This is Part 3 of a series of posts dedicated to covering topics of interest to me in videogames, and will be instrumental in the foundation of my thesis project. As always, comments are appreciated.
Part 3 covers some economic concepts, mostly focusing on rarity of commodities and items and how they impact the narrative of a massively-multiplayer online game.
Rare Legends
This leads to the point of rarity and individuality in games. Before delving into this discussion, I want to list two main assumptions that I am making. I am making these assumptions based on my economic studies and personal leanings on economic issues.
The first assumption is that when something is rare, it generally holds more value (this isn’t considering the utility or usefulness of the item in question). This doesn’t hold true for all things, obviously – being the sole owner of a telephone isn’t helpful if there isn’t anybody to call.
The second assumption is that the concept of diminishing marginal utility is accurate. This concept basically says that the more you have of some commodity, the less valuable each additional piece or unit of the commodity is to you. Just to clarify, if you’ve got one hamburger, a second hamburger has a marginal utility of X. If you have twenty hamburgers, the marginal utility you have for the twenty-first hamburger is going to be less than X.
I feel that a rare item is a greater motivator and reward for a player rather than one that is easily found or acquired. It cheapens the experience of having a flaming dragon-shaped sword when somebody else has one, and it really cheapens it when a thousand people have one or even several. This rarity can happen naturally through the game’s design simply by making specific items appear less frequently than others, or putting them in difficult to find locations. These methods are useful for many things, but are still problematic when dealing with “epic” items. If an item can always be acquired in a particular method and the item is desired enough, then other players will perform the tasks required to acquire the item.
In my opinion, this removes the significance of the item overall. The item may serve as proof of a quest’s completion, but its narrative meaning is destroyed. Additionally its significance to the player diminishes over time as more players acquire the item. What this causes is a never-ending search for the new “rarest” item. This is a cycle that obviously works well for companies like Blizzard, but perhaps not for the players themselves.
Imagine something unique and with a lot of history, like Excalibur. Stories can be written about Excalibur because it’s a unique item, sought after and used by many. It can be passed down through the ages. Most importantly, its narrative goes beyond its attributes and into the people that used it, where it is located, at what time, and so on. These qualities are attractive to me. I’d prefer to have a single item that is fought over, passed down over time, broken and remade, and creates a history behind it rather than one that is effectively meaningless because of its widespread ownership. This quality ties in to my previous post on player-generated narrative. While the item itself may be the center of its own narrative, it is the interaction of the community that generates the narrative itself.
The obvious criticism of this is that if you don’t have the item, you’ll feel discouraged because you can’t obtain it. This suggests that a system with frequent item turnover is ideal. Luckily, my project has one, and it’s a big one. Sure, that’s mysterious, but I’ll get into it later.
I recently had a discussion with “Big” John Brennan, who brought up the point that MMO games are about items and additional content because they “have to be.” I thought that was a great point and a fantastic driver for design: how would you make a MMO where items and content are fairly static, but still generate the same kind of obsession that has drives current MMOs? That’s a good indicator as to the direction of my project, so I’ll be sure to talk about it sometime soon.
Comments (5)
I agree with you here and i am excited to hear about your system. I think what you have in mind here and in the previous articles is a dedication to creating a fantasy space with integrity.
I've fantasized of finding a unique, magical sword out in the wilderness of some mmorpg, or to be the only one able to pull the sword from the stone (in a multi player game where this could actually MEAN something). I'd also love to loot Excalibur from the cold, dead hands of the chosen one.
I think that designers need to learn to trust both the seductiveness of what they are offering players (fantasy worlds) and the intentions of their players (escapism). I guess thats a fancy way of saying that they need to stop running these things like casinos or carnivals, and act more like dungeon masters and world builders. Less spoon feeding. This may seem like kind of a jab at Blizzard - it is. (They did bring the polish, and I think the point has been made...)
Posted by jb![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rjlayton/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2008 2:04 AM
Posted on March 31, 2008 02:04
While I agree with your idea that rarity is influential to piquing a player's interests, I think that I prefer the Hellgate: London model to the standard drop model. Granted this game is a whole lot less MMO than say, WoW, but they do have an interesting model for rarity. Items which are dropped by certain enemies have varying levels of commonality, and if the player gets a weapon that he likes, he can pay money to upgrade the rarity, and thereby the stats of that item. Couple that with the ammo and weapons modification system that they built in, you have what is pretty much the only good part of Hellgate. Aside from the character design, anyway.
On the other hand, rarity can sometimes be very frustrated. As an action figure collector, I only need two more figures to complete the set of one of my favorite lines, but the rarity of these two figures (coupled with the line being cancelled several years ago) has made this maddeningly difficult. So, the search for these figures has ceased to be fun, and has now become a chore.
Posted by MikeRossmassler![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rjlayton/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 2, 2008 2:25 PM
Posted on April 2, 2008 14:25
The idea of being the only person in a persistent world with a highly sought after item is very intriguing, but I think the overall conflict with this idea in an MMO lies within the persistency of the world. Personally, I would become less and less motivated to explore the world each time I saw another player pass by with a rare item because I would know there's no chance of me acquiring that item now. Sure you could have enough rare items to give each player an opportunity at collecting at least one, but that's like me having 6 friends and 6 different flavors of skittles; each friend will get one, but some will be left with flavors they just don't like (*waits for jokes about me having friends*).
I agree with Mike that a simple mechanism to provide this feeling of rarity in items is having items that have varying stat modifiers. This is a method that encourages the continued exploration for a better "version" of that item. Which would seem to give a player that feeling of accomplishment in the discovery of a pseudo-rare item.
Alas, I know this is not the route you would like to take in designing a system of unique world items. If I were to think of a design mechanism that wouldn't alienate the explorer types of MMOs, I would maybe look into event-driven worlds. The idea that every few weeks or months some sort of semi-apocalyptic event occurs and some new crazy item emerges from the aftermath. I'm not sure if any of this makes sense, I just know it's 3:30am and I have operated all day off of only 3 hours of sleep, so I'll talk to you more about this stuff when I'm more coherent. For some reason I'm craving skittles...
Posted by Andre Clark![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rjlayton/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 3, 2008 2:27 AM
Posted on April 3, 2008 02:27
Hi RJ,
I love the idea of "a single item that is fought over" or searched for, like the Holy Grail. Possibly within that search there are counterfit items or supplementary items that can fulfill the needs of MMO's. The challenge is finding the significance of that item - wheather you use as story that already exists and people are familiar with, or create your own. The backstory that comes with items that exist in other texts can be really useful in extending the life of the story and motivation of that characters.
Another options is taking something historical - as mentioned in your earlier post - and spinning off that, or creating a fictional text based on something historical.
Posted by Maya![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rjlayton/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 3, 2008 6:23 AM
Posted on April 3, 2008 06:23
Hm. This seems like a new direction compared to your rehearsal of death row. Or is it related? Now, I'm not sure what your hypothesis is, and so I wonder if your hypothesis is testable. I look forward to a prototype that tests a lemma in your hypothesis. Even something simple and limited would help me understand what you are after.
'''how would you make a MMO where items and content are fairly static, but still generate the same kind of obsession that has drives current MMOs?'''
Before considering solutions, such as this, I need to know: What is the problem you are trying to solve? I am currently not associating this system with your forementioned interest in player-generated narratives and sandbox gameplay.
Your discussion of the adventurous deeds and stories and exclusion of items is a design thesis I have shared. Thus, my mind wanders back to 1999 where my Legend system in Dark Ages avoided items and emphasized individual deeds. (If you'll pardon a moment of shameless self-infatuation,) The legend is a public list of deeds that a user has performed, mostly honorable (such as epic events, mentoring, winning a literature contest), but also denotes the dishonorable. Users collected legends and avoided dishonorable legend entries. Your performance in creative contests, quests, events, crafting, politics, and religion mechanics all generated various legends which users seek.
You have something unique in mind, I'm sure, but to comment usefully I need to see or hear your conceptual design.
Posted by kennerly![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rjlayton/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 9, 2008 3:11 PM
Posted on April 9, 2008 15:11