention. You are thrust into a social situation where there is almost no accountability for your actions, you can pretty much act however you feel.

These profound sentiments attributed to Bartle by Raph (I haven't read the book either) about what we take away from a MMO and how it should relate to our lives smack of mental masturbation. We can learn about ourselves through any mundane task if we apply enough thought and perception to the matter. In this case, why did anyone bother playing anything past UO if the primary goal of an MMO was to see how you act when most rules and consequences vanish? Every title since has offered the same self assessment. The great experiment is over. Now can we get on to making some more quality entertainment?

Mmogs made me realize I'm a much better person than I thought I was, and also that a lot of people, given the opportunity, are real shits.

Tell me that isn't just the slightest bit self serving. :) I think I'm a great person online too, but my perspective is a bit skewed.

Please explain. I agree communication in online communities will never (at least any time soon) be as good as face-to-face contact. But just as strong relationships can form - lots of people have gotten married to people they met in games, for instance.

Not only will online relationships not be as good as face-to-face relationships, they will never approach the level of intimacy required for full and healthy connections to develop. The strong relationships you cite weren't strong until the online relationships became offline ones.

I wonder when Raph is going to end the suspense.

[magicback]

Take a look at an article on mmorpgdot regarding http://www.mmorpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=1006">CoH.

I'm interested to hear comments on the design principals noted in the article.  (for some reason I had to highlight the text for it to appear).

Also, waiting for Raph's response.

[Sky]

We can learn about ourselves through any mundane task if we apply enough thought and perception to the matter.

Way to entirely miss the point of mmogs serving as a large social setting in which you have total and complete anonymity. That's why they are an interesting social experiment. Mundane tasks generally don't have that essential factor.

Tell me that isn't just the slightest bit self serving. :) I think I'm a great person online too, but my perspective is a bit skewed.

No. I'm a respectful and fair person online. Some people are opportunistic and selfish, looking to have their fun at the expense of others. I don't /think/ I'm a good person online, I am. You won't find me in a death robe disrupting player events just to piss people off, nor ganking miners or crafters. I like my pvp against people who can fight back, and touching on the topic of sportsmanship, I don't mind losing to a skilled opponent if I'm capable of defending myself.

I also never claimed to be a 'great' person. I said I'm a good person. Very different things. Great implies I have a large ego. Good implies I'm not a dickhead.

In this case, why did anyone bother playing anything past UO if the primary goal of an MMO was to see how you act when most rules and consequences vanish?

What an abysmally stupid statement. Just because these things could be derived from the game doesn't preclude it from being a game, one with some of the most compelling player-created content I've seen thus far in the post-MUD genre.

[Dark Vengeance]

People did not take your definitions of Pride and Shame to extremes, it was you who used extreme terms and failed to properly define how you were using them.

Baron's law uses the term s "glory" and "shame"....so it's not as if I'm the one that came up with the concept. Yet after several pages worth of text explaining my position (i.e. agreeing with Baron's law), people still revert to the extreme interpretation.

As someone said earlier, semantics for the win. Plus that whole thing about the forest, the trees, and whatnot.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Margalis]

I agree with the mental masturbation comment. It's justification for an empty but fun activity. The idea that playing a MMORPG makes you better as a person or something...

There is nothing wrong with empty fun activities. But it's silly to pretend it's some sort of grand experiment or learning excersize, anymore than a three-legged race or 2 person potato-sack race would be.

It's hard to do anything competitive or cooperative with others and NOT have the chance to learn something about yourself. Play monopoly.