Issue of the "Experience" (Was Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs)

[Nathan F. Yospe]

J C Lawrence <claw at kanga.nu> said:
> On Sat, 12 Jan 2002 12:19:57 -0600 
> Michelle Elbert <michelf at silverspoonandpaperplate.com> wrote:

>> What we're really frustrated about here, I think, is that we
>> haven't really come up with a good way to get these people to get
>> along without some serious human intervention.

> Or to naturally segregate them or place them in complementary play
> positions where their mutual value/use exceeds their annoyance.

Thank you, J C, took the words right out of my mouth.  I have not
gone commercial, and it will be at least three years before I can
consider doing so, given the limits of my funding (self) and time
(well, I have to work pretty hard to have enough income to try to
self fund, after all, so all I have is stolen moments), but there
is a part of me that hopes none of the big commercial muds happen
on the scheme I'm adopting for griefers.

In simple terms, I've figured out a way to do what J C implies, a
real and functional segregation of player roles that manipulates,
and enforces, griefer behavior in such a way that it fails to put
a non-grief player at inconvenience.

In order to do so, I've relied on an element of game design that,
over the years, J C and I have (quite civilly) disagreed on.  The
issue in question is free will.  There is no difference, in terms
of technology, between environmental barriers to behavior (rocks,
cliffs, end of screen, guards that slay you) and internal impulse
controls.  In terms of design, they are radical opposites.  There
is a huge difference between man vs. self and man vs. environment
in psychological terms, and the former gives a huge advantage for
tracking and placing players.  A player can alter a character and
it will become what they are acting as, but it takes effort if it
is a deliberate and conscious override of the habitual alignment,
the character of the player's character, as it is.  A player has,
in effect, the role of the conscious mind, the ego, but there are
both id and superego (and no, I don't subscribe, but they work as
metaphor in this case) to contend with, and these elements lie at
the bottom of a global big brother, an unseen and invisible being
composed of automated protocols married to a rather extensive set
of genetic algorithm sort mappings, and designed for easy access,
both observational and manipulative, by human eyes and minds, and
a player that tries to make their character hostile, for whatever
reason and in whatever way, will soon happen into a draft, or the
chance at a role in a nasty corporate structure, or any one of an
assortment of placement opportunities, depending on the nature of
their infractions and the mapping of their behavior.

Sudden shifts of behavior are even harder, of course, to prevent,
as much as possible, a griefer in stealth mode.

This is surely a frightening thing, if it works as tested, when I
expose it to hundreds of thousands of people, and not mere dozens
of short term volunteer testers.  Will it perform as expected?  I
doubt it will be as effective... I am genius, but my enemy, given
the scenario of merely being bright, are legion, and if perhaps a
single genius can accomplish more than a hundred of the brightest
minds trying to work together in chaos (see most of the large gnu
projects, or many commercial projects, vs., say, Wolfram), I will
not concede the same against the hordes of determined griefers, a
body of no cooperative effort, should they come to understand the
extent of what is being done to them.

I'm barely enough of a scientist to overcome my ethical qualms at
the idea of mass manipulation of people, and take some comfort in
the fact that, unlike the real world, I have both a unique degree
of control, and a unique amount of intimate knowledge, within the
bounds of a game, and in the fact that not only are the players a
faceless mass, but the numbers are not recorded globally, only as
as sum are players judged.  Unfortunately, I expect a day where a
subset of Hari Seldon's vision is managed by computers, where the
world at large hints people toward their ideal careers, mates, or
hometowns, and while perhaps this would have bright points, I can
assure you, the motives will, as always, be one of four: money or
greed in other forms; power, control, or domination; fame, be the
source infamy or heroism; or, rarely, altruism in secret.  I have
a fifth motive, beyond a small amount of the first and third, but
while I know it exists, I don't think it would ever appear beyond
the controlled game world... I am motivated by curiosity, just as
many here, and know that in time, I or one like me will give some
other a tool, yet again, that allows the expression of one of the
other motives in a way that will change the world.  I just hope I
have enough of the fourth motive to find a way to make sure it is
a change consistent with the heroic form of the third motive.

Now, after that first paragraph, it should be clear that there is
a technical element to what I am doing that I fail to mention, or
even allude to, in the third paragraph, beyond even the challenge
of setting up the genetic algorithm for choosing roles and making
it transparent.  Leave it at that.  I still hope to have a chance
at competing with companies that have huge invested bankrolls, as
a lone wolf, using my own funds.  Give it all away, and there's a
good case for insanity rather than reckless ambition.

Still, I wish it wasn't so.  Discussion among peers is a vanity I
am far from free of.  Were it possible for me to find what I want
from life without keeping a few things to myself, I would be very
happy...

--

Nathan F. Yospe -  Programmer, Scientist, Artist, JOAT with a SAK
yospe#kanga.nu   Home: nathanfyospe#mac.com  Work: nyospe#a2i.com
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