1.0 - Introduction The purpose of this thread is to identify, discuss, and prove a list of definitions related to interactions with the primary purpose to assist design of interactions. The common of such terms can be found in a dictionary, but such definitions are often vague, conflicting, or circular, providing insignificant value in design. The proposed list of definitions aims to define the words by the minimal forces required to instantiate the term from the viewpoint of a participant of an interaction: Term A minimal event that must exist for the participant to experience the term being defined In the case where a word has conflicting meaning in common usage, we select one set of non-conflicting definition instead of conforming to the common usage of the word. 4.0 - Context Definitions This is a list of fundamental terms used to define the other terms of interest. Agent A source of force with state subjected to change by forces. Assitance A change in state towards a goal. Environment The combined extend of all forces of the interaction. Force A relation between a cause and an effect. Goal A state where victory is defined. Impedance A change in state away from a goal Participant An agent with emotion governed by rules outside the interactive environment. Safety The extend where an agent can regulate its state. State A set of instantaneous values of a set of variables. Threat A force that impedes or with unknown effect. 5.0 - The ListAmusement Participant gets a threat and the safety that contains the threat at the same time. Attachment Participant encounters an agent that the participant associates with an instance of their identity. Casualness Participant engages a non-threat. Challenge Participant gets a threat that could redefine the boundary of safety while believing in their ability to overcome the threat. Chemistry Participant gets a force from an agent that changes with the agent's perceived identity of the participant agent. Commitment Participant engages threat to keep a goal to assist an agent despite the participant's option to adopt another goal to assist another agent. Escapism Participant gets a more safety than from real life. Fun Participant uses its safety to explore a threat. Happiness Participant recognizes that the progress toward a goal is met. Honesty Participant agent reveals true information while under forces to do otherwise. Imprinting Participant associates a set of ideals with an agent. Includedness Participant has a role in an agent's plan. Insanity Participant defies the defined and subcribes to an opposing reward set. Interest Participant gets evidence of a desirable experience. Loneliness Participant is not included in any plan of any agent. Loss Participant receives an impedance where an element required for a goal is removed. Love Participant anticipates growth in relationship with an agent. Misfortune Participant receives a random impedance. Passion Participant assists an agent and receives Recognition after having voluntarily committed to do so. Personal Significance An agent has a plan that considers the participant as an agent. Prejudice Participant receives an impedance caused by another agent's wrong assumption on the role of the participant agent. Reassurance Participant receives indication that a threat will not cause impedance. Recognition Participant receives indication that an agent welcomes the state of the participant agent. Relatioship Participant includes an agent in its plan. Relationship Growth An increase in sharing plans, goals and emotions. Respect Participant sees another participant's value the participant cares. Respected Participant sees another agent perceives a value they care. Romance Participant associates their ideals of a mate with an agent. Setback Participant receives an impedance. Thrill Participant commits to temporarily engage a threat outside safety. 9.0 - Discussion What are the common experience you want to create? Do you know how to define them? Is there a reason behind your definition? How did you come up with that definition? [Edited by - Wai on September 23, 2009 4:39:40 PM]

Explanation of the entry "Happiness":

Quote:

Happiness Participant receives an event with value matching the status of the participant.

This entry means that when the player gets what he thinks he deserves, then the interaction is exerting a force to move the player toward happiness. This does not directly mean that the player will be happy, because the player could be experiencing a tug of war of many force, including forces that emerge in the designed set of dynamics that the designer may not have foreseen.

Examples of an "Event" that the participant can receive:
E1 = Player character defeats an enemy
E2 = Player character gets a rare sword from looting
E3 = Player character get paid for a quest
E4 = Player character buys a pet
E5 = Player character unlocks a new quest

Examples of the value of the event:
V(E1) = Experience gained
V(E2) = Stats of the sword
V(E3) = Gold received
V(E4) = Cuteness of pet
V(E5) = Mysteriousness of the new quest

Examples of the status of the participant:
S(V(E1)) = Player needs exp to level up the PC
S(V(E2)) = Player needs good equipment to defeat monsters using the PC
S(V(E3)) = Player needs money to buy equipment for the PC
S(V(E4)) = Player needs to see a cute companion
S(V(E5)) = Player needs mysteries


Applying the definition:

The definition provides a formula that requires the user to fill in the blanks. In this case, it is logical to start by identifying or declaring the status of the participant, the value type would immediately follows. Whether the same level of happiness can be reached repeatedly is not part of the concern of this definition, as you might imagine that once a status of the participant is satisfied, the participant may stop looking for further reward of the same type.

Whether the value of the event matches the status of the participant is an important detail. A game could establish the value of events, and the player would interpolate the values to predict the outcome of an event. The player moves towards happiness when the event provides a value matching the player's expectation.

Say the player could sell a normal sword and get $100. When the player is about to sell a rare sword, he enters a state where he expects to get more than $100 in addition to his standing status of needing money to buy other types of equipment. If the buyback price is indeed more than $100, then the game moves the player towards happiness proportional to the player's conviction that the rare should sell for more. If the buyback price covers all of the player's immediate expenses, then the game moves the player towards happiness proportional to the player's conviction that he needs money. On the other hand, if the rare is sold for less, then the player would not feel the corresponding happiness because at that moment, the reward did not match his status.

Say the player character is an honest person but is wrongfully accused and put in jail. Then, this situation evokes a status in the player to believe that the PC should be freed. The definition states that when the PC is freed, the player will be driven toward happiness proportional to how badly the player believes that the PC should be freed. In this case, the pivotal word is "honesty". The cause of the experience of "honesty" could also be defined by its component forces to let the player experience that the PC was honest (as opposed to being told that the PC was an honest person).

[Edited by - Wai on February 16, 2009 6:47:32 PM]

Loss
Participant receives an event where an element required
for a projected favorable outcome is removed.


Scenario:

You are alone in a desert, you see an oasis and
you want to get water and fill your canteen.

You crawled to the oasis. You refreshed yourself.
When you tried to fill your canteen with water,
you discovered that it had worn out and no longer
holds water.

Here are some of the terms I think about in my design:

Escapism and Sense of Wonder - Participant experiences vicariously in an entertainment something they desire but are unable to experience in real life.

Personal Expression - By aesthetic customization and/or interactive story choices participant creates a physical avatar and/or a story about either an avatar or a provided character, which expresses and idealized or experimental version of the participant's self-identity.

Relationship - The changing reactions of NPCs over time to the participant's controlled character should express changes in the NPCs' concepts of the character's identity; this can take the form of faction reputation, character's intimidation rating, character's attractiveness rating, character's moral alignment, character's race and/or clothing, and/or an individual NPC's level of romantic interest, friendship/brotherhood, jealousy/rivalry, or desire for revenge/hatred.


How are these terms and definitions so far, is the format ok? My thought is that in your existing posts you should distinguish more clearly between player and character.

For escapism I would phrase it as follows, do you think that it means the same as yours?

Escapism Participant agent receives an desired event that the participant cannot experience in real life.

Does escapism carry the connotation that the participants prefers playing the game than being in real life? In this particular definition there is no such connotation.


For personal expression: I think the term should be the word corresponding to the feeling one gets when ones' ideals are property manifested (through customization and choices available from the interaction). What is that word?

(Word) Participant receives choices that reflect the participant's idealized or experimental self-identity.


Do they mean the same to you?

In this style we refer to the participant's character as participant agent; npcs are refered to as just agents, which could also include other player characters. The reason is that the thing that the player is controlling need not be a character, it could be a group of forces with no embodiment. In the case where the player is physically participanting in the game, the participant is the participant agent.

We don't use "should" in these kind of definition. It is okay to leave out some meaning to a general word. We would split words that deserves multiple definition. But each definition is definite. If a definition caters to the case where an element could be omitted, then we also omit that element from the definition to make the definition minimal.

Quote:

Relationship - The changing reactions of agnets over time to the participant agent [strike]should[/strike] expresses changes in the NPCs' concepts of the character's identity. [strike]; this can take the form of faction reputation, character's intimidation rating, character's attractiveness rating, character's moral alignment, character's race and/or clothing, and/or an individual NPC's level of romantic interest, friendship/brotherhood, jealousy/rivalry, or desire for revenge/hatred.[/strike]

For relationship I have another definition concept. It is defined as the answer to the question, "What does it take for the player to feel the existence of a relationship?"

Relationship_2 An agent has a plan that include the participant agent at an entity level.

For example, suppose you play a soccer player. A nearby school wants to have a match with your team in the weekend. Then there is a relationship at the team level. But the player is only a member of the team. Suppose the coach (NPC) informs the player that he will be responsible to guard against a specific player of the other team, then two relations are formed at the player's level:

1) The relation between the coach and the player character. The player character is not just a nameless soccer player of the team. The coach knows you, and he says that you, not any one else, need to guard that player because that is part of the game plan.

2) Once you got the coach's order, there is also a relation between your character and that specific player you need to guard. So now the player has a plan to do something about that agent. That agent might not have a plan to do something specifically about you. This particular definition allows one-way relations. So your target is not required to have a plan that considers you as an entity.

If the matches starts and the other team realizes the threat you generate. He calls time out and decide a plan against your presence. Now the player gets another relationship.

Quote:

My thought is that in your existing posts you should distinguish more clearly between player and character.

I have changed some words in the lists in the Happiness post. I need to think more about whether the wording in the list in the original post are correct.

For example, when I say: "Happiness: Participant receives an event with value matching the status of the participant."

I mean that the player receives an event with value matching the status of the player. This definition answer the question in the form:

"In what situation will an interaction make the player happy?"

This question is conceptually different from:

"What events would make the player character happy?"

We are not trying to rely on the player being empathetic to the player character, so we are asking the first question. So perhaps all of the definitions should use 'Participant' instead of 'Participant Agent'. It seems that we are in an symmetric situation where only the 'Participant' can perceive the experience, but the game in general, is acting on the 'Participant Agent'. This way of description would include the case where the Participant is the Participant Agent. Therefore, in the definition for Prejudice, the Question is:

"In what situation will the player feel prejudice?"

It happens when the player receives an impeding event triggered by another agent's assumption on the role of the player's character.

This is written under the assumption that the player agent is defined in the perception of the interaction, but not necessarily the player. In Honesty, since the player is not necessarily defined within the environment of interaction, it does not always make sense to say that the Participant reveals information. However, the Participant can always reveal information through the Participant Agent, which could be the player herself.

The recipient of emotion being defined is always the Participant (Player), the recipient of interactive forces within the gaming environment is always the Participant Agent (Player Character). The player receives all events that the player character receives, but not the other way around.

For example, if the player wants to bring the PC to safe an NPC based on meta knowledge that the NPC is in danger, when it is too late such that the NPC is not saved, the player could feel LOSS but not the PC. The PC never knew that something bad had happened. In this interaction, the game evokes a feeling of LOSS in the player, regardless whether the player character feels the same.

This is long-winded but I want to make sure that I don't confuse myself again.

Since I explained the use of the term "agent" instead of "character". I am also recording why "participant" instead of "player". This choice comes from the fact that the interaction being discussed need not be a game. The interaction could be an accident where the participant is the victim. It could be an interrogation where the participant is the suspect. It could also be Life where the participants are any of us.

[Edited by - Wai on February 16, 2009 7:24:19 PM]

Escapism does carry the connotation that the fiction is preferable to real life. Also, I don't think escapism is about events. Unless you include something like being able to create a winged avatar as an event. Escapism is mostly about non-events: appearance, identity, physical setting, or culture.

"When one's ideals are properly manifested", hmm... normally if I read this phrase I would interpret ideals as being something like morals, so that's a bit misleading. 'self-actualization' is the technical term for that, although it's also similar to empowerment, enlightenment, and other new-agey words starting with e. [wink] I was going for something less philosophical, more like 'Customization with personal meaning', in other words Personal Expression or Self-expression. I also find the phrase "receives choices that reflect" unclear. Perhaps, "is given opportunities to make choices that express".

Interestingly, examining these definitions has made me see more clearly how these two terms fit together. Escapism is having an environment which has more potential/freedom for self-expression than real life.

I agree with striking that material from relationship, I just thought it might be important or useful to include a list of types of relationship. This information probably would have been more appropriate as a footnote.

For relationship_2, how about the term Personal Significance?

Here are my comments on these definitions:

Quote:

Original post by Wai Fun (I am deferring this so that you could think about how it might be defined.)

I think fun is a combination of several kinds of pleasure, from the visceral enjoyment of visuals, sounds, and adrenaline rushes, to the more abstract anticipation that something interesting may happen at any moment, to satisfaction felt after succeeding, to personal expression and Reassurance which I'm going to define in my next post. Fun also includes a connotation of time, as in the game must provide a certain amount of pleasure per interval of time.

Quote:

Happiness Participant receives an event with value matching the status of the participant.

The phrase "value matching the status of the participant" totally confuses me. Normally I would think of 'status' being things like, unpopular, temporarily transformed into a frog, and in-transit. Are you interested in the aspect of happiness that is based on satisfaction/contentment with current status?

Quote:

Honesty Participant agent reveals true information while under pressure to do otherwise. Loss Participant receives an event where an element required for a projected favorable outcome is removed.

Honesty seems fine; I believe one can be honest without being pressured to be deceitful but I agree that this type of honesty is less significant than the under-pressure kind.

Loss, I don't think the 'favorable outcome' part is required, you might feel loss at the death of a character or removal of a possession which is irrelevant to any outcomes. For example I might feel loss if my favorite piece of clothing in the game is altered to have an uglier appearance, even though this has no effect on any stats or the plot. Is my level of personal satisfaction with my avatar's appearance an outcome?

Quote:

Misfortune Participant receives a random event that impedes the participant's progress.

Setback seems like a more specific term for this definition.

Quote:

Prejudice Participant receives an impeding event triggered by another agent's assumption on the role of the participant agent.

Prejudice has strong connotations of unfairness based on treating people of one stereotype differently from people of another stereotype. Prejudiced behavior is not observable if the agent does not exhibit non-parallel behavior toward an otherwise similar participant or simulated participant. Try this for a basic example of prejudice: a merchant NPC has two different lists of prices, one for class or race A and one for class or race B. A second basic example: an NPC refuses to speak to or give a quest to characters of a certain class, race, or below or above a certain level.

Reassurance - Positive reinforcement given to the participant with the intention of increasing the participant's self-opinion. [Note: This usually does not refer to specific rewards such as loot or money, but instead to social rewards like titles and NPC commentary on why the played character is special or how the played character has excelled in a specific quality such as strength, intelligence, helpfulness, honor, etc.]

It might need another word, but by event I include anything that can 'happen' or 'be happening' inside the game environment. This would take care of the following cases:

1) The player character has wings
2) The player character flies
3) The player character is a winged watermelon

Of the three, (3) is probably not related to escapism assuming that no one prefers to be a flying watermelon.

It is a practicality issue because if I don't use a word that includes events, forms and actions, all of the definitions will be really wordy.

Which is better?

Escapism_0 Participant agent receives an desired event that the participant cannot experience in real life.

Escapism_1 Participant agent exists in a form or an environment more desirable than real life.

Escapism_2 Participant prefers existence as the participant agent over existence in real life.

Escapism_3 Participant receives more freedom of self-expression in the interactive environment than in real life.

Escapism_4 The interactive environment provides a more preferable mean for self-expression than real life provides.

Escapism_5 Participant receives a more preferable mean of self-expression in the interactive environment than in real life.


Relationship:

Relationship_1 The changing reactions of agents to the participant agent express changes in the agents' concepts of the character's identity.

In your definition, a relationship must change over time. Do you intend to exclude relationships that are static? I think you are defining a developing relation.

Compare the following scenarios regarding static relationship:

1) Your character walk across a room while an NPC is cooking.
When you click on the NPC, the NPC whistles.

2) Your character is in a room and an NPC is cooking.
When you click on the NPC, the NPC say, "Oh, what am I cooking?
It is the ultimate watermelon stew!"

3) Your character is in a room where an NPC is cooking.
You click on the NPC and he says, "I am cooking for the for the
miners, they should return at 6pm."

4) Your character is in a room where an NPC is cooking.
You click on the NPC and he says, "are you coming back for dinner
tonight?"

5) Your character is in a room where an NPC is cooking.
You click on the NPC and he says, "Oh you are not coming back
tonight? I was going to make your favorite watermelon stew!"

6) Your character is in a room where an NPC is cooking.
You click on the NPC and he says, "Yes, yes, yes, no garlic,
just the way you like it."


This is what I try to capture in Relationship_2. I was thinking that
an existence of a plan is required for the player to feel that a
relationship (static relation) exists between the player character
and an NPC. We are not talking about the trivial sense of relationship
that includes any pair of interacting agents.

Personal Significance An agent has a plan that includes the participant agent at an entity level.