Stickybeaking

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20 September 2006

by Mike Rozak

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This article contains some thought experiments involving games, puzzles, toys, stories, socialisation, Choose-your-own adventures, and stickybeaking; You never thought they were related, did you?

Games

World of Warcraft and Everquest II are clearly games. In both of them, there exists a landscape populated by monsters, non-player characters, and other players. The core activity for players is the combat sub-game; its needs drive the AI and social interaction designs.

Let me put forth a non-binding definition of a game:

A game includes a reality bound by a set of rules. Players make choices and the rules determine the outcome, ultimately resulting in the player winning or losing. In a game, the degree to how well a player's choices worked result scalar positive or negative feedback. Players use this feedback to improve their understanding of the system as well as hone their abilities (such as manual dexterity). With players' new feedback and skills at hand, players make another choice. Repeat ad infinitum until players understand the rules and get bored. (See Raph Koster's "A Theory of Fun" for more info.)

In WoW and EQII, players try to kill monsters. The game returns positive/negative feedback in the form of hit points and other metrics. Players gradually perfect their combat techniques. To keep the game interesting, variations are added into the game over time, such as new monsters or new PC abilities.

In artificial intelligence terms, the described gameplay sounds an awful lot like neural networks. Neural networks work by making a choice, seeing how right/wrong the choice was, and adjusting their model of reality based upon the amount of positive/negative feedback. Over many thousands of iterations, a neural network learns to accurately predict the input data.

A world without games?

What would happen if gameplay were removed from WoW and EQII? What would players do?

• Socialisation - Without any game, players would still be able to talk to and interact with the other players in the world. Socialisation would be hurt by the lack of gameplay, however, because the game provides a reason for the socialisation to exist.
  
  
• Stickybeaking - This is an Australian term that means: curious, inquisitive, and "poking one's nose into other people's business". The term comes from birds sticking their beaks into people's (sticky) food to get a taste, or at least that's my suspicion.
  
  If WoW and EQII had no game, there wouldn't be any monsters blocking travel to distant lands and access to NPCs. I, for one, would spend a few hours wandering around the worlds, see what there was to see, and hear what there was to hear. Notice how it's only a few hours though; not the hundreds of hours that WoW/EQII usually take. Stickybeak content is relatively sparse in WoW and EQII.

Both WoW and EQII are missing some activities present in other virtual worlds, such as puzzles and toys:

Puzzles

Neither WoW nor EQII have any puzzles to solve.

In many ways, puzzles are the opposite to games. In a puzzle, players make one choice. The feedback is binary, either "You got it wrong, try again!" or "You got it right!". Failure just returns players back to square one, while success sends players on to their next puzzle. The same puzzle is never reused because it's trivial to solve the second time around.

Consequently, the neural-network approach of learning from the positive/negative feedback doesn't work. The binary feedback from puzzles, while accurate, is only TRUE or FALSE, and isn't good enough for such learning. To solve a puzzle, players must understand what the puzzle is about, and then the solution is easy. Neural networks cannot solve puzzles at all well. At the moment, the only way that computers can solve puzzles is to brute-force them and try all possible combinations.

As I've said before, puzzles utilise deductive reasoning. CRPG/MMORPG gameplay is inductive.

Puzzles don't make terribly great social games since any players that know the solution have to bite their tongue while the other players in the group struggle to find the solution. In WoW's game-based combat, killing the same orc a second time isn't much easier than it was to kill it the first time.

Toys (aka: play)

A toy is a reality bound by a set of rules, some of which are fixed, and some of which are liberally added or removed by the player. The player makes decisions and sees what happens, getting vector feedback that isn't just success or failure. Based on the feedback and their own whims, players can make new choices, or they can change the rules of the toy. Repeat ad infinitum until the player runs out of choices and/or new rules to invent and gets bored.

For example: A frisbee is a toy. It is bound by the rules of physics, albeit interesting ones that allow it to fly in ways that it shouldn't. To the laws of physics, players often add their own rules of throwing it up in the air and catching it, or throwing it from person to person, or only being able to catch it in one hand. (Some of these rules temporarily convert the frisbee from a toy to game.) During play, players are continually making choices (throwing the frisbee to different people and in different ways) and changing the rules ("Left handed catches only!").

Toys are about creativity and experimentation. Games are about winning.

A matrix?

I feel a three-dimensional matrix coming on:

Goal oriented

Experimental

I'm not entirely happy with the matrix, particularly the part about goal-oriented creation always being "work". Also, the matrix implies a hard separation between inductive and deductive reasoning, learning and creation, and goal oriented vs. experimental; Many activities cross over. Chess, for example, is a combination of looking at the board and instantly understanding what's going on (inductive), as well as trying to understand your opponent's strategy and predict their future moves (deductive).

I can even go a step further with the matrix: "Stickybeaking" is about learning fun/interesting information either by seeing/experiencing something directly (such as the neighbour's new car) or being told about it (a salacious rumour). Stickybeaking is neither inductive nor deductive since it's about acquiring knowledge rather than understanding it.

As a side note: The urge to stickybeak is enhanced by in-game "stories." The whole point of a story is to make a narrative as fun and interesting as possible in order to keep readers/viewers interested in the activities of fictional characters. Stories accomplish this by using several techniques, such as suspense, likeable characters, and conflict. The same techniques can encourage stickybeaking.

If you really squint, "socialisation" is, in small part, the inverse of stickybeaking. It includes the creation of rumors (for stickybeaks) as well as many of the elements (likeable people and conflict) that stories try to mimic... but this is a stretch.

Goal oriented

Experimental

Since I'm not entirely happy with the matrix, I don't use the matrix in the rest of this document. I decided to bring it up, though, because it's an interesting concept to consider.

Beyond DikuMUDs (WoW and EQII)...

As I stated above, WoW and EQII are about:

• A game - Killing monsters.
  
  
• With some stickybeaking - Seeing the sights and talking with NPCs.
  
  
• That includes socialisation - The game encourages players to group up. The reality created for the game can also be used as a place to meet friends and socialise.

At the moment, 15+ million people play game-like MMORPGs.

What other types of worlds are possible?

Second Life

Second Life is:

• A toy - Many of the players enter the world and just build because they like building. In this sense, Second Life is a giant pack of computerised Legos. (Players also build to impress their neighbours, a socialisation synergy.)
  
  
• With lots of stickybeaking - Many other players wander around Second Life and admire all the things that people have created.
  
  
• That includes socialisation - Both the toy and stickybeaking aspects of Second Life tie into socialisation. Toy-wise, players can build in a group, as well as build to impress/infuriate other people. As a stickybeak, players can wander around the world and gawk in groups, or ask their friends the best places to go. Or, they can just use the reality created for toys/stickybeaking as a place to meet friends and socialise.

Second Life is the dominant social/creation MMORPG. While nearly a million people have tried Second Life, only around 100K are active players.

Uru Live

Uru Live is:

• A puzzle - Actually, lots of puzzles.
  
  
• With lots of stickybeaking - While Uru Live doesn't have much in the way of NPCs, it does have quite a lot of backstory. In some cases, the backstory is part of the puzzle; Stickybeaking synergizes with puzzles.
  
  
• That includes socialisation - Yet again.

Of course, Uru Live was cancelled before it was released. It's currently being revived again, but my suspicion is that it'll have fewer players than Second Life, perhaps 10K players. The reason is that puzzles don't encourage socialisation as much as games or toys.

Hypothesis: Games don't mix well with puzzles because games attract "achievers", players that like to "win" and be "ranked" above other players. Puzzles can be easily "solved" by downloading a game walkthrough over the Internet. Therefore, puzzles are wasted effort in the eyes of achievers, the primary audience for multiplayer games... This doesn't mean that puzzles and games can't be combined, just that they can't be combined with achievers.

World-like MMORPGs

World-like MMORPGs (Ultima Online, the old Star Wars Galaxies, and Runescape(?) ) are:

• A game - Players can kill monsters if they wish.
  
  
• A toy - Players can try starting a business, build a house, raise a pet, etc. While these activities affect the game, many players just participate in the activities to "try them out."
  
  
• With stickybeaking - As with WoW and EQII, there's backstory to discover and places to visit. As with Second Life, players can wander around and see what other players are building.
  
  
• That includes socialisation - Again.

If Runescape is included as a world-like world, then there are around one million world-like players. Without Runescape, the number is closer to 400K.

Hypothesis: While world-like worlds are more popular than Second Life, they are less popular than game-like worlds. Could this be because (a) games are more popular than toys, and/or (b) trying to fill a world with too many different types of activities results in lower quality activities due to design conflicts? For example: Ultima Online cannot allow players as much building freedom as Second Life because that much freedom would break Ultima Online's gameplay.

Hypothesis: World-like worlds traditionally simulate a world and encourage players to "live" there, spending 20+ hours a week in the game. Could world-like worlds actually just be a sub-set of "toy + game" based worlds, some of which don't require such a large time commitment?

Chat room

A chat room is a world that handles only:

• Socialisation - Of course.

While chat rooms are popular (way more than 15 million users), they're "a dime a dozen".

There's no particular reason for a player to use one chat room above another, other than the other people in the chat room. Consequently, some chat rooms include built-in games, toys, puzzles, and stickybeaking to attract users... which turns them back to a DikuMUD, Second Life, or Uru Live.

Stickybeak world

Imagine a world where all players do is:

• Lots of stickybeaking - Players wander around the world, look at the scenery, talk to NPCs, hear their stories, and see what happens.
  
  
• Socialisation - Of course.

Notice that there aren't any games, puzzles, or toys.

Would this work? I'm not sure; there aren't any worlds that follow this model. Stickybeaking synergizes with socialisation, but not as well as games or toys. Furthermore, producing content for stickybeaking is fairly expensive since it is quickly consumed; that's why Second Life has players build their own stickybeak content as part of the building "toy".

Choose your own adventure... A stickybeak world?

When I was a teenager playing the Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventure, City of Terrors, I thought about turning it into a computer game. City of Terrors was basically a Fighting Fantasy book, or Choose-your-own-adventure book with combat thrown in.

From time to time, I still consider a computerised CYOA game, but I don't think it'll work. There are a few reasons:

1. A CYOA "page" is a cut-scene followed by a few choices. Each choice leads to another page. In a T&T solitaire adventure, Fighting Fantasy book, or CYOA book, about a third of the pages are about movement. Movement is better handled by modern game movement, either room-to-room or WASD free-form movement.
   
   
2. About a third of the pages involve combat or traps. These are games and puzzles (as per my definition above). However, combat and traps are best handled by placing them in rooms/spaces that player characters move in, not in CYOA pages.
   
   
3. Items (1) and (2) create an experience that's similar to a CRPG, MMORPG, or adventure game, except that one-third of gameplay is spent in CYOA "pages", which amounts to cut scenes followed by choices. The cut-scenes are an incredibly useful design tool because they enable more interesting NPCs (story) as well as describing events that the world's physics and animations engine can't simulate... "Mary sits down daintily and carefully sips at her tea, saucer held gently in her left hand."
   
   
4. However, most players hate cut scenes because cut scenes temporarily take the control away from the players. Technically, games take control away from players all of the time, but only for a fraction of a second, a few seconds at worst. Players don't mind that, which (I suspect) means that short cut scenes are acceptable. However, a CYOA with short cut scenes implies more decisions.
   
   As devil's advocate, most game players don't care about the "story" that cut scenes can create, so they're biased. Many people are enthusiastic about stories... but those people are almost all watching TV or reading books, not playing games.
   
   
5. More decisions result in more branching, which costs exponentially more money to develop. The only saving grace is that each individual CYOA (text) cut scene and decision list is cheap to develop. An animated CYOA "book" with frequent branches would be incredibly expensive.
   
   
6. Having so many choices becomes problematical because there are important design rules to follow, as I list in my choices writeup.
   
   For example: Many of the choices in CYOA books lead to dead ends... literally. In a CYOA book, if players select a dead-end choice, they just flip back to their previous page and choose something else. In a computer game, players can't flip back; that would be cheating and isn't allowed by the game's UI. If dead ends are common, players will just download the walkthrough in order to avoid choosing a dead end. Once they have the walkthrough in hand, they'll forgo choosing altogether and just follow its instructions.
   
   
7. Consequently, (almost) all choices must lead to equally interesting/positive consequences. This results in a lot of branches that never reconnect with the main branch, which is even more development work.
   
   
8. With so many branches, players will want to replay each scenario several different times to see what happens in each. What happens if I decide to go on a date with Marry instead of Jane? This turns the experience into a stickybeak game where players explore possible futures instead of exploring three-dimensional space.
   
   However, if players do replay scenarios then they're at least re-using content, reducing per-hour play costs.
   
   
9. Exploring alternate realities is a strange and obtuse concept for most people. After all, the last time a player tried the scenario, Mary tragically died in a car accident after the prom, but she's alive an kicking once again in this new reality. I suspect that most players will be turned off by the oddity.
   
   An easier-to-stomach design is to create template scenarios with replaceable names, so that Mary is renamed to Alice, and Jane to Betty. However, because all the other text/animation is the same, players will quickly realise that the same scenario is being rehashed.

Having said all that, CYOA pages still have merit. They are, for example, the standard mechanism for NPC conversations. They may not be enough to base a stickybeak game off of though.

A parting thought...

This has almost nothing to do with puzzles, games, toys, socialisation, and stickybeaking, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway.

1. As stated above, CRPG and MMORPG players like inductive games. Adventure-game players like deductive games.
   
   
2. The preference is probably a result of the way that players (like to) think. Thus, CRPG/MMORPG players prefer to use inductive reasoning, while adventure-game players prefer deductive reasoning.
   
   
3. Game developers/designers that like to play CRPGs/MMORPGs will try to find jobs in CRPG/MMORPG game companies. Likewise, adventure-game enthusiasts are more likely to work for adventure-game companies.
   
   
4. When it comes time to designing a new CRPG/MMORPG, do CRPG/MMORPG designers prefer an inductive design? (Model the game after a previously successful game, but with a few changes.) Do adventure-game designers use deductive design? (Try to understand, at a fundamental level, what the player expects and what the technology can deliver, and design from that.)
   
   While I've seen plenty of evidence of inductive (evolutionary) designs for CRPGs/MMORPGs. I don't see an overwhelming amount of deductive design from adventure games; they seem to be as evolutionary (not revolutionary) as CRPGs/MMORPGs.