The MMORPG I want to be playing...
Oct. 20th, 2005 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bnewmanhasn't been created in the time since my last post on this topic. Has it?
I promised I would say more about what I have in mind. So here goes.
I want a world to explore that I can help create. I care more about low barriers to participating in world creation than about high production values. But I insist upon a graphical map, because I want to be able to see changes in the world — and places to explore — "on the horizon", as it were, without having to type "look".
I want world-building to take place arbitrarily near everywhere, which leads me to the idea of a stretchable map — as a region becomes developed, the wilderness areas around it expand to ensure a stable overall density (and a scale-free distribution of density).
The various motivations for MMORG involvement have been discussed elsewhere, but I see MMORPG activity itself as falling into several categories:
Gameplay is the interaction of your character with the environment.
Socialization is the interaction of your character with other characters.
Creation is your contribution to the environment.
In most MMORPGs, gameplay is handled programmatically, socialization is basically up to players, and creation is reserved for the game's developers (an item-crafting system doesn't count unless it's completely open-ended). I want all of these to be part of character advancement as mediated by the software. Here's how:
Gameplay is easy. You travel across the map, you complete quests, you are victorious in battle, and as a result you get points, your character advances, enhancing your in-game abilities — same as any other RPG. I would try to avoid making the game about having the strongest character, but the underlying logic is pretty sound.
How do we apply a similar mechanic to socialization and creation? The problem is that the system can't judge social interactions or contributions to the world or story — only other humans can do that. Thus, I would have a Slashcode-like moderation system, with one's "karma" linked to one's ability to influence the world. Want to build a vast dungeon for PCs to crawl? Raise the necessary mana by creating something small-but-nifty, or contributing an element to someone else's scenario, and getting modded up.
I'm not exactly sure how such a system would apply to routine social interaction, but I can see the use of a moderation system to track people's ability to organize groups of people and/or events. Want to organize a tournament? Well, maybe that's content creation, but it's also social engineering, so try organizing a tournament among the guests at a local tavern before you try to organize one for the whole kingdom. There's room in this system for lots of interacting leadership roles.
The expanding world means that population density can also be held stable. Combined with a world where physical distance matters, this would make it possible to actually know the people who are based in the same region of the game-world as you. You will be part of a community just by being from a place — some will stay and help shape and/or govern their (original or adopted) home region, becoming leaders in that community, others will wander in search of adventure, eventually to form or join communities not tied to place.
You get the idea. I could go on, but it's late, and I have a lot to do tomorrow. Anyway, discuss.
I promised I would say more about what I have in mind. So here goes.
I want a world to explore that I can help create. I care more about low barriers to participating in world creation than about high production values. But I insist upon a graphical map, because I want to be able to see changes in the world — and places to explore — "on the horizon", as it were, without having to type "look".
I want world-building to take place arbitrarily near everywhere, which leads me to the idea of a stretchable map — as a region becomes developed, the wilderness areas around it expand to ensure a stable overall density (and a scale-free distribution of density).
The various motivations for MMORG involvement have been discussed elsewhere, but I see MMORPG activity itself as falling into several categories:
Gameplay is the interaction of your character with the environment.
Socialization is the interaction of your character with other characters.
Creation is your contribution to the environment.
In most MMORPGs, gameplay is handled programmatically, socialization is basically up to players, and creation is reserved for the game's developers (an item-crafting system doesn't count unless it's completely open-ended). I want all of these to be part of character advancement as mediated by the software. Here's how:
Gameplay is easy. You travel across the map, you complete quests, you are victorious in battle, and as a result you get points, your character advances, enhancing your in-game abilities — same as any other RPG. I would try to avoid making the game about having the strongest character, but the underlying logic is pretty sound.
How do we apply a similar mechanic to socialization and creation? The problem is that the system can't judge social interactions or contributions to the world or story — only other humans can do that. Thus, I would have a Slashcode-like moderation system, with one's "karma" linked to one's ability to influence the world. Want to build a vast dungeon for PCs to crawl? Raise the necessary mana by creating something small-but-nifty, or contributing an element to someone else's scenario, and getting modded up.
I'm not exactly sure how such a system would apply to routine social interaction, but I can see the use of a moderation system to track people's ability to organize groups of people and/or events. Want to organize a tournament? Well, maybe that's content creation, but it's also social engineering, so try organizing a tournament among the guests at a local tavern before you try to organize one for the whole kingdom. There's room in this system for lots of interacting leadership roles.
The expanding world means that population density can also be held stable. Combined with a world where physical distance matters, this would make it possible to actually know the people who are based in the same region of the game-world as you. You will be part of a community just by being from a place — some will stay and help shape and/or govern their (original or adopted) home region, becoming leaders in that community, others will wander in search of adventure, eventually to form or join communities not tied to place.
You get the idea. I could go on, but it's late, and I have a lot to do tomorrow. Anyway, discuss.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 06:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 01:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 03:11 pm (UTC)Keep in mind that (especially at their height), M*'s were enourmously varible -- from the might-as-well-be-a-modern-mmorpg D&D clones to the kind of social chatting game that Lambda is to things closer (but usually still text) to what you are describing, with a combination between the two. I believe some games did include multiple descriptions as well -- you could decide what any given location's immediate, right-at-an-exit, and somehwere-in-the-distance descriptions were, and could thus have your descriptions appear in other locations that were close enough.
Obviously, there are some significant advantages to using actual graphical frameworks -- for starters, while things are a little harder to code, they're a lot easier to use and see -- but still, this is not exaclty a new idea.
I've seen various attempts at combining MOO like flexibility and coding with levels and advancement, but I don't -think- I've seen an egoboo-like system as you describe; would be fairly interesting.
Why not try to build it? The frankenstien's monster approach would be to take a M* core (maybe MOO). and weld it onto a 3D engine (Quake, maybe?), but I'm sure there's a more elegant approach, and IIRC, there -have- been some attempts at graphical M*'s before the modern MMORPG age, though I don't know if any of them are any good.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-21 12:38 am (UTC)