of course if a game tanks, never ships or is worse- “just not cool”, moving on first is the way to do it in the industry;) “any industry”

as to proks posts….
GAMES DONT NEED DEMOCRACY… DEMOCRACIES NEED TO PROPERLY EDUCATE THEIR POPULACES ABOUT GAMES.

everything that has gone on in the “video game” industry since it finally “outsold” the film industry last decade, has been proof that as a culture, and as a what we have left as a democracy, has failed to do that.

the insanity of gov.2.0 and gamers conferences and the puesdo science of virtuality and media at places even like stanford, has been atrocious.

dont forget, a ‘faux” stanford research institute, gave us ESP and uri geller in the 70s… and still today, 40 years later. after Nancy Reagans Horoscopes we still have, talking to dead people and ghost hunting shows that use “technology” to prove spirits…….

the game god as author/director… experience/storyteller is what theyre role should be…. if they want to run the real world, then run for president…. for better or worse we had the avatar of ronald reagan do that 30 years ago… even without the “meta” of todays current delusions of what affects what.:)

You know, I’m reading all this…and it all seems so…quaint, somehow. Very insular. Very inside baseball. I’m reading it not because I care about the inside baseball of Everquest (which I never played, although I read the piece about it in the New Yorker years ago and marvelled at the red hair dye thing). No, I’m reading it because I’m mining it for clues to understand game-god behaviour in general, and Raph’s theories, which are usually applicable outside any given game situation.

Yes, everything a game god does matters and affects community, but you know something, Raph? Communities develop ways and means outside of the technology’s exigencies, outside of the gameplay, and outside of the game god’s agenda. And that’s all a good thing. And yet, and yet…they can never break out of the magic circle.

The reason I am reading this is to try to understand, once again, why geek culture always has to prevail in these situations, with all its awful features, and why, well, it always has to be a game, and a game with such nastiness. Even given that yeah, it’s a game, if you know what I mean.

Even something like a classic meme — “the altruistic geek who helps someone in a game even though he got nothing for it” — is one of those heroic fictions you all tell yourselves about what you are doing, but those just a few steps outside your magic circle can see it differently: the geek performing some ritualistic bonding exercise that will make others like him; the geek playing good Samaritan because it will make others think he is altruistic and store up cred for drawn-down later; the geek setting the stage to always and everywhere be seen as selfless and giving — when in fact it’s an act rooted in vanity. You bless it benignly as merely some act that is the lubricant of lovingkindness; sorry, not persuaded.

In my years in TSO and Second Life, I’ve really come to loathe that persona — the long-suffering newbie helper; the cleaner-up of junk prims from sandboxes; the tidiers of the JIRAs, etc. etc. They are all a collossal, supreme bore because no one can ever question their behaviour or exercise oversight over their powers — and that’s deliberate, and that’s the problem. They are always in fact encroaching on the freedoms of others, using the “helper” persona to lord it over them.

And I’m thinking more about gamification now as I contemplate the arrival of Rod Humble at SL, who used to be at Everquest and TSO. And at first I thought that was a good thing, because I thought he might appreciate the customers more and realize he’s got a certain responsibility to entertain them — and manage the community — a role one felt Philip Rosedale, who first made Second Life merely as a sidebar, a testing ground for his virtual-reality goggles, didn’t really enjoy.

But to my horror, the first thing your friend Rod does at Second Life is take out the community voting capacity on the JIRA (the feature and bug tracker). Awful, awful, awful. That had been in place for six years. It had literally hundreds of thousands of entries and comments and explanations of votes. Tens of thousands of votes chronicling the life of the community in extraordinary ways. It’s a vast trove of user-generated content. And it is about to be deprecated. The function will be frozen and no more votes will be allowed.

This feature had been there since time immemorial, first on the Features Voter System and then on the JIRA (a worse system in many ways). Of course, in justifying this atrocity, the geek squad used the same arguments they use in RL against representative democracy (which makes them as a class so dangerous to the republic in real life): “it doesn’t represent everyone” (pretty devious, eh? Have less democracy because there isn’t enough lol); “it isn’t effective” (Lindens didn’t pay attention to it); “It’s gamed” (sigh); “it produces unfair results” (only the 100 that show up who care decide, but then, the tyranny of who shows up is something geeks specialize in); “It has no no vote or granularity” (also devious because that was deliberate, and originated in the JIRA framers themselves); “we can substitute it with ‘watch’ which shows more interest” (lame) and so on.

All awful, all Orwellian, all unacceptable. Quite a few people have protested, but they have nothing to protest *with* except the JIRA itself and a few other venues, blogs, some inworld discussions, etc.

A substantial claque on the forums and blogs (as always) is taking that usual muscular geek approach that says “Come now. This is a private company. You can’t have a democracy in a corporation, it wouldn’t work, you couldn’t get the product out the door, etc.” Of course, as an *expression of popular will* that helps guide decisions and at least points out gaps between game-god intention and community, it’s invaluable. But those that like power align themselves with it by siding with the company, and use those sorts of smug put-downs. The “it doesn’t work to make decisions” argument is also trotted out — as if a good reason to have less democracy is that the democracy you had didn’t work. Say, ask the Egyptians in September if they like that idea.

I lay this out because it’s a really good example of something a game-god does (and most games have no voting; SL isn’t a game) with great implications — and yet with such rigid ideology and such narrow conceptions of what is good or bad for people.

I don’t know anything about Alex Clarke’s question, and I suppose my plaintive plea about voting here and Rod Humble is in the same “off topic” category, but the bottom line is: game gods just have too much power over people online. There needs to be more democracy. The internal Oprichina types in every community who back up the game-god’s undemocratic impulses are always the reason it fails.

I don’t expect you to answer this. But I want you to *know* about it. I want you to hear *what a bad thing it is*.

Alex… I wouldn’t presume to speak for Raph, but considering that he works for Playdom, I have my doubts that you’re going to get much beyond what’s in the press release.

Seen in the context of a certain trend of cherry-picking talent from the MMO field, it was probably the right offer at the right time. Disney/Playdom’s got deep pockets and deep IP. Now they’ve got Raph and Gordon… and quite a few others. If we want to idly speculate, let’s speculate about what’s behind THAT curtain.

In other words… I don’t think Gordon’s running away. I think he’s running towards…. something. And nobody’s going to tell us what the carrot is just yet.

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len: “On the other hand, it may be safe to finally admit that Second Life is by and large, a massive failure.”

In what sense? True, user numbers finally plateued this year after a long series of boneheaded missteps by Linden Lab management, but SL has a huge, diverse, deeply invested and creatively empowered community of users. That’s kept it humming along even while the executives were running around clueless waving their hands helplessly in the air.

I can think of a thousand ways in which Linden Lab has disappointed entire sectors of the user base. But I can’t think of any objective criteria by which the whole of Second Life can be fairly judged anything but a major success and historical milestone.

Michael: “It’s fairly established as common knowledge that the main reason most players are in MMOs is because their friends are. It’s also that these games are extremely boring if you’re not playing with others, one way or another.”

When Nick Yee examined motivations for play in the Daedalus project, the top rated motivations were progress, immersion and exploration. Socialization placed fourth, friendship sixth (out of about a dozen motivators).

I’m a strong advocate for better social design… but it’s got to be kept in perspective of a strong game design that accomodates a wide range of playstyles (including solo play).

len: That may be the goal of the design, Yukon.

Hostile, insular cliques? Somebody needs to lock down the MMO rights for the Paranoia RPG. The computer is your friend…

Paul – from a sample of one, I would say social ties cause people to stay in games The games i have stuck around in (primarily DAoC, WoW and LotRO) have been the ones I’ve played for years on end. Games I tried but never joined a guild I tire of and move on from within 3-6 months. And when I have ended up leaving my guild in DAoC and WoW, in both cases I’ve left the game as well.

As I said, sample size of one – but that’s definitely causation, not correlation.

It’s a feedback loop, Paul. Players who enjoy the social game are drawn to and remain with games that have a strong social design. In return, they’ll press the developers for more and better social content.

I’m not sure which big MMO you’re referring to, but there are several that force you to group up or guild up for a significant amount of their content. I think some designers (and many players) are frustrated with the MMO soloist, not comprehending why anybody would play an MMO without teaming up with other players, and they try to force soloists into groups by ‘gating’ the content in various ways.

This strikes me as fundamentally wrong-headed. If you try to force soloists to group, they’ll just find another game that allows them to play on their own terms. But if you support and empower social nodes (independent of adventuring content), many of those same soloists will be drawn in like iron filings to a magnet.

I adventure solo. I like setting my own pace, exploring, and experimenting with sub-optimal class/race/skill combinations (gnome berserker!) These tendencies do not endear me to goal-focused raid groups or PvP clans. But they’re perfectly compatible with social RP groups that form from shared interests and diverse perspectives, not out of necessity or competitive advantage.

I know it’s possible to balance it out. Raph already did it. I’m still waiting for the rest of the industry to catch up.

One of the tricks for building community has definitely got to be having a game that promotes inclusiveness towards new members, rather than exclusiveness. For example – playing DAoC, the server community I was in was positively welcoming towards new players because they were reibnforcements for the ongoing realm war. There was no great immediate cost to having a lower levelled, under-geared player come along to the frontiers, and a definite long-tertm benefit if he stuck around as a comrade in arms. In contrast, PotBS with its limit of 25 per side in instanced port battles resulted in a community that discouraged the great unwashed from taking part from the get-go. Anyone who was a lower level in a smaller ship who won the lottery for a place in the upcoming battle was strongly encouraged to pass in favour of one of the big PvP guns… much less reason to stick around if you’re being shut out of one of the game’s biggest selling points.

I think we’re in general agreement that the design is of critical importance in fostering community.

The act of forming and maintaining a community is the responsibility of the players, but a game design with strong social elements is far more likely to attract and keep the social leaders that are the nucleus of lasting player communities.

And I think it’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean mandatory group content or open PvP to force people together. Grouping to deal with a threat or exploit an opportunity CAN lead to deeper community, but only if the non-combat social elements are also in place. Otherwise, you get random PUGs and raiding guilds whose social interaction is limited to bitching, bragging and begging.

Raph, when are you going to design an MMO again? You seem to be one of the few people out there who actually gets what an MMO should be about, ie: using the fact it has a massive community at its core. You look at what the Bioware guys are doing with TOR, for example, and while it will most likely be a fun game, it’s pretty much designed to be a single-player experience by default, unless you go looking for the community. That, to me, is absurd. Yet people are out there, day after day, thinking the smart thing to do is gather a massive audience… then design a game that doesn’t involve a massive audience. What a weird gaming community the MMO community truly is.

@Raph: You are right, it just seemed your post was implying something there. Still not clear if you are taking a stance or just throwing things out there, though I’d say the latter. I believe community ties used to be a good predictor of retention, but for the reason I pointed out earlier that is a failing standard to measure retention. If I bring all my friends to the game, me and my friends can also go somewhere else. Whereas, when I befriend people in the game, whom I can only interact with in the game (time zones, language, location, etc), then that definitely makes it less likely that I will leave. I guess that was all I meant to imply. Apologies I did not understand your statement the first time.

I think there’s a danger that the player community can become insular, dogmatic, resistant to change and hostile to outsiders. That’s a problem for a designer trying to keep the game fresh and up-to-date to appeal to new players.

One value of systems and incentives that put new players in contact with grizzled veterans is that they benefit both retention and recruitment. New blood keeps old enclaves from stagnating and decaying; old blood helps keep new players from feeling overwhelmed and isolated (a distinct danger in games with a decade or more of systems and content additions).

I agree that not only CAN you do both, you HAVE to do both.

I think a good/bad community is absolutely a quantifiable thing, but requires a true survey of what’s going on in the community. For example, are your players in need of groups?

I’ve got to stop you right there and ask whether groups are a good or bad thing, because you seem to be assuming they are… whereas I wonder what number you’re assigning to them as a quantifier of community quality.

I mean, say you’re looking at groups and you notice people aren’t grouping up anymore… but there’s a lot more time spent idle in dense populations with a lot of chatting coming out of there. Is that better or worse? Why?

There are two broad categories that most activities in MMOs and virtual worlds fall into: create or destroy. Community building is social architecture — an inherently creative act.

We’ve got excellent incentive systems for destruction — loot, badges, experience, advancement.

Our incentives for creation are lagging. A creative person can make a great deal of gold (or real money, in systems like Second Life), but creatives usually view money as a tool to support more creation, not as a reward in and of itself.

Effective rewards for creation are feedback, accolades, press, access to special tools and materials, challenges… heck, basically anything that would make your art department perk up and start cranking out deliverables ahead of schedule.

UO gave the Golden Brew and Golden Brew Players some unique decorations and functional items, a Lord British Award or two, a few turns in the Community Spotlight, and a general feeling that we were unique, important, valuable contributors to the game world.

What did they get in return? Free volunteer content creation, of a type that they never thought of, and players that are still playing and paying for a game that (let’s face it) was technologically dated even at launch.

Coming up in a couple weeks: The Golden Brew Players’ production of “Twelfth Night”. Want creative community builders in your game world for years to come? Feed us.

But that doesn’t necessarily follow, does it Raph? Retention doesn’t equal money, the number of active subscriptions at any given time equals money.

Retention is just one variable in a multivariable equation. You could very much have a successful system wherein you have no real elements that drive retention, and your churn rate was quite crazy in comparison to other games, but where you more than make up for that with a truly ridiculous acquisition rate and a massive playerbase.

Retention is an important thing sure, and it probably deserves more weight than most of the other things you need to worry about, but there are edge cases where it doesn’t matter so much, and you certainly can’t do a direct comparison between games. Especially if it turns out that there’s a trade off between designing for retention and designing for acquisition.

Heh! I was poking Tobold with a stick there. Didn’t expect the “ouch” to pop up over here.

Presumably most of the levers to be pulled to create communities and the advantages derived from having those communities were established in MUDs, long before MMOs. The lessons learned there were, no doubt, incorporated in the design of EQ, given that it apparently follows established MUD design closely. (I never played MUDs so I only know what I’ve read).

Will community in the established MMO sense continue to be of primary importance in keeping players playing? If it was not losing touch with their online friends that kept players logging in to MMOs, will they still feel that need when they are all linked up on Facebook anyway? If the content of MMOs is increasingly designed either to be played solo or in groups assigned automatically by the game (Dungeon Finder, Battlegrounds, Public Quests), will players ever form a community in the first place?

Guilds do seem to be almost the last remaining mechanism that gives players both a way to get to know each other and a reason to want to do so. Is that enough? If the glue dries out, will the whole machine fall apart?

Yep, I was writing about how the EQ2 design crew were and weren’t fostering community in 2005, and again in 2008