May 2003
- NetGames 2003: CFParticipation Sugih Jamin
- MUD codebases Chris Saik
- MUD codebases Ammon Lauritzen
- MUD codebases Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- MUD codebases Linder Support
- MUD codebases J C Lawrence
- Flow of messages sanxion sanxion
- Flow of messages Ammon Lauritzen
- Flow of messages Ben Chambers
- Flow of messages Travis Casey
- Flow of messages Brian Lindahl
- Flow of messages Ben Chambers
- Flow of messages Brian Lindahl
- Flow of messages sanxion sanxion
- Flow of messages Brian Lindahl
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Jason Slaughter
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Matt Mihaly
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Ryan Arthur
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Crosbie Fitch
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. William
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Byron Ellacott
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Evan Cortens
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. J C Lawrence
- UDP vs TCP for MUD/MMORPG project. Amanda Walker
- Customization in games, as a design tool / gameplay element ceo
- Warrior Challenge on PBS Madrona Tree
- Warrior Challenge on PBS Edward Glowacki
- Warrior Challenge on PBS Travis Casey
- Warrior Challenge on PBS Michael Chui
- MudDev FAQ - part 2 Marian Griffith
- MudDev FAQ - part 2 Mats Lidstrom
- MudDev FAQ - part 2 J C Lawrence
- MudDev FAQ - part 2 J C Lawrence
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive Talanithus HTML
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive Michael Chui
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive David Kennerly
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive Michael Chui
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive Talanithus HTML
- Storytelling in a PSW from a Player's Persepctive J C Lawrence
- relevance of paper RPGs (was D& D vs. MMORPG "complexity") Travis Casey
- WAP MUD GAME DEVELOP Richard Ruan
- WAP MUD GAME DEVELOP Edouard Kock
- D&D and MMORPGs Michael Tresca
- D&D and MMORPGs Sean Kelly
- D&D and MMORPGs shren
- D&D and MMORPGs Threshold RPG
- D&D and MMORPGs Taylor
- D&D and MMORPGs Chris Holko
- D&D and MMORPGs Daniel James
- D&D and MMORPGs Peter Tyson
- D&D and MMORPGs Jason Murdick
- D&D and MMORPGs Michael Tresca
- D&D and MMORPGs Michael Tresca
- Database vs. Disk Tom
- Database vs. Disk Sean Kelly
- Database vs. Disk Ben Garney
- Database vs. Disk Adam Dray
- Database vs. Disk Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Database vs. Disk Brian Lindahl
- Database vs. Disk Chris Holko
- Database vs. Disk Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Database vs. Disk Weston Fryatt
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Byron Ellacott
- Database vs. Disk Dave Rickey
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Bruce Mitchener
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Bruce Mitchener
- Database vs. Disk Jason Gauthier
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Nicolai Hansen
- Database vs. Disk Zach Collins {Siege}
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Zach Collins {Siege}
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Kwon Ekstrom
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk John A. Bertoglio
- Database vs. Disk corrine_123@hotmail.com
- Database vs. Disk Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Database vs. Disk J C Lawrence
- Database vs. Disk Peter "Pietro" Rossmann
- Database vs. Disk Marc Bowden
- Database vs. Disk Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Database vs. Disk Sulka Haro
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Jason Slaughter
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Edward Glowacki
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. J C Lawrence
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Bruce Mitchener
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Edward Glowacki
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. J C Lawrence
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Bruce Mitchener
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. Christopher Allen
- Thoughts on a simplified multiplayer game. ghfdh fcgdfgdfg
- ADMIN: Untoward unsubscriptions J C Lawrence
- Bringing out the barbaric in each of us David Kennerly
Hello MUD-Dev,
There's an excerpt from the new book "Developing Online Games, An
Insider's Guide" at Gamasutra.com:
Managing An Online Game Post-Launch
By Jessica Mulligan
and Bridgette Patrovsky
Gamasutra
May 21, 2003
<http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030521/mulligan_01.shtml>
It had some common sense... or should-be common sense, if that makes
any sense. I appreciated page 2, "Managing the Expectations of the
Players" the most.
I'm probably not the target audience. To me, most of all that was a
given. But a few questions came to mind after reading it. The rest
of the book might answer it, but I don't know that yet.
It's nice to consider three groups of players, the good, the
average, and the bad. Jessica used the terms: Citizens, Tribesmen,
and Barbarians. Here's a question to consider: What specific
techniques convert average players into bad players? Or--to use her
terms--tribesmen into barbarians? We've encountered bad apples,
rotten to the core. But what about the borderline cases? She
already assented that it was a spectrum and not neat categories.
Perhaps it would be useful to imagine a bell curve or other
distribution curve with the horizontal axis from left extreme: bad,
to center of the bell: average, to right extreme: good. At any one
snapshot in time, there might be a given distribution, and each
point under the curve represents a real player (or fraction of a
player in cases of multiple characters and accounts).
Ms. Mulligan gave advice on how to deal with each fuzzy category
that she defined: barbarian, tribesman, and citizen. The advice for
barbarian was to get reroute or get rid of them. It's good advice.
Having considered this for a few years though, I think a further
question is worth researching: How does the game's design and
service policies transform borderline average players into bad
players.
For example, we've debated up and down and left and right about
various forms of PvP. Since it's a really easy example, I'll use
it. If a game doesn't want players to kill each other it can simply
turn it off. We manage that. Two presentations at MDC were
examples of how to manage PvP. Neither was freeform PvP. Almost
nowhere in the commercially successful world is. Freeform PvP is an
example of how the game design changes player behavior from good to
average or average to bad.
What are advanced ways the design can preclude or rehabilitate the
enjoyable cohabitation of players? If there are any reusable
methods, they would be profitable. As Jessica wrote, the citizens
are the gems of the game. Wouldn't be nice if you could transmute a
few players?
In my experience, I haven't succeeded in changing many or preventing
much of human behavior in the game. However, it wasn't negligible
and it wasn't inconsistent. Distinct systems and balances of
systems seemed to create more griefing or extinguish some griefing
without apparently damaging the other delicacies of the social
playscape.
Yesterday, Daniel James and I talked a little bit about design's
influence on player behavior. Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates
(www.puzzlepirates.com) does an elegant job of precluding some nasty
behavior. It has PvP without (at least in this ideal, alpha
environment) harassment that can follow it.
Some simple cases can also be traffic control. If one area is
overpopulated, then players can frustrated and release their anger
on the fellow players. I can remember this in The Kingdom of the
Winds and Dark Ages. In an early time in The Kingdom of the Winds,
one could physically block some critical passages. In an entirely
unintended sense, that player had been given the tools to harass the
rest of population that needed to pass through. This happened on a
pirate ship in the game during the first year of US service in 1998.
I could most easily fix this by widening the passage. That required
no code changes.
By doing so, it was as if there were less bad people in the game. I
don't really believe there were, but there was less bad behavior.
And for the scope of most games, that's good enough.
I'm not attempting to sanitize the world. Some forms of conflict
are fun. But most user-complaints are not about those forms.
They're often about what most of agree is grief, at least in the
mind of the reporter. It's interesting that players can and do make
that distinction. They accept some forms of conflict and rarely
report it, while others forms they report. One is called acceptable
play. The other is called cheating or abuse. In my experience, if
the rules are clear enough and the interaction sculpted to
automatically enforce most of the rules without precluding
entertaining acceptable play, the players enforce the policies among
themselves.
In some sense, even "role-playing" falls into the boat. A number of
text MUDs and a few graphic MUDs (Underlight, Dark Ages: Online
Roleplaying, ... others?) have had varying degrees of policies that
actively enforced role-playing. Some of us have mentioned here that
enforcing this requires fascism. That's interesting. That the
enforcement of the rule itself becomes an avenue for spawning
barbarians, or bringing out the barbaric in each of us.
So what might bring out the angelic in each of us? What techniques
of online game design and service assist in turning bad players into
average players, or at least in dampening grief behavior? And what
techniques assist in turning average players into good players?
On a personal scale, I know that setting a good example helps and
that a bit turn the other cheek can also help. Not too much, but
enough. Tit-for-tat. Axelrod described that well in The Evolution
of Cooperation. And Matt Ridley trumped it and broadened it in The
Origins of Virtue.
But on the scale that we developers often see. We can't script
little nice guys to influence each person. In our role, that we
play every day of development, there might be some more techniques
to rehabilitate play behavior. That old Chinese proverb, if you
have a year, plant rice, if you have a decade, plant a tree, if you
have a century, educate the people. We've grown up on decades of
good intentions gone bad. Now, as designers, what specific
techniques actually work for online game players?
There's also been some posts here and there about designing with the
metaphor of a DisneyLand(tm), in that the user experience is
carefully controlled. I don't think "Disney Land" is quite the apt
metaphor, since there's no PvP in Disney Land. But I appreciate the
metaphor of a theme park. Up to the metaphor and down to the bits:
Does anyone else have a story to share?
David - Horizons Valerio Santinelli
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Talanithus HTML
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Brian Lindahl
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Michael Chui
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Marian Griffith
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Paul Schwanz
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution J C Lawrence
- RP, MMORPGs, and their Evolution Matt Mihaly
- Account retention (was: D& D vs. MMORPG "complexity") Byron Ellacott
- Object-Oriented Databases John A. Bertoglio
- Object-Oriented Databases Weston Fryatt
- Object-Oriented Databases Travis Nixon
- Object-Oriented Databases Bruce Mitchener
- Object-Oriented Databases John A. Bertoglio
- Object-Oriented Databases Jeff Bachtel
- Object-Oriented Databases Sean Kelly
- TECH: Application-level branch prediction? ceo
- DID vs. MORAG "complexity" Jeff Cole
- DID vs. MORAG "complexity" Dave Rickey
- DID vs. MORAG "complexity" Matt Mihaly
- Objects Ben Chambers
- Scripting languages Jason Murdick
- Scripting languages Brian Hook
- Scripting languages Jason Gauthier
- Scripting languages Sanvean
- Scripting languages Jason Murdick
- Scripting languages Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- Scripting languages Ling Lo
- Scripting languages Jay Carlson
- Scripting languages Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- Scripting languages Lars Duening
- Scripting languages Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- Scripting languages Lars Duening
- Scripting languages Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Scripting languages Lars Duening
- Scripting languages justice@softhome.net
- Scripting languages MIKE MacMartin
- Scripting languages Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Scripting languages Bruce Mitchener
- Scripting languages Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Scripting languages Dr. Cat
- Scripting languages Jay Carlson
- Scripting languages David H. Loeser Jr.
- Scripting languages Shu-yu Guo
- Scripting languages Lars Duening
- Scripting languages David H. Loeser Jr.
- Scripting languages criscal@gmx.de
- Scripting languages eric
- Scripting languages Smith, David {Lynchburg}
- Scripting languages John Buehler
- Scripting languages Mike Shaver
- Scripting languages sanxion sanxion
- Scripting languages Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- Scripting languages Mike Shaver
- Scripting languages sanxion sanxion
- Scripting languages Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- When marketroids attack! Tess Snider
- Moo mailing list issue _DESPARATE FOR HELP! Ms Leigh Canny
- Moo mailing list issue _DESPARATE FOR HELP! David Clifton
- When Player Communities Rebel / Fanbois Gone Rogue vladimir cole
- When Player Communities Rebel / Fanbois Gone Rogue Andrew Barratt {MIS}
- NWN player modules (was: D&D and MMORPGs) Lars Duening
- NWN player modules (was: D&D and MMORPGs) Jonathan Grant
- Simpsons player types Matt Mihaly
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Thomas Sullivan
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Sasha Hart
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Kristen Koster
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Marc Bowden
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Kristen Koster
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Thomas Sullivan
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Owen Matt
- Dealing with cloned NPCs John Buehler
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Owen Matt
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Thomas Sullivan
- Dealing with cloned NPCs Vincent Archer
- The Laws of the Virtual Worlds Tamzen Cannoy