Simulated Sociability
A bunch of the TGC gang has just started playing World of Warcraft together. I played WoW for a few months by myself before starting a new character to play in groups with other TGC contributors. The contrast in my experiences playing solo versus playing in groups got me thinking about how MMORPG developers could offer better incentives for grouping while improving the immersion offered by the game at the same time.
Most of us who play RPGs of any sort aren’t very good at sword combat or casting magic spells in real life. We use the game system to simulate those activities so that we can have experiences that our real-life personal limitations would otherwise deny us.
The short history of MMORPGs and the Internet has taught us that most people aren’t very good at pseudonymously interacting with others. When people can hide their true identities, they very often start behaving in antisocial ways, and we see things like griefing, corpse camping, and just plain rudeness. The result is that finding a reasonable group to quest with in an MMORPG is often not possible. Could we use the game system to simulate certain aspects of desirable group interaction?
Single player CRPGs have given us very limited simulation of group interaction in the past. In Baldur’s Gate and other Infinity Engine games, members of your party could spontaneously converse with each other, and even fight with each other if their alignments differed enough. How could we map this kind of simulated interaction onto the MMORPG space?
A party adventuring together in dangerous situations is going to form powerful bonds, and they’re going to talk about things beyond the quest they’re currently trying to achieve. Party members that share interests are going to talk about those interests, and they will probably learn something in the process. Two adventurers with interests in cooking might exchange recipes. Two miners might see the same mineral vein and discuss techniques for extracting maximum ore from it. Two swordsman may spar in moments of leisure and learn from the shared experience.
You can see where this is going. The game could simulate this exchange of information and experience between players. In order to prevent gaming the system and truly encourage players spending time together in groups, these exchanges should be used sparingly. If two characters adventure together long enough and successfully enough, or perhaps if they spend a significant amount of time together in an inn or city, the game could identify their shared professions and skills, and have them start a conversation.
“I see you’re a chef. It’s been a long time since I spoke with a fellow food lover…”
The conversation could be accompanied by an increase in skill for both parties, or an exchange of recipes, spells, or skills. Put bluntly, the game simulates the camaraderie adventurers might feel, but that we, the users of the MMORPG, are too socially inept to express ourselves. Just as the payouts for the player from simulated combat are experience and greater combat effectiveness, the payouts for the player from simulated sociability are greater effectiveness in professions and skills that are traditionally learned socially.
This is only one way that games could simulate aspects of the social experience. Indeed, the idea that simulation can be used to make up for player deficiency clearly has application outside of social problems. Too often, I think, game designers and developers limit themselves to applying simulation only in those areas, like combat resolution or physics, in which it has traditionally been applied. Simulating “stuff people are bad at” can lead to interesting new game mechanics.
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23. February 2006 at 14:40
The only way this could work is if the AI behind an MMORPG is good, and more often than not, because MMOs are based on the fundamental that you’re supposed to be playing with friends, enemy or NPC AI is more often than not, disgraceful.
Here’s a what if in lieu of such technology: Players employed to play certain characters, ranging from the lowly kobold to a trader NPC, or Onyxia. This isn’t new, like in Asheron’s Call where Turbine employees would often assume the role of Asheron or some other key character. I’d expect some dissent will sure result from existing subs coz it ain’t fair really. But that is the real GM experience.
Unpredictability in managed doses is what we need! The rules should make room for some surprises.
23. February 2006 at 15:01
This is I think a good idea, but as with everything in a MMORPG, players will try to abuse it. For example, they will only let other players with the same skills be with them, so they will eventually trigger “accidentaly” a skill exchange event. This will cause same-player-type guilds to pop up.
I think it’s a good approach, but should be obfuscated, and too complicated for players to try to abuse it. Maybe some randomness could do the trick.
And “skill exchange events” should also occur when players with totally different methods play a long time along each other. For example I usually benefit from discussing with people whose views are a long way away from mine.
But in any case, players will always be rude with each other. They tend to become irresponsible when their identity is obfuscated, like you said. Which is absolutely normal, given that most players are under 18. Teenagers tend to think this “bad guy” attitude is what is shaping a personality. They’re wrong, as they will find later on, but in the meantime they screw around in MMORPGs, ruining game experience for many of us. Nothing major, but nothing much we can do about I’m afraid.
24. February 2006 at 20:56
Well, it’s a hard call to that most players are under the age of 18. Espacially in a game that requires you to pay a monthly fee. What you typically end up with is players in the age ranges of 18-24. But even that is broad and generalized. With the way technology is becoming more accessable, older as well as younger players are being attracted to an MMO such as World of Warcraft.
You’re immature players come from the lack of identity. People act like jerks because there are no repercussions. Since their real-life identity isn’t tied to the virtual identity you can be whatever you want. Most people are nice in real world situations, so they act like jerks in simulated situations.
So far the best result of forcing people into social situations was a game called ShadowBane. I never really played it, but followed it fairly closely. The economy was based around Player Guild run cities. There were up to 10 ranks of each skill, and only Player run cities would ever have the skill trainers for that. To gain access to those trainers, they would have to set their cities as open cities, which would allow all people to come and visit and use all their merchants and everything.
But these cities could also be destroied by rival guilds who would declare war on the controlling guild. It lead to a lot of fighting even trading of cities through peace agreements. There were all sorts of different diplomacy things that happened. The alliance structure was huge, you could pledge to certain guilds, and it would branch out through the different tiers. It was a vast game, but what killed it was buggy game play, and dated graphics.
If you were a jerk people would ban you from their cities, locking you out the high level skill merchants and stunting your characters growth.
5. March 2006 at 21:41
I’ve always found the attraction of an MMORPG, to be stunted by the overlarge number of needlessly irritating people. Monthly fees, and that are the reason I don’t play them. While there will always be people who don’t have to be jerks, Monthly fees will stop being a problem when I have steady income.
But for making characters interact? I’d have to say that rather than mutual learning of the same skill, a more productive method would be exchanging training in one skill for knowledge of another.
A spell caster for example, meets a fighter who specializes in staves. The spell caster is knowledgable in alchemy, and the fighter is in constant need of healing potions. By trading the recipes and skill required to make a potion, for training in defensive use of the staff, both benefit, without the appearence of an arbitrary game rule. This is not to say that the spell caster couldn’t have fought another spell caster, and learned the technique that way, or the fighter have learned from an alchemist, but the simple happen stance of those two meeting brought about the increased knowledge of the pair. Undoubtedly, they would remember each other, if not by name, then by shared experience.
Had one chosen to be a jerk, and withhold the information, he would be remembered by name, and his name would have become known as a complete jerk, whom it wasn’t worth the time to talk to him. Instead, both would be known as decent and companion worthy players.
Of course, I’ve never played an MMORPG, so…