The Miscreant Engine (more - split)

[F. Scott Banks]

Surprising how many people still read this thread.

I've been approached by people off and on for a few months now on the status of this project.  Most seem to have assumed that it died peacefully in it's sleep of biting off more than it could chew.

Most would be wrong.

Advent of The Dying Age is in development right now.  Now, the argument has gone from it's "shoot-for-the-moon" Simulationist MMORPG design to the nearly otherworldly program design.  I'm surprised that it doesn't look as impossible as I expected it to be.  In most cases, it's not an issue of whether or not we can, but whether or not it'll look cool.  Surprisingly enough, we seem to jump the big hurdles quickly and spend most of our time debating whether or not we should have red or white wine at the victory party.

Powerhouse Server to Manage This Game...check

Skilled Artists, programmers, modellers, storyboarders and (yes) musicians...check

Method for reducing load-times on a massive world with player-created, buildings, objects, and monsters...check

Method for managing players children, spouses, and minions in a real-time simulationist CRPG environment...check.

Point-and-click vs. keyboard interface for navigating characters onscreen...entering week two of a heated debate.

So, the game is coming along, and it hasn't died.  I've decided to ressurect this thread (yet again) as people have been approaching me offering to help get it up off the ground.  I appreciate the help and don't worry, there isn't much lifting you have to do.

[aganauton]

It's good to see the game continues to develop.

I do have one question as it pertains to your game.  How are you going to deal with the potential problems cause by introducing a marriage/child element.  Inevitably there is going to be some nasty battles (both with actions/words and with swords) over the 'custody' of children.  There is going to be instances where disputes arise (maybe a advocate skill is in order here) , whether it's the typical 'who's the father' stuff, to killing the character outright to obtain sole custody of the future lives.

And while introducing this family/marriage/child aspect to the game does present many hooks to play the game, it unfornately does introduce some 'less than desirable' aspects also.  I know that the subject of 'women as chattel' has already been brought up, but i think it's an important consideration.   It also leads to another potential problem of rape, sexual assault and / or kidnapping.  All subjects that i'm sure most parents don't want want 14 year Bobby dealing with if they can help it.

A "Rated R" tag to the game may help matters, but also may limit audience.  I understand that in TTRPG's the content of the game is self-limited by the the group playing, but in ADA, with prospect of thousands of players, the subject matter may not be appropriate for some people.  I guess if you didn't like what was happening where you were, you could have your character leave, or ulimately not play the game at all and that would be fine.  But too many people being put off by subject matter would be a bad thing both financially and for the game itself.

Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to seeing the game completed.  I like the ideas I've seen.  I just curious if the subject of game content has come up with the designer's yet and what decision(s) have been made.

Ag

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The above two posts were split from The Miscreant Engine. It's a hefty thread and deserves a real re-read, so go for it, and continue the discussion here.

Wyldkarde, please remember not to post to older threads, but rather to start new ones.

Best,
Ron

[Ben O'Neal]

Hey Ag (is that your real name? I'm Ben)

I'm one of the people working on this game, under the illustrious title of Art Director, which I gave to myself, and also comes with double prize money.

I do have one question as it pertains to your game. How are you going to deal with the potential problems cause by introducing a marriage/child element. Inevitably there is going to be some nasty battles (both with actions/words and with swords) over the 'custody' of children. There is going to be instances where disputes arise (maybe a advocate skill is in order here) , whether it's the typical 'who's the father' stuff, to killing the character outright to obtain sole custody of the future lives.

Deal with it? Hell, that stuff is awesome! We want players to use their own guile and skill and interaction to deal with these, things. Having a mechanical skill that solves the issues for them kinda makes playing pointless: they can just load the game and watch their character deal with every situation automatically.

And while introducing this family/marriage/child aspect to the game does present many hooks to play the game, it unfornately does introduce some 'less than desirable' aspects also. I know that the subject of 'women as chattel' has already been brought up, but i think it's an important consideration. It also leads to another potential problem of rape, sexual assault and / or kidnapping. All subjects that i'm sure most parents don't want want 14 year Bobby dealing with if they can help it.

Not possible. Making a child mechanically requires consent from both characters. With NPCs, consent is calculated mechanically according to the stats of both characters (so two NPCs can mate, and even have affairs). There is no possibility of using "women as chattel", because they control the children until they donate them. You can't force them to donate a child to you, so you better treat them nice. If you are a women, you can use this power to your advantage, gaining wealth, training, rank, etc merely by virtue of offering and controlling the game's most powerful and important resource (lives).

Kidnapping may certainly be possible though, but again, that sort of thing is awesome. Why wouldn't we want women getting kidnapped and held as ransom for their children? It provokes damn good reason for the real "fathers" to rescue them.

But rape isn't possible, so no R rating will be needed (if you want rape in an MMORPG, there's already a game out there for you).

Thanks,
-Ben

[F. Scott Banks]

My apologies Ron.  I've gotta remember that making multiple threads is preferred to posting to an old one.  Usually, folks don't want you flooding the forums with twenty different threads on the same topic.

Actually, that could clean some stuff up.  This family thing seems to merit it's own argument space.

To echo what Ravien said, the inevitable conflicts are not prevented, but rather managed.  If you want to kidnap the child of a king to extort ransom money or sway his hand in an upcoming battle or economic struggle, then you can.

Mind you, it's damn hard to kidnap a child.  Usually, they're under constant attention from trainers or cloistered within a guild.  That way, when their eighteen, they will have some skills the player can use.  If their babies, their under the attention of a wetnurse or being watched over by an entire segment of the community for a tibal culture.  Suffice it to say, laying seige and capturing a city is easier than a single person kidnapping a child.

But...it can be done.

A kid is just an object after all, and any object can be stolen...hell for that matter, they could be sold or (gulp) transformed into materials and made into new objects.

And you thought necromancy was a dark art to play before...

But yeah...no rape.  There is sex (handled tastefully, but it's there) and it has to be consentual.  After all, the point is to have a kid (echoing our Art Director once again, if you want to just have sex for the hell of it, there are other games for that), so there are responsibilities that come with that particular act.  You dont wanna be stuck with so many kids, you can't afford them.

And, just to counter the "Women as chattle", there is a culture, amazonian in nature, that raises men as chattle.  Nomadic orc tribes are run by females.  Being able to raise more warriors, females are key in the "raid and pillage" lifestyle, and thus a stong female is more valuable thana strong male.  After all, a father's parentage can be questioned, a monther's cannot.  A single warrior is a good thing, but a woman, capable of making hundreds, is invaluable.  If a male dies, then one warrior is lost.  If a female dies, countless are lost.  Orcs (they're called Dankar, but let's keep everyone on the same page) have a culture and character development is governed by that culture.

Actually, character development is governed by whatever culture you belong to.  You can't be a cleric in an atheistic society.  However, you're less likely to fall under the influence of clerical spells as "faith-based" casting doesn't work as well against those who don't beleive or don't know about your religion.

Which...is a good reason to start a Holy War (and a good reson to pick "no religion/atheist" during character development...usually, it's just there for those who don't feel like roleplaying), but that's a little off-topic.

So men are subject to the meat market too.  A female character can pick and choose her mate and gets first pick of the offspring.  From a design standpoint, that puts the advantage squarely in their court.

Oh yes...I'm looking into the Miscreant Website you suggested.  I'll be away for a short while as I'm escorting my grandfather's body to Alabama this week, but I'm sure that the rest of the team (most of whom are Forgers) will keep this thread alive while I attend to other matters.

- Wyld out -

[aganauton]

Hello Ben,

First, I didn't mean to imply that I would want to see rape (or torture for that matter) introduced in the design of the ADA.  It would be a shame to ruin a fine idea with something like that (IMO).  I was curious how the designers were going to deal with it and you've answered my question.

I broached the subject of an advocate skill only because of scenarios that were playing in my head at the time.  I was assuming that there will be some rudimenty justice/law in the civilized areas.  Whether or not it's a player who is lord or an NPC, I'm assuming that the lord (or mayor, if you will) will be the final arbitor of disputes for that particular area.  Wyldkarde had summarized in a previous post that skills all had anti-skills (I've searched for the post but damned if i can find it now) or something along that line.  The point I was hoping to make is that it is possible in some respects that the anti-skill to a skill is the same skill only used by a different person.  Again, I'm flying blind here because I don't know what skills are being included in the game or if this skill/anti-skill is still being considered.  

You have cleared up that the women will own the children and must donate them voluntarily in order for the father to use as lives.  What happens when the mother dies before donating the child.  Does that life (child) automatically goto the father?  Or is this act of donating done at conception so there is no confusion later on?

I can think of a couple of scenario's (based upon the new info) that would be a hoot to be involved in.  Trader of information ie. who is the father and is he getting the life could be worth alot to the right person.  Rival 'house' trying to get back at Character X by killing Character Y who is rumored to be the mother, Hatfield vs. McCoys.  And all this action without stepping outside the boundaries of a town, nice.

And finally no, Ag is not the real name, it's Ed, but I prefer Ag.  Ed is the guy who get's (sometimes) too many e-mails and IM's that have to do with work and always require immediate attention.  Ag is the guy who can forget those things and have some fun.

Strange, maybe. Weird, definitely.  Keeps Ed sane when the workload gets heavy, yes.

[Ben O'Neal]

Ok, Ag it is then :)

Glad I could clear some of that stuff up for you.

I can't respond on the skill/anti-skill concept, because Scott (Wyldkarde) still hasn't seen fit to give us all a list of the skills ;) I know he's had some Real Life happening, but he's working on the Design Doc at the moment. I'm sure he'll be able to answer your question when he returns from the world outside.

You have cleared up that the women will own the children and must donate them voluntarily in order for the father to use as lives. What happens when the mother dies before donating the child. Does that life (child) automatically goto the father? Or is this act of donating done at conception so there is no confusion later on?

When a woman dies her children serve the same purpose as children do for men: lives. So she takes over the life of her chosen child. If she has multiple children, the rest become "orphans". Orphans are essentially NPC children, and are what would happen to the father if he died without owning any children: he would be randomly inserted into a random orphan. The difference between having children and not having children is the difference between having control over the development of all your characters, and being thrown between random characters.

The donating act can be done at any time. Part of a PC's stats is a list of children with info about their statistics and their mother/father. In this menu you can click on a child to change the child's last name, which donates it to whatever player has that last name (last names are tied to player accounts, so only one player can have a given last name, and that player owns all characters with that last name). Of course, once the mother has donated a child to the father, he owns it fully, so she loses control over it.

I can think of a couple of scenario's (based upon the new info) that would be a hoot to be involved in. Trader of information ie. who is the father and is he getting the life could be worth alot to the right person. Rival 'house' trying to get back at Character X by killing Character Y who is rumored to be the mother, Hatfield vs. McCoys. And all this action without stepping outside the boundaries of a town, nice.

Awesome! That's exactly the sort of behavior that we'd love to see players do in the game. It's amazing what sorts of behavior a simple resource mechanic for children can promote.

-Ben

[aganauton]

Ben,

Yes it is very surprising how this child/resource idea has taken a life of it's own.  I liked to fan the fires some more.

One social structure I read about once (in Greg Bears, People of the ...... Series) that I always wanted to work into a game system went like this:  The basic 'family' unit was siblings.  Sisters and brothers remained together thru their adults lives.  This is not to say that incestuous behaviour was the norm, actually if I remember correctly is was punishable by death.  Women would go and find mates, or be found by a mate.  But after conception of a child, the 'biological' father's role essentially ended.  The women returned to her family and the child was raised by her, her sisters and her brothers.  The reasoning was who better to trust than you're own 'blood'.  The role of the biological father became more of an issue as the child grew older and started to look for their place in that society.

The idea needs alot of fleshing out, I agree.  It may promote a matriachal society depending on how it's used.  I can see some interesting possibilites for roleplay in the idea too.

Side note:  If the design group is looking for background information and wants to save some research time, let me know, I've got little projects stashed all over the place and I may be able to save you some time.  Examples:  Herbs and Plants (mainly focused on healing, exotic food, poisons), a neat little lotus speadsheet where I was experimenting with a 'Gene Pool as a function for the Character Stat's', an Game Economic Model (in Excel I believe) that functioned with Supply / Demand, Monetary Exchange Rates and multiple kingdoms.  The Economic Model is half finished but the theory is sound.  I just didn't have the free time to fiddle with it.  There is more so just ask, I may be able to help a little.

- Ag

[F. Scott Banks]

Ag-

Sure, there are dozens of charts for nutrition, soil enrichment, Ph balance for seawater.  Lord knows I don't look forward to calculating the nutrient content of volcanic ash so that I can determine what herbs will grow in the Jungle of Thrain at the base of Mt. Yovu and their subsequent value as medicines, narcotics, or spices.

[F. Scott Banks]

I love talking about kids, but the first question most people ask when reading this "Let's make the perfect game" thread is "how".

It's all well and good to say we're going to do these things, but how?

I've mentioned that the old dice systems fell short when playing a MMORPG.  They're efficient enough for pen-and-paper, but they can't handle all the functions of an MMORPG if you want that MMORPG to shoot for the moon.  After all, how many die rolls are in realistic combat?  Morale, weather, my skill, their skill, their familiarity with my skill, my familiarity with theirs, is the sun in my eyes, does my opponent know the sun is in my eyes, do I know my opponent knows the sun is in my eyes?

Realistically, a single attack could takes hours of rolling (and in some games...does) to see what fails and what succeeds.  What happens when both attacks succeed?  Does my spear in your chest soften the blow of your club to my head?

The problem with using dice in MMORPGs is that players aren't politely taking turns.  I'm not waiting to see if you hit me before I try to hit you.  Hell...if I can help it, I'm trying to get you before you get me and you're doing the same.  The courteous turn-taking of tabletop gaming is impractical to emulate and impossible to enforce and if we tried, players would try to find ways around it at every turn.  The field is littered with games that were brought down by cheaters outmaneuvering the digital dice toss.

That's where spooling comes in.

Spooling is an acronym for Simultaneous Player Operations OnLine.  It would best be described as "community rolling".  Every player "rolls" at the same time because the game runs on a heartbeat.  A turn is taken every six seconds whether you issue a command or not.  During that six seconds, the computer looks at every single command issued and how it interacts with other commands.  This is what allows us to make scenarios where a thief trying to break into a house has his lockpicking disrupted by a pot falling in a nearby house which was caused by a child slamming the door to his room after being ordered to attend a mage guild by his father when he wants to be a rogue like his mother.

What?

Okay...don't think like a GM.  It helps to think like a player.  Imagine a roleplay scenario where the mage in your group is trying to cast a spell during a barfight.  How would you handle rolls for the loud noise, the musician in the band hitting a wrong note because the bard who was singing along shot him because the bartender hit him with a bottle because the bouncer slipped in a puddle of wine that hit the mage in the face only second before which is what started the whole fight in the first place.

And remember, all of these characters are players.  They need their conflicts resolved just as much as the mage who happens to have our attention right now.  You've got a bard with head wound, a musician with a bullet wound, a downed bouncer, and a bartender with a brawl on his hands.

And...you've got six seconds.  These people aren't going to wait all day for you to roll.

So, we spool this turn (and...every turn before or after) and simply take in all the information at once.  All skills modify other skills.  A sword attack is a modified punch with a sword and a slashing motion.  A spell is a modified social interaction (crazy isn't it) with gestures and speech modified by knowledge of arcane magiks and incantations.  So basically, each character is only doing one thing, modified by countless (up to 64 per action per turn...but countless when you consider this happens every tenth of a minute) modifiers that determine degree of success and chance of failure.  Each player's action adds a modifier to the spool that effects the actions of other players.  Getting knocked flat on my back by a beer bottle makes it hard for me to hit with a sword.  How would a human GM resolve the conflicts for all three players?  I'm taking damage from a beer bottle, but evading a sword blow, I'm also falling down and fighting unconsiousness...all at the same time.  There's also a time limit because in six seconds (which is how long the animation will last), we start all over again.

On the next turn, the information is spit out to the players, who see the results of the spool.  On that same turn, the computer is receiving and processing what happens next.

And so on and so forth until everyone goes home to sleep it off.

This is why dice wouldn't work in this type of MMORPG and this is how we achieve those insane scenarios that we rattle off about fighters staring down cavalry charges and thinking not only about the four-hundred pound steeds and armored riders bearing down on them, but the baby their wife is pregnant with, the lack of training they have with the weapon in their hands, their inexpeirence on the battlefield, how heavy their armor is, how hot it is this time of year, windage, the angle of the sun, and whether or not venus is in retrograde.

And that's just for a morale check.

Spooling...soon, all the kids'll be doing it.

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, since I double-posted, I may as well put it to use.

Spooling is an aspect of the enviromental ruleset.  I know I said don't think like a GM, then proceeded to describe in GM terms just to drive home the futility of using the old method on a new genre, but this time I promise to describe it from the player's point of view.

Unless I don't.

The environmental ruleset isn't a stroke of genius, it's just better-suited to a MMORPG.  These games use a client/server system with is similar to a GM/player system.  All the processess happen on the server, and the client is where you manage your game as it relates to you.

However, this system is not enough like the old GM/player interface to justify using the old system.  With a single-player RPG the computer is only being asked to satisfy a single-player's needs.  Dice work fine.  Character-specific and class-specific rules work fine.  It's just me and you baby, so why do we need all those rules.  Why don't you slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll...

Okay...so anyway, applying rules individually to each player is not only cumbersome, but a serious drain on computing power.  However, with an environmental ruleset, all I have to do as the GM/Server is determine what happens and where.  In short, I only worry about the world.  The characters aren't my concern.  If a tree falls in the woods, I'm only concerned about the tree and the resulting sound it makes.  Whether anyone is there to hear it isn't my concern.

As the client/player, I only concern myself with the environment insomuch as it relates to me.  If a tree falls in the woods, I don't care if I'm at the pub with a frothy flagon of ale.  However, if I'm standing under the tree, it's falling is a pressing matter and the client program will resolve it and how it relates to my current (and hopefully continuous) uncrushed state.

So when I said, the server spits out the spool, I didn't mention that the client takes what's relevant and applies it.  Thinking like a GM, you would immediately assume that massive amounts of information are being sent to all the players.  After all, everyone at the table gets everyone else's info.  However, the server doesn't care about the clients beyond speaking in a language they can understand.  The clients are expected to get what relates to them.

It also discourages hacking because once you start talking back to the server in a language it can't understand, you cease to exist and fall into the void.

Server:  Gold coins being produced on their own without the aid of a jeweler, a banker, or a coinpress?  Must be a bug...ignore and stop sending information to that client.

Hacker:  Wha hoppa?

The environment ignores what it sees as a violation of nature's law and silences the disturbance.  Now this isn't the actual security system (there is naturally more to the actual security system), but this is a way to discourage it through game design.  If you do successfully cheat, you'll only succeed in getting deleted.

[Roger]

A single warrior is a good thing, but a woman, capable of making hundreds, is invaluable.

Hundreds?  Are they oviparous?



Cheers,
Roger

[Jeph]

I'm interested in how long it takes a child to mature in game. I'm assuming not 9 months to be born and 16 or so years to reach manhood, in terms of actual play, even though the game is (I think?) supposed to be in real time.

[F. Scott Banks]

lol...actually, there are races that lay clutches of eggs.  The insectoid and reptilian races lay about a dozen to twenty-four eggs at a time.  Those that go unclaimed by "parents" simply become part of the hive, or the pack, and live their lives as computer-controlled badguys.

The orcish races have "litters" so a orcish female, giving birth to ten children at a time, can squeeze out a couple hundred in her lifetime.  She'd be an NPC I'd assume (I don't think anyone wants to play as a breed machine), but she could give birth to a couple hundred in her lifetime.

Oh, and it's not "real-time".  Time passes on a six to one ratio, so a game day will pass within four hours of real time.  Also, as the caleandar was written by an immortal race that were the pregenitors of the elven race in the game, "years" don't hold the same weight as they would for mortals.  Roughly six mortal years pass within the time it takes for a cleandar year to pass.  Also, we cheat out the first few years of growth, condensing childhood, infancy, and adlolescence into a single year.  The teenage years (in this case, year)...when they'd be able to learn the skills that make them worth playing (wielding arcane magiks and learning how to handle a sword), are when their parents would have an active role in their growth.  Even as toddlers, parents can teach their children languages and other social skills that would prove handy in the future.

So no...you're not stuck with some useless kid, waiting for them to grow up so that you can "really" start playing with them.  You start playing with them and developing that new character as soon as it's out of the womb.

Also...a child would grow to adulthood in a couple months.

[aganauton]

Scott,

How in depth do you propose to go with the background systems, or what I understand as ADA's 'environment ruleset'.

I've modeled quite a few ideas I've had in the past using spreadsheets to test theories and what not.  Some of these models were quite involved and quite complicated.  Most of them would be easy to integrate with each other in theory, but in practice would take some time.  I not saying impossible, just time consuming and I pity the person(s) that would have to code something like that.

As a for instance:  You mentioned nutrition.  How many variables do you want to track.  On a simple scale, food could be broken down into fats, carbs, protein and calories.  Simple enough, all a person has to worry about is assigning those values to the food items in the game and done.  Make sure a character eats a proper amount and forget about it.  It only becomes an issue when a PC doesn't get enough food.  Then other 'depravation of food' systems kick in and attributes drop, skill modifiers descrease, and so on, and so on.

Now, if you introduce quality to a food item, there is one more level of complexity to that 'simple' equation.  How is quality affected.  How does the quality of the flour affect the quality of the bread.  Does the skill of the farmer who grew the grain that makes the flour that makes the bread have any beneficial or adverse affect.  Do the soil conditions have anything to do with the quality of the flour, etc. etc.  How does quality affect the 'food value' of that particular food.  Is there more 'ooffphhh' to a better quality loaf of bread than a poor one.  How is it calculated.  How about food spoilage.

Believe me, I not trying to discourage such a system.  Far from it, I'm encouraging adding background complexity.  By introducing the simple concept of "quality of food" to the system, you have introduced game playing implications besides the simple question; Is my character gettting enough food?  All of a sudden, farmers must be skilled at their trade.  Skilled farmers are sought after and become a resource, just like the food being grown.  Fertile land becomes a contentious issue and the subject of conflict.  The acquisition of new fertile land drives development (and adventure).  Hell, one disgruntled player, a bottle of oil and a tinder box could devastate an entire town by burning down fields, or maybe just the fields of that competing character.  Does that orc village over yonder that was just raided retaliate by burning down crops, instead of a frontal assault.  Just think what would happen if a person started adding other levels of complexity to the 'simple nutrition model' or any other environmental rulesets.

I should rephrase the question:

How much depth are you aiming for in the background systems?

I changed the wording of my original question because of an experience I had with one of my models.  I won't go into detail, suffice to say that large spreadsheets and a few too many wobbly pops do not mix, but the more complex a system you design, the more chances you have of introducing a 'butterfly effect' (my apologies to any scientists out there for hi-jacking the term).  In my case, I introduced a small change to my model and it broke, quite literally.  It didn't work any more.  I'm sure if I would have played with the model for a while I could have fixed it (with only a little hair pulling).  But I just didn't think introducing a 'pika-ju' race into the game system had any real merit.

Complex systems get tricky, epecially when all connected together to form the background.  There is a point of dimishing returns, where the effort to research, calculate, design and program (not to mention the draw on computer resource time) an element of the background system may not justify the results in the game.  My drunken pokeman experiment aside, I'm not sure where this point of dimishing returns is, I haven't reached it, yet.  But I'm sure it's there.

Side note:  Scott e-mail with a wish list of background material you might be looking for.  I'm trying to put some time aside to go looking through 'the vaults' and see what's survived and what I can salvage off of old 3 1/2's.

Ag