The following post is based on two articles, one from Gamasutra and on from Gamedev, Quote from the Gamasutra article "More importantly, these users need to be empowered to create and develop their own experiences. One of the most important discoveries in the RPG hobby was that players wanted to be given the right tools to create their own games and their own adventures. They wanted to indulge their imaginations and their creative drives. This is a proven assumption in the face of the rise in popularity of "customizable, creation-oriented" game systems over the more traditional "class-and-level" games." The Gamedev article may be found here: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/frpg/site/ What follows is my reply to part of the Gamedev documentation, then after that follows my further idea based on the Gamasutra quote. Hiyas, Firstly just wanted to say I came across your article and absolutely had to stop to read every last bit. (downloading a 105meg Counterstrike update also being good reason to find something to keep me entertained!!) I liked it, some very interesting ideas that have inspired me further to actually get off my butt and start thinking/working on my own ideas in this area. I got to one of your sections and immediately thought of an alternative method of dealing with the situation.... and currently have another browser window open at that section ready for me to finish reading what remains. The section I''m reffering to is the one with ideas of dealing with the subject of sleeping and energy restoration. Now my ideas for this are certainly only half-baked at best, but perhaps something worthwhile for consideration and discussion. Okay the problem at present... sleeping in most games is not a necessity so long as you''re topped up with energy from food and drink. The reason for this problem being that sleeping is not easy to implement in games. n.b. Im most interested in how sleeping would be dealt with in a constantly existant world that doesnt sleep when you do, ie a MMORPG * Sleep takes time, if you are forced by the game to sleep and do nothing for a period of time, this may conflict with the times the player wants to actually be playing the game and not be sitting looking at a blank screen or whatever. * If you made it so that sleep somehow is something you perform for a couple of seconds and is represented by a cut sequence or something along those lines, when your player awakes, the world has had no more than a few minutes to change (specifically meaning in MMORPGs where it is impossible to skip ahead in time)... unrealistic My idea in dealing with this is to aim to keep realistic, but never be boring. The player should be forced into sleeping at some point, after all in real life if we stay awake constantly, at some point we are going to fall asleep whether we like it or not. Again in R.L. if we push at the limits of sleep deprivation we cannot guarantee when we are going to finally succumb to sleep. Many a time Ive been sat up watching a film and fighting to stay awake as I''ve been up so long, and fallen asleep part way through. In game I think I would choose to represent this by having some kind of indicator to show tiredness, perhaps this indicator would mark a danger zone where we may start to randomly succumb to sleep, the further towards 0 this indicator is, the more likly inevitable slumber becomes. This way the character is unlikely to head off into a dungeon and accidentally fall asleep mid battle as he has prior warning. What needs work here is how sleep would be dealt with in certain circumstances, ie the previous idea of being in the middle of a battle, no matter how tired you are it is unlikely you would fall asleep mid battle!! Perhaps when you are in danger areas your sleep indicator could be temporarily raised to allow you to stay awake, but be put into debt once in safety, meaning once the battle is over and you reach saftey, you immediately collapse to the floor and fall to sleep. Secondly sleep itself, nobody wants to be forced into stopping playing the game because their in-game character is too tired when they are still raring to go!! The way I would consider dealing with this would be something like as follows. Once the player falls to sleep, they enter an alternative world, their subconscious dream world. This alternative environment for the player would focus on personal mental development, perhaps the player may encounter horrific scenarios which enable him to become more resistant to fear effects in the real world, or he/she may encounter beautiful dreamscapes to explore and interact with, improving his/her meditational abilities. Many combinations could be used to allow a whole other side to character development. Environments could be a lot more flexible given that they would use a different set of rules to game world rules (or perhaps almost no rules at all). Another point to consider, would this part of the game world allow interaction with other players? Perhaps when you fall asleep you could be randomly linked with a random number of people also sleeping (or maybe there is some way of determining who is linked into your dreams) Perhaps it would even be possible to have people you have known who are not asleep included in your dreams as NPC''s somehow (difficult I imagine). This kind of system would allow the player to be forced to sleep (and for a realistic period of time), while not forcing them into hours of boredom. Something else to consider - when characters fall asleep and enter this dream realm they will have no interaction in the real game world with other characters, this could create some frustration if the player fancied just talking to someone or in some way interacting with others. The problem as I see it is this, take for example Everquest, in this game if you go LFG (Looking for group) it can take a loooong time to find one, if you were then forced to sleep and lose your group, the player is gonna be peed off as it may have taken him/her a long while to build up a steady going long lasting group. IMO this needs to be dealt with in one of two ways... either fix the whole problem of it taking so long to find a stable group or allow some other way of mantaining the group despite the necessity to sleep (or both I guess... in fact ideally both!) Anyway if you find these ideas difficult to follow at all, it''s because I''ve been writing it as I''m thinking it up, so appologies if it comes through poorly! It''s just the starts of my thoughts into the subject and others feedback would be much welcomed. If the ideas are deemed good enough I dont mind at all if they''re included in the article (or not if u think they''re plain crap ) Hope they inspire someone to take it further and if not its something I may at least work into my own ideas, thanks again for an inspiring article Steve aka Mephs ==Mephs_uk@yahoo.com== *-- idea based on Gamasutra quote --* I agree, the problem with many CRPG''s of today is the lack of any ability to take on the role of the GM. Once a player is bored of playing as a player, the ability to become some kind of a GM may be what it takes to offer a whole new angle and replenish interest in the game. So how could this be implemented in a game? First off, you want anyone to be able to pick it up easily to avoid putting all but the hardcore base of players off, so an easy to use system is a must, using as little techno-babble as possible. Secondly, in a MMORPG where maintaining a balance in power is essential how do you stop people designing easy encounters offering maximum rewards to specifically power-level their characters? My idea is this, drawing on my previous ideas for handling sleep in such a game, players could perhaps be allowed to design levels to represent these dream scenarios in much the same way as you''d create maps for halflife (albeit simplified so that its easy for all to use). This way the main game is not affected by these dream levels, the player has freedom to create any kind of atmosphere they like, and yet they are not able to interfere with the main feel of the game as they are only dealing with dream sequences and not the main bulk of the game. This now brings us back to the problem of the player using this to his advantage to power-level himself or friends. Perhaps this could be dealt with by clever code, a program that would analyze the created maps to determine if the risk was equal to the reward, ensure the map is fairly easily traversed and so on. The main game server could run the same check as was performed client-side any time a new dreamscape was uploaded to deny cheaters hacking the client-side files. Further issues... how would these dreamscapes be implemented in game? Would the player get to experience his own dreamscape or would this give him an unfair advantage? IMO when a level designer designs a level he is not doing so for himself, he may test it and may even play in the level, but generally the purpose of him designing the level is to have others experience it. I would thus deal with it as follows. Players are randomly allocated a dreamscape when they sleep, this could be any one of the predefined or player-uploaded dreamscapes. Player-uploaded dreamscapes would remain on server for a specified length of time before being erased to make room for new dreamscapes (or kept on file if uploads are scarce) The idea as it stands so far would allow the player a degree of freedom to implement his own creative ideas into the game without drastically affecting the main content, thus giving the game some added longevity. Power-levelling is dealt with by the mapchecking utility and the fact that you never know quite who will be in your dreamscape (but may hear tales of it from players who have experienced it!) Variety could be added by filling spaces in the dreamscape list with randomly generated maps, for a unique experience. Anyways hope you enjoyed my thoughts and feel free to comment, suggest other improvements or generally rip apart my ideas Steve AKA Mephs

Those are good ideas Mephs

here is my 2 cents

What you could do is have the time in the game pass at the same pase real time passes, and have differnt servers for differnt time zones. so if it was 12:00pm in the game it would be 12:00pm
in the real world.



Sir Darkan Fireblade

I do like the dreamscape idea, but my idea for sleep is more similar to that of fireblade''s idea. The main problem with the dreamscape idea, is that maintaining two worlds in a game is a major challenge. The other problem is that when a player plays a game, they want to PLAY THE GAME. You might as well make them go to sleep and kick them out of the game to go play whatever fps or game they play besides your rpg. Heck, at least this will help people not get quite so addicted to things anyway.

My version would have a tiredness meter as well, but when it gets to its lowest point, you don''t autmatically go to sleep. You have to actually tell the game when you want to sleep. When you go to sleep you tell it how long you are going to sleep. Basically, I want it set up so that sleeping is necesary, but the only time you''ll ever want to sleep is when you log out of the game. If you walk around for hours with a low tiredness meter, you might not be able to accomplish much, but at least your still playing the game.

Hmm, yes I see your point about the problem in maintaining 2 worlds at once, and I like the idea of tying in sleep with the points at which the player decides to log.... that way you could keep the game real time. Essentially though this would be no different than logging in a game like EQ, except that the term sleeping would be used rather than camping perhaps. Perhaps it doesnt need work, the system is fine as it is I suppose just the terminology used suggests that the player never actually sleeps.

Aside from that though the issue still remains of how to include some kind of playerGM aspect to the game without these dreamscapes. I would never want other players to be totally forced into playing something prepared by a playerGM for them to encounter, as depending on the quality of the playerGM the game may or may not then be an exciting experience, I''d rather not leave it to this chance. Perhaps the player would have some kind of choice in the matter, or... maybe the GM side of things could be part of the dynamic nature of the game. Landscape could be altered by the players in-game through means of creating artificial hills, digging out trenches or moats, sealing up entrances and building structures. Take for example a player playing as.. say a Dark Elf sorceror. They could (with sufficient funding) go about forming a lair, developing the landscape into a defensive fortress, hiring guards and/or making use of natural monstrosities to protect their home, perhaps in some fashion similar to a cross between Populous and Dungeon Master (although hopefully in full 3d if possible)

Such a technique would require some form of crowd control, too many players in a popular area could form an unrealistic cluster of structures (just how many fortresses in a game area would be too many?) Perhaps the building efforts require a lot of maintenance to keep in smooth running order, and lots of assaults on this fortress could prove its undoing with rubble gradually dissapearing over game time to make space for fresh structures of new players.

This in turn brings 2 further issues into mind,
in EQ you are never really forced to roleplay your character in the sense that often a high elf wizard would be grouped with a darkelf necormancer or the like (except in PvP servers).... In my game I think I would encourage dark VS light fights with neutrals taking either side. One way I could promote this without too heavily relying on total PvP scenarios is to introduce a factor that reduces your faction with your own people over any length of time you spend with "the enemy", your people viewing you as an outcast for socialising with the foul enemy.

Secondly roleplaying in general. I think to promote roleplaying you need to set the right atmosphere... being able to create your own lairs and participate in construction of towns and cities would add to the atmosphere. I think if I were a DarkElf sorceror in command of my own fortress and had foolish adventurers running in day after day attempt to defeat my personal lair and failing, I''d take pride, and in game would be more likely to act out my character..


I can just imagine it now...

"MWA HA HA! Foolish mortals, think you can overcome my lair? Perhaps one day one of your parties might get close, and then how I will delight in personally intervening and using your fresh skulls to adorn my throne!!"

ahe.. or sommat along those lines....

having your own lair could also be a sub-objective of the game, something only the few elite ever manage to take to its limits, soemthing to aim for, or with lesser funding, something to be emulated by younger players.

Therefore I think deformable terrain in MMORPG''s might help to enhance the roleplaying aspects. You want the player to act the part? Give them the proper stage to do so, not one that is dull and unaffected by the players that inhabit the world.


Anyway please excuse me going off at a complete tangent but it''s all inspired from the same original train of thought, so feel free to add comments on the original subject or on this side topic, I''m not fussed,

Steve AKA Mephs

What about representing sleep and fatigue via the amount of time the player spends logged on/off?

I mean... if the player is logged on for 20 hours playing... he/she and his/her character will be suffering similar effects of fatigue. Logging off for an appropiate amount of time will restore their energy levels (as opposed to just logging off and then loggin back on).

In practice it should only effect a small percentage of hardcore players... Its a feature implemented for good social consience.

heh.

Zaptruder

And the Hardcore-players then create a second char to play while the first is sleeping

... and then the hardcore coders implement a single fatigue meter for all characters owned per account.

... and then all the hardcore gamers get a 2nd account

arf!!

Although it seems hard to implement, the idea of including some way to benefit the player who is not loggged in 24/7 (or 72/21!!)sounds appealing.... promoting better social tendancies.

In which case if I were to use something similar Id prolly stick with the last system that all characters per account suffer from the one fatigue meter.... sure the hardcore would just get another account, but theres only so far I think we should go from blocking the player essentially doing what they want to do.

Steve AKA Mephs

As I really liked the idea of sleeping before, I think there need to be another solution...
In MUDs time runs faster, and you go to sleep to regen up faster.
after a hard fight you sleep, and 5 minutes later your char is at full health again.
But that means 5 minutes realtime are some hours in game.
So in game day-night had to switch every 15 mins or so...
Nothing anyone would like.

Basically the time should go some faster than realtime and 24 shouldn''t be a divisor of this day-night cycle, so everyone can play at every game time, even if the one is only around from 18h00 to 20h00 each day.
(If it is day in game on monday 18h00 to 20h00, it could be evening on tuesday same time and night on wednesday... you got it)
Also no player likes to have his character sleep all time he is playing.
I only see three solutions.
1) let time of sleeping pass faster (doesn''t work in a multiuser game)
2) Drop the idea of sleeping (seen in many games)
3) simply reduce the time of needed sleep for all characters (1 hour sleep needed every 24 hours or so)
4) bring anything into game you do not need as much sleep as usual.

In a fantasy RPG last could be a magic of refresh, been casted freely at your local priest, so you need no sleep or sleep time is 10 times as effective.
In a scifi RPG it could be a trance chamber, where you step in and get out 5 minutes later fully refreshed.
This way your character could be awake almost all time if you travel along the right ways. It also could be a adventure to find rumors about hidden springs of such refresh, so characters could walk off from the usuall paths and still be active almost all time.
hm... sounds like a good idea, I guess I will place this into the RPG I''m working on

How about this? Abstract sleep out of existence.

How many people like the idea of having to either find people to group with who are on their same sleep schedule or leave their group every 2+ hours to go to the sleep side of the game?

Not me. I'd find it annoying to have to find people on the same sleep schedule and it would only be a barrier to socialization. The objective should be to make the game easier to play (harder to master) so that there will be fewer barriers to socialization. If I have to search for a group every 2+ hours just to be there for half of my non-sleeping time, I'm going to be rather irritated.

[edited by - solinear on May 13, 2002 10:40:43 AM]

Valid point, but I think it''s not enough to warrant the entire removal of sleep from a RPG. Part of what can make a RPG fun is reacting to situations as if you were really there. Not having to sleep, although possible, IMO detracts from the game because at the back of your mind you know that if you were REALLY there you''d have to sleep sooner or later. I''m not saying your point isnt valid, just that rather than delete something perceived as dull, you should alter it to become interesting and add another element to the game.

From the comments so far I feel it may work to come up with a compromise between the dreamscapes idea and the idea of logging purely representing sleep time. Perhaps the player could have the choice of either logging to refresh himself in game (never forced upon the player, but hinted at through reduced capabilities in game over long time periods) or to refresh himself by entering this dreamscape and then continuing on afterwards. Perhaps these dreamscapes could be introduced to the storyline as somehow induced by some method.

This again brings us back to how to deal with having a whole 2nd world. IMO if using this dreamscape idea as a selectable alternative is not feasible due to lack of technical power around atm, the best alternative would be to count the player logging as him/her sleeping.

Anything rather than delete an element from the game because we simply dont know how to deal with it in a way the player would find fun.

Steve AKA Mephs