Split from the split-split

[Blake Hutchins]

Heh.  Nothing to do with the old posts.  However, Evan brought up a point regarding computer games that I think warrants a comment.  He mentioned that MMORPG's like Everquest and Ultima could be construed as Simulationist.  As someone who's spent a fair amount of time working in the online game design biz, I suggest they're more gamist than simulationist in design... and something more.

Market research and my own observations indicate the primary motivation for MMORPGers is (a) level increase/power gain, (b) getting stuff/power gain, and (c) socializing.  In fact, the social and community aspect is turning out to be one of the most significant retention facters with a subscriber base.  In essence, the chat room aspect of a MMORPG becomes one of the main features of the experience.

Simulationism-wise, there's not much, though games like Atriarch and Planetside may change that.  Most games use monster spawn points and infinite player character lives as grounding parts of the world, without much rationale for why that society (if there is one) is there in the first place.  Ultima experimented with creating ecosystems for their monsters, but after the players drove the monsters extinct, the game designers reverted back to the use of spawn points.  My experience is that most worlds have little to do with Simulationism in terms of genre emulation, and only a few really even begin to facilitate Exploration.  There may be some exploration of the virtual setting, but mostly to locate monsters and other power-enhancing resources.

There has been quite a bit of discussion in the industry regarding whether story in MMORPG's is possible or even desirable.  On my end, I wonder whether it's possible to have story appear as an emergent quality in these games.  With hundreds of thousands of "heroes" in the world, creating a coherent narrative is a real challenge.

Best,

Blake

[Walt Freitag]

I see your point, but I lean to the Simulationist interpretation myself. It's primarily exploration of setting -- the most important part of the setting being explored is not the graphic landscape, but the player population.

I spent the entire 80s writing and running (relatively) massively multiplayer live action role playing games (20-200 players, 48 hours). The only effective way to convey setting and situation when your budget doesn't permit set-building and your canvas is too large for verbal narration is through player-player interaction. Players' exploration of each other's characters was the primary form of play, and was the conduit for whatever situation and premise existed. Situation-based plot was precipitated (and not railroaded) by building in information gradients into characters' backgrounds. Given a design, it proved impossible to predict (but, we decided, not really necessary to) whether the players would focus primarily on the situation or on character issues.

The gamist interpretation of MMORPGs makes sense on the surface, but the component of play in which the game system predominates is not very challenging. It's like knitting, something to do while you chat, and when you're done a session you can look at your stats and see how much you've knit. (The game play also embodies the central Big Comfy Lie of CRPGs: you can pretend you're being bold and aggressive, but the game system actually rewards you for being cautious and patient -- real-world traits that most long term players possess in abundance. You can pretend you're adopting a totally different persona, but actually you just exaggerate your real self. Pretty cool, actually.)

Things will change when the technology permits cheap implementation of significant changes in the world from one day or week to the next. This would make possible large-scale exploration of situation driven by information flow, like the driving forces in my live games but cooler.

- Walt

[Evan Waters]

From what I've heard, PC advancement in MMORPGs is as often about gradually bumping up scores and acquiring trades as it is about overcoming major challenges- but I admit the analogy was primarily from a design/GMing point of view, i.e. they create a world and the adventure comes from the characters reacting with it. Whereas a Gamist GMing approach would focus on crafting individual challenges and a Narrativist approach would focus on individual stories, a Simulationist style would let those things arise from whatever's in the world.

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi Walt,

Some quick thoughts here.

I like your knitting analogy very much, and I think it describes the predominant style of MMORPG play to a tee, but I still don't see "exploration of character" as a prevalent mode or goal of play.  Obviously, there are players who do take that tack, but I submit they are in the great minority.  For the most part, I think MMORPG players are more concerned with seeking out avenues for leveling up, a Gamist priority.  The great majority of Everquest players, for example, seek to join a guild for the social contact and the increased party power necessary to take on the greater monsters, not because they wish to explore one another's characters.  Likewise with most of the other games out there taking a similar approach.  Lineage: Bloodpledge at least provides more of an inherent conflict in its citadel-conquest mechanism, but it's still Gamist and not Simulationist in my view, because the main thrust isn't exploration.

Exploration of character implies a degree of roleplaying to me, with a focus on in-character expression and decision-making.  Exploration of other characters suggest to me a similar in-character interaction.  If social interaction qualifies as "exploration of character" in the Simulationist sense, the meaning of the latter term appears to become so broad as to make it useless in GNS terms.

There are a lot of people entering MMORPG's, and clearly some of them do seek an environment in which they can explore the world, situation, or character.  Likewise, some seek an environment in which they can participate in a "story."  Since the overwhelming majority of players are there for social and gamist priorities, I think the would be simulationist or narrativists have continued to be frustrated.  While I think simulationist goals are possible in massively multiplayer games, I doubt any narrativism is possible without heavy post hoc rationalization or condensation to small, "non-massive" cooperative groups.  This is one of the core debates going on in the MMOG industry right now, and no one I know of has any definitive solutions.

Another part of the problem is that any company that produces a massively multiplayer game has budgetary requirements that almost mandate having to aim for the casual gamer and mass market.  Hitting the mass market in the RP area means you have to appeal to the hardcore, opinion-leader gamers.  There's enough gamist-style behavior and preference in the mass-market that any efforts to craft compelling environments or stories hit serious snags.

All that said, the less-graphically intensive games, such as the ones at Skotos, may be the best avenue for exploration or story creation since they are by their nature slower-paced and perhaps more easily geared to promote non-combat interaction.

Were I to pull out my crystal ball, I'd guess the online market will fragment into a jillion smaller communities, each focused on a particular combination of play style and genre/color.  Those who want more of an explorative or story focus will find communities able to provide that kind of entertainment.  Better technology will hopefully allow smaller companies to put out games for those non-mass market communities.

Best,

Blake

[Valamir]

Given your knowledge of the industry itself.  Do either of you think that the eventual introduction of Neverfinished Nights type games will allow for MORGs without the budgetary need to be Massive.  NWN might not be there just yet, but I'm kind of envisioning a day when a MORG community might consist of 200 or 1000 active members on just a couple of servers run by a fan (the way first person shooters have their fan run Mod communities) instead of corporate based mass appeal games?

Second question, Blake, do your opinions on the nature of the "average" MORG player change when discussing players on servers specifically billed as RP servers, or are those more label than substance.

[Blake Hutchins]

Hey Valamir,

First, let me disavow being an "expert."  I'm in the industry, I've had a lot of exposure to the various games and have participated in the game design process, but I have neither the answers nor encyclopedic knowledge of all the games out there.  At best, I'm a bit more informed than most on this slice of the gaming industry, and as my company is working on a massively multiplayer game (of a different stripe), I've had to think about this stuff more than the average bear.

That said, it's my opinion that Neverwinter Nights and the smaller-scale cooperative games that put tools into the hands of the players to create and run their own worlds may offer some real alternatives for small group-based play that could follow Simulationist or (possibly) even Narrativist priorities.  Look at the Sims (the Sims Online is coming, incidentally) for an example of what a community can do if given the creative tools to do so.

You're right.  RP dedicated servers and similar filtering do offer a practical way to separate players according to preference.  It's certainly the way I would go were I building that kind of game right now.  Even better, I'd probably use a questionaire as part of the account registration process and use it to filter people automatically between RP and "Power" servers.  You'll still get trolls and team-killers whose goal is to vandalize the game for others, but self-selection and filtering do make a big difference.

The other issue I have is that most of the massively multiplayer games still promote a ladder-level style of play, which I think undermines the Explorative or Story-based priorities, because the "level up" mechanism remains the core focus of the character experience.  Part of this is again a deliberate marketing choice.  Players who own high level characters are less likely to cancel their subscriptions since they have so much invested in the game.  Likewise, the level system provides a reward in terms of plot immunity against new players.  Many high level players expect to be absolutely immune to the casual player or the newbie.  Levels are an easy way to accomplish this kind of stratification.

Best,

Blake

(Edited to correct an embarrassing typo.)

[Blake Hutchins]

Hell's bells.  Sorry.  I know it's bad form to double-post, but I just realized I didn't answer Ralph's question about budgets.

Right now, Neverwinter Nights is a bitch of a project.  It's ambitious, and it's huge.  However, it might help spawn a sort of indie community with its toolkit -- I can't wait to see what Peter Seckler could do with it, for example -- and as more material is released in the form of art packages and new scripting tools, I think we'll see a ton of creative games come out.  It's DnD 3e, of course, but there might be a lot of diversity within that set up when all the number crunching is done by the computer.

I don't think the gaming industry has really tumbled to what's possible in CRPG's, but I do think Neverwinter Nights could be a big first step.  If it delivers.  With its Storyteller multiplayer mode, Vampire: The Masquerade held the same promise back in '99, but it tanked.  We'll see if NWN pulls it off.

Does that answer your question?

Best,

Blake

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Blake,

Yeah I agree that we're not talking "exploration of character" in the sense that it's used here. What I really meant was "exploration of setting in the form of a population of characters." Characters on a ren-fair performance level, not a literary protagonist level. (At the same time, you're performing your own character in about the same way, so your performance adds to the setting for everyone else.) That's understating the level of characterization in the live games I was talking about; it might be overstating it for most online games.

Talking about Narrativism of any kind in any sort of computer game right now is like talking about tourism on Mars. We're not only not there, we don't have any plausible plan for getting there from here. I met with one online game developer a few years ago and suggested some design elements that amounted to a modicum of protagonization of player-characters (though I didn't have the term then). The reaction was not incomprehension; it was not disinterest; it was outright hostility. You'd think I'd suggested sprinkling the blood of sacrificed babies on their servers.

Of course, you can use Asheron's Call as a chat room to play InSpectres in, but that doesn't really count.

- Walt

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi Walt,

We're completely on the same page.  I agree there is a substantial community of players who approach MMORPG in a RenFaire light.  If they can get on dedicated RP servers of the kind Ralph mentioned, they have the chance to pull it off without (hopefully) the intrusion of griefers or vandals.

I'd love to discuss proto-narrativist computer game design sometime, but right now I'm convinced the only way to accomplish anything remotely resembling story in MMORPGs is to set up exploration of setting where the setting is imbued with inherent conflict.

Thanks for the comments, by the way.  Much appreciated.

Best,

Blake

[Seth L. Blumberg]

I think you underestimate the level of commitment that game vandals possess.  If they find out that there are dedicated RP servers, they will do anything in their power to get into them so that they can spoil the RPers' fun.

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi Seth,

I agree.  The vandals are dedicated and can wreck the experience for many.  Still, in a wholly RP server environment, there may yet be a greater chance of getting something approximating character-based explorative or near-story (story simulative?) play.

Any massively multiplayer community has to account for the team killers, vandals, player killers, and griefers.  It's my opinion that a more highly focused community has a better chance of identifying those guys and taking action.  Planetside, for instance, has a really strong anti-griefer system, and it's very focused on providing inherent conflict and faction-based multiplayer combat.

Best,

Blake

[xiombarg]

Uh, I haven't played any MMORPGs, but I have played a lot of MUDs, MOOs, etc., and those issues y'all are talking about apply to them as well, tho perhaps to a greater or lesser degree depending on where you are.

However, y'all finally managed to lose me. What's a "griefer"?

[Valamir]

Someone whose purpose is to cause other players grief.

In Dark Age of Camelot I've been told that the RP only servers are held to strict standards and player banishment is handed out for very little provocation.

Since all players are ultimately identified by the name on their credit card, getting around banishment is not as easy as changing characters.

[Blake Hutchins]

Trouble is, you also get the kind of griefer who accuses others of problems.  Eventually he or she may stumble and get caught, but in the meantime the griefer spreads merry havoc.

Either way, the DAoC methodology sounds like it's working, which is very cool.

Best,

Blake