The Laws of Online Gaming Revisited...

[daveNYC]

But it has to start with better gameplay, not better community tools.

Yup.

IMO at this point in MMOG's the industry isn't in need of original ideas, so much as it's in need of well executed ideas.  It just seems that for every game that has problems due to the design, there's two or three more that have problems due to piss poor coding.

[Wukong]

Raph, we agree that there are "very few significant differences between MUD design and MMO design". We disagree on whether this is a good thing. According to your analogy, the music in a musical is best treated as an afterthought. Perhaps like the G in your MMOs.

A concrete example is better than dueling analogies. The MMOG I am most looking forward to currently is Guild Wars, which is coming from a different tradition than MUDs. While it is justly criticized for being a glorified matchmaking service, and in that sense also suffers from radio-with-pictures syndrome, it does show that there is more than one way to skin a catass.

[Raph]

Raph, we agree that there are "very few significant differences between MUD design and MMO design". We disagree on whether this is a good thing.

It's not a value judgement; I'm speaking in terms of the shape of the field, and you're speaking in terms of the choices made within that field. My assertion is that "there are very few significant differences between the choices you can make in MUD design and the choices you can make in MMO design." In fact, I would go so far as to say there are zero, since to me MUD does not imply text.

According to your analogy, the music in a musical is best treated as an afterthought. Perhaps like the G in your MMOs.

I would not at all say that the music is an afterthought in a musical! Nor are the graphics or the scale afterthoughts in MMOGs.

A concrete example is better than dueling analogies. The MMOG I am most looking forward to currently is Guild Wars, which is coming from a different tradition than MUDs. While it is justly criticized for being a glorified matchmaking service, and in that sense also suffers from radio-with-pictures syndrome, it does show that there is more than one way to skin a catass.

I only played the instanced parts of Guild Wars, so I don't know enough about it.

- If Guild Wars has no gameplay in its central lobby, then it's barely an MMOG at all, and is instead more like Diablo, which is usually used as the dividing line for the medium. That's not skinning a cat, it's skinning a different animal. cf http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/book/4c.html (haven't you people memorized my entire website yet? Sheesh).

- If it has gameplay in its lobby, then it's like Tabula Rasa or the cancelled Might & Magic Online, or the cancelled version of D&D Online, an MMO where most all the gameplay is in instanced areas. That's off at the extreme end of the "world versus instancing" debate going on these days, but it is indeed still skinning a cat.

This is why I like to call the cat "online worlds" these days rather than MMO or MUD.

[stray]

Raph:

If "fun" can only last until a pattern is recognized in the gameplay, then how is Tetris explained? People just go on playing it. Also, if this rule applies to MMO gaming as well, then why is it that this genre in particular is the most notorious in encouraging repetition? If what you say is true, then repetition is easiest way to kill the fun.

If ideas for an MMO equivalent of "Tetris" isn't on the horizon yet, then the least that could be done is incorporate a larger variety of game modes/patterns (instead of just one), and keep repetition to a minimum. At least that way you keep the "gamers" around longer, rather than never.

I don't want to discount the importance of "worlds". Perhaps they are more important than the "game". And in the case of SWG, one can not argue the amount of variety to keep "world" type players around. It's definitely entertaining in that respect. The thing is (and this might not always be the case in the future), the "gamers" probably outnumber the "inhabitants" 5:1 (just pulling the number out of my ass, sorry)...Yet, the amount of depth and variety in the "game" is the same thing over and over again (and that "same thing" is pretty unimaginative to begin with). Nothing wrong with sticking with your ideals, but there's a large playerbase now that wants something else.

or the cancelled version of D&D Online

Aw hell..That sucks. Is this "insider news"? I didn't know it was canceled.

[Xilren's Twin]

Xilren's Twin, I appreciate that you are not looking for a powerful tool for good or evil. I'm saying that whether you (or we) like it or not, this happens to be one. It happens to be used for games too, which I am perfectly happy about. "Just a game" is used as a way to avoiding considering a lot of issues, as a way to avoid responsibility, and that is why I dislike the phrase. But by no means do I think that lessens the importance of games in and of themselves, cf http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/theoryoffun.pdf.

You state that the best way to approach this is to make a good game first. I'll assert that from a strictly technical and design point of view, you literally can't. You have to start with the premise of the online space itself, and then add the game to it. And there's a TON of implications of the online space that you have to deal with that form what sorts of games you can make. "Online world" is more fundamental than "game" in a lot of very literal ways.

I guess I still don't grasp the why of that.  Since you have full control over the online space itself and what is even possible for people to do within it, why can't you start from a game focus and build an online space that is appropriate to the game around it?  

It can't be just persistance of the gamespace.  After all, what's the main difference between an online "world" and a multiplayer game with a shared lobby where players can meet, greet, chat and head off into their own private games ala playing Diablo or Neverwinter Nights online (both have persistance of character)?  [I'm very interested in the way Xbox live seems to be headed where you can message people playing a variety of games to come play with you in a totally different game.  There will be a case where the community is totally independent of a given game, but still depends on games to exist.]  Is Planetside or WWIIO an online "world" or just a multi-player game you can do online with lots of people? Where is the crossover point where something stops being a large scale online game and instead become an online world? And more importantly, why should the players care if it's either?  

I'm starting to believe the real issue is truly these things are being marketed and sold to the wrong people.  Lord knows when I first heard about EQ it was always from the premise of "it's like a GAME of D&D online!" or "it's an online Ultima game!"  not "its a virtual community that has some lite D&D elements in it!".  Should we have a new section in Babbages between the "Computer Games" and "Business Applications" sections called "Online Communities"?

Or are we just overcomplicating the whole genre because we want to?

Xilren

[Mind Booster Noori]

You state that the best way to approach this is to make a good game first. I'll assert that from a strictly technical and design point of view, you literally can't. You have to start with the premise of the online space itself, and then add the game to it. And there's a TON of implications of the online space that you have to deal with that form what sorts of games you can make. "Online world" is more fundamental than "game" in a lot of very literal ways.

I guess I still don't grasp the why of that.  Since you have full control over the online space itself and what is even possible for people to do within it, why can't you start from a game focus and build an online space that is appropriate to the game around it?  

I too don't agree with Ralph, but not because of your reasons, which I disagree.

You state that you have the full control over the online space itself, but in reallity you don't (1) need to have that control, and (2) should have that control, because having it is taking control out of the users.

But I disagree with Ralph because he says that you have to start with the premise of the online space itself, but I think you don't have nor should start with that premise: the online space can be mutated on-the-fly.

After all, what's the main difference between an online "world" and a multiplayer game with a shared lobby where players can meet, greet, chat and head off into their own private games ala playing Diablo or Neverwinter Nights online (both have persistance of character)?

There's no difference. There are two kinds of multiplayer games: those in a virtual world (like Diablo) and those with no world involved (like Tetrinet). While the latter can be quite addictive, virtual worlds are the future of games.

Is Planetside or WWIIO an online "world" or just a multi-player game you can do online with lots of people? Where is the crossover point where something stops being a large scale online game and instead become an online world? And more importantly, why should the players care if it's either?  

When you install WWIIO you're installing the virtual world and the game that occurs there. Virtually you can discuss more on this, but what matters in the end is the fact that WWIIO is one of those online games which occur in a virtual world.

I'm starting to believe the real issue is truly these things are being marketed and sold to the wrong people.  Lord knows when I first heard about EQ it was always from the premise of "it's like a GAME of D&D online!" or "it's an online Ultima game!"  not "its a virtual community that has some lite D&D elements in it!".

And the problem is that it's not even a marketing issue here, it's the lack of undertanding of what really happening there, many times by the game developers themselves. There's quite a lot of theroy behind virtual worlds that should be carefully studied before starting making one. That rarelly happens.

  Should we have a new section in Babbages between the "Computer Games" and "Business Applications" sections called "Online Communities"?

No, but Virtual Worlds (where you can have "Online Communities" can be used to do both Games or Business.

Or are we just overcomplicating the whole genre because we want to?

It's not a question of "genre", Virtual Worlds are quite bigger then the world of games, and quite ancient too (they are dated from well before there are computers...

Read, for instance, the book Out of Control (specially the 13th Chapter) by Keven Kelly to have a sight of what I mean.

[stray]

virtual worlds are the future of games.

Virtual worlds are the future of gaming about as much as Flight Simulators are the future of gaming (which is what...down to like one consumer title?). They very well might be the future of "something", but if the current trends keep up, it isn't going to be in "gaming".

[Riggswolfe]

That said: Riggswolfe, saying what I just did does NOT mean that the game is not important. It is, especially because it's being marketed as a game and it's what you guys are all there to find. By saying these things, I am trying to fight the urge many many people have to reduce the issues, because being reductionist about it leads to wrong answers.

Well it feels like what you say and the end product of your actions is different. SWG feels to me like a virtual simulation with some game-like elements tacked on as an afterthought, with paying attention to the Star Wars license running a distant third (Large areas of wilderness on all worlds, missions that for the most part are "run out in the wilderness, kill X critters, destroy their lair, run back", Stormtroopers that really are elite (Luke Skywalker was a farmboy and he mowed them down like they were department store dummies.).

My suspicion is that somewhere along the way SWG turned into sort of a grand experiment and somehow lost the two things it needed most:
1) Game fun factor
2) Star Warsiness.

I don't necessarily think you're a bad developer. You have some great ideas, particularly in the community building tools you provided. I just think that perhaps your vision is a bit too narrow. At least from my experience. If I remember right you were also involved in UO and that suffered from similiar problems. Especially the concept of players policing themselves. The problem with that concept is that to be honest, most players are immature assholes these days who care only about the next uber thing and little about how they treat other people.

If I may say so, maybe what is needed is someone like you developing the player community building tools, and someone like the COH devs building the combat side.

If SWG had had COH combat in it, and the current community tools, along with say the WoW loot system, and the current SWG crafting tools, with lots of attention paid to making it feel like Star Wars (At least HALF the wilderness areas gone, most misisons involving humans or aliens, not wildlife, more technology everywhere, creature handlers pared way back) then I suspect it would be a game that people would play for years.

Take a step back and think about it. Seriously. Wade through the message boards and try to figure out what people are saying. I suspect if you really put your mind to it you'd see that what they're saying boils down to "Great world, terrible game".

I'd like to have both thank you very much.

[Soukyan]

So, you must start with a world and then you can build games within that? Am I understanding it correctly?

I'm thinking of the phenomenon of some LP MUDs... bear with me. You start with a game framework. Is this a world? Not per se. Or do you consider the framework, the codebase an online space in and of itself?

I'm just wondering because here is a framework that you can take and allow players to build a world from it, and this has been done. Some LP MUDs have taken the codebase (or the game) and allowed player builders to literally build the world from scratch.

How does this apply to MMOGs? Is this more of a comparison to Second Life and therefore not a game? Even though the code for combat model and advancement scheme typical of RPGs was there, does allowing the players to build the world make it not a game?

I'm not saying MMOG devs should make the framework and let the players build a world. Hell, just look at Second Life. That's certainly not what I want. I'm just floating some ideas out there to find out if it's possible to build a world around a game. I should think so even in an online environment.

Here's an even simpler point. The D20 system. It's a game system - a framework - around which worlds are built. Is this not possible in MMOGs? If not, why?

I'm not trying to say you are wrong here. I am trying to better understand your approach and to gain a bit of insight from your experience in the development of these things. Thanks in advance.

[Raph]

If "fun" can only last until a pattern is recognized in the gameplay, then how is Tetris explained?

Tetris keeps upping the challenge level, and you discover you didn't know the pattern as well as you thought. It keeps you in a state of "flow." That isn't very different from an RPG throwing more creatures, spells, weapons, and so on at you (thought more elegant, since it accomplishes it purely via speed).

That said, plenty of people moved on to other types of puzzle games once they thought they "got" Tetris. I remember on the Mac one of the most popular Tetris variant was one that included invisible blocks, rows that scrolled sideways, pre-placed blocks, blocks that exploded, and so on. That's exactly like throwing more monsters in. Not to mention all the zillions of OTHER puzzle games thatcame out inspired by Tetris. I used to keep a collection--hexagonal ones, stripper ones (blocks formed a picture), true 3d ones, 2d on multiple axes (Welltris), etc etc etc.

if this rule applies to MMO gaming as well, then why is it that this genre in particular is the most notorious in encouraging repetition?

The content is supposed to be what breaks up the repetition. There's supposed to be a difference between killing the level 1 rat and the level 1 cat. Beyond that, there's supposed to be a difference between the level 1 rat and the level 2 dog. Same broad pattern, but the details are different. If you are at the point where you an see that it's the same, then you've grokked the entire mechanic, and now we need to give you a whole fresh mechanic. But mechanics are MUCH harder to come up with than ringing changes on a single mechanic.

If ideas for an MMO equivalent of "Tetris" isn't on the horizon yet, then the least that could be done is incorporate a larger variety of game modes/patterns (instead of just one), and keep repetition to a minimum.

The risk then is not doing any given mechanic as well as you ought. I name no names and point no fingers, since I am sure you will all point them for me. :)

Aw hell..That sucks. Is this "insider news"? I didn't know it was canceled.

That is a version of D&D Online that was cancelled uh, five years ago? Not the current one.

Since you have full control over the online space itself and what is even possible for people to do within it, why can't you start from a game focus and build an online space that is appropriate to the game around it?

You can. But you're still starting from the premise that it's an online space in the first place. Diablo, for example, does NOT start from that premise. Its initial premise is a text chat lobby. The games hang off the lobby.

what's the main difference between an online "world" and a multiplayer game with a shared lobby where players can meet, greet, chat and head off into their own private games ala playing Diablo or Neverwinter Nights online (both have persistance of character)?

The persistence of everything else BEYOND the character. Most fundamentally, the persistence of the world in which you interact, whilst you are not present. It can be summed up in "stuff can happen while you're not there."

Is Planetside or WWIIO an online "world" or just a multi-player game you can do online with lots of people?

Both of them are online worlds, and meet all the criteria in the expanded definition on my website at http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/book/3c.html.

Where is the crossover point where something stops being a large scale online game and instead become an online world?

For me, when any one of those three criteria is not met. Notice that the criteria take a chapter EACH to explain, so don't expect me to be able to give a one-line answer.

And more importantly, why should the players care if it's either?

So they know what they are playing? :) So they can know what sorts of experiences can be offered, really.

I'm starting to believe the real issue is truly these things are being marketed and sold to the wrong people.

Not really. Every new medium has always gotten its kickstart via entertainment, despite all the potentially lofty uses to which it can be put.

I disagree with Ralph because he says that you have to start with the premise of the online space itself, but I think you don't have nor should start with that premise: the online space can be mutated on-the-fly.

You are misunderstanding my term there, I apologize. The online space can be mutated, but the premise that it is an online space in the first place cannot be mutated.

There are two kinds of multiplayer games: those in a virtual world (like Diablo) and those with no world involved (like Tetrinet).

You missed my distinction entirely. Diablo isn't really a virtual world.

There's quite a lot of theroy behind virtual worlds that should be carefully studied before starting making one. That rarelly happens.

Quite humbly, I will assert that I know that more intimately than most people on the planet. *shrug*

Virtual worlds are the future of gaming about as much as Flight Simulators are the future of gaming (which is what...down to like one consumer title?). They very well might be the future of "something", but if the current trends keep up, it isn't going to be in "gaming".

Tell me that in five years, when you're paying cash for uniforms in your console football game. ;)

Well it feels like what you say and the end product of your actions is different.

I think I started a paragraph with almost this exact phrasing a ways back, didn't I?

I just think that perhaps your vision is a bit too narrow. At least from my experience.

I suspect a more accurate conclusion is that it's too wide.

If SWG had ...

For one, it was intended to. It is, sadly, a bit harder to do than to say.

For another, I wrote a very similar sentence not half an hour ago in an internal email here at work. I used slightly different examples, but the gist was the same.

How did this thread turn into being about me, rather than about the Laws? Schild, is this all because you feel personally betrayed by me, the great white hope? ;)

You start with a game framework. Is this a world? Not per se. Or do you consider the framework, the codebase an online space in and of itself?

There are technical assumptions in the LP codebase that DO imply a world. It uses a room-based database. It provides the concept of location out of the box, below the mudlib level even, if I recall correctly. It provides the concept of people and objects within these spaces. It provides the concept of connecting spaces via logical links. At the very least, it is a hypertextual system with a presumption of spatiality embedded in the code.

How does this apply to MMOGs? Is this more of a comparison to Second Life and therefore not a game? Even though the code for combat model and advancement scheme typical of RPGs was there, does allowing the players to build the world make it not a game?

That is why I call these technical platforms "online worlds" and not games. That is an important point--I call the TECHNICAL PLATFORM that, I call the MEDIUM that.

I'm just floating some ideas out there to find out if it's possible to build a world around a game. I should think so even in an online environment.

OK, start with a game, maybe our example from earlier, Tetris. Now, try to build Tetrisworld around it. Is Tetris something you walk up to within the world? That instantly implies a whole host of things about the space within which you walk. In fact, significantly more code and work than Tetris itself. Which is within which? For my money, Tetris is within the virtual world, and you could follow up by plopping Bejeweled right next to it, and nobody would bat an eye. Keep going, and you'll end up with Puzzle Pirates. :)

The D20 system. It's a game system - a framework - around which worlds are built. Is this not possible in MMOGs? If not, why?

Worlds aren't built around the D20 system. The D20 system is applied to worlds. This is evident in the vast number of existing settings which have had the D20 rules imported into them.

Speaking topologically, the way to think of it is "which element changes"? And the answer is, the enveloping element changes. The setting is tweaked to absorb the D20 ruleset. The D20 ruleset remains intact (you can change it, but it's by choice, not by force). The world changes to absorb the foreign element. This is why I often use the example that given the right virtual world, you could literally implement every other game ever made within it, because it has a metaphor that trumps everything else. You can embed the Web within a virtual world pretty easily. You can embed another virtual world within one. In theory, the only thing you cannot embed within one is the real world.

The same is not true of the formal boundaries of an individual game. You cannot embed the Web within the rules of Tetris, much less embed Call of Duty. They will rightfully be perceived as two things sitting side by side.

That's the power of the virtual space metaphor.

[schild]

Raph, you are in the position to control the future of online worlds at SOE, if we don't look to you who will we look to? Garriot? You may be in an ivory tower, but at least yours isn't on planet Krypton. None of us know where the hell Garriot is and he sure as shit doesn't frequent here.

It's not really about you so much as you wrote many of the laws, so who else will we turn to in this particular conversation? Also, when I said think outside the box, I meant all the people here, not just you. Conjecture on your part may be fun though.

[Raph]

Raph, you are in the position to control the future of online worlds at SOE

Bwa ha ha! *wipes tear from eye*

Thanks for the egoboo, though. :)

It's not really about you

Well, I shoulda called out Snowspinner, not you:

"Counterpoint: Koster is an idiot"
"Koster's got his head up his fucking ass"
"I have a lot of respect for Raph Koster" (really?)
"Where Koster Fucked Up"
"I will err on the side of insulting Raph Koster."
"Koster, as we’ll see, does a lot of dreaming" (OK, that's true)
"he should stop pretending, and start making some fucking games."
"He’s too smart to waste on this shit." Arguably.

To which I must only point out that when I've insulted any of you, I have done so in higher-flown language, subtler terms, and usually speaking in generalities. I'm good that way. :)

[Riggswolfe]

Well it feels like what you say and the end product of your actions is different.

I think I started a paragraph with almost this exact phrasing a ways back, didn't I?

Probably. I just reread and you said something somewhat similiar yes.

I just think that perhaps your vision is a bit too narrow. At least from my experience.

I suspect a more accurate conclusion is that it's too wide.

Perhaps. I suspect we're looking at things from different perspectives. You from a dev standpoint, myself from a player standpoint. I'd like to think I'm a fairly average player, I like to explore, I like to socialize, I like to build up my character, show off my avatar. ( I don't like PvP and most of that can be tied back to UO and my general distrust of other gamers being in positions of power over me, which is really what PvP boils down to but that's another thread in itself).

I guess what I'm getting at is that with SWG at least it feels like the game part of things was pushed to the wayside for the virtual world part of things. I don't know a better way to say it. I held alot of venom for the SWG devs, you in particular, over the course of this thread I've decided that maybe you aren't Satan incarnate. Maybe you tried and other things got in the way. (Though if you could explain why HAM was implemented it'd go along way. )

If SWG had ...

For one, it was intended to. It is, sadly, a bit harder to do than to say.

For another, I wrote a very similar sentence not half an hour ago in an internal email here at work. I used slightly different examples, but the gist was the same.

How did this thread turn into being about me, rather than about the Laws? Schild, is this all because you feel personally betrayed by me, the great white hope? ;)

Man, I'd pay good money to see that email. Well, actually, i will once I get a good IT job. Heh. In any case, I suppose it's about you because they're your rules, and it's about SWG because that is the latest product with your name attached. (To my knowledge at least.)

[Snowspinner]

Raph, I wouldn't tear into you if you weren't damn good at what you do, and if I didn't respect you.

But give me a break. This is still, in many ways, a rantsite. Rantsites are tetchy/bitter/profane affairs. If this were being discussed on MUD-DEV, that would be one thing. If it were being discussed in an academic journal, or at GDC, that would be one thing. But it's not. I've made the same points in a variety of ways. This was a rant. It said "fuck" at a lot of things. If you want a similar argument, only with less "fuck" and more Lacanian psychoanalysis, i've got an article coming out soon. Or if you want me to make the point in another forum, that's fine too. I don't care. I'll even make my basic point again, here, without any use of the word fuck.

Games are things we play with. The most fundamental aspect of any online game - more fundamental than its world-like nature, than its community, than anything else - is exactly what sort of play it's offering. Communities form around play. Worlds form around play*.

It's the difference between inventing Pong and inventing the arcade. The arcade is a social experience. Pong is a game. Atari did not create the arcade. It created Pong. And the social experience of the arcade machine followed organically from Pong, from games like Pong, and from the sorts of people who enjoyed playing them.

You can influence all of those things. But you can't design them. You can only design the objects they form around.

*Consider the latest Zelda game as an example of this. Hyrule does not have a particularly rich history or culture. In fact, the world of Hyrule doesn't make a lot of sense in and of itself. What it basically consists of is a few broad strokes of epic fantasy (genre), some references to past Zelda games (Also genre, though a more specific sort of genre), and a bunch of stuff that stems directly from design decisions - a lot of oceans, because the game was built around wind. Dungeons, because it's an epic fantasy game. A town, because it allows for a bunch of puzzles to find pieces of heart. Etc, etc, etc. The world of Hyrule exists only because of these gameplay decisions. I think this is also why so many licensed games are of poor quality - their gameplay is stemming from their world, instead of their world stemming from gameplay choices.

[stray]

I'll try to move off the "game" vs "world" thing for a minute:

Modes of expression
You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your online world. Character classes are just modes of expression, after all.

I'll agree with schild that it's more fun to break it down to individual skills, not just classes. Of course, this has been done to some extent before. But the way I see it, that's just multiple modes of expression for character builds, not gameplay really. "Rogues", "Warriors", "Mages" are still doing the same thing -- Just one route gives you daggers, another a sword, another a spellbook -- It's just damage, with a few minor differences.

Maybe an example would better illustrate: Take a Smuggler (or Rogue)

He gets a mission that says the Sand People have acquired a valuable piece of droid technology from a crash site. He gets a fat sum if he acquires it...So, he gets to the camp, there's a small tent, with 5 Sand People standing outside. He should have multiple ways of taking these guys out:

1. Come in like Rambo and start blasting with his pistol, using his unique attacks
2. Get a friend for some help and proceed with step 1
3. Create a diversion and distract them (throw a rock, set up a hologram, etc.)
4. Find a path to stealth his way through and try to steal the object
5. Disguise himself as one of them, say a few words in their own language to calm their suspicions, and steal the object when it's safe

1 and 2 are current options, but what about 3, 4, or 5? Better yet, any combo of those things, where success depended upon a specific sequence.

The game a Rogue plays and the game a Mage plays should be the difference between light and day (or at least the options open to each should be that much different). It could still be a matter of attributes, attacks, or equipment, but the nature of these things as they are now don't set classes or skills too far apart from another. That helps neither the gameplay nor the world aspect.

The same goes for crafters. A player deciding to move from Bio Engineer to Architect should be confronted with an entirely new interface, and a whole new slew of puzzles. Not the same ole, same ole point-and-click fest with a different set of recipes/items he can use.

[Monika T'Sarn]

I want to play in a virtual world - not just play any kind of game. I want to be part of a story that plays in a virtual world.

The problem with virtual worlds, as I see it, is the static way they are build today. Nothing ever changes, and nothing the player does has an influence on the world.  
How can you tell a story in which the evil overlord gets killed each day at the same time, shared by guilds in a rotation ?
How fun - and rewarding - can quests be if they are the same for everybody, and the solution is available on the web anyway ?
How fun can combat be, if you have to kill the same enemy a thousand times to advance ?
How fun would tetris be, if the stones fell in exactly the same order each game ?

There are ways to make the world less static, and so far mostly pvp has been the way to do it. In DAOC fighting other players was random, it was fun - until everybody fell into repetitive patterns of emain ganking and portal camping.
Shadowbane had the pvp right, but a pve zones were to obviously copy-and-pasted onto the map that it never really felt like a world to me.
SWG had a world with random content - but it was to much instanced to be immersive, which totally reversed the motivation. I went to a mission terminal to make me a stormtrooper camp to clear - not to find out which rebel npc needed aid. I could select and refuse missions to get just the right npc's I wanted to fight. In fact, the world for me was not random anymore - I could select which content I wanted to have.
Player-created content and pvp though was great, allthough I'm a bit cynical about it. The TEF system allowed me to kill people who didn't really want to fight at all. The player cities with their imp/rebel bases were great opportunities to just travel around and fight random people.
Still, SWG is the best virtual world for me, and I would have stayed longer if the Jedis didnt have perma death at the start, or if the Krayt-soloing and AT-ST smacking with my swordsman had not been nerfed so badly.

My perfect virtual world would be like a big, 10-sided RTS game, mostly controlled by the server, where players are the heroes.

[Riggswolfe]

SWG had a world with random content - but it was to much instanced to be immersive, which totally reversed the motivation. I went to a mission terminal to make me a stormtrooper camp to clear - not to find out which rebel npc needed aid. I could select and refuse missions to get just the right npc's I wanted to fight. In fact, the world for me was not random anymore - I could select which content I wanted to have.

SWG was too instanced? I suspect you don't understand the meaning of the term. It didn't have instancing until very recently with the Rebel Blockade Runner.

As for the rest of your pro-PvP arguments. Bleh. I disagree. While MMORPGs are more about time invested and less about skill I'll avoid PvP like the plague. Give me a call when it becomes more skill-based and maybe I'll consider it then. As it is, I just don't have the patience to deal with the little sociopaths who tend to participate in PvP.

[Xilren's Twin]

Since you have full control over the online space itself and what is even possible for people to do within it, why can't you start from a game focus and build an online space that is appropriate to the game around it?

You can. But you're still starting from the premise that it's an online space in the first place. Diablo, for example, does NOT start from that premise. Its initial premise is a text chat lobby. The games hang off the lobby.

what's the main difference between an online "world" and a multiplayer game with a shared lobby where players can meet, greet, chat and head off into their own private games ala playing Diablo or Neverwinter Nights online (both have persistance of character)?

The persistence of everything else BEYOND the character. Most fundamentally, the persistence of the world in which you interact, whilst you are not present. It can be summed up in "stuff can happen while you're not there."

Is Planetside or WWIIO an online "world" or just a multi-player game you can do online with lots of people?

Both of them are online worlds, and meet all the criteria in the expanded definition on my website at http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/book/3c.html.

Alright, let me try this.  If we took Diablo's persistant text lobby and simply replaced it with a persistant shared town of Tristan so you can walk around and see other avatars without adding any other abillities for the players, would that now make it a world like your HoloMud example?  Or would you have to add other abilities for it to make the jump,  i.e. they can chat, create and enter instance map sessions same as always, but now they can trade items and use the Horadic cube (but no combat and npc's).  

That's not only a pretty fine and arbitrary distinction, but it really doesn't seem to change anything about A) how the game is played or more importantly B) how it would have had to be designed.

Planetside and WWIIO appear to me like they were designed as "game first, build world around them" b/c the world parts are pretty minor and the focus is clearly on the game.  Yet, they are "online worlds".  Which why I'm having a hard time grasping why designing in that manner wouldn't be better to acheive better games within online worlds.  Yes, they would not neccesarily be better worlds overall but right now it's the games part I'm primarily interested in.

SWG is clearly a world with game elements.  But I have to wonder, if the world depth was scaled way back and there were several great game within it, would it be more popular?  Say you move your avatar through the world to visit various planets and play incorporated versions of SWG themed games: i.e. a rebel vs imp shootout game (i.e. fps), a jedi flavored combat game (i.e. JK2), landspeeder racing game, and space combat game (xwing vs tie fighter).  You could still socialize in a cantina or go hunting in the wilds, I suppose, but when I think of Star Wars, those are the activities that come to mind I would want to do within the SW world.  But obviously, that's a totally different animal design from the ground up.  I do wonder which version of SWG the market would prefer.  Yes, I know adding JTLS is moving it in this direction, but again, it's a difference in approach, world first game second

My point being, IMHO it's not a right or wrong answer as to how you design it, but it definately needs to be a concious decision since everything stems from that first choice.
 
Sidebar, as large companies like NCSoft and SOE offer more and more games under a single umbrella, i dont think it will be long before we start seeing the worlds within worlds concept appear.  I.e. You log on Sony's station and can walk around a sapce station setting worldspace with an avatar chatting and interacting with others before deciding to enter EQ2 or SWG or whatever.

Xilren
PS Thanks for posting raph despite the barbs and arrows slung your way; I dont think any of us would be here if we weren't all interested in these animals no matter what nomenclature we use

[Nyght]

Now that your all ready to bumpfuzzle Raph again and the topic has seemed to drift into game/world discussion, I would like to point out that Mulligan tried pretty hard a few years back to make these very points.

And the result we got from an apparently unswayed Raph was SWG. Yes, I know there were lots of reasons beyond design that SWG ended up the way it is. But it is what it is and actual work results are really all that customers can judge by.

What we need here is hope. Hope that the next generation of these games will actually offer something approaching the combinations of world and games mentioned in this thread. We all seem to recognize this is the direction needed, even to the point of  internal corporate memos apparently.

So is there any hope? And if so what?

[HaemishM]

This thread became about Raph the minute Raph spoke up. :) Everyone with an axe to grind about SWG turns the thread into "What SWG did wrong." Same as it ever was.

I'm firmly of the mind that you design game first, then modify the world to fit around that. Your world and its community, as Snowspinner said, will develop organically, with or without developer help. Your game won't. While there will be people who will play the game differently than you envision (see EQ and the rise of camping), you will have much more control over the way they play the game than the way they use the world space.

If you build the game first, you can concentrate solely and wholeheartedly on the game aspects, and those are the aspects that take up the most time and effort from a player. When you build the world and try to populate it with multiple game objects, the objects take less precedence than the whole. Since "the play is the thing," to quote the bard badly, you want to be concentrating on making the play the absolute best it can be, EVEN IF IT MEANS SKIMPING ON THE WORLD AND SETTING.

Shadowbane had great lore, but the gameplay didn't match it.

[sinij]

it wasn't PvP that killed SB ... it was the inescapable, unavoidable, and mind-numbing hour after hour after hour of PvE.

I still play SB and manage to enjoy it. While I agree that forcing boring PvE on a player base was an issue I disagree that it was important factor. It was a factor, and developers finally realized and addressed this issue by increasing all exp X1.5 and decreasing repair cost by /10 and reducing city upkeep by /10. Devs are also in process of adding resource system that will allow earning gold via PvP-centered system. So if PvE was the only thing that drove you out it is safe to come back now, after leveling your character you can now completely avoid killing another mob.

Other more important issues are not as easy to address or remedy as fixing excessive PvE. In my book buggy start and ‘play to crush’ beta players were #1 reason why SB did not retain that many players. Most crashes are fixed, with lag addressed to the point that large scale fights are playable and do not cause chain of sb.exes. I haven’t seen a single crash on my system for over a month but some system configurations, especially Macs, seem to have more problems than others. Almost all beta players are gone by now and current players are less inclined to strive to dominate knowing that it leads to boredom and loss of players. Still damage is done – buggy release and beta players hell bent crushing newbies trying to learn the game made sure that a lot of people won’t ever try SB again.


If we should learn anything from SB is that for a world or a game to be there it should be stable. Buggy releases will cost you more subscribers than implementing few features into post-release. I think stability > content, especially in PvP game.

Another lesson should be that in PvP game loosing should not be excessively punishing on the looser and rebuilding should be easy. I think SB lost more people to beta guild juggernauts burning down cities and chain banning all attempts to rebuild than anything else. Rebuilding was really hard in SB at the start, it is now made easier by merchant cities and shorter ranking times but devs acted too slow.

[Riggswolfe]

What should be learned by Shadowbane is what was learned by the early days of UO. Unrestrained PvP is not the way to make a good game. Human nature being what it is you end up with a sort of Lord of the Flies syndrome going on. Add to that, that it is much harder for new players to come into PvP-centric games and you have a losing proposition. It astounds me that anyone is surprised by Shadowbane's total failure.

[Riggswolfe]

This thread became about Raph the minute Raph spoke up. :) Everyone with an axe to grind about SWG turns the thread into "What SWG did wrong." Same as it ever was.

I've mostly gotten past that mindset, partly because of this thread, partly from remaining in contact with my SWG guild. I am curious about the combat design of SWG, and the mission design, as in, who did it and why was it ever approved, but I'm past the anger phase and am now in more of a saddened phase, with a tiny bit of hope that maybe they'll come out with SWG: The Special Edition! which will have no HAM bar to start with.

[Rasix]

What should be learned by Shadowbane is what was learned by the early days of UO. Unrestrained PvP is not the way to make a good game. Human nature being what it is you end up with a sort of Lord of the Flies syndrome going on. Add to that, that it is much harder for new players to come into PvP-centric games and you have a losing proposition. It astounds me that anyone is surprised by Shadowbane's total failure.

Not to derail further, but Shadowbane's failures are not a direct result of unrestrained PVP.   Too much PvE, buggy client, lackluster performance in raids, impossible to build up once you've been "crushed", etc etc.  There was no pig head on a pole, but there was a shit ton wrong with it.

Your second point, however, is correct.  PVP centric games have a higher barrier to entry.   If you do not come into the game with some sort of exterior/interior support structure (ie a guild), you're going to have a rough time of things (unless you're just a griefer, then HAVE A BLAST).  This was magnified in Shadowbane due to the neccessity of cities.

[Snowspinner]

I want to play in a virtual world - not just play any kind of game. I want to be part of a story that plays in a virtual world.

Don't get me wrong. I want that too.

I just don't think that electronic gaming is a medium that's capable of providing that. Especially not on the massively multiplayer scale.

[Alkiera]

I want to play in a virtual world - not just play any kind of game. I want to be part of a story that plays in a virtual world.

Don't get me wrong. I want that too.

I just don't think that electronic gaming is a medium that's capable of providing that. Especially not on the massively multiplayer scale.

Not yet anyway.  Unfortunately, a good virtual world implies some things that mean it should take a lot of time, meaning neglect of the real world.  It's very difficult to have a virtual world without people, or with people that are only there for an extremely limited portion of the 'day'.  If your town's blacksmith only plays an hour a day, there's a lot of times when someone needs something fixed, but cannot have it done in your town, due to his 'mysterious' absence.  Three AM raid syndrome is another situation where the fact that players are not always there breaks the 'virtual world'.

Some of this can be offset by clever ideas, like SB's and SWG's shopkeepers, etc, but most of it is simply Not Easy to get around.  Until we live in a utopia where we can play games 24x7, it's not gonna be perfect.

--
Alkiera

[Daeven]

For me, the game vs. world is defined by one simple thing: how well does the virtual space react to the inputs to the individual and mass of players? A ‘game’ will out of necessity, be static, allowing ‘content’ to be explored and consumed by the players. A ‘world’ will have no ‘content’, but rather emergent behavior that is derived from player interaction with the system.

Therefore, MMOG’s to date have been poor games due to their limitations on players to consume their content, and all have essentially failed as worlds because of poor mechanics surrounding emergent behavior. UO and Shadowbane had the kernel of emergent gameplay (the players created the content), but in many ways did not give the players the tools necessary to enjoy them (or mechanics actively inhibited core concepts - alla Shadowbane). Conversely, CoH may be the best ‘game’ MMOG on the market.

[Nyght]

My thought here is that quality has been lacking on both sides of the equation in this genre.

On the game side for example, good games really require strategy and tactics. It is often just as important in good games to not take any action as to take one. This is what attracts players to PvP. You can’t just auto execute movesequence01 for the win. If it works today it probably won’t work tomorrow.

MMOG PvE is very much not only static puzzles but puzzles that are way too simplistic. The last good example of a complex puzzle in a MMOG that I can think of was charcoal making in ATITD. It had three variables inputs (air, fuel, and water) which had to be timed with variable results based upon random throws. I think some of the fighting type box games have this sort of thing. Why has this never been applied to MMOG combat models?

On the world side, the current trend to go unified interfaces for all sorts of world interactions is just terrible. Using an axe on a tree to get wood or a pick on a mountain to get ore is intuitive and therefore immersive. Double clicking tool_x and then see the same box as ever other tool just reminds me that I am working at a computer, not actually in a world.

These two sides of the game should be linked by the lore. Even if SWG had a pod racing game, there should be a quest reason inside the game that compels you to take a try at it.

Quality and detail are very important to the game experience and I have come to believe that we may never see these things all combined in a single game due to the reality of the economics of the genre.

Oh well. Time to go outside now.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Both games.slashdot and you all seem to think that I'm trying to teach Raph something. I'm not, I was trying to get you all, and whoever else was interested to think outside the box. Some of you are, some of you aren't (talking about fucking Shadowbane - an abomination on mmogaming is NOT thinking outside of the goddamn box). Many would say there hasn't been an original thought about mmorpgs in 3-5 years. Yet, many of us still stick around getting donkey punched every time a new game is released. Why? You probably won't admit it, but it's because you have hope for the future of online worlds. Well, I wrote that article because I'm starting to completely lose hope - when you don't see an original idea for the better part of a decade, you start getting angry. I don't know where I'm going with this but uhm....carry on.

When I reached that point where you are now, I skipped the article and bought Battlefield1942.


now i think i know
what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for you sanity
and how you tried to set them free

they would not listen - they're not listening still
i guess they never will

- Don McLean

[Arcadian Del Sol]

lost arts

I was finding a non-confrontational vehicle to express my "oh okay, the Raph Thread again" without coming across as self-indulgent. You seem to still crave the fire like a moth after all these years and keep flittering around the topic and offering responses to anybody with input.

You are the face of tenacity.

But I learned years ago that what may appear to be just another gypsy yellow flittering around the fire, is probably closer to the lunar variety that carried Doctor Doolittle home from his little island escapade. In other words, and without the literary indulgence, your kung-fu > my kung-fu.

But strictly as a non-designing retail-purchasing game fan, you and I, at least for a temporal comparison, can be considered peers. Our history and growth as gamers follow the same paths right up until you took the "Learning how to Program" exit ramp to the Mega-Fame Expressway.

So we can both agree that its not about 'making a game' or 'creating a world' but just simply put, its about fun. Virtual Worlds, while not games - are still fun - but not the same kind of fun. Its like comparing a game of chess to playing with army men. The former is thick with rules and regulations and timeclocks and established opening moves and templates. The latter is without rules or regulations or boundaries, and whatever entertainment element is generated, is initiated and managed by the person playing with the plastic green men.

The problem is that Virtual Worlds are trying to be games, when they should just be virtual worlds. Your games, and those of your peers are so far just attempts to create a chess-like set of rules and regulations for playing with green army men. "Gamers" look at them as a bag of green army men and then wonder, "where's the board? How many minesweepers do I start off with? Whose turn is it?" Meanwhile, the other kid takes a plastic tank and bulldozes them all into the sand and declares himself the winner.

no fair - I wasn't set up yet.

The problem here: there is no rulebook to playing with army men. There is no appeals process to undo having your soldiers run over by some other kid's plastic tank. There is only setting them back up again and telling the other kid to knock it off. It works because the other kid will either knock it off, or find himself going home crying.

Now that the prologue is done, I've got a point:

Ultima Online (which is the one MMOG I can claim direct intimacy with so its my scapegoat), and others akin to it, is a game of chess with rules and regulations and timeclocks and established scenarios, etc etc -  only in this game of chess, that kid with the plastic tank can still roll over your queen's row and giggle with glee over his victory. You can cite all the rules and regulations for chess that you want, but your opponent thinks he's playing with army men - there's no rules to army men. So you set up the game and tell him to stop. He rolls your pieces over again and does a happy dance of supremacy.

Repeat thousands of times.

Then you think to yourself: wow this is messed up chess. We're not doing that anymore. So you go to the toy store and come home with Monopoly, Pay Day (old school!), backgammon (ancient school!), and checkers.

You open the boxes, and they all contain chess pieces, and you realize: wow. all the games are the same game of chess that was messed up before. Screw that, I'm watching cartoons.

bottom line for people who paged-down: let me know when you want to play Stratego. I'm tired of playing Kamikazie Chess against the kid with the plastic tank.

[Soukyan]

My thought here is that quality has been lacking on both sides of the equation in this genre.

On the game side for example, good games really require strategy and tactics. It is often just as important in good games to not take any action as to take one. This is what attracts players to PvP. You can’t just auto execute movesequence01 for the win. If it works today it probably won’t work tomorrow.

MMOG PvE is very much not only static puzzles but puzzles that are way too simplistic. The last good example of a complex puzzle in a MMOG that I can think of was charcoal making in ATITD. It had three variables inputs (air, fuel, and water) which had to be timed with variable results based upon random throws. I think some of the fighting type box games have this sort of thing. Why has this never been applied to MMOG combat models?

On the world side, the current trend to go unified interfaces for all sorts of world interactions is just terrible. Using an axe on a tree to get wood or a pick on a mountain to get ore is intuitive and therefore immersive. Double clicking tool_x and then see the same box as ever other tool just reminds me that I am working at a computer, not actually in a world.

These two sides of the game should be linked by the lore. Even if SWG had a pod racing game, there should be a quest reason inside the game that compels you to take a try at it.

Quality and detail are very important to the game experience and I have come to believe that we may never see these things all combined in a single game due to the reality of the economics of the genre.

Oh well. Time to go outside now.

I agree on wanting things to be intuitive (i.e. axe chop tree for wood, etc.). As to the intelligence level, this has been scaled for the great unwashed masses, methinks. I would like to see what you suggested in more systems as well, but Joe Schmoe will complain if it is too difficult and requires too much skill. After all, these are distant relatives of the die roll systems where YOUR skill was not figured into the equation, only a random roll so anybody had an equal chance.

Why computer based systems continue to push this equality model, I don't know. There was a discussion as while ago and I believe the general conclusion was that time based was better than skill based because it was more "equal opportunity". That's too bad because sometimes it would be nice if skill would win out over the need to appease those who aren't as adept. Perhaps based on the current player populations, it is determined that the majority do not want skill based systems. It might niche the games... or it might open up the genre to a whole other set of players. I don't know, but I would like to see more systems like the charcoal making on in MMOGs.

Give us a game within the overall game. I'll use Puzzle Pirates as an example since it fits. The overall game is that of pirating to plunder and pillage and steal gold and rum and to trade rum and other goods. Sticking to the liquor (because it's good), you need to make the rum. To make the rum, you play a puzzle game. This game is a sub-game of the main game. Granted, the whole game itself is broken down into smaller pieces like this, but each is a different game that relies on player skill to accomplish an activity in the larger scope. Carpentry must be done well or the boat starts to take on water faster and then bilging must be done that much faster. Sailing must be done well or the boat will move slowly thus slowing your ability to trade as much in a day and netting you less money, or not allowing you to escape a would-be attacker. It goes on and on, but you get the point. I'm not saying Puzzle Pirates has the problem solved or that it appeals to everyone, but the concept of those games within the game within the world is a good one and it appears to work very well.

[schild]

Puzzle Pirates is a good example of a company achieving, perfectly, what they were trying to achieve. That's to say - it had very low goals and nailed them. While I enjoy puzzles - immensely, I'm more likely to play them at Neopets than in Puzzle Pirates. Every single one of those games can be found in a free variant at either Andkon's Arcade or Microsoft's Online Gaming Zone. ATiTD would be a good example of mini puzzle games (you start getting them later on), unfortunately Teppy has no knack for making puzzle games and they all pretty much suck wind. But I digress, if we want games within a game, I think they have to be more fun than the current offerings, or else I'm going to pop a game in my ps2 and turn off the computer.

Edit: Read 'better' as 'more engrossing with bigger consequences to the world around us.' I don't actually mean there's a game, anywhere, better than Tetris...or Super Breakout.

[Nyght]

Well, I think what is happening here is the word 'puzzle' taken too literally.

Combat in the the typical MMORPG PvE is a 'mini-game'. There is a larger meta game of character advancement or quest completion or whatever.

The mini game is a round of combat with a mob or group of mobs. Generally you receive a small reward and additionally character or quest advancement if you win the mini game (you rise on a ranking ladder).

This is really little different from puzzle pirates or ATITD except for the visuallization and the type of the puzzle. The other difference is the control of the timing of the presentation of the puzzle. In discrete games you are in absolute control of when the round starts, where combat in  MMOGs you have less control.

Sit back some time and watch someone playing tetris and then watch them fight something in a MMORPG. Unless you can see or hear whats on the screen or they make some comment, it might be hard to tell which they are playing.

[Rasix]

Sit back some time and watch someone playing tetris and then watch them fight something in a MMORPG. Unless you can see or hear whats on the screen or they make some comment, it might be hard to tell which they are playing.

The one eating the sandwich is playing the mmorpg.

[Nebu]

The one eating the sandwich is playing the mmorpg.

This is one of my biggest problems with the current trend in mmog's.  The games lack challenge, contain too many mundane/repetitive elements, and have almost no consequence for failure.

My mom plays freecell for hours... the game takes a modicum of skill and most players will lose more often than they win.  i.e. winning the game becomes its own reward.  If you lose, you start over.  Pretty simple concept but it has kept her interest for years (go figure).

Tetris is a different variant.  Tetris ends when the game becomes too difficult for the player.  The challenge (or fun) is derived from obtaining the highest possible score before the game beats you.  

Hell, even the New York Times crossword puzzle is a game that is lost more than it is won... I and MANY others look forward to it.  

Board games, chess, sports, and others all have winners and losers.  These games have flourished for years.  MMOG's seem so bent on making everyone feeling fuzzy that they lose sight of the reason why many people play games... the thrill and challenge of winning.