How Not to Create a World

Yesterday I was playing on my favorite surivival minecraft server, and a new player to the server got killed twice in a row by another player. His kill logs popped up first, and then the complaining started.

"Why didn't I see the PKer on dynmap?? He isn't on the map." "Because he is a donator, he can hide himself from the map" "That's not fair he is giving $$ to be more powerful" "If you don't think its fair then you should donate too and he won't be able to find you to kill you" "He is contibuting to the server, he deserves it"

About 3-4 people on the server put in their 2 cents, telling the new player to deal with it and that donations "are to help the server". I was the only person who told him that I agree, but put a disclaimer to him that this server isn't nearly as bad as many others. Which was true, I know because I spent weeks looking for a minecraft server that fits all my personal specifications, and I found myself right back where I started. A good half of the servers I visited during those weeks have donator incentives that make them god-like (sometimes literally), admin powers, and unlimited items/blocks.

The next day I visited the forum of my minecraft server to see that the same newbie complaining about donators being able to make themselves invisible on the minimap had posted 2 threads asking to be unbanned. One thread was created after the other one was locked; it was locked after he mentioned donator incentives being unfair. Apparently, he had been 'whining' too much. Sorta true, I thought to myself... When I was online the day before he was going on about it quite a bit more than I would... And he must have continued doing that because I was not there when he was banned.

So why does this bother me so much? Maybe it is because I am a little jaded, having spent 5-10 years casually programming websites and multiplayer video games myself from scratch yet making only $25 or so a month despite all this work, which I put back into advertising the game, whereas a minecraft server has more advertising outlets like server listings. I see my minecraft server raking in $50 every few days and it makes me cringe. Maybe I feel bad for the original creator of minecraft, who is seeing none of the money (like many, this server is a cracked server, meaning you can play it with or without a purchased copy of minecraft) while some random guy is 'raking it in'. Maybe it is because I have run servers before for first person shooters, and I run servers for my own multiplayer games now, and I know that a lot of the time these are being hosted off of our home computers and are costing us $0 but making us gods in our own little world. I see people playing on this minecraft server and tip-toeing around the owner and moderators, kissing up to them, etc and think to myself, they don't really deserve this. The work they have put in does not deserve the reward they have been given (not that this is unusual in the U.S.). I wonder if maybe I should open my own server (I know it takes a lot less time than some of the players say it does), but it would be difficult being so bogged down with grad school, so I don't open one yet. I am far beyond getting thrills out of being 'powerful' in a game community anyways, so I would just be doing it for the $$ and enjoyment of playing with some new software. And I keep playing on this server, and I donate myself because I need those perks to enjoy the game to its fullest, but I feel a tinge of guilt knowing that I am contributing to something twisted. That leads me here to rant about it because we all know that if I posted this on my servers community forum that it would be ridiculed and locked.

I am not arguing against a free-to-play structure, but against original games being exploited for money by players hosting multiplayer servers. This is only worsened by the pay-to-win attitude that comes a long with many of these servers, which I am also strongly against.

Lss

Immersion

I want to draw attention to recent article by Raph Koster, known for his work in MMORPG's and MUD's as lead designer and his 'theory of fun'. His work as a game designer has helped mold the first 20 years of online RPG's, and hopefully we will see more of his influence in the future.

The article is about immersion, what it is, and how developers have lost video games immersion in exchange for a wider audience. You can read the first part of the article here and the second part here.

"Games didn’t start out immersive. Nobody was getting sucked into the world of Mancala or the intricate world building of Go. Oh, people could be mesmerized, certainly, or in a state of flow whilst playing. But they were not immersed in the sense of being transported to another world. For that we had books. ... "Things that we once considered essential to games drift in and out of fashion. And I think immersion is one of those. "Immersion does not make a lot of sense in a mobile, interruptible world. It comes from spending hours at something. An the fact is that as games go mainstream, they are played in small bites far more often than they are played in long solo sessions. The market adapts — this reaches more people, so the budgets divert, the publishers’ attention diverts, the developers’ creative attention diverts."

I thought that the article was incredibly insightful and and chilling. It really does describe the current climate of MMOs and the way that things have changed from making immersible virtual worlds into making quick cash. It probably started in 2002 and 2003, when MEO was cancelled to be replaced by the linear LOTRO and World of Warcraft was released. And of course in 2004 when SWG was changed to be more mainstream.

The people in charge of these game companies used to be gamers, and once contributed to industry with interesting, immersive games. Now they squabble to follow mainstream market trends and copy previous successes to a T.

Heres something interesting that reveals some of Raph's feelings about the direction his industry has gone in:

I mourn. I mourn the gradual loss of deep immersion and the trappings of geekery that I love. I see the ways in which the worlds I once dove into headlong have become incredibly expensive endeavors, movies-with-button-presses far more invested in telling me their story, rather than letting me tell my own.

I truly feel sorry for Raph. Our industry deserves better, and he deserves better. He didn't write that because he wants pity, he wrote it because he is truely passionate about virtual worlds and it is difficult for someone like that to participate in today's gaming climate professionally. I have always been a game designer at heart and now I am very glad that I am going to optometry school instead of attempting to participate more heavily in the game industry. I often wonder why it has been so long since Raph has worked on a AAA mmorpg; he could probably get a decent job as a designer; he has a ton of experience. And I think I understand now that he is unwilling to sell out the way other MUD/game designers have.

I hope that WORG can someday be seen as a glimmer of hope in what has become a mechanical and calculating industry.

Lss

Gamification

I have been reading an interesting set of powerpoint slides by Richard Bartle, who you may have heard of because he is the person who came up with the 4 types of gamers... Achievers, socializers, explorers, and killers. In his presentation he talks about what he calls 'Gamification'. Anything can be gamified by adding rewards to it, even if it is not intrinsically enjoyable. We see this done to get kids to do their homework, etc, and to draw RPGs out so the game lasts longer. Check out the article here.

It starts to get good a little before halfway through. Here is quote that you might need to read some of the power point before you get completely:

"Gamification is basically bribery... You reward someone for doing something that you want them to do. It can be regular or irregular. Regularity: “pull this handle 20 times and we’ll give you £1”. Examples of this is your everyday employment: Vanilla gamification. Irregularity: “pull this handle and there’s a 5% chance of winNing £1”. This is like gambling, which is advanced gamification. This is starting to look like a variable ratio reinforcement schedule, a psychological topic of study. You might know it as Operant conditioning, which is very interesting if you have stuff to sell. "Game designers studiously avoid operant conditioning (for extrinsic rewards). It’s not really fun- fun is intrinsic, not extrinsic. It’s an admission of failure. It means the gameplay is too weak on its own. Also it’s only usable on naive players, and once they’ve learned the pattern, they avoid it. Finally, it’s immoral!"

I think that this is interesting at the least.... And very real in todays MMO climate. In other parts of the industry as well: With all the games coming out for phones, etc, operant conditioning is at its peak. I am sure a lot of you have played these games that are on phones these days, and they are not like the games that came out on the early game systems in the 90's, despite the controls being simple and graphics being 2D. Many of these top selling games have been molded into mathmatical perfection. Simplistic, quick, and with all those bells and whistles to peak your excitement at all the right times.

And we see this in MMOs today, big time. If you read the slide I put here on the right, it basically is a prediction by Bartle that casual gamers will eventually catch on to the conditioning they are being put through by these games, and become bored with them. That would mean the $$ that is to be made from using over-gamification would no longer be useful on the masses (just children, I suppose).

Lets take World of Warcraft for example; just because a lot of people play warcraft does not mean it is a good game. Firstly,warcraft'smarketing was astronomical. But aside from that,the vast majority ofwarcraftplayers have never encountered a game with so much gamification- reward systems based on operant psychological conditioning, and therefore they fall prey to it easily. One reason why they might not migrate to another warcraft-like game is because they are starting to see through the mundane meaningless conditioning system that warcraftused on them and they are unwilling to fall prey to another game in that same way.

I think that he is being a little too optimistic. But I am focusing 99% on intrinsic value for my game anyways. I want to create game play that makes activities in the game valuable on their own and according to each player.

Lss