Synopsis: By introducing partially-autonomous player characters into a game, the fiction of a game world is better maintained. Other game features are made possible by such a character setup. It is acknowledged that the setup could not be introduced into existing games without seriously damaging the existing entertainment in them. It is also acknowledged that many current players wouldn't care for such a setup.
I've been playing every MMO trial that even remotely has any appeal to me. Most recently, I fired up trials for a couple games that I have paid to play: Eve Online and World of Warcraft. The contrast of two such popular games is quite striking. Perhaps because I was crossing such a large experiential chasm that I actually fell into thinking about roleplaying in World of Warcraft.
I have never been a roleplayer. Most people's versions of roleplaying are rather too dramatic for me, like a high school playwright run amok. But because I wanted to try a Paladin (a class that came out after I left), I created an Alliance race character. A human. I was running through the starter quests and was eventually routed to Stormwind City. I thought that Lord of the Rings Online's rendition of Bree was beautiful, but Stormwind City just knocked my socks off.
The last time I played World of Warcraft, I was driven to develop characters that could be useful to my guild. So I tended to be rather business-like in my leveling because the characters weren't of any use until they were 60. So it was time to be efficient. Get these three quests. Finish them off all at once. It saves on running around time. Reserve guildie help for an hour from now for that chain of quests that doesn't solo well. And so on.
Part of that business-like attitude was turning off the ambient music and also doing everything in third person. Not being able to hear or see monsters would just be a pain in my attempts at efficiently rising through the ranks. While just fooling around with the trial, because I was in no hurry, I left the music on. When I got to Stormwind City, I also dropped the view down into first person.
I found myself playing tourist.
I was casually walking along in the city, with the residents walking here and there. Shopkeepers were their usual inactive selves, but just walking into a shop at character eye level changed my attitude about experiencing the game world. I was using the mouse to look around casually, playing tourist, and it was all very nicely done. Good job, Blizzard.
One thing that damaged the experience, however, was the driving habits of the other players. While the city's denizens were calmly walking hither and yon, the player characters were slamming into walls, warping through space, casting garish spells, sitting in the middle of the road, etc. It was all fairly chaotic. It was far better than I have ever seen Orgrimmar, which is built to look chaotic, but I had a bit of a vision while watching the mayhem.
Actuallly, the vision came earlier, when I was shocked to see my character salute a quest-giving NPC after receiving the quest. The point is that it did it all by itself. It was a tiny glimpse of something that I think would really help retain the atmosphere of a game environment - semi-autonomous player characters.
I've commented on this on the MUD-Dev mailing list through the years, and playing tourist in Stormwind City gave me a reminder of how close we're getting to being able to tackle this idea of partial autonomy.
It works like this: you give directions to your character and then it carries them out, but only as far as they are consistent with the fiction of the game. If a game is about roleplaying, then doing crazy illogical things like climbing to the top of the highest building in town and jumping off just to see what kind of a splat you make won't be something that your character will do, no matter how strenuously you insist that it's in keeping with your character's personality.
This can be used for those sorts of things that dungeonmasters and gamemasters used to handle back when everything was done with pen and paper.
Player: "I'm going to approach the demi-god and punch him in the nose"
Dungeonmaster: "No you're not, you're too scared"
This can be applied to combat, where player characters that are crafters have lined up before the gates to defend their city in the face of the coming doom. Coming Doom appears in the form of a big ugly monster and the crafter army breaks and runs. Not because the players said to run, but because the characters said to.
That, instead of training the monster away from town because the crafter happens to have a high run speed. (sigh)
It can be applied to the social context of the game, ensuring that when a lord rides by, everyone, including the player characters, bow in respect. Or, more to the point, that every Tom, Dick and Harry doesn't run out in front of the Lord to emote insults at him. It's kinda hard to implement any backstory if none of the people in the kingdom are willing to abide by the rules of that backstory. Knowing that the guy on the horse is an important person means that players can be thinking about how to get in good with him for various financial and social favors.
It can be applied in other ways as well (spontaneous racial bar fights anyone? character phobias?), but I already know that any achiever worth his levels isn't going to be too interested in this technique. It'll just slow down the process of leveling - which would have been anathema to me when I was trying to get my original World of Warcraft characters on a par with the rest of my guild. I understand the desire to gain levels in a hurry.
A game including this notion of partial autonomy of player characters would be different from the sorts of games that we have today. I won't try to go into the details, but World of Warcraft's beginning game, where levels are fairly meaningless, and characters just casually do things was very close to being ready to deliver on such a game. Get the AI improved dramatically to get the NPCs doing interesting things andthen that same AI can be used to make player characters partly autonomous. It would produce quite an interesting environment for anyone who enjoys playing in an environment that retains its self-consistency.
And I could go play tourist without worrying about the local drivers.
You know you've got veteran burn-out syndrome when you don't even see other players anymore.
I tend to look at the game world as a toy, so I'd hate the sort of system you're talking about because it would limit how I can play with the toy. (In fact, my gaming history suggests that I hate games and love software toys-- my top 2 favorite games ever are the Creatures series (of which 3 was the weakest, IMO) and The Sims 1 & 2, where none of my sims ever hold jobs or do any of the game-like "advancement" things, but rather are my virtual dolls in digital dollhouses to play with.)
Wed Nov 21 2007 8:49AMI on the other hand like how you think. When you play a game like that and you creat your character you in a sence become that character and play as they would in that time, story or situation and you feel like that character, and when you login and start playing you forget the real world and become them. It would make the gaming experience much greater if people reacted as you would think, as you said if some high ranked lord comes strolling down the street in his town you would expect people to stop and pay respects and not try to jump infront of him as it lets the gaming experience down but those thinks cannot be helped as you always get some of them people.
Yea a game is ment to be fun but sometimes its good to have a game that gamers like myself would rather become a part of the game or civilization and play sensibly and respect the game and take up the role as the character would.
if like nescharia said, like in the sims were to take up a job and responsibilities in a gaming world with others just think of having your own role and job and knowing that this game runs beacause of your part in it.
Eddy K
Wed Nov 21 2007 9:37AMneschria: "You know you've got veteran burn-out syndrome when you don't even see other players anymore."
What inspired this comment?
neschria: "I tend to look at the game world as a toy"
As do I. I find that toys are more fun when there are more moving parts to play with. So what I lose in "personal freedom" for my character, I more than make up for in "social dynamics". Instead of having to instigate everything that I experience, the world around my character has a life of its own. It will inspire me to take certain actions to oppose or support, and it will also provide me with entertainment just by observing.
When the moving parts are essentially uncorrelated, with each character doing its own thing, then there is only the most primitive social structure to observe or to be part of.
The political types among us will probably observe that I'm asking for a more of a police state form of a game world instead of the current libertarian or anarchistic form. The Sims does this to an extent by controlling how a character moves. It always goes around furniture, not over it. It behaves in a civilized fashion. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about, only taken farther into observing the fictional social norms. If two races are supposed to hate each other, then the game would enforce that notion.
eddyk22: "It would make the gaming experience much greater if people reacted as you would think"
That's my thinking as well. However, you also talk about how players would take responsible roles in the game world. Granting responsibilities to players is a chancy thing in a game. Responsibilities tend to keep players in a game, even when common sense suggests that they should get back to living their real life. Also, older players tend not to be as interested in in-game responsibilities. We prefer to just go about doing things, without getting sucked into grand plans that require us either to stay around for hours on end or to damage someone's plan.
So while taking on responsibilities is fine as an optional part of gameplay, I dislike the idea of it being mandatory. If you don't see how responsibilities can be mandatory, consider grouping. If you are a key member of a group and the group will fold if you leave, then you have a responsibility. If grouping is mandatory (or essentially so), then you either have to play characters that are never key members of groups (making it harder to get groups) or you have to take on the responsibility of being a key member.
Wed Nov 21 2007 10:57AMWell i think that responibilities of a character or player should only go to a certain extent, were it keeps you in the game knowing that you are part of something and you have your role but if you were to leave then nothing would colapse as there would be ways around it.
Also i can see what you mean about grouping: if a group has five members which all have their roles and someone els wants to join them, its hard to find a role which hasnt been filled and i know its hard trying to join groups if you havent got what they want. But then again thats the point of key roles, if you have a group and every character is the same and they all have the same skills, abilities or whatever then the game becomes boring, But if your group has many different characters and other characters depend on others then your group becomes unique and so are the characters and that defines a good team and knowing that if you leave the group will fall apart and makes that person know that his role is needed and thats what makes him stay in the game. (Sorry kinda off topic lol)
In the gaming world animation of characters and how they move, look and react to things is advancing all the time and as things develope in games the players will have that scence to join in and act like you would think, and with roles and responsibilities the gaming experience would then feel more like your playing a part not just playing with a "toy". Graphics, sound, story line and characters make a game but what makes a good game is the players that are there with you, if you have annoying players then youll find you dont want to play but if theres people that like to play the actuall character in the game and act as the character would makes the game better and more enjoyable.
Eddy
Thu Nov 22 2007 1:20PMMMORPG.com writes:
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