[MUD-Dev] NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really! (By R. Bartle)

[Eric Random]

In Bartle's recent article, he posits that virtual worlds are
trending towards poor quality in the long-term because of a
convergence of poor features created by the need to attract new
players in search of memorable features of their retired
games. Although an interesting article, I think it may suffer from
potential misunderstandings by its readership and perhaps even its
author.

In the article, the terms "newbie," "oldbie," and "hardcore" are
used.  These terms are used to categorize the market of players both
internal and external to a game. I think the terminology was perhaps
used more as dramatic flair, but, without definition, may ultimately
confuse the reader.

Bartle is talking about the expectations of players, and how such
expectations can affect design decisions. Although most examples
illustrate the expectations of a new player experienced in the
industry, even one not experienced will have expectations influenced
by other comparable markets, like RPG, RTS, and FPS games, as Bartle
says.  But, ultimately, he is not just talking about experience in a
particular game, but the difference between the "newbie" who is
aware of this current manifestation of the industry, and the
"oldbie" who was there at the Beginning and has seen multiple
manifestations. It is the difference between ritual and theology.

The population of players in a particular game in a competitive game
market can be categorized into four main groups:

  1) New in game, new in market
  2) New in game, exp in market
  3) Exp in game, new in market
  4) Exp in game, exp in market

The question is how strong is the effect of groups 1 and 2, the new
player, on design. From Bartle, it is stronger than that of groups 3
and 4, and perhaps even stronger than normal competitive market
dynamics which would propel a market forward.

Bartle posits the effect of group 1 and 2 on design is strongest
because the game is attempting to attract them. This would assume
that attracting players is more important than keeping
players. Successful billing-cycle businesses must attract new
customers -and- maintain current ones. In any business, total active
customers is a marketing tool in and of itself, and in an MMOG, even
moreso, as active customers provide instrinsic value to the
product. In his article, he says "Virtual worlds live or die by
their ability to attract newbies."  Although this is true, it is not
complete. Virtual worlds succeed by their ability to attract new
players and maintain existing ones.

If one is interested more in attracting customers than maintaining
current customers, it would follow that overall quality could
suffer, but, incidently, so would reputation. Normally, in this
case, the product must have a feature which could effectively
override an expectation of quality, such as cost. In his article, he
says "Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature
they don't like." I present a caveat such that they will play a
virtual world that has a major feature they don't like, given it has
another feature which effectively overrides it.

Design elements such as perma-death and instancing are core design
elements, and would occur in conceptual design. Conceptual design is
where attracting players is more important than maintaining them, as
there are not yet players to maintain. These are elements which will
affect all players (mounts, housing, magic system, crafting, skills,
graphical assets, etc.), as well as specific low and high-level
offerings. For a game to go from non-instancing to instancing, or
from perma-death to respawn are core changes. These types of design
decisions normally result in a new product.

Therefore, expectations of groups 1 and 2 are a factor in design,
but mostly during conceptual design, before a player even
experiences the game. In the conceptual stage, all groups of
players, 1 through 4, are mashed into potential expectations of
groups 1 and 2 as there are no current players. The design pressure,
though, is not necessarily only from groups 1 and 2 at this point,
but the overall features of the marketplace the product will compete
in. Although the expectations of the new player are a factor, there
is also a dependence upon what is currently offered as well as the
capabilities of resource and budget within the marketing window.

The overall market pressure is the one which drives feature
convergence, and ad nauseam repetition of the popular, but also
drives incremental improvement, and innovation. As such, standard
market forces, like maturity, marketing, innovation, and leadership,
will propel it forward; the same redeeming conclusion Bartle
reaches.

I, like Bartle, think there is a clear bifurcation of the overall
depth in quality of experience of text and graphic MUDs, but I
ultimately believe the reason why graphic MUDs seem so less inspired
than some text MUDs but receive so much more popularity is because
of my caveat to Bartle's second point. Players will play a virtual
world that has a major feature they don't like, given it has another
feature which effectively overrides it. Graphics was that effective
override, allowing quality-of-play to be temporarily ignored. As
graphics and other shallow features, like unique playable races or
genre-specific content, becomes less and less effective as an
override, actual gameplay will become more competitive and
enjoyable.
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