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Some misc linksJuly 7th, 2008 |
- Oh look, another 3d engine in Flash.
- EA and Hasbro have gotten around to launching a legit Scrabble on Facebook. But Scrabulous appears undaunted.
- Once in a long ago, I half-heartedly suggested to Gordon Walton that the way to fix the SWG Correspondents program was to have them be player-elected. We never pursued it; the concern was always that they would feel that they would have the right to dictate policy and development priorities, thus taking away control from the dev team. Today, we see that EVE’s council gets covered in the New York Times. As a curiosity, for now — can the day when equivalent deliberations generate mainstream news be far behind?
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Yes, someone did create one. Interesting? It was interesting in the sense that someone tried to build a RPG in SL. I think the odds of a WoW killer coming out of it are kind of slim.
I’d argue that it is less resource intensive than building massive scripted event expansions like The Mines of Moria or Wrath of the Lich Whatever. If you think about how we collect local, regional and worldly information in real life, it’s easy to see that tools could be placed into the hands of the players. It’s the embodiement of Web2.0 in an MMO that Raph keeps talking about. Your designers have to essentially remove scripted-set-in-stone-event-outcomes from their toolbox and become permanent participants in the the very programs you gushed about above.
The idea would not be to control the information flow in the world. That’s not possible and you’ll quickly run into a situation where you do not have enough resources to keep up. The idea is to come up with a general world arching story line that you would like to follow and then figure out how to let the players impact that story line and possibly even derail it for a new one. It’s different than the controlled walled off theme park rides we play today but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is harder.
The example of this, I’ve always used is the idea of open sea, boat travel. Boat travel requires certain things to happen in order to become a reality. Somehow, somewhere, someone needs to figure out how to build a boat. Someone else needs to discover wind power. Someone else celestial navigation… etc., etc. The designer would build regional story events surrounding these discoveries. The tools to report them to the players would be put into the hands of the players. Perhaps add a sellable paper object that can hold writing. (news papers) Even better, allow the paper object with the writing on it to be duplicated and sold at in-game businesses. (news stands) Perhaps create a mini-game where the discoverer can keep the information secure for a while making them valuable to a player run city or business trying to build boats. The only thing the designer would need to do after building the individual regional events is create a way for those events to be combined into a larger event that enables ship building and sailing in the game thus opening content that was patched in months ago.
All the things mentioned are build once without serious maintenance into the future. All the systems above could be generalized so that the same code could be used to introduce steam power, gun powder or any other game changing event. In the end you have a story telling engine that provides designers with data from the world’s information for them to use in designing the next “era” of the world. Era’s are a direct result of the previous era the player’s ushered in. Designers in this world help keep the story moving and add color and global events to the story line but largely get their inspiration from the greater story that the players created and journaled themselves.
There’s a whole host of things you’ll want to be able to do right after you implement this type of system but they are mostly extensions to existing tools the design team already has. With a bit more planning and development even the art pipeline and scripting tools could be put into the hands of players as well. (See UO’s architect tool) Eventually, the designer is responsible for designing the world and it’s basic fundamental laws and not scripted events. The real meat of the world’s history and culture comes from the players with the designers serving as a safety net to ensure the gameplay doesn’t become stale. They are there to stir the pot so to speak when the progress of the world stagnates.
Very good points there. And yeah Anarchy Online did have that, but not so much these days.
In the first couple of years a few truly “first ever” moments happen.
1. Anarchy Online animated series (they are still on the AO site somewhere), full pretty good voice acting, 3D animation. Things happening in the animated episodes also was mirrored to some extent in the game.
(sadly short due to production cost vs turn around, it was to slow in it’s current model) At the end of a episode you can see a bomb ticking down (a terrorist group called the Dust Brigade is behind it) with a ominous “Dust To Dust” recording playing it detonates, boom a city block blows up. (was a high tech nano bomb)
When players logged in the next day, a new patch had to be applied and…In a certain city (biggest one on the planet) near a transit location an entire apartment complex was just gone, rubble and pieces all over. Various “news” sources spoke of the horror, and some time later (and many patches) the mess was eventually cleaned up and a new building was in it’s place. (real estate is real estate I guess)
2. Various other things have been done too, like citizens (players) of one city demonstrating and collecting funds to clean the water channels of the city which was toxic (you took damage and it looked really bad too), a city council (GM’s and ARK’s I think it was) listened at a “meeting” that was called, accepted the funds, and some time later (i.e. several patches later) the water channels was cleaned, the water was clear and you no longer took damage.
Those are two of the larger roleplay happenings I can remember from the top of my head. Oh and a new expansion is in the works too that will add even more areas to the outlier zones on the planet, and rumors has it that the Dust brigade is up to something out there.
But truly high impact things like those mentioned above is sadly farther from each other than on e would like. I’m not sure there is that many MMO’s able to rapidly keep up with morphing persistent worlds quickly enough for a proper pacing when it comes to huge events like that.
I’m pretty sure that a mix of a traditional MMO(RPG) and something like Second Life but with heavy story interaction like those examples above would truly be the perfect balance, and make even the giant WoW be scared.
But I can’t even begin to imagine the resources and planning and development behind such a beast of wonder though. But I truly hope somebody will pull that off one of these days. I doubt it’s Funcom’s Age of Conan. What about Funcom’s The Secret World? (oh I truly hope so, it’s real world setting is just screaming for perfect immersion, interaction and real world product placement and services interaction) Or maybe Funcom won’t be able to pioneer something like that, I sure hope not.
I heard rumors that EvE is planning the ability to dock and actually enter stations/bars and interact with other players in some way? Long overdue I say, I never understood why they did not have that from day one. It seems so obvious it was needed really. Imagine SWG without a “bar” that would royally suck right?
Has anyone created a RPG system or “area” in Second Life yet? That should be interesting right?
@Roger:
Everything you said is great, but… There’s something missing that only Eve Online seems to have these days and that is a sense of history. Their single server setup may be a big factor in generating a sense of history. A big robot chased down players in a very fun event within the world of AO. Fun but big deal. The players will remember it if they participated in it. Did Funcom add that epic event to the world’s lore? Did the event add new skills or open up new technologies? What if the player’s failed to secure the specimens? Would this have resulted in new monsters added to the world? Extinct species? Could I as a new player, log on to the game and read about this particular event without having to hear it from the participants? Eventually, the original participants will be gone and so will the story that left with them no matter how fondly the participants remember the time.
When I helped run MozartMUD, one of the things we would do as we developed new areas, was modify existing areas by adding references to current players and admins. Years later, someone could log on and do a “help areas” and later in their time on the game find references and stuff in game about the people that developed those areas. They could stumble across the site of an event and read about the key participants. In other words, the lore was changed to account for the epic event or some important individual’s accomplishment. The greatest WoW guilds and leaders will never have their feats recognized in game and their stories will die the second everyone no longer remembers what they were about and what they accomplished. WoW hemorages a tremendous amount of potential lore daily while retaining only their own boring sterilized lore as part of their theme park design philosophy.
The sense of history in MozartMUD always made the GM run events “feel” more real. Players knew something special was happening and that it meant changes to the world. The AC beta event and the WoW AQ event were the last in game events I can remember that had this historical feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I like what some of these worlds are doing with player run cities and player driven content. I also think it’s only a matter of time before a game like WoW exists where the content is primarily player driven. The key to it all is to release the history and lore of the world to the players. World history, regional history and local history needs to be impacted by what the players do. Unfortunately, SWG can’t have the dark side winning. LotRO can’t have the armies of Mordor win. WoW can’t allow the dwarves to become Horde or the Undead to become Alliance. Their IPs get in the way of ever becoming that game.(Can you tell I hate ready made IP) In that sense, your GM run event is a significantly more advanced form of lipstick on the pig but it’s still meaningless content meant to be consumed by the players and largely forgotten about until the next event.
ps The only exception to the loathing I have for IP based worlds is one of Star Trek. That IP has shown that major shifts in storylines are possible with the Klingons eventually becoming the Federation’s allies. Strangely, that openness is exactly why the IP of Star Trek is probably the best remaining IP to not be released as an MMO.
True, true.
I actually was part of AO’s volunteer support for a while. I left later to dedicate my free time to a player run ingame radio station. GridStream Productions, you might have heard of them/us, we pioneered a lot of the MMORPG radio stuff, some competitors tried to compete and later moved to other MMO’s like SWG with varying sucess.
But once the UO volunteers suing etc. started everyone in AO’s volunteer program pretty much shaked their heads in disbelief. I think those volunteers in UO and EQ hurt the games more by what they did.
As to players or volunteers running storylines to spice things up are concerned, I think it’s brilliant.
I’ve never had as much fun as when I helped out ARK Events department (I was in ARK OPS (petition and support harassment etc.) and later ARK Community Relations) do some events.
In one particular story there was a secret lab, the players was tasked to secure the specimens (kill them basically). Sounds easy enough.
But here’s the kicker. This event was run by both Funcom’s GM’s and ARK’s Events dep. So ARK’s was basically all the skittering spider running around. (character morphed by the GM’s)
The instanced underground lab was claustrophobic lots of nooks and crannies for a spider to hide or attack from. In the first wave half the players was taken out. (and came back again after having recovered) eventually they killed all us spiders.
Next they had to locate and destroy some special prototype robots (the GM’s morphed a few of us ARK’s again), small cute ones, knee high only. Running around very fast. Giving a nice chase scene to it all. And took us out eventually. (very high runspeed stats on us hehe)
And then the coolest part of it all. I got the chance to be a “BOSS” mob, a giant version of one of those robots. I never had so much fun (and the players had a ton of adrenaline I’m sure) when this huge mechanical beast came thundering through doors it could barely fit through.
I got bombarded by everything the players was carrying and able to fire or cast. I took out several of them, but in the end I had to bite the dust.
(Technically I could have wiped the floor with them but, they where supposed to “barely” make it through and beat me. A bit hard to make that balance well at times in the heat of the moment).
And the players loved it obviously. After all players involved reported back to the quest giver (a GM in a morphed character for the occasion) gave them a lot of special loot. erm rewards for the good work.
Several such events has been held since and still are from time to time.
)
The main complaint I can recall is that some players was miffed that they “missed” the chance to take part in some of these events. (wrong time of day, or didn’t know, different dimension, etc. the usual complaints really
These events are very hard to run and organize, luckily Funcom added and gave lots of the needed tools to the GM’s (Funcom employees) and with the help of ARK are able to make it all happen.
I wonder how many other MMO’s out there do things like this? SWG sort of as Kerri mentioned. How about EQ? or WoW ? WoW must surely do something similar? (never played WoW) How about Eve ?
I truly hope many do as it really makes the world of an MMO come alive.
(not even the best NPC or “mob” ai can match a human “actor” this way)
Then again, ARK may be unique compared to other volunteer support programs. When I left ARK numbered in the hundreds, and there are probably just as many now. Now that’s one helluva big “actor pool”. Funcom rewards it’s ARK’s rather well too.
I’m just saying that you need quite some luck, a dedicate big group of players, good relations with the volunteers and the company, and some really good toolsets for the GM’s and higner ranking volunteer staff to make things work. Which might be why not so many MMO’s do this kind of stuff?
As I don’t really do much MMO jumping, what other MMO’s do have storyevents? EvE, Wow, EQ, SWG, anyone know?
I’ve quite enjoyed the storyteller system being added to SW:G which, to some degree, puts developer quest tools in the hands of players to set up their own customized content in a way that does not grief non-participants too greatly. Mobs don’t attack if you aren’t invited and participating, walls and other placable constructs cannot be used to trap a person in (although it would be nice if they were collision-enabled for those who do opt-in to the story). The only downside being the IG credits required to purchase the tokens can get very expensive very quickly (i.e. time sink required for player-generated content…not a good thing, imo). NPC AI is lacking and it takes a player basically dedicating themselves to the role of narrator/director which means they often cannot participate at the same time. On the overall, though, steps in directions such as these keep me hopeful that projects embracing such philosophies as a core rather than an additional afterthought may come to be.
The volunteer program thing is a long tradition, of course. UO (Seers) and EQ (Guides) both had them, until legal issues caused them to close — the AOL volunteer lawsuit. And the older closed service worlds used to do it all the time. Simutronics still uses a contractor sort of system.
Not to put down Anarchy Online, as I’m sure they have done a fine job, but EVE also has a volunteer program with many wings and diverse responsibilities. The Council of Stellar Management is not a volunteer program though and in fact volunteer program members are barred from election. Just thought I’d clarify that point.
Honestly, on the whole I’ve been rather impressed with the CSM, but we have yet to see just how seriously CCP plans on taking them.
Amusing to read about the SWG Correspondents program and EVE’s council,
as Funcom’s Anarchy Online MMORPG has had a volunteer support program for over 7 years now, since the very start. It is highly successful, they provide support, have a heavy tool set, provide events, story extension and role play, in-character journalists and much more. And serves well as a case study on how to do it “right”.
For historical reasons, Scrabble is US only. Europe rights sit with Mattel, IIRC.
That’s got to be a limiter for at least a few FB users.
What was that point you made about COUNTRIES being obsolete?
Another Flash 3D engine example: http://ecodazoo.com