By dynamic, I mean that every aspect of the game is influenced by the players. Why isn''t there a game where the quests, dungeons, challenges, cities & builds, wars, the economy, and the world itself can be shaped by players? Sure, its a lot of work for a developer to pull off -- but just think of the benefits. To (hopefully) illustrate, I recently presented an in-deoth scenario to a friend wherein a single Player Character in a very dynamic MMORPG becomes the terrible arch-enemy of an entire fantasy world. For simplicity, lets call him Lord Razor. In the beginning, this particular MMORPG has special in-game conventions to prevent player killing. To be specific, three governments control as their territory three different countries, totaling 40% of the entire world. These governments each employ scores of extremely omnipotent guard NPCs, which instantly attack any criminals that step within their respective borders. Lord Razor is a highly experienced and powerful Player Character that is bent on changing this once and for all, so that he may rampage through the world murdering as he pleases. For added flavor, lets say that he has also acquired (through sheer luck) a unique artifact of great power, which gives all evil beings that touch it the power to temporarily control a number of evil beasts. To amplify his power and accomplish his evil designs, Lord Razor first secures for himself a great fortress in a remote location atop a huge mountain. In this fortress he builds a powerful army, comprised of dozens upon dozens of Player Character officers, which he converts to his cause through the real power of persuasion: Besides being well paid, the PCs are promised great wealth and power once the world has been conquered, and through the use of this Artifact and his existing powers, they are each granted the power to control mighty creatures of evil and terror. As his movement gains in strength and momentum, he mounts an impressive attack on the smallest of the three PC-run empires. His army wins the day, and is able to overthrow the government and destroy every last guard. Good Player Characters fight valiantly, but are slaughtered without mercy and are forced to retreat. Meanwhile, still more evil players are joining Lord Razor''s cause, having seen his power and realizing the vast evil potential of this new empire. I''ll let you decide what happens next it could really go many different ways: Perhaps Lord Razor wins and conquers the world (opening the door to new scenarios based on "redeeming" the world)... or perhaps the good player characters unite and fight him off once and for all... or perhaps a special task force actually makes it into the heart of his domain to destroy the Artifact that is the source of much of his power. Regardless, the potential for really meaningful player interaction in this kind of game would vast, as you will surely see.. but what''s more, the scenario I have described (and any number of others) can be made possible with relatively few changes to most popular MMORPGs on the market right now! What can players, designers, or developers do to encourage these kinds of dynamic roleplaying opportunities? **************************************** Brian Lacy ForeverDream Studios Comments? Questions? Curious? brian@foreverdreamstudios.com "I create. Therefore I am."

quote: Original post by irbrian
Sure, its a lot of work for a developer to pull off

that´s why.
but be patient, games are going in that direction.

Probably would take a lot more effort than developers are willing to contribute. Shadowbane IIRC takes steps toward this dynamic world. Players supposedly are able to create their own empires and claim land. I don''t know how deep this goes though.

Perhaps because the typical MMORPG player is not as bright as the developpers would want?

Planetside will have warring factions that can gain and lose territory, although it won''t be quite the MMORPG that you describe here. I can definitely see this in the future, though. The big obstacle, in my opinion, is the physical changes to the world. Building, demolishing, digging, and destroying terrain and city features would be a really terrific feature, but such a daunting task would require enormous development and incredible resources to operate. I''d like to see it done, but I''m not holding my breath.

I think it would be best in a 2D isometric system, for starters. A Sims-ish system would be pretty cool, if you added in construction time and labor forces. Add a few stacked planes to accomodate digging or multi-story construction, and it could work very well indeed. Neat.

The problem is that if you give the players too much control, the world will fall apart and nobody will want to play. Imagine Lord of the Flies or Swiss Family Robinson (except everyone kills each other). It will just be a bunch of children starting a society, and chaos will rule for quite some time before a real society is established.. and by that time, most players would have left

In your scenario, you have (at least initially) ONE player character doing all the cool stuff and having all the fun... Once he recruits PCs to his cause, this is not the case... but it''s also not as much fun for the newcomers as for Lord Razor. How do you choose which player gets to find the artifact, etc? This might cause resentment.

Also... in a persistent online world, when PCs become more important to the "storyline" of the world, problems arise when that player goes offline. Lord Razor has a day job and a kid, and even if he''s a high school student, he needs to sleep about 8 hours a day. Maybe he''ll get by with 5 hours sleep, but that''s still five hours when other PCs can''t get to Lord Razor to slay him/whatever.

To sum it up: PCs are unreliable, so any dynamic content is going to require persistent foot prints in the world... i.e. NPCs, which require development.

You can, however, have things like clan bases story elements which can be represented in game around the clock... and other dynamically associated bases, etc, that can be conquered/controlled by PCs or groups of PCs. These have to be programmed into the world specifically, ahead of time... It seems like this is the direction some MMORPGs are going in.

I don''t mean to state that dynamic content in these games is impossible. I just mean to point out some considerations that need to be made. There are work arounds for these problems, that result in some nice gameplay.

-Jason
www.strangerstudios.com

It all comes down to the ''too many heroes'' syndrome in my opinion. Taking a look at EverQuest, guilds often do not survive long... the only guilds that do are those of great power, the smaller guilds more often than not end up purely feeding the larger guilds. Not always, but in the majority of cases.

So, what makes the larger guilds successful? People ultimately have their own vision, each ideally wants to be a hero of a sort, though many realise that they will not rise above the masses, and instead set themselves personal goals. Larger powerful guilds ultimately means the players that are a part of them also gain a share in the power, thus enabling them to achieve their goals. Players who are unable to get into the larger guilds may look for other methods of gaining power. This could be via exploitations, it could come from serving a purpose in a community and gaining respect (mapping out levels and quests etc). The point is, people will not come together as they would in a work of fiction that is shaped by one mind, everyone has their own agenda''s and many prefer to be giving orders rather than following, so there is no real social structure in place to shape events around.

I''m not really sure how to get around such a limit, but I''m sure there''s a way. Moving away from entirely combat centred action has to be a good start, as people can have much more varying roles then, and a social structure that has more in common with the real world could start to develop (which I think would be a good thing). The problem is, RPG''s only seem to have developed to the point where you can fight or trade. We need more options, the problem is finding equally fun roles to play out and integrating them into the game.

Implementation is key to making things fun. In the early days of EQ, sure you could trade, you could form guilds and so on, but it became a lot more fun (and less hassle) when they implemented a full trading system by creating the bazaar, allowing you to search items for sale, and so on. People need ideas fully implemented I feel. If they have to do 90% of the work themselves without a proper system in place, they''ll revert to doing things their own way and thus there will be no (read: less) unification. If you implement a system, essentially you are just laying out guidelines, which may initially seems restricting, but should prove ultimately to create a more rich experience.

To put my ideas into a more relevant context.....
(note this is only for sake of arguement)

You could create a system whereby at any one time there are two power figures, one good, one evil. The evil power figure could be determined by combat/subversion. There is only ever one evil power figure in place at any given time. He may designate henchmen, subordinates etc.

The good power figure can be determined via a trial/voting process or something similar.

The two sides are constantly at battle, but to maintain balance, various factors could come into play dependant upon the relevant power of the sides. Obviously, when players come and go, people favor the stronger side, etc, you need to add in balancing factors to ensure that the game isn''t won and over in seconds. Perhaps a system where the Gods empower the weak in times of need and weaken the strong if they are overwhelming. Perhaps a day/night cycle could protect the good from the evil and vice versa, such that it is difficult (but not impossible) for one side to ever claim complete victory.

If you implement no system, players flock to the winning side and game over.. no fun. If you put some basic rules/interface features in, similar to the suggested ones (theres lots of room for expansion) it shapes the players desires to fit in with the communities desires and should make for a cooler experience... kind of like an emergent behaviour of an AI.

Anyhoo I''m rambling now (as always)

Cheers,

Steve

------------------------------
Appolgies if I inadvertantly killed your thread, people have a tendancy to stop posting after I make a reply

quote: Original post by PSWind
Probably would take a lot more effort than developers are willing to contribute.

I'll restate that I really don't think a lot of games are that far off from such a dynamic world. Currently I play Ultima Online, which (except for the terrain question, which may or may not be relevant) really isn't that far off from such a dynamic world, in terms of what the game code is currently prepared to do, I think. Players can already build and own customized structures of varying sizes, for instance.

quote: Original post by Cahaan
Perhaps because the typical MMORPG player is not as bright as the developpers would want?

I disagree. The more intelligent the game, the more intelligent the fan-base, on average. Hack and slash or mindless FPS games tend to appeal more to the brute force players, and the type of game I'm talking about would appeal to those who enjoy subtlety, politics, or in-depth roleplaying -- of which there are many.

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
The big obstacle, in my opinion, is the physical changes to the world. Building, demolishing, digging, and destroying terrain and city features would be a really terrific feature, but such a daunting task would require enormous development and incredible resources to operate. I'd like to see it done, but I'm not holding my breath.

Terrain manipulation can certainly be reserved for much later in the evolution of such a game. My primary interest is a game that is dynamic enough for in-game plots to be influenced and even created by players through manipulation of the economy and government/territory.

quote: Original post by falkone
The problem is that if you give the players too much control, the world will fall apart and nobody will want to play. Imagine Lord of the Flies or Swiss Family Robinson (except everyone kills each other). It will just be a bunch of children starting a society, and chaos will rule for quite some time before a real society is established.. and by that time, most players would have left

Which is why the players should NEVER be completely left to their own devices. It would be cool, sure, but there should always be a "higher power" so to speak that devises "natural" limitations. What those limitations are exactly must depend on the structure and flow of the game... using the example scenario I mentioned above, there are a couple things that immediately come to mind, such as natural safe-zones that cannot be controlled by players.. natural limits on the percentage of territory that can EVER be controlled by one player or one faction/guild/coalition/whatever.. perhaps a thinning of territorial control associated with greater territory. A convention that would already be part of such a system is the manpower requirements associated with defending a large territory. If one faction controls 1000 square miles of territory, how many individuals does it take to defend all that territory? But of course these are just examples... with time the design of such a game could be perfected to solve the vast majority of these kinds of issues.

quote: Original post by dymetrix
In your scenario, you have (at least initially) ONE player character doing all the cool stuff and having all the fun... Once he recruits PCs to his cause, this is not the case... but it's also not as much fun for the newcomers as for Lord Razor. How do you choose which player gets to find the artifact, etc? This might cause resentment.

Absolutely not. Remember, my scenario is a hypothetical one derived from the endless possibilities of a dynamic world. Lord Razor is not the only one with this opportunity Lord Razor starts out as a peon like everyone else, and has the same opportunities as everyone else to grow in wealth, power, influence, and so on. It is technically unlikely that one PC would ever come to power so dramatically -- it is more likely that there would be dozens of small, powerful empires of good and of evil competing with each other for territory. There would be alliances, peace treaties, border disputes, and so on, just like in real life. A good setting might be in medieval Europe or Asia, during a time period where warlords are constantly competing for power.

(Oh, and the artifact was also hypothetical -- even if such artifacts existed, there would be many of them, whether or not the individual artifacts were unique.)

quote: Also... in a persistent online world, when PCs become more important to the "storyline" of the world, problems arise when that player goes offline. Lord Razor has a day job and a kid, and even if he's a high school student, he needs to sleep about 8 hours a day. Maybe he'll get by with 5 hours sleep, but that's still five hours when other PCs can't get to Lord Razor to slay him/whatever.

And when he does sleep, his territory is vulnerable because he's not there to defend it. He needn't be slain to be defeated -- an empire abandoned by its leader has already fallen (anyone remember Saddam?). This doesn't mean punishing players that sign off, of course -- a wise warlord surrounds himself with great leaders, confidantes, generals, and friends.

quote: To sum it up: PCs are unreliable, so any dynamic content is going to require persistent foot prints in the world... i.e. NPCs, which require development.

No reason NPCs can't still join in the fun.

quote: You can, however, have things like clan bases story elements which can be represented in game around the clock... and other dynamically associated bases, etc, that can be conquered/controlled by PCs or groups of PCs. These have to be programmed into the world specifically, ahead of time... It seems like this is the direction some MMORPGs are going in.

But this takes away that dynamic element that I'm looking for, and that I'm sure many others hope for as well.

****************************************

Brian Lacy
ForeverDream Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@foreverdreamstudios.com

"I create. Therefore I am."

[edited by - irbrian on April 27, 2003 10:00:30 PM]

These kinds of dynamic MMORPG DO exist. They are called MUDs.