Course

Just FYI some of the pics can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeckulous/sets/72157603464196225/

Interesting learning points in 482.

1) Designing for Social Play (Multiplay)
This is a general concept that I took from the class. From the beginning Patricia explained her philosophy: (Rephrased:) that single-player games are a bit of an aberration. Games are really games when they are between people. The games we had to play, including Puzzle Pirates and (especially) Sissy Fight demonstrate how a simple ruleset and guidelines for social interaction can create very complex emergent gameplay.

2) Richard Bartle's Player Types (Reading)
As we entered into the realm of the MMO (where I wish we had spent more time), we saw the opposite: how very complex rules can create simple, categorizable play: Achieving, Exploring, Socialising, Killing. I don't know whether Bartle's types are outdated-- they can probably be expanded on today-- but his matrices for gameplay and player types are important in understanding how to design an MMO Environment (or any game [environment], for that matter).

3) SNA and CNT (Lecture - Michael Steele)
This and Community Management together help my understanding not only of designing for social play, but sociality in itself. This is important from a marketing perspective, from an anthropologist's perspective, and infinitely more ways. I learned key concepts like Pareto Principle, Dunbar Limits, (Disney's Principle). Polarization, 4.8 degrees of separation. I learned about key figures like Chardin and Tufte, Monge and Fulk, and key terms like nodes, out-degree and in-degree, dyadic, tryadic, clustering, and social fabric (density.) I would be happy to have been tested on this to learn it more soundly.

It was a good experience. I reiterate I wish I had learned more about the technical aspects of an MMO (I don't even know much about LANs or Internet Connectivity on the whole), and the production of an MMO. Our one ARG project was very satisfying, though I recommend that if it is reused in later classes, the teams be chosen on the first day of class, the fiction be decided on first and foremost (by the second or third week of class), and more examples of puzzles be offered. I am glad to have made so many connections, I know I will be seeing Patricia and perhaps Michael again, and I was happy to work with my classmates (including the graduate students.)

What you learn in class is always different than what's being taught. Everybody brings to the table a different background, so some of what's being taught may not necessarily be new learning for every student.

With that in mind, 3 things that I learned in MMO Class:

1. Data mining isn't just a neat idea with MMO's, it's a vital measure. Data mining your players is what lets you know how healthy your MMO world is. It's also not enough to just collect the data - because you will get reams of it - you have to be able to analyze it usefully.

2. Keep your high capacity node players happy. If they're not happy, they go away, and your MMO's network of players falls apart. It'd be like if Google disappeared from the internet.

3. The slightest change can have a big effect on an MMO world. It's good to keep this in mind when trying to influence the behaviors of players. Carrots and sticks don't need to be obvious for them to work.

At the end of the semester, it is worth reflecting on what a class taught. So, here are a few things I learned in this class:

1. MMO management requires social managers who are incredibly patient. I had no idea that there were so many people dedicated to monitoring the virtual space and forums, working to make it a better place to be. I also learned about whitelists and blacklists. I had been unaware of the technology required to restrict conversations for "safety."

2. There are many arenas for producers to work in the industry, such as middleware companies. Our producer guest speaker works just as hard as producers at developers and seems to enjoy his job. I'm interested in production, so it was helpful to hear of other potential employers.

3. Always take advantage of opportunities to take embarrassing photos of colleagues. You never know what presentation may need an interesting visual aid.

Jeffrey Kaplan, the lead game designer of content on World of Warcraft spoke at Anthony Borquez's Videogame Production class (ITP 280) at USC. I got there a few minutes early and found out that Anthony's class is an excellent survey of industry trends, curated and delivered with respect to the students' time and priorities. Tonight he happened to highlight the features and business news of Club Penguin and Webkinz. I highly recommend ITP 280* interested in entering the industry.

It turned out that Jeffrey was a USC alumnus. Jeffrey got his BA in Creative Writing from USC in 1995, and MFA in Creative Writing from NYU in 1998. He actually applied to the cinema writing department and was rejected. After working for a few years at movie studios he decided he'd had enough of the personalities and poor treatment he'd encountered.

At Blizzard, though, Jeffrey doesn't write stories. In fact, he defers story decisions to the creative director. And it was not his writing that helped prepare him for content design at Blizzard. It was not the understanding of fiction and creative writing; it was iteration, and "getting owned" on criticism from others, without being able to talk back. The corporate tree of designers at Blizzard is:

• President of Blizzard
  
  • VP of Design [Rob Pardo]
    
    • Lead system designer: Class designer, technical game designer, tem designer; tradeskill designer.
      
    • Lead content designer [Jeffrey]: lead level designer, lead encounter desinger, lead quest designer, lead world events designer. Much more staff on content than systems. 7 level designers.
      
    
    
  
  

Successful massively multiplayer online design

He glossed over the evolution of the MMO, which I won't belabor here. Like most westerners, he didn't acknowledge the early asian MMOs in the 1990s, such as Kingdom of the Winds (1996).

He did touch on the obvious criteria for a successful MMO. They are very expensive, because there is product development and then on top of that service. It is daunting to compete not just with a game, but the time commitment for all its expansions.

My favorite line of his, was "Every game would have been brilliant but for time." So true. I personally hear it (and have lived it) from amateurs and professionals alike that their chief enemy is time. He makes a design principle out of this later.

He said an MMO needs a great intellectual property, which was problematic, given the criticism of Star Wars Galaxies. He noted the intellectual property needs to admit a universe that is immersive and expandable.

The company needs experience with MMOs, which Blizzard did not have when they started. Blizzard recruited people from MMOs. For three years he played EverQuest, out of which he logged 297 days of play, or about 6 and a half hours a day for 3 years. Jeffrey Kaplan was guild leader of third largest guild in EverQuest. That was his entry into the game industry. Blizzard hired him as associate game designer.

The designers need to understand human psychology, sociology, and philosophy behind design. They need especially to understand how persons and groups behave when anonymous.

Like the foundation of any good videogame, there must be a core vision and key features. Spend time on the critical features.

Game Developer post-mortem offers insight into development including the arduous working conditions. Jeff crunched for 9 months; 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, 84+ hours a week (which, if you don't like, you might want to drop out now). It wasn't due to an evil producer. Game designers passionately work extra hours and weekends to keep their content from being cut.

A common mistake of competitors is to focus on making the content last. Instead, make content fun to repeat. Jeff recommends Team Fortress 2 beta; it has 4 maps, but they are fun. Relatedly, grouping should not be forced. Let the solo players and introverts play alone.

A common mistake for MMOs is to believe that shipping is the end of development. If a game is a ship, a small single player game might be SS Minnow from Gilligan's Island. MMO is like an aircraft carrier that stays in service. Shipping is not the end.

Polish is key. That seems to be a Blizzard mantra. And play your own game.

Deliver on the fantasy. Blizzard was panicked about Star Wars Galaxies, the competitor to World of Warcraft. Instead of light sabers and stormtroopers, there was dancing and hairdressing.

Avoid ant farm syndrome. Don't play god. Don't make an ant farm. Social experiment is not the goal of the game. A lot of designers stop playing games when they start making games, because they are playing with the players. That is fun for the designer, not the player.

Sid Meier's son came by Blizzard for a tour. Jeff applied Sid Meier's often-quoted mantra to example games:

• Fun for the computer: SimCity
  
• Fun for the designer: Star Wars Galaxies hid the Jedi system, which was fun for the first player to find. A brilliant WoW encounter designer was working on raid bosses; and has a spell pattern that goes off and hits everyone in 360 degree arc. While the designer saw its elegance, a player only sees it's an area of effect.
  
• Fun for the player: Guitar Hero.
  

Post-mortem on EverQuest

EverQuest was the predecessor to World of Warcraft. THE GOOD: Great world. Deep story. Attention to detail. Evolved from MUDs. EverQuest was polished. Classes are interdependent. The ultimate carrot on a stick: see someone wearing an item you want and you go for it.

THE BAD: No solo advancement. Since groups are critical; class balance is critical and vulnerable. Needs polish. Bugs still exist. Traveling between zones, you just run and your screen freezes and double line of chat.

Punishes too much. One night and one death can set you back more than the whole night. Tradeskill designer at World of Warcraft stopped EverQuest because he combined without feedback and all items disappeared. Death, spellbook, out of combat regeneration. Jeff got to 15 in WOW in an hour, but in EverQuest, it took 5 minutes to regenerate health.

Too steady. After playing 3 years, Jeff had still backstab on his bar.

Spoiler sites were required to get to the cool content.

Too clunky. Alt-tab and instant start were not available.

Good game design

In a great game, no one notices the game design. Halo 3 had a challenging scarab battle. It also had excellent checkpoint and save system; and matchmaking. Why browse servers when matchmaking can be automated for less technical players who don't care about the details. World of Warcraft restricts options, not gives more options.

Make the interface and gameplay intuitive.

Great game design is not "The One Amazing Idea". It is thousands of little decisions each of which is executed well.

Provide choice and tradeoff.

Balance and tune.

Even in an experimental game, there should be a control. That is, not everything can or should be innovative. Find something familiar.

Suggestions when designing

Select a specific problem to solve.

Less is more. (I wish he said more.)

Prototype. Jeff does not like documents. Even at World of Warcraft, all 30 in the room may think the idea rocks. But when it is put into the game, it may still suck.

Iterate.

Listen. When feedback is given, don't defend. At Blizzard (as well as other companies), they're fond of saying to defensive designers: "Are we supposed to ship you with every box?"

Process feedback. Jeff wanted to draw attention to items. Players gave feedback that they don't want their eye drawn. But the exclamation marks if they were not there over the head of the NPCs, would have also received this criticism. Therefore, criticism need not be taken as a literal directive, only as indication that is something, somewhere is out of kilter. A designer has to understand the game well enough to bypass the literal content of the comment.

Be critical of other games and most importantly of your own game. Bioshock plasmids were too limited; they could have exposed and exploited that cool feature.

Polish!

Play many games in many genres. World of Warcraft borrowed basin from Battlefield 1942.

Wear many hats of the player population. Wear the hardcore hat. Wear the casual hat. If you'rer not one, listen to one and understand them. Be aware of the kind of player you are. Jeff is not hardcore; he plays 20 hours a week.

The game should be accessible. Team Fortress 2 took 8.5 years to ship. First version was for hardcore gamers but it wasn't more fun. Second version was broadened and was more fun without missing anything. Many parts of gameplay were obvious from first look.

Trailer for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion emphasizes wondrous lanscape places and monsters. Amazing places and monsters. The voice over promises sacrifice and the Death Knight hero class. It rattles off seige weapons, hairstyles, items, Northend, items, level cap lifted to 80. It ends on mysterious shot of Lich King.

Jeff admires these games:

• Chess, because it is easy to learn, and hard to master.
  
• Zork was great. Only text. That's how great the design was.
  
• Ultima II, III, IV
  
• Quake: Brilliant circular motion and deathmatch level design.
  
• Counterstrike is ultimate hardcore game. This was a mod to Half-Life, as was Team Fortress.
  
• Half-Life 1 and 2. Team Fortress 2.
  
• EverQuest.
  
• StarCraft: Perfectly balanced 3 asymmetrical factions.
  
• Guitar Hero.
  
• Civilization IV. Ultimate "Oh I'll just play one more turn and go to bed... 4 hours later."
  
• Animal Crossing: Ultimate collecting game. Have to play every day. Crossover bettween Animal Crossing and EverQuest would sell well.
  

MMO is different from single-player design. Designer cannot control player. Designer does not know where the player is. There is a much wider range of population density. Design space for maximum to no player population.

There is a wide range of players, who want mutually exclusive prestige. Everybody wants to be the hero. In single player they can be, together they can't. Player interaction is great; but interacting with jerks sucks.

Knowledge spreads quickly in MMO. One could look at spoiler site in single-player. But in MMO, a spoiler could be spat out while playing the MMO.

MMO grows and evolves. There is no end. Half-Life 2 has a conclusion. MMO is not going to entertain you to the end of time, but there is no clear end. It can be like a bad relationship.

One gets to ask: To instance or not to instance.

Design for World of Warcraft

Know the genre. Know the game. Blizzard used to hire broadly, but now only hires experts on WoW; lest players dance circles. Become intimate with the gameplay.
Blizzard designs for the hardcore that are accessible. WoW was the first casual MMO.

Plan on too much content; then prioritize best. Iterate and polish.

Content flow is a network diagram of the nodal areas in a zone, such as 5 person dungeon; 25 person raid, exterior zone; PvP. This is diagram connects areas into a simple schematic network. He did this in Visio. Clear division of content is required, so that nodes can be edited or cut. More in design than will ship (Psst, don't tell the developers that). Others can go to patch.

Dungeon design

Progress. Pace boss. Vary points of interest. Mix up pulls.

Let everyone in party experience it. Make every class shine. Give every class a cool role.

Show off skill of expert players. Put in easter eggs. Put in cheats that are okay. THat will satisfy many players.

Dungeon design sequence:

Concept. Content flow. Network of major locations in a zone, coded by content and use.

Layout in 2D. Lead level designer designs in Illustrator. He can make the zone in 2 days. Whereas the 3D assets would take several months of many artists. Each only takes a minute to delete.

3D Blockout in 3DS Max, which is tested in game. Camera tests and avatar tests. Test with smallest and largest avatars. Test with minimum and maximum camera zoom.

Playtest.

Balance. Balance is in the eyes of the player. It doesn't have to be balanced; the average player just has to feel like it is balanced. Totally balanced PvP means losing half the time. Losing half the time is not necessarily fun.

Feedback. The community is good at identifying problems. The community is bad at designing games and generating workable solutions. The community disagrees tremendously but does not recognize its disagreements. The community, though, is always right. Jeff checks out the guild websites, hardcore and casual, to see how they are reacting to the content.

Lastly, what brought Jeffrey to USC was to promote university relations. Paid 8-week summer internships are offered. Contact Choua Her.

Some of the tips were obvious and shallow (everyone already knows polish is important, but "polish" does not indicate what to polish or how to polish). Yet the talk itself had its own gems. Polished or not, the details (when provided) in the Jeffrey's lecture not only justified, but overcame and tarnished the foundation of a detraction I'd read last year.

An excellent companion to Jeffrey Kaplan's talk is Rob Pardo's keynote, VP of design at Blizzard.

* After ITP 280, I'd also recommend Designing & Producing Video Games ITP 391.

In 2004, I posted to the MUD-Dev list on Bartle Types. This week, I see a rash of posts on USC's Interactive blog using Bartle Types to analyze game design (Andrew Corpuz, Mike Stein, Katrina Johnson). So I thought I'd throw a Joker into the deck to mix it up. Here's the original post, converted to HTML:

I have had a curiosity with Bartle types that led to an arcane opinion on player psychology. I failed overcome the laziness, so have not disproven my faulty opinion. Certainly not enough to study psychology. Instead, maybe I can just find a psychologist to beat it out of my head with much less work.

My curiosity began with the title: "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs". These, of course, are four suits of cards. These four suits of playing cards were derived from the four suits of the Tarot deck. Correspondences being:

The Tarot deck was, among many things, a lexicon of medieval alchemy. These alchemists studied how to transform a leaden personality into a golden personality. That is, how to adjust the four elements in the persona, or the three alchemical essences of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury, in order to change their motivation and improve character. Turn lead into gold, or as Foucault might call it, the technologies of the self.

Some alchemy included a theory of personal relationships, in which the ancient four elements were ascribed correspondences to personality types. These alchemical elementary personalities are:

There is also a correspondence from the elements to the Greek Gods, which the Greeks believed were origins of mortal personality. A Greek might say Apollo speaks through me, etc.

Which gives the correspondence to personality as:

Much of their utility comes in seeing how various elements interact, as tendencies for social and/or sexual chemistry. These were encoded into the Tarot deck, which gives us three columns of correspondences:

Carl Jung studied alchemy. From them he refined some proposals of personality attitudes and functions. From Jung, Myers-Briggs based the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which retains some correspondences from alchemical elements:

Keirsey designated four temperaments of the sixteen in MBTI. These corresponsences continue:

By knowing the origin and the original meaning of the tarot to the suit of a playing card, one may further correspond the tarot to the MBTI:

Rearranging suits to alchemical personality thus:

This then is not a far cry from a correspondence between Bartle types and personalities:

So, this would imply the following correspondences:

A few years ago, I asked Erwin Andreasen about this correspondence (MUD-Dev-L/2001Q3/msg00794). He tabulated several results from an informal quiz on a Bartle Quotient, which he kindly posted. Aggregating these four temperaments and doing correspondences yields:

Normalizing from the total in each Myers-Briggs Type, we see the modal correspondences are:

The correspondence suggests isomorphism, except for the NT temperament, Rationals. All but one match, and the one that does not is the least statistically significant, it is a difference of 1%. This shows bias in my opinion, the self-selected respondents, or the mapping of the questions. Probably my opinion.

A couple other interesting third conjecture comes to mind. That is that being online, which is dominated by NT in this test (46% !), which has a tendency for intellectual domination, could express this through cleverness online, which the test might detect any form of domination as killer tendency. Another is that some players may have a tendency to embody a separate online personality than offline. And another conjecture is that killers have more fun (Amy Jo Kim).

The conclusion of this weird belief, is my tendency to substitute (NT, SJ, NF, SP) instead of (E, A, S, K), since I'm more familiar with its use, history, and the relationships between MBTI personalities. Of course, any stone, with enough stock, can be turned into soup. I'm just pitching one more pebble in.

All that was a long-winding road to get to an answer of the question "wherefor in-game artists?": Therefore, a player could create art to entertain, dominate, trade, or provoke.

That's all in theory. In practice, I'm not sure what the distribution of artist personalities are in a computer-mediated community. I haven't encountered evidence to disprove the opinion, but haven't encountered evidence to prove it either. In my limited personal experience as editor of a library of player art and literature, I felt that various artists were doing it for different reasons and that their art, or literature, was intended to have these different effects: entertainment, domination, trade, provoke.

-- Ethan, September 2004

(INTP, SEA)

As for the XEODesign Analysis, I think it was well-written. It is helpful for anybody who is new to the study of games, especially in the list of references and their prescribed list of emotional responses. In fact, there are three foreign terms included in this list, from three different languages, which may have apt English equivalents, but have entered into the vernacular for game studies: fiero (triumphing over difficulty – Italian), naches/kvell (pride over a child’s/mentee’s achievments – Yiddish) and schadenfreude (gloat over misfortune of a rival – German.)

The XEODesign study wants to explore ways games enhance emotion without using cutscenes. I think they excluded cutscenes because of a difference between cutscenes and games— essentially, film and games. There is an implicit understanding that films and games will invoke different responses in different ways. (I constantly refer to this comparison because I am unsure about games’ position relative to film. I discussed this in last week’s Mechanic vs. Theme, as well.)

If there were a Venn Diagram categorizing emotions for films, and games, I wonder what emotions would be elicited by both film and games. And would this be a simplistic way of understanding their shared properties—because wouldn’t they be elicited in different ways? I suggest Fiero is experienced by both players and movie-goers. Fiero is experienced directly by the player, after completing a difficult task, the outcome of which was never certain. Fiero is also experienced by the movie-goer, but indirectly, on behalf of a character on screen, who finally triumphs in a conflict the outcome of which was decided and inevitable, and possibly already known to the viewer. Some emotions are shared by both, but in different ways.

Theoretically, this leads to a divide between those emotions which result from the course of action/agency (frustration/fiero), and those emotions which can be experienced even only by a spectator to the action (kvell for your child, or wonder at what you observe on screen, both of which occurred even for the non-players) I think this is important in understanding whether games can do everything that film can, [and more] or whether game cannot have the emotional impact of films. But for the purposes of the essay, which is to improve player experiences, for companies who wish to sell games to players, this distinction is not so important. After all, it often comes down to keeping the player in the flow channel. (… the flow channel is a very obvious concept, but executing a game which nurses the player through the channel— and with dynamic channels/ramps for every type of player— proves to be challenge! From this perspective, the report only confuses what is vital to a good game, and recommends little in the way of creating one except refer to other “ultra popular” games)

If nothing else, I will definitely read Emotions Revealed and Emotional Design: Why we Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.



After all, the conclusion is:
“People play games to change or structure their internal experiences.
Adults in this study, enjoy filling their heads with thoughts and emotions unrelated to work or school, others enjoy the challenge and chance to test their abilities.”

I played a MUD once. It felt primitive, and turns were slow. It is like playing chess by back-and-forth e-mail.

Bartle’s paper, and his taxonomy of player-types in MUDs, was a good read. (And his writing style is highly amusing.) I like this article because it is perfectly relevant to the subject of this course, and the mnemonic is cute. The article theorizes many of the things we learned about SNA. Even though MUD playing styles analysis and networking analysis seem to have little to do with one another, they share the same impetus: to attract new players and retain them in some kind of “equilibrium”, while maintaining the essential properties of a game.

A very interesting experiment would be to superimpose the emotions of XEODesign onto Bartle’s “Interest Graph”. There seems to be correlation between the following playtypes and emotions, respectively: Killers, and Schadenfreude, Explorers and Wonder, Achievers and Fiero, and Socialisers and Social Enjoyment.

Bartle proceeds categorize modes of player interaction between different player-types, and then to recommend ways in which these can be exploited for achieving equilibrium, a desired “feel” or gamestate for your MUD (as an administrator.)

If we were to discuss this game in class, we should explore how MUDs compare to modern-day MUDs, or MMORPGs. The first experiment would be to place WoW on the interest graph relative to an ideal MUD (which is located at the origin.) There are undoubtedly new types of gameplay in an MMORPG; teaming is instituted, and narrative is far more elaborate. But do these change the types of gameplay? I don’t know, I don’t play much, but I would be interested to find out.

If I were to apply these to the games I played: Sissyfight and Puzzle Pirates.

Puzzle Pirates contained mostly killer player-types. Schadenfreude is encouraged, both by the mechanic (deceit is possible), and the theme (schoolyard sissyfight, complete with slapping, clawing, and tattling.) There are no achievers and no explorers, all aspects of the game are immediately evident and there is no way to acquire status other than reputation: which leads me to the fourth player-type: socializers. They definitely exist in this game. The distinction between socializers and killers (which represent nearly everyone), is that socializers are more willing to team, and team consistently with the same person (develop a loyalty, trust, and a willingness to talk about things outside of the game!)

This game was exciting for me largely because it incited feelings of schadenfreude, and I rarely exalt in a game for that. I also enjoyed the sociality of the game —even though multiplayer physical presence might make the game less enjoyable.

Puzzle Pirates, though I did not play for long, is more like an RPG, and therefore contains Achievers and Explorers. The world is vast, and the puzzle mechanic is more suited to “Easy Fun”, which I imagine is more appealing to explorers than killers. Even direct combat is metaphorically imagined as a puzzle competition. Players do not die, which is a major annoying setback; players can be “griefed” only to the degree that they wanted to win. So schadenfreude is possible, but there is not enough misery to delight in Puzzle Pirates.

---

Hello! This week I shall be blogging about different player types in MMOs. These player types are based on two studies that are not based on MMOs specifically. The first study is done by XEODesign, Inc. and categorized emotions for different playing experiences for a wide variety of games, and the second study is done by Richard Bartle, who categorized player types in MUDs.

XEODesign's study recognizes four different categories of emotional reasons to play games: 1) “Hard Fun“ = overcoming challenges for a sense of accomplishment; 2) “Easy Fun“ = discovery of new and ambiguous experiences; 3) “Altered States” = therapeutic escapism; and 4) “The People Factor” = player to player interaction. Three of these four reasons to play games seem similar to three of Richard Bartle's archetypes of MUD players. “Hard Fun” highly correlates with Achievers, who are heavily interested in character growth. They also actively seek and fulfill goals, and upon reaching these goals, achievers feel a great sense of pride. Any half-decent MMO rewards accomplished achievers with some degree of visual difference from those who have not accomplished much. “Easy Fun” manifests most greatly in Explorers, who focus more on finding about the minutia that allows the game to function smoothly. They pride themselves in finding new ways to accomplish tasks, cataloging anything, and demystifying the mysterious. A good MMO enables explorers by providing a massive yet detailed world, and giving them the tools to potentially find information that is initially not available. “The People Factor” emotion best describes Socializers, whose primary form of enjoyment is communicating and sharing experience with others. Hardcore Socializers will also behave similarly to Achievers and Explorers, just as long as they are doing the tasks in or for a particular group. MMOs that are capable of catering to Socializers have a well implemented communication / messaging system and encourage players to form groups such as guilds. The emotions of “Altered States” does not seem to be noticeably more prevalent amongst any of the four of Richard Bartle's archetypes. Each player may or may not actively seek out radically different altered states, however, most players probably do it inherently. In my opinion, MMO designers do not have to consciously attempt to create altered states for the players, since certain games, by nature of the intended end product, are more geared towards creation of altered states. Detail and/or visual imagination are key in fantasy/unrealistic environments to create more heightened emotions of “Altered States.” Killers are the most detested player types, to the degree that some MMOs seek to greatly limit players of this type. Killers are the only player type that require the suffering of one individual for the benefit for the other. Because of this, MMOs will often have separate servers and/or areas for those that are more interested in Killer behavior, called PvP areas. However, this intentional segregation destroys some of the joy for Killers since players will come prepared to face Killers. Furthermore, some PvP areas start to become arenas for Achievers to accomplish more goals, instead of killing havens for Killers. If an MMO is to cater Killers without tarnishing the essence of a Killer, an MMO needs to integrate all types of players into a single area, so they can all interact with each other. It should also be noted, that, I do not think “Killers” are limited to games where there is “killing.” Killers can also enjoy ruining other's gaming experiences through cheating to achieve a goal, spamming, creating lag and visual confusion, quitting events, etc. However, we must also differentiate the Killer from the typical Cheater – the Cheater cheats for purely selfish reasons with no regard to how others are affected, while the Killer seeks fulfillment by punishing others and watching them suffer.



City of Heroes/Villains
One of the MMOs that I have been playing recently is City of Heroes/Villains. Though I have not played a significant amount of hours yet, it is clear to me that the game naturally appeals to a variety of players.

There is a lot of Hard Fun to be found in this game, which is typical of popular MMORPGs. Learning powers through leveling up is done through gaining experience. Powers are easily the coolest thing to achieve in the game, as some of the higher level powers give Achievers something to flaunt. By accomplishing certain tasks/missions, players can earn Badges, which can then be used as titles, giving achievers more to flaunt! Once a player levels up a character to level 50, special character types are unlocked which are revered by lesser players.

“Altered States” is one of the key selling points of this game, since players can create a wide array of fantastical avatars, assign a combination of power sets to them, and detail their history. By giving players this extended freedom in who they can create, players are more willing to roleplay and mentally create lengthy backstories. Furthermore, the interaction amongst other players who are almost 100% nothing similar to each other, enhances the level of believability through greater immersion.

Socializing is also a strong point of the game. Players can create supergroups which are like guilds in other MMORPGs. Unlike other MMORPGs, supergroups can form coalitions with other supergroups, furthering the level of socialization. Both supergroups and coalitions have their own chat channels. When meeting people, a player may be added as a global friend or as a friend just for the avatars that are currently present, providing the player with more freedom and emphasizing the importance of role-playing. As far as mission design is concerned, cooperation is central, especially since powersets have a limited range of functionality. In the beginning, it is easier to solo, however, as some of the missions become more difficult, it becomes important to team up. Also, teaming up with others adds more enemies, creating greater range for battle strategies.

The weakest part of the game for me is the amount of exploration, or “Easy Fun,” primarily because the world is somewhat bland and repetitive. There are not that many hidden locales nor secret treasures to be found. However, the designers do a good effort to counteract this by giving players tools to make roaming around a little bit more entertaining. Because the game takes place in a cityscape, there is a significantly higher amount of vertical space to explore than in other MMORPGS. Also, the navigation user interface is one of the better ones I have seen in an MMORPG, providing users with a clear frame of reference. Exploring in dungeons is boring though, since, like the overworld, there is little reward to going astray of one's primary objective other than more enemies for experience points.



The Saga of Ryzom
While this game seems to be near its doom, Ryzom provides players with an MMORPG experience that has greater flexibility and customization than others.

Unlike most traditional MMORPGs, players do not choose classes. Instead, players can grow freely in four areas – Fight, Magic, Craft, & Harvest – each with a maximum level of 250. Within each area, there are numerous amounts of skills. Depending on the skills a player learns, a specialization title will be earned that can be used for flaunting. The sheer amount of skills can keep Achievers playing the game for a while, though the variety of the skills within each area is lacking. A player who is highly skilled in the Craft area can create rare armor that can also be used for flaunting!

While Achievers can be thoroughly satisfied by Ryzom, Ryzom seems most aligned for “Easy Fun” Explorers. The Harvest skill area encourages Exploring the most, though the three other areas also matter. Harvesting requires players to search far and meticulously for certain materials which can be used for Crafting, quests, making money, etc. However, Ryzom doesnt just encourage exploring systematically. The attention to aesthetic detail in the world is overwhelming – the leaves in the trees rustle as the branches sway to the wind, ominous sounds briefly surround players in peaceful environments, etc. Furthermore, animals and other creatures behave in very Earth-like manners – some move in packs, others will approach players gently, many sleep during the night, and some hunt NPCs and other animals in a solo predator like manner. Such behavior grants the animals a personality – I felt really horrible when I needed to kill some of them in the beginning in order to increase my Fight. Because there is so much vibrance to be found within the world, typically non-Explorer types will feel compelled to Explore. However, I do think Ryzom could have expanded on its already strong explorer aspect even more with a picture-taking mechanic for example to give greater meaning to cataloging animals and plants within the game. The Ryzom Ring is a scenario editor which allows players to upload their content and share it with others. A beginning player will not be able to add as much as an individual who has explored greatly.

Ryzom also encourages Exploration through Socialization by means other than the typical quality MMORPG fare. Individuals who choose to heavily specialize in Harvest will often find themselves with death penalty XPs if all they do is solo. Therefore, Harvesting in groups is much safer , and players can share the materials that they find. Also, many quests require completion by a teamRyzom also lets players rent apartments, which is an aspect more akin to social-centric MMOs, rather than traditional MMORPGs. However, apartments are, from what I have heard, not well implemented, and currently, there is no option to invite others to a player's apartment.





Other MMOs – Non MMORPGs and issues with Killers & Cheaters

Second Life and other MMO Social Environments
Social environments are obviously geared towards giving players “The People Factor,” though there is also a lot of “Easy Fun” to be found. In order to cater to both Socializers and Explorers, who are very curious individuals, successful social environments provide their users with a lot of degree of freedom and interactive objects. But with increased freedom comes increased problems. For example, in Second Life, Explorer-esque Killers are rampant as they aim to spam and damage the world in the most creative ways possible. While online social realms focus on housing freedom to create possibilities for Explorers and especially Socializers, they must also find ways to limit the power of Killers as they can completely destroy the game for Explorers and Socializers, and thus, the game itself.



Albatross18
I know I have talked about this game in many of my blogs already, but I feel it is a good game to reiterate how well it accomplishes appealing to Achievers and Socializers, while attempting to limit but not doing its best against Cheaters.

As mentioned in my earlier post comparing ease of socialization in Albatross18 and Audition, Albatross18 has a very robust yet easy-to-use and clear chatting+messaging system. Recently, Albatross18 just added an instant messaging system for friends which can be used anytime during the game. In this new season (episode) of Albatross18, players can also organize interactive chat spaces, where players can walk around course holes and set up shops for selling items. Also, socialization is encouraged through guild v. guild battles which also have some appeal to Achievers. Achievers also enjoy the game in other ways than mentioned in my earlier post about Theme V. Mechanics. Tournaments, rankings, incentives for higher rankings (such as increased statistics and more items available), endless amounts of improvable statistics/records in the user information menu, and more money (pang) to spend on lotteries can keep Achievers addicted to the game by giving them endless goals to reach. Special Events with rare prizes, as in any MMO, gives the game more staying power for all types of players, especially Achievers.

One group of individuals that continues to stay are Cheaters. The most annoying and common type of Cheaters are those who “calculate” or spend immense amounts of time and possibly external programs to calculate the power, direction, and club needed for their shot to land in the hole. One can avoid a cheating player by not joining games where the shot time allowed is 90+sec., or the other player has ridiculous high statistics. Unfortunately, sometimes I get so caught up in trying to find a room with the course that I want to play, that I ready up my character before I notice that the shot time allowed is 90+sec. Albatross18 should allow some way for the user to limit these types of rooms from showing up in the room lobby, instead of detailing the shot time in small text once upon entering the room. However, I accept, that it is still largely my responsibility that I can get caught up in these dilemmas. Players can formally accuse Cheaters of Hacking/Calculating through an in-game reporting system, however, no one really knows the efficacy of this system. Unfortunately, in tournaments and Guild Battles, there is no way to discourage cheating other than limiting the total time for the entire tournament. Albatross18 could add time restrictions for each hole, or add a speed tournament option that has a very short overall tournament time and restricts the use of speeding items. Players can also quit in the middle of a game if they are frustrated enough or are doing poorly, though this increases the quit rate of the quitting player. If the quit rate is high enough, players are punished in various ways, and other players can easily tell who quits often. Quitting harms other players by decreasing the rewards for players that remain. Quitting in game can be seen as a form of cheating, however, the game is punishing enough that Quitting does not become an effective way of cheating. Other than the systems way of punishing the quitter, quitters are often pissed on by the rest of the community.

Just like with Cheaters, the game is punishing enough for Killers. The only real effective way of “Killing” is through quitting, provided the player does not care about the outcome/status of their character. If anything, killers are a momentary entity that resides in all, and emerges more frequently in those that are less patient to finish games in which they are doing poorly and others are doing very well. An ineffective way of “Killing” is when highly ranked players victimize low ranking players. I haven't met any high ranking players who enjoy picking on newbies because of the striation of the server system and the fact that, by nature of the game, it is simply not enjoyable or wise to play against newbies as they take a significantly longer time to finish a hole. Also, newbies are smart enough not to play against highly ranked players, unless they want to do so as learning experience or socialization.

Playasport.com
Another based on sports, Playasport.com is a browser-based MMO that has immediate appeal for “Hard Fun,” and attempts to harness the essence of “The People Factor,” but like Albatross18, fails to address the issue of Cheaters well enough. Cheating is done through various methods of training. One way to earn points for training is answering weekly sports trivia. There are random sites on google that have almost the exact same questions as well as their answers. While there are some mechanisms to counteract such cheating, such as limiting the time allotted to finish the trivia, playasport.com could do more such as randomizing the questions and/or not using questions that are on these random websites. Players also train by randomly selecting a group of cards each day for each team/player. Some cards are worth more points than others. Last time I played regularly (I still play now, but I am only managing one team/player), I noticed that there were ways to cheat by manipulating the html so that the player could always select the card that was worth the most points.

Darkness and Light
Some call this game a Defense of the Ancients clone, and thus, is a game geared primarily towards Achievers. Killers enjoy this game as it is primarily PvP. However, the game does a good job of keeping away purist Killers by employing a shifting ranking system that uses both the winners ranking and the losers ranking. Victory over a higher ranked player will grant a player an immense amount of experience, while victory over a low ranked player will grant a player minimal amount of experience. Losing to a higher ranked player will result in a small loss of amount of experience, whereas a loss to a significantly lower ranked player will result in a major loss of experience. This type of ranking system is more effective in deterring the sadistic type of Killer than regular experience/ranking systems such as in Albatross18, though it can only really be implemented in a hardcore game, as this type of ranking system highly discourages casual gamers. This type of ranking system, however, increases the level of competitiveness, encouraging the use of hacking programs. So far, I have only, yet frequently, seen hacking programs used in room lobbies to kick players out of the game. I have heard of many other stories of hacking in-game, though I am sure some of these claims are not legitimate.

----------

Both Albatross18 and Playasport.com do limit cheating to a degree, while Darkness and Light has some noticeable problems with it. Cheating and hacking seem to be extensively more prevalent in non-RPG, Achievement-centric MMOs than in RPG, Explorer/Socialization-centric MMOs. Achievers have specific goals they feel compelled to achieve, whereas Explorers & Socializers do not. Cheating allows for potentially quicker means to fulfill these goals.

-----------



Travian and other Killer Acceptable/Encouraged Environments
Travian is a browser based MMO that is essentially a civilization-management war game. Other MMO war games such as Planetarion and EVE Online freely accept Killer behavior and may often encourage it. Unlike traditional MMORPGs and many other types of MMOs, MMO war games focus primarily on PvP. Thus, these games do not have to appeal to a wide audience, focusing on hardcore gamers. And, in order to increase the believability of such worlds, greatly powerful players victimizing new players seems almost essential for structure. New players come to these games with the expectation of war, and understand that they may be attacked early in their development.


I spent a lot more time on this than I expected...

The games I've previously been analyzing are Set, Cranium, Yelp, and Casablanca.

Set -
Under Bartle's 4 types of players, Set clearly is skewed towards the Achiever type. The rule set and the mechanics are too simple to support exploring. There is no way for one player to attack a second player, so there is no room for Killer's in Set. Conversation in Set grinds to a halt, so Socializers have no place in this game, either.

From the persepective of Lazarro's 4 keys, Set falls under both the Hard Fun and Altered States categories. Set is absolutley a strategy game, that requires quick thinking under pressure. That's the Hard Fun in Set. Set also induces what I've come to call a Tetris effect - all you see is the game, you don't notice anything else. Constantly focusing on an ever changing group of cards, racing your brain to beat the competitors, drives the Altered States status of Set.

Cranium
Is stupid and I don't want to review it any more. So I won't. It's not the fact that the game focuses almost exclusively on The People Factor / Soft Fun, while trying to engage the Socializer in all of us. It's that the game doesn't pay any attention to the Achiever / Hard Fun aspects, which is what I like. Oh hell, I went and reviewed Cranium anyway. God I hate that game.

Yelp
As a social networking site, Yelp obviously targets the Socializer game player. But, in it's heavy use of stat tracking and bragging, it also introduces an element for the Achiever player. As a non-game, Yelp doesn't fit easily under Lazarro's graph, but it should come as non surprise that the best fit is The People Factor. What I find most appealing about Yelp, as opposed to other social sites, is the Achiever aspects. It's what makes me interested in The People Factor in Yelp.

Casablanca
Casablanca targets Killers, Socializers, and Achievers. The Killers are interested in "breaking" each other's social circles, or exposing those who would break social circles. Socializers are interested in the game's central mechanic, which is to socialize. Achievers like that the game tracks how they're doing - they can easily brag to their teammates.

Casablanca also falls under Hard Fun, Easy Fun, and The People Factor. Hard fun because it's just hard to crack social circles, but rewarding when you've been invited in. Easy Fun, because reading the posts of anonymous people trying to talk to each other is funny, and The People Factor, because the whole game is about socializing.

As for myself, the type of gamer (under Bartle's system) that I am has been gradually changing over the past several years. In high school, I absolutely would have called myself an Explorer first, and an Achiever second. RPG games were my favorite to play, and I would always try and get every rare, hard to get item in the game. As I find myself with less and less free time to play games, I've been transitioning to an Achiever / Socializer - I like to play and finish games, and I like to hang out with my friends.

This is probably why I like Xbox Live so much - it allows me to do both of these things, even when I'm not playing an inherently multi player game.

I identify with the first three keys that Nicole Lazarro names. Civilization, the game I've played more than any other game, falls under Hard Fun, Easy Fun, and Altered States. What I think is interesting is while I call myself a Socializer, I don't identify with The People Factor. What that tells me is that while I like playing games with others, it's not a selling point for me - I just like having the option to talk to somebody else.

The games I'll be looking at for the 4 player types are Werewolf, Set, Toontown, and Casablanca.

A quick overview of the 4 types are:
1. Achiever
2. Killer
3. Explorer
4. Socializer

It is difficult to examine what I see in games regarding Richard Bartle’s player types and Nicole Lazzaro’s keys to emotion without first looking at my own biases. I tend to fall into Bartle’s Achiever and Explorer player types. While I often say that I love to play games for the story, I probably do enjoy achieving above all else. I play games to relax and enjoy myself; I love escaping into another world where the objectives are concrete. My favorite types of games provide a challenge, but reward hard work. For example, single-player RPGs like those in the Final Fantasy series often reward the time you put in fighting small monsters by allowing your characters to level up. This makes the boss fights much easier, and I have rarely had difficulty getting past bosses.

Often in pursuit of achievements, such as acquiring hidden items, I will go exploring. I used to depend on strategy guides to tell me where to find hidden items, but, if the world is beautiful enough, exploring can be a reward on its own. While I do not play games specifically to explore their worlds, the escapism factor does make me curious. Also, I found that I test the limits of games much more due to the time I spent in Quality Assurance this past summer. While playing the Eternal Sonata demo, for example, I found two bugs in less than half an hour. This did not prevent me from buying the game, but it seems that testing encourages you to explore the game and push limits with an Explorer mentality.

As far as the other player types, I can’t really see myself as much of a Killer or a Socializer. I don’t like living in fear of being killed in games and dislike killing other players. As for the social aspects of games, I played World of Warcraft for the 10-day trial period and found myself avoiding human contact. Many people are surprised that I did not become addicted to the game, but I had no friends from the real world playing with me. Even so, I appreciate controlling my own experiences in the game world. Also, I was hoping I would not become addicted to an endless game, as I wanted to retain control over my own life as well.

However, I am not opposed to playing games with other people. Co-op games like LEGO Star Wars can be a lot of fun. I played the demo of Viva Pinata: Party Animals with a friend and had fun. What surprised me the most about Party Animals is how competitive the scoring system is. I won but didn’t enjoy winning because I like games better where we can play on the same team. I lost a lot of board games as a child and winning to me is always met with great sympathy for the loser, so it’s not much fun.

Online games that require social contact are not that fun for me. Toon Town’s required friend-making quest felt forced and silly. Puzzle Pirates and Club Penguin seem to have a much more casual social interaction, which I found to be more natural. I tend to avoid games with obligatory interaction with other people, as I often play games to unwind alone.

As for Lazzaro’s four keys to unlocking emotion, they seem to make a lot of sense. Her comments about multiplayer games being much more lively are right on the mark. Our game of Werewolf was very noisy and fun. A lot of it had to do with Easy Fun and The People Factor. The multiplayer game SET did not play off the fact that there were other people there; even the card game Speed has a much stronger social factor due to the players’ inevitable interactions with each other (unlike SET).

Lazzaro’s first three keys, Hard Fun, Easy Fun, and Altered States, are the reasons why I love RPGs so much. I recently began playing Eternal Sonata, which has a combat system that gives you time to think and strategize. Overall, the game is linear and fairly easy if you fight in most of the readily available battles. Most of all, I enjoy playing this game because of he Altered States factor. I can play without having to think too much and the world in an incredible place to spend a few hours at a time. It is quite lovely and a wonderful escape.

Any game mechanic can be fitted to any game theme and make sense. The appropriateness of the pair is determined by how well each is tweaked so that a cohesive, enjoyable game is created. This week, I am going over the appropriateness of the blending of game mechanic and game theme in the games that have been played for/in class.

Set
Game mechanics: With 2 or more people, create a set of three cards that have either all the same or all different quality for each dimension.
Theme: Shapes & Set.
Comment: The intended clarity of the game is conveyed both through the game mechanics and theme. Potentially, one can create a theme instead of shapes like eggs in a farm, however, that might complicate the already complicated thinking process involved when creating sets.

Cranium
Game mechanics: In teams of two, answer trivia questions, perform audiovisual guessing games, solve word puzzles, etc. When a team completes a task correctly, they move themselves on the board with a special die. Win by reaching the end goal first.
Theme: A brain and goops.
Comment: I generally have problems with games that have trivia because 1) the game theme usually does not have anything to do with the trivia, 2) the trivia questions can only be answered by those who are either trivia buffs or are coincidentally acquainted with the subject of the trivia question in question, and 3) a lot of people do not care about the subject matter of the questions, leaving people disoriented. Also, it is not clear what the dice and the race aspect of the game has to do with the game theme. Despite these problems, which seem to be the type of problems endemic to trivia/performance games, the theme of a brain, in a way, does go with the amalgamation of the game tasks together. Because the game tasks are very different from each other, unlike other games where, for example, its JUST trivia or JUST drawing pictures, Cranium intends to work/test different areas of the brain. Therefore, for example, those who have a strong sensory part of the brain can succeed just as well as those who have strong language skills. This is why the game is called Cranium. Of course, I never feel like my brain is taxed, nor does anyone really think of the theme while they play. While Cranium does not have a very strong correlation between the game mechanics and the theme, there may not need to be one. 1) A specific theme could potentially limit the audience, and this game is geared towards the casual, everyday player 2) the selling point of the game is the game mechanics, not the theme.

Albatross18
Game mechanics: Select the right clubs, meter-based timing to strike the ball, special shots, character building, roaming around,
Theme: Cute, casual & hardcore golfing.
Comments: To me, the various game mechanics go well with the game theme. The game appeals to real golfers and those who have never played golf because the mechanics and theme are very approachable and fantasy-like yet have elements of realism. Therefore, though the game is played by many, it takes skill and a lot of practice to become elite. Casual gamers can relate to the simplicity and clarity of the interface as well as the immediate positive feedback that is received from accomplishing simple strokes. Fantasy gamers enjoy character building and the excessive cuteness of the characters. Real golf gamers enjoy the club selection, the course/hole variety, the concept of correct ball placement and stroke timing, and the competition. Hardcore gamers also enjoy the competition, but also the nuances and shortcuts in the courses and the difficulty of perfecting special shots.

Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with almost every one of the games mentioned in this article. I understand that they are all board games, which I play rarely, and most (if not all) are European, which I never play. However, the author will often address the difference between board games and computer games; the AI and the tedium of computation, so that I have an understanding of how these board-game categories translate to the computer or console. (Whereas, some of the best board games per se are monstergames, or large games with relatively simple rules.) I enjoy that the author discusses business considerations in creating new board games.

Although my knowledge of board games is not extensive, I think this categorization (of board games) is adequate. In Introduction to Programming class we read a document with a similar objective: to categorize games. We criticized this attempt to differentiate games in terms of the film expression “genre.” I was able to locate this article online by searching for one of the most dubious/facetious game genres suggested by the author Mark Wolf: the Demo game: Here you can see it for yourself: http://www.robinlionheart.com/gamedev/genres.xhtml

While granting that genres overlap, and that certain games mix features of “genres”, my classmates and I could not accept some of Wolf’s genres. Although I would often like to understand games in terms of their narratives, in hopes that they can have the same power and artistic merit as the film or novel, games are not easily categorized this way. Wolf’s list of genres fails because his genre-zation privileges the theme over the mechanic – which is arguably a bad way to understand games—and he does so inconsistently, sometimes describing thematic elements, sometimes mechanical elements. It is far easier to group games together based solely on one or the other (not a muddled concept like genre), and most efficacious to do so based on mechanics, supposing that the “theme” is merely a remapping or , chroming, or coloring of the same construct of core rules, or mechanics, which are the foundation of the game.

This is suggested in the 5th paragraph (numbered 1) of Chapter Two. (Of course, this does not discount the suggestion that certain themes are better suited to certain mechanics, and that themes can fail the mechanics. In fact, remapping a game—discussed in the section on Expansion Packs—can be a good way to revitalize a franchise, fine-tune a game, and attract new players. However, if an experienced/intense player is offered a trade-off between the game’s responsiveness, or its texture or backstory— the player will choose to “shift focus from the fictional world of the game [theme] to the game as a set of rules [mechanics]”, and strip the theme as it is irrelevant to the task (Juul, half-real, 139.) A game designer infers that mechanics should be a more important consideration than theme.)

I have heard many ways of describing the fidelity of a simulation to real life. It is how accurately a game models real life. I think “Fine and coarse graining” is a good way to phrase this. The author of the chapter cites one racing game, Formula Motor Racing, which abandons a race track altogether, as opposed to another game, Bolide, which has a mapboard not only for the track, but for the velocity as well—a simple “Newton-Cotes integrator” to approximate the finer variables, like the “integral calculus treatment of vehicular motion.” I might add: the first game is not only coarser, in choosing fewer elements to encode, but also more stylized (abstract) or metaphorical (incommensurate) in the way it encodes these elements (choosing a card), whereas the second relies on physical movement to affect the car (derived from velocity, a physical law, but still drawn from a card.) I am borrowing a concept from Jesper Juul again.

This is also about the different levels of complexity, which is a subject also breached in the Economic subsection of the Mechanics subsection, except it is called economic levels. The author mentions Settlers of Catan, where there are raw resources (level one), which manufacture settlements (level two), exchanged for cities (level three), traded in for Victory Points (level four.) This is a four-level economic structure. This is an important aspect of enabling and calibrating gameplay. Systems of trade and manufacture (liquidity), or techtrees (investment) are good ways of leveraging a certain action to gain levels or advance toward the finish.

The mechanics breakdown was comprehensive. Instead of discussing similar mechanic concepts (like, a first person shooter, in which the mechanic is to shoot things), the author discusses mechanics as they affect every aspect of gameplay, from who goes first, to how the game ends. I appreciated this, and it was rewarding to read this at the end.

Overall, Patricia was right, it is a good read. Although it would be more enriching if we tested these games first.

I must note I was at first confused, finishing the section on game “themes”, and then reading the next section on game “types”, assuming that this section would be on game “mechanics.” I think the author proposes three different ways of understanding, and should add “types” to his initial pairing of “themes and mechanics”

Many of the games I’ve played for this class have strong themes. Aside from SET and Cranium, Werewolf, Toon Town, Puzzle Pirates, and Club Penguin all seemed to have themes as a central part of the game. SET didn’t appear to have a particular theme, as it was very basic and composed primarily of color, pattern and number groupings. While Cranium did adhere to a particular style, it did not seem to have a theme, especially when compared to the other games.

Werewolf was the only themed game that was not online. The theme was not tangible; if someone heard the conversation in the game it could be mistaken for a detective game. The theme mainly was used to add fun to the game and make it unique, since it’s more interesting to tease a friend about being a werewolf (meaning their character wouldn’t have a choice to murder) as opposed to a cold-blooded killer.

The online games seemed to use their themes to bind together a serious of games and activities. Toon Town was more about having a themed hangout and serious of activities, while Club Penguin and Puzzle Pirates used their themes more to support their mini-games. While all seem to use themes quite effectively, the online games (more than Werewolf) have the advantage of an over world to set the atmosphere. Themes in online hangouts like Club Penguin are almost expected, as people need to choose this world over their own.

There was quite a range in mechanics for these games. SET’s mechanics were very simple and were less tangible. Although your progress could be measured through the number of cards you held, the actual process of finding a set takes place entirely in the mind. Werewolf also had an usual set of mechanics that largely depended on social dynamics to function. While the process of choosing someone to eliminate could in many places happen in seconds, the debate that sprung out of the choice is what made the game interesting. The mechanics themselves didn’t seem to make the game fun; it was the fact that people disagreed.

Cranium was set up to use mechanics that would help loosen inhibitions and make it a fun experience. Unlike Werewolf, the mechanics themselves were meant to make the game fun. While this game would also be dead without a good social dynamic (laughing makes it fun), the process of humming, drawing, and pantomiming all helped to create a fun experience. Also, the tangibility of the pieces moving across the board adds in a race element that makes Cranium a real game.

The online games had many different sets of mechanics within their worlds. Toon Town had a combat system and multiple simple mini-games. The combat system was engineered to keep up relationships, as you can call in friends for help. Unlike Toon Town, Club Penguin can be a much more private experience. While you can have your penguin waddle around town, showing off all the new clothes you bought after playing many games, there are few multiplayer games. The friendship aspect is more of an element in the over world and much less important in the simple flash-based mini-games.

Also, Puzzle Pirates is structured much like Club Penguin, in that the games are simple. However, as the name implies, the games in Puzzle Pirates are largely dependent on puzzle-based mechanics. Many of the games are simply puzzles with extra rules or strong themes. As a fan of puzzles, I find the puzzle mechanic to be very engaging. It is probably one of the largest contributors to my long-standing interest in the DS version of Puzzle Quest.

I'll be looking at Set, Werewolf, Casablanca, Club Penguin, and Toontown for themes and mechanics and how the two affect the game.

Werewolf
Werewolf is a fantasy game, but a weakly themed one. Players aren't asked to speak in a particular dialect, or given werewolf masks to use. They are just told "there are werewolves, find them".

This supports the use of Werewolf as a social game. The theme is just strange enough to allow for humor in the game, which is a great way to break the ice. The theme isn't strong enough to scare people away - preventing the game from becoming playable by only werewolf fanatics.

The theme doesn't add to the mechanics of the game, but it doesn't detract, either. I've seen werewolf played with a Mafia theme. It could easily be skinned with any number of themes. Given this, I'd say the theme to Werewolf is actually not important, so long as there is a theme.

Set
Set is a great example of abstract theming. As such, there is very little to write about SETs use of theming. If I were to apply a theme to SET, I'd choose something that involves careful examination - such as examining virus. In SET: CDC edition, players are trying to track and cataloge dangerous viruses. A virus is composed of 3 bacteria. Bacteria can vary in shape, color, fill, and number of cells. A virus is created when 3 bacteria get together, and all the traits of the bacteria are all the same, or all different.

This theme works with the SET mechanic, since SET is about careful observation and grouping.

Cranium
Cranium, like Set, has no theme. But, it is a weakly themed, no themed game.
The art style of all the pieces of the game convey a feeling of light hearted competition. It's not a specific theme, but it definitely influences how people play the game.

It does mesh with the mechanics of the game very well. While Cranium is a progress game, it's not a serious progress game. All the activities a player may do are funny challenges - while some may be hard, nobody gets upset because they're also ridiculous.

Cranium is Trivial Pursuit for idiots. While this has nothing to do with the assignment, I'm going to point it out anyway.

Sissy Fight
Sissy Fight is a themed as a school yard fight between girls. It's not about punching each other behind the jungle gym, it's about teasing each other, and tattling to the teacher.

I've played a couple Sissy Fight games, and I found that most people don't actually talk during the game. When they do, it's usually to organize strategy. To me, this means that people who are playing Sissy Fight aren't getting hooked on the theme - nobody is talking in character, or making jokes about the situation. Sissy Fight is decidedly a non-serious game, but the people playing it seemed to be taking it a bit too seriously.

The mechanics of Sissy Fight detail a strategy game. That's where the game mechanics conflict with the game theme. The mechanics call for thinking about each move, analyzing possible counter-moves from your oponents, and then coming up with your own counter-counter moves. The theming of the game asks you to be an 8 year old girl during recess. The two don't necessarily mash up, which explains why people seemed to drop the theme when playing the game.

Casablanca
Casablanca puts you in either "The Resistance" or "The Occupation", in a war torn city. Without expressly saying so, the theme feels like you're supposed to be doing this during the 1940s. This is due to the very title of the game, as well as some of the areas you can visit in the game.

Players in the resistance are trying to build their resistance cells up, and players in the occupation are trying to infiltrate the resistance cells. Everything is accomplished through conversation.

The theme of the game does match the mechanics. When I was playing the game, I got in to the roll of pretending to be an ordinary citizen with something to hide. Because the game is meant to help people get to know each other, the focus on meeting each other as part of the game mechanic is greatly re-enforced.

Kaneva: A simpler blend of Second Life and Myspace

Well, for this week, I am to blog about a “virtual hangout.” yah. I didn't want to play anything too bland so I tried out Gaia Online. Unfortunately, I was expecting more of an immersive virtual environment instead of a format that is geared for casual gamers. The interface is entirely browser-based – the user interacts both with a browser and a small, more interactive window that pops-up if you want to go through towns. While the lack of immersion did cheapen the experience for me, I found the games' users to be extremely nice. In fact, I made a friend within 1 minute of town-browsing and she started following me around, even though neither of us knew what we were doing. So perhaps precisely what I was complaining about, the visual simplicity of the world, works in the game's favor – trying to gear to a kinder, more innocent audience. Well anyways, I stopped playing a few minutes later because I wanted to try something else.

I had read about OzWorld on mmosite.com a while ago, and I thought, “well, now here is my chance to try it out!” So after downloading the client, creating an account, and reading about the cool things I could do in the game on their website, I was definitely excited to start playing. However, upon loading the game, I was horrified by the atrociousness of the 3d graphics and was quickly disappointed to learn that much of the game revolved around fishing... basically, standing and throwing a rod into the water waiting for fish.

I guess I was just looking for and expecting to experience something really new, fresh, and polished, so I drew upon my best experiences in the past with virtual hangouts, notably Habbo Hotel, There, and Second Life. After doing some research, I stumbled upon Kaneva, which while still in Beta and greatly lacking in population, provided me with a glimpse of the level of immersion and uniqueness that which I was craving.

When describing Kaneva to others, the most succinct description to give is “a mix of Second Life and Myspace.” When I first went to the Kaneva website, I first thought, “this looks like a cheap imitation of Second Life.” The avatars on the main page all look the same and less polished. But then I noticed pictures of real people below those avatars, which intrigued me. Then, when I clicked on “Virtual World” and watched the introduction video to learn more about Kaneva, I started to learn that the focus of Kaneva is much different than the focus of Second life. While creating an account and personalizing my browser-based page with a real picture of me, I realized that I wasn't just recreating myself in a virtual world, but that I was also enhancing myself in my real world. Confused? I shall explain.

At first glance, Kaneva's virtual world looks extremely similar to Second Life. Once I started playing though, I realized how different they were. After creating my avatar, which, was not very customizable, I was transported to my home, something that can only be possessed with real money in Second Life. At that time, in my home there was a TV, a TV Stand, and a light. I tried turning on the TV and watching some stuff but I couldn't because I needed to upload some media first. So then I tried changing the textures of the walls // adding a picture, got bored, and decided to go to the mall. I was able to buy a full outfit and plenty of furniture without spending any real money. While it is easier to buy things in Kaneva, there is far less customizeability and interactivity in the items themselves. I also do not think there is anyway to create your own items. Thus, I saw a lot of people wearing the same clothing, and a lot of similar houses. But, the plus side of this lack of customizability and interaction is that everything looks cleaner and there is significantly less confusion. Also, this simplicity shifts the users' focus into other things such as socialization, which is enhanced by real-world profile pages that are attached to the in-world Kaneva characters.

Really, the main point of Kaneva is to intertwine real-world with virtual-world. The minute I saw a youtube clip of Family Guy on a flatscreen in someone's house that I had just entered, I knew I was playing in a virtual world that sought to do something different from the other virtual worlds out there. In Kaneva, you can right-click on player's avatars and direct yourself to their “My Kaneva” pages which look somewhat like Myspace pages, with comments, friends, interests, videos, etc. You can also “rave” other people and places both in-client and in Kaneva community website which is basically like giving a “thumbs up” approval. You can also leave “blasts” which are shorter versions of Myspace “bulletins.” To use your television in the game, all you have to do is upload videos or links to videos and create a playlist. TVs are also hooked up to various channels which users can upload their media to. As Kaneva is still in Beta, I expect them in the future to add more in-game features for other types of media that which you can already upload such as “flash widgets”, games, and music. This level of connectivity between the real-world and virtual-world is not achieved so easily with other virtual worlds.

Unfortunately, for now, while the site gets many unique users, there aren't that many people on Kaneva at certain times. Maybe the link between fantasy and reality is just not what the market wants right now. Perhaps linking the two can only be successfully done for a mass audience in a purely browser-based casual aspect, i.e. Something where you DON'T have to download a massive client. Perhaps the absence of customizability fails to maintain player intrigue, something to keep players invested in the world for a longer period of time. Really, as of right now, the virtual world of Kaneva is simply not interesting enough to compete with the big guns of virtual space. However, the idea of linking virtual and real is fresh enough for me to see Kaneva's potential.

My biggest beef with the Second Life universe was many people's reluctance and sometimes downright aversion to talk about real life experiences. I remember one of my Second Life friends telling me to always be cautious about asking people about their real lives because “Second Life and Real Life don't mix.” Many seem to be so focused on enhancing their Second Life and living Second Life fantasies rather than enhancing their real life. In fact, I've met many a Second Lifer who have cybersexual relationships in Second Life while maintaining real life relationships as well.

The reason why Second Life does so well for many is that it appeals to their fantasies while Kaneva is viewed as a meager virtual Myspace. Thus, if I were to simplify the dichotomy... Second Life is an explorer's game while Kaneva is truly a social game. Potentially, Kaneva appeals more to our social instincts while Second Life appeals more to our curiousity. Butterfly v. Monkey.



Side Note:
Something I noticed.... the willingness by the Kaneva designers for the users to think “real world” really infiltrates many aspects of the Kaneva experience. For example, when signing-in to kaneva, you are prompted for your E-mail and your password, just like Myspace and other social networking sites, not your avatar name and password, like Second Life.

Club Penguin recently made headlines, as it was purchased by Disney for $350 million, with the potential of $700 million. What makes it so valuable?

Club Penguin is not a particularly engaging site for adults. It has only 15 mini games, most of which are relatively short play experiences. The content is limited and the virtual world is small. While it was designed for children, it is surprising to see how much of a success has come from so little.

This has lead me to wonder what exactly is the draw for children to this site. With 700,000 paying subscribers a month, something must keep kids coming back for more. In a few hours, I was able to discover that this site is about social interactions – but not in the typical chat fashion. It’s about materialism, and boasting to your friends about your cool igloo, awesome gear, or multiple coveted pets. In essence, all the features opened up by a paid subscription are the draw.

Club Penguin is not that much of a social game. Penguins didn’t seem to say much to eat other outside of “Hi,” “Boy or girl?” and the occasional “Where’s the dojo?” It seems that most users are spending their time playing games to get money to buy stuff (outfits, pets, toys and technology for their igloos, etc.). With the amount of users spending time in the games, it is fascinating that only four of the 15 games are multiplayer. Two of those games are mancala and a version of connect four. There is a lot of potential to get players engaged in a game together, and much of it is wasted.

If I were to improve the social element of this game, I would definitely add more multiplayer games. The addition of games in general would greatly improve the variety in the site, and it would become more interesting. One of the main draws of an online hangout seems to be the fun you can have playing with other people, and it is almost sad how little interaction Club Penguin promotes through the selection of games.

Outside of the games, there are few ways to connect with other people through activities. While there is a dance room, pizza restaurant, and other virtual spaces, there is little to do other than moving your penguin around and trying to make friends. It seems that there should be some sort of reward system for interacting with other people. Being able to have two penguins perform a special dance or working together to clean the pizza resturant at the end of the day could help teach teamwork.

Another social institutions in Club Penguin is the tour guide system. Members can take a quiz and become a tour guide. However, I found that these tour guides didn’t seem to help much when I asked questions. It would be more helpful to have “help penguins” around that took a more complicated test (or were AI-controlled) that helped new penguins get around. I found that one of the biggest annoyances early in my experiences of Club Penguin was the fact that people didn’t answer my questions.

While Club Penguin may be profitable, it definitely falls short of its potential, at least in the social area. Through the institution of incentives (and rewarding experiences) from social interactions, the game could turn into a thriving social mecca.

Club Penguin has been big in the news lately with Disney purchasing them for a hefty sum. So lets take a look.

It is primarily a over glorified mini-game selector with a small addition of a confusing chat room. The mini-games are fairly simple and lead you to acquiring gold which eventually becomes a grind. After some time you can buy interesting toys and show them off to others. During all of this there are sections where you can chat with other members and it appears as a bubble over your head.

www.yelp.com
Yelp is a Web 2.0 version of citysearch – a peer reviewed method of finding interesting, or useful, things in a city. Founded as a means of getting a recommendation for local dentists in the San Francisco area, it has social interaction baked into it from the ground up. Its very purpose is to get people to talk about what they like and don’t like in a city, in order to help others navigate.

Since Yelp’s usefulness depends on members being socially active, it uses numerous methods to encourage socializing.

The most easily used, and therefore the most common, of these methods are compliment badges. When reading any review on Yelp, a user can easily leave a compliment badge for the reviewer. By clicking on the “compliment” link in a review, a small box opens up with compliment badges to choose from. These are little icons that express a sentiment about the reviewer, or the review - things like “you’re cool”, “thank you”, “good writer”, etc. Each one has a little message field where the complimenter can write their own message, or use the pre-written message.

By making it incredibly easy to leave these compliments for people (you don’t need to navigate to a separate page to do so, which doesn’t interrupt what you’re doing), users don’t have to think much about making a connection with somebody. The pre-written messages in the text boxes are generally funny enough to be used without changing, so the complimenter doesn’t need to take time to come up with their own words. From personal experience, a decently written review receives compliments quickly, which encourages more reviewing.

Another highly effective means of encouraging social interaction is the Elite Status. Prolific members of the Yelp community are rewarded with “Elite” status. Elite status carries with it 3 perks – a special “Elite” badge that is visible on the member’s profile, a Yelp Elite shirt, and invitations to Yelp Elite parties. The last is by far the most important of the rewards. Yelp takes it’s most prolific members, gives them free food and booze, and puts them in a room to socialize. At these events, members get to know each other in person. When they leave these events, they keep in touch with each other – through Yelp.

Elite status is rewarded based on a number of criteria, including how helpful the member has been to other members. This system directly rewards members who’ve reached out to contact others.

A third trick Yelp uses to encourage socializing is local fame. The best example of this is the Review Of The Day. Every day, one review is selected to be the Review of The Day. This is posted front and center on the main page of the site, and is guaranteed to attract attention and compliments to the reviewer’s profile. The potential to receive Review Of The Day, and the fame that comes with it, encourages members to write more reviews, and to write more entertaining reviews.

Local fame is also evident in the weekly newsletter emails that Yelp sends out. Each one has a theme (last weeks was “hotdogs around L.A.”, the week before was “best places to buy used clothes”). These are filled with names of members, such as “Yelper BabyFace prefers to get his hot dogs at Pinks”, so an active member may find themselves being specifically mentioned in front of the yelp community. This has the same effect as the Review Of The Day.

Yelp also has a standard message board set up, with various categories for members to post in. It’s a very active board, but the most surprising are the Unofficial Yelp Events, or UYE, postings. These are calls for Yelpers to get together in real life, but aren’t being organized by the Yelp site. This means that the socializing that has begun on the Yelp site with casual compliments has spilled over in to real life relationships.

The previously mentioned means of social encouragement are all obvious, active methods – they’re noticeable to the user as methods to encourage socializing, and they require some form of special action to use. Yelp has an incredibly powerful passive method to encourage socializing, too - It is an incredibly useful site with a self selecting community. The first means that there is a reason beyond socializing to use the site. The second means that that the reviews that people read are generally well written, and encourage people to stick around the site.

The community is self selecting because, in order to be active in Yelp, you have to be willing to write a review that is going to be publicly visible. I have yet to find a Yelp review that is mired in “L33t SP34K”. By maintaining this level of discourse, people aren’t scared away by idiosyncratic language.

If I wanted to increase the socializing aspects of yelp, I would more directly link the forums with what’s happening elsewhere on the site. Currently, the forums are completely disjoint, other than the link to them on the front page. I’ve found that I have to consciously make a decision to go there, which means that the socializing aspect isn’t as natural as it could be. To fix this, I might add a ticker tape somewhere on the yelp page, which displays headers from recent forum posts. If this were active everywhere on the site, it’d be a great invitation to jump from the review section to the talk section. To make it useful (and to not compromise the reason for the site’s existence), the ticker could be key worded to whatever review I was looking at, similar to the way gmail serves up ads based around the email contact. So, if I were looking at a review of a bar, I’d see headlines from posts like “Where’s the best place to drink on the West Side”, and so on.

There are many different types of virtual communities. I wanted to address a specific type of community, the wiki-community, or collaborative construction discourse. Specifically I wanted to discus