Stop the buffet

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31 October 2004

by Mike Rozak

In, my last whitepaper, "Virtual World as Platform", I discussed why I thought virtual worlds could be more than just multi-player CRPGs, as they so often are today. Practically any game or fun activity that can be played on a computer can be incorporated into a virtual world. The most obvious of these are: CRPG, chat, vehicle simulations, economy games (like Lemonade), puzzles, and card games.

Some virtual worlds do include many of the sub-games and activities that I mentioned. However, they provide them to the player as a kind of buffet, letting the player kill 10,000 orcs until they're utterly bored with the task, then shift to cutting down 10,000 trees for wood to make boats, and then become obsessed with ruling the high seas.

I don't think providing a buffet is the best way for a VW to offer its sub-games. This makes it nothing more than a games-galore web site like Yahoo! games, or a chat site like Yahoo! chat. Of course, Yahoo's services are free to players, which makes them that much harder to compete against. Yahoo's games don't synergise, like I mentioned in "Virtual World as Platform", but they're free.

So how can a VW author package up valueless sub-games and activities, and produce something that's valuable and unique, not a Yahoo! games/chat with orcs?

The key is timing. Timing is everything...

Music theory and virtual worlds

The sub-games (and activities) offered by a virtual world are like the keys on a piano.

Most virtual worlds are so pleased they have 88 keys (well, most only have 4 or 5 keys) that they plop the player in front of the player, teach them how to strike a key, and then let the player "go to town" and have fun.

Players do have fun, for awhile; they press C, and then C#, get bored of that and hit the low G, or maybe even the highest A. They don't produce music though; the create a cacophony of notes which sounds utterly horrible unless you're into atonal music. The players know this, so they get bored and give up.

However, if you place a trained composer or improvisationist at the keyboard you'd never believe it's the same music. Even making up music on the spot, the composer/improvisationist produces music that's infinitely sweeting than the bangings of most players. Those players that had just made a cacophony the minute before look on amazed.

How come the composer and improvisationist is better at the piano? For one, they spend their whole life sitting at the keyboard... but then again, so do many players. A professional also knows music theory, and is well aware at a conscious and subconscious level which keys should follow one another, and which sound good in combination. The average person is not.

Some improvisationists, called Jazz players, use another trick; they memorise a series of chord progressions for a song, but not the individual notes. Then, when they're playing the piece, so long as they stay (mostly) within the chord, it sounds good. Composers often use the same trick, although they may not admit it. I'll come back to chord progressions later.

To sum it up, on a piano, timing is everything. Hitting the right notes at the right time produces a much more enjoyable experience (for the player and listener) than playing notes willy nilly. The same holds true for VWs, I suspect, but you'll take more convincing.

Literary theory

When an author writes a novel, he has several common constructs to play with: characters, setting, action, conflict, backstory, plot, and theme. I'll add one more that is so obvious it is rarely discussed, timing.

• Characters (Who) - The intelligent entities in the world the author has created.
  
  
• Setting (Where) - The locations where the characters act.
  
  
• Action (What and how) - Activities that the characters partake in during the story.
  
  
• Conflict (Why) - Most theories about literature are emphatic about conflict being part of the story since it holds the reader's interest. Conflict explains why the characters take the action they do.
  
  
• Backstory (Why) - The backstory explains why the characters and setting are the way they are, so that what the characters do and why they're in conflict is logical.
  
  
• Timing (When) - It's very important to control when the elements of a story are used, as I'll explain below.
  
  
• Plot - This device is used to weed out elements of the story that do not lead towards the story's ultimate end. Readers seem to dislike extraneous activity without purpose. For example: In Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, there is undoubtedly fighting against Sauron's forces in other parts of Middle Earth; Tolkien ignores them since they don't impact directly on the main characters.
  
  
• Theme - Theme is a simple message that underlies the entire story. In LOTR, the theme could be about how a person this thrust into having a role in history, or about the power of friendship.

The seldom mentioned, "when", is very important. I'll illustrate with a thought experiment... Think of your favourite book. As you mentally skim through it you'll notice the author first introduces the main character, then the place where the character is, perhaps some backstory, and then some action. Soon, another character is added, with some more action of backstory, following by a bit more setting.

Now, imagine if the author reordered the book so that all of the backstory came in the first part of the book, followed by all of the setting descriptions, followed by an introduction to all the characters, and finished by a description of all the action.

The book would be awful. If you don't believe me, read the Silmarillion, a compilation of Tolkien's backstory and place descriptions. A portion of the Silmarillion's backstory and places are included in the LOTR, but they're spread throughout the book and are much more palatable in moderation.

I haven't even mentioned what ordering within each of the categories (backstory, location, characters, and action) does to the story. Tolkien explains the backstory of the one ring at the beginning of LOTR so readers know how important it is; pushing the backstory to the moment after Frodo tosses it into Mount Doom would change the flavour of the story entirely. The same goes for when locations and characters are introduced. And of course, action that doesn't follow cause-and-effect, or which isn't sequential, cant be very disturbing.

Virtual world theory

Virtual worlds have many of the same elements as a story:

• Players (Who) - It wouldn't be a VW without players. You could also include important NPCs here.
  
  
• Setting (Where) - Vast landscapes and dungeons.
  
  
• Action (What and how) - All the sub-games and activities that the players can partake in.
  
  
• Conflict (Why) - As always, conflict seems to be important. Most contemporary VWs are constructed only of conflict, combat with NPCs and other players.
  
  
• Backstory (Why) - At the moment, most VWs have very little in the way of backstory, and what they do have is used to explain why the players want to kill one another. The backstories could explain the more subtle aspects of the world, such as why cities are located where they are, and why certain cultures do what they do.
  
  
• Timing (When) - Again, timing is very important, as I'll explain below.
  
  
• Plot - Plot in VWs is tricky because players either accidentally or intentionally destroy any plot an author tries to create. Author designed plots do exist in VWs, however, in the form of quest. Many players write in their own plot, although it's often the simplistic one of "be the richest, most powerful character". Such a goal does act like a plot though; just watch how angry players get when their character dies and loses XP, whinging about wasted effort. Putting an extraneous character or scene into a novel will draw the same spurn from avid readers.
  
  
• Theme - I haven't seen a virtual world with an intentional theme yet. Most seem to have a theme of "work long enough and you can attain anything" though.

Hopefully you are at least considering the fact that stories and VWs have many similar constructs.

Yet more analogies...

Virtual worlds are not like stories though. If an author tries to force players to do something, or puts words in the players' mouths, they get very annoyed and leave the game.

Despite this, authors do have some control over their players' actions. The obvious solution is to not allow specific types of actions and claim they haven't been coded yet... if an author doesn't want players to fish, he doesn't code in the fishing sub-game.

More subtle control can be imposed by geography: In a dungeon, the player doesn't get to fight the dragon in its den until they figure out how to unlock the den's door. They can't unlock the door until they they get the key from the sphinx by answering riddles.

Other techniques are also possible:

• The author can design his world to attract certain players. In small worlds, the author can choose what players to let in.
  
  
• Rewards (experience, treasure, etc.) can significantly affect player behaviour.
  
  
• Some players will role play, which can be used to influence their behaviour.
  
  
• Etc.

In this sense, story writing is like composing music. In both forms of creation, the author/composer have complete control over every aspect of the form.

Designing a virtual world is like writing Jazz: Jazz composers write out chord progressions and occasionally recommended rifts; they do not control what the musician will play though, only guiding. Likewise, VW authors can recommend and encourage on (musical-like) themes, but not force strict adherence.

Many people reading this document won't be familiar with music theory, so I'll use a different analogy: Story writing is like arithmetic, while VW writing is like algebra.

Arithmetic deals with manipulating specific quantities, where the number, 3, is always 3, and 1+ 3 = 4. Algebra and higher mathematics deals with variables, such as X + 3Y = Z. The specific values for X and Y aren't known ahead of time in algebra. The mathematician must solve the problem for the general sense, not for a specific numerical solution as in arithmetic. The same goes for virtual world design; it's about controlling the overall flow, not the specifics.

Timing in virtual worlds

So what does any of this have to do with timing?

As I stated earlier, contemporary virtual worlds provide a set of sub-games (what and how) that the player can participate in. For the most part, the sub-games are laid out buffet style: If a player wants combat he visits the nearest hunting grounds or dungeon. If a players wants to fish, he walks a short distance to the nearest river. For chat, the player merely uses the built-in location-independent chat tool and talks to anyone in the world instantaneously. Trade is ostensibly localised, except for the omnipresent teleportation devices that nullify any sense of locality. Etc.

This is like writing a story where the player gets to pick and choose what elements of the story (backstory, characterisation, setting, action, etc.) will be next. While the freedom is great, some players will over-consume one component or the other, and walk away with a bad taste in their mouth.

Quests, on the other hand, are about timing and controlled use of sub-games. Despite the appalling quality of contemporary quests, many players head straight for quests because they begin to deliver what some players want... an expert hand controlling how backstory, characterisation, setting, and action are doled out, instead of random plucking at the piano. Unfortunately, contemporary quests fall far short of what they should be. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Current virtual words do not include enough sub-games. Therefore, quests are limited to finding items/NPCs, combat, or delivering items/NPCs. If, for example, the VW had a chatterbot NPC sub-game, another type of quest could be added to the inventory; that of getting a NPC to talk. A chess sub-game could require that the player beats the opponent at chess. Etc.
   
   
2. Contemporary quests don't string enough sub-games together, although this may because there aren't many sub-games. A piece of music requires more than a few notes.

Here is an example of what can be done in a quest when the VW has enough subgames to play with:

1. If players wish to travel to a distant port city, they gather at the port and wait for a ship to leave. The ship won't leave until there are at least 6-10 players, or maybe a player with lots of money. This waiting game makes use of the chat sub-game since players will talk to one another when gathered. Furthermore, they will talk to strangers.
   
   
2. Once on the ship, which is a boring place, the players could be asked to help out on the rigging or mopping the floor. Turn this into a sub-game, just as fishing has been in contemporary MMORPGs. Players wouldn't want to spend hours in the rigging sub-game, but a few minutes would be entertaining.
   
   
3. In the distance the players see a pirate ship. Enter into the ship-to-ship combat sub-game, with the players controlling steering and cannons. If the players win, they make it to their port. If the lose, they continue to the next step. Any PCs that die in the bombardment get resurrected at the exit port.
   
   
4. In a cut-scene (story sub-game), the players manage to grab hold of parts of the sinking ship and make it to a deserted island. The captain makes it there too.
   
   
5. Once on the island, the players will realise they need food, or other supplies, plus they'll want to explore their surroundings. This allows for several sub-games, foraging, fishing, hunting, cooking, exploring. A hermit lives on the island; the quest can let him be found right away, or maybe not until the next day.
   
   
6. At night, around the campfire, the captain could offer to tell a story of some sort, providing backstory.
   
   
7. The next day the players will continue exploring. They find the hermit and talk with him; being on the island for many years, a chatterbot's frustrating conversations are a perfect match.
   
   
8. Eventually the players learn about a secret cave from the hermit (which can't be found unaided). In the cave is the hermit's boat they can use to get off the island. They find the cave, using the exploration sub-game.
   
   
9. Inside the cave is a monster that has taken up residence, using the combat sub-game.
   
   
10. Eventually the players get the boat and escape the island. This shows another short story segment.

While the quest I've described steers the characters, it's much more fulfilling then the players choosing each item individually from a buffet, or from the shorter quests offered in most virtual worlds. Notice that many of the sub-games and activities, such as stories and ship-to-ship combat, used in the hermit-island quest do not exist in contemporary virtual worlds. Removing those elements from the quest produces a weaker experience. Re-arranging the sub-games also changes the experience.

Deconstructing the CRPG

Just in case you're not totally convinced about my concept of stopping the buffet-style sub-games, here's something to think about:

The traditional combat sub-game in a VW can be further deconstructed into sub-games, the most basic of which is a fight-game like Mortal Combat (although CRPGs have much simpler combat). In a fight game, players can select their character and their opponent from a buffet. CRPGs and MMORPGs don't allow players to pick and choose their opponents. Instead, they control the opponents, using PC levels and locations as a method for control.

Which is more fun, a CRPG where you can pick and choose your enemies and fight in your chosen arena, or a CRPG where you wander through the world and encounter enemies of the world's choosing?

Likewise, an adventure game such as Myst is a world containing many puzzle sub-games. Which is more fun, the puzzles as a buffet, or tied into a whole?

Conclusion

Just to reiterate:

1. There are more sub-games than just killing monsters. (See Virtual World as Platform.)
   
   
2. Use sub-games that encourage synergies between the sub-games. (See Virtual World as Platform)
   
   
3. Think of sub-games as a tool-set to be used selectively to create a larger experience, not as a buffet for characters to choose from. If you wish a buffet, consider using quests as the items on offer, not the sub-games.
   
   
4. Of course, you can always have sub-games available at the buffet. You might consider having the sub-games be location dependent, or to vary somewhat with locations, so players would have to travel (and experience other sub-games) to get to the sub-games they're looking for.
   
   
5. How you combine the sub-games into an experience is very important.
   
   
6. Quests cannot be produced from one or two sub-games alone, just as music requires more than two notes. Too few sub-games results in standard VW quests, aka: fedex quests.