Storylines III (A theory of massively single-player games)

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Storylines III

(A theory of massively single-player games)

10 January 2006

This article includes continuing thoughts from Storylines II. Of course, it's just one more thought experiment to add to the list; who knows if the idea will actually work.

Linear narrative, linear avatar games, and sandboxes

I am continually refining my thoughts about the difference between a linear narrative and game. For this article, I need to define them a bit more clearly than I have in the past, in order to make a point:

Linear narrative - This is what you traditionally think of as a story. The reader/player has no control over what happens in the story. A linear narrative can be seen as a string of pearls where the pearls are very-very small and the string very long. (See below.)
Linear avatar game - Linear avatar games allow players to make choices (as with all games), but the choices don't affect the overall flow of the experience. Traditional models for linear games are strings of pearls, or pearls with some branching. Basically, the player's experience is placed within the framework of a linear narrative; they have a large number of small choices while in a "pearl". At several points in the game, players' choices are narrowed as they pass through to the next pearl. They don't have much choice about the pearls though. All adventure games, and many CRPGs (such as Fable), are linear avatar games.
Sandbox avatar game - Sandboxes provide a world and let players do whatever they wish within the world. You can think of them as a string of pearls with only one, very large pearl. Some CRPGs (Morrowind and Oblivion) are sandboxes, as well as most MMORPGs.

Of course, these three categories define a continuum, from linear to free-form.

Each category (narrative, linear, and sandbox) has strengths and weaknesses, which I've written below. Green items are strengths, red are weaknesses, and yellow are in between.

	Linear narrative	Linear avatar game	Sandbox
Players/readers can read NPCs minds.	Novels and movies allow readers to "read" the characters' minds (especially in books), as well as see what the enemy is doing off-stage. Mystery novels (somewhat game-like) do not tell the player what the other characters are thinking.	Not only are game-NPC's minds fairly uninteresting to read, but the ability ruins the game aspects of the experience.	Not only are game-NPC's minds fairly uninteresting to read, but the ability ruins the game aspects of the experience.
NPCs behave in a realistic and believable manner.	Because authors can pre-script NPC dialogue and behaviours, NPCs can be very realistic.	AI is limited, so NPCs aren't very believable. Linearity allows some pre-scripting, so NPCs can be made to appear more intelligent than they really are.	Since there's no linearity, NPCs only have AI to rely upon, leaving them fairly dim. As a result, sandbox worlds often avoid NPCs, or associate NPCs with specific quests, which are more linear elements of the sandbox.
Both PCs and NPCs have a large variety of actions to choose from. (In Chris Crawford's terminology, this is the number of "verbs" available.)	Because everything is pre-scripted, any action that can be described verbally or visually is possible.	Only those actions which the developer programs in can happen. However, the linearity leads players down a certain path, and implies what actions players might "want" to take. Authors can (usually) predict the action and code for it, making the verb list appear larger than it actually is. Failure to predict a player's actions results in a "guess the verb" problem common to text adventure games.	Since players can and will want to do anything and everything, their choice of actions are ultimately limited. A typical sandbox game lets players walk/run, fight, craft, etc. If a player wanted to arbitrarily glue three matches together to form a triangle, they couldn't because the standard verbs wouldn't support it.
Eye candy quality.	Since everything in known in advance, eye candy is maximised. The overall quality of text in a novel is always superior to that of a text MUD, and the overall quality of graphics/sound in an animated movie is superior to that in in games.	Because of the linearity, special animations (or text passages) can be pre-written. If these special animations/text are long enough, they're called cut scenes.	All animations and text are stock, so they're (as a whole) not very good.
Foreshadowing and prescience.	Linear narratives frequently foreshadow what is to come in the story, using foreshadowing as a hook to keep the reader interested.	Linear narratives can use some foreshadowing, but only about events that they know the player will be forced to experience.	A free-form experience cannot foreshadow.
Serendipity (confluence of events).	Most linear narratives are designed so two characters just happen to meet at the right time, happen to have a hairpin to pick the lock, etc. Serendipity allows protagonists to get out of tight situations, as well as giving readers the desired sense of "things happen for a reason."	Serendipity can happen at certain points in the experience; a player can open a door to find an important scene just beginning. Of course, the scene's start was triggered by the door being opened.	The more a world is like a sand-box, the less likely that a player will be at the right place at the right time. Designers can "hack" in some serendipity by triggering scenes when players approach, but then the experience becomes slightly more linear.
Jump around time, as well as accelerating time through the boring bits.	Stories frequently jump forwards and backwards in time, as well as skipping over the boring bits with a few words.	Linear games can jump around time, but the player will probably be very confused. Furthermore, the time-jumps only serve to emphasise to the player the fact that they can't really alter the game's outcome. Accelerating time through the boring bits is a common practice.	Jumping around time isn't possible. Accelerating time is possible in a sandbox, but I haven't seen it used.
The experience can have a plot. That is, events that don't ultimately affect the path of the story (aka: the drive towards the ending) are ignored.	In a story, every narrated event serves to flesh out a character or to drive towards the ending. If an event doesn't, then it is removed from the book/script.	Because the overall flow of the experience is linear, it can have a plot. However, smaller events that are entirely controlled by the player may ultimately prove to be meaningless to the ending.	Plot? We don't need no stinking plot.
The player can be a specific character, as opposed to a general archetype. Providing a specific character makes it easier to produce sympathetic goals and personal NPCs.	Stories can be about a specific protagonist.	Linear games can either specify the player's character ("You are Frodo Baggins".) or provide a more open-ended character ("You are a hobbit from the shire.")	While a sandbox could specify the player's character, doing so would push the experience towards a linear game.
Rewards for completing goals.	When a protagonist completes a goal (since the player cannot), the author has an enormous variety of rewards to offer.	Authors can offer a large variety of rewards, although not so varied as a story. Rewards not only include gold, loot, etc., but also changes to the world as a consequence of moving to a new pearl.	Rewards are usually limited to gold, loot, or character power. However, in a multiplayer game, rewards for interaction are "handed out" by other players, and can be more varied, including social rewards.
The player's character can be placed in a specific scenario that is designed to be interesting. (Related to a "serendipity (confluence of events)", except in broader strokes.)	Frodo just happened to be the nephew of Bilbo Baggins, who happened to find the one ring a few years before Sauron was to attempt his return to power.	Same as with stories.	Specific scenarios are sometimes used, but don't work as well in a sandbox because there's no guarantee that the specially-manufactured scenario will come to fruition.
Problems are presented as interesting puzzles.	Not possible, except in mystery novels, which stretch linearity to the limit.	Puzzles are fairly common, especially in adventure games.	Puzzles are possible, but multiple-solution problems seem to work better.
Players can "do stuff", immersing the player. *One of the weaknesses of Choose Your Own Adventure* books is that while they allow players to choose, they don't allow players to "do".**	Stories do not allow the player to do anything (other than flip pages). They try to make the player feel as though they've done something by describing the protagonist's actions.	Players can do stuff.	Players can do stuff.
Players can make small choices.	Stories do not allow choices.	Players can choose where to walk, what to buy, exactly how to attack a monster, etc.	Players can choose where to walk, what to buy, exactly how to attack a monster, etc.
Players can make major choices, such as whether to be good or evil. Allowing players to make major choices both increases immersion, and customises the experience to the player.	Stories do not allow choices.	While players can make major choices, allowing them to do so do requires that the designer produce more branches in the larger linear story (turning it into a computerised Choose Your Own Adventure book).	Major choices are very easy to implement, and flow naturally from the sandbox's logic.
Customise the experience to suit the user.	Theoretically, a novel/movie presented on a computer could be customised to the viewer. For example: If the viewer were uninterested in romance, the romance scenes could be skipped or replaced with abridged editions.	Linear avatar games often customise the experience to the player. CRPGs allow players to chose their character's class and race, for example. Adventure games usually don't provide any customisation.	Customisation is common and expected in sandbox games. Users control the character's race, gender, class, equipment, etc.
Problems have multiple solutions.	Not possible.	Players are given problems to solve, but the problems typically only allow one or two solutions that the author has planned ahead of time. Consequently, many of the problems turn into puzzles.	Players can solve problems any way they chose, so long as the limited selection of verbs allows for the solution.
Players encounter "guess the verb" frustrations when they think they can do something but can't figure out how to tell the computer to do it, and/or the players could use verb X with object A, but not object B.	Not an issue because the player can't actually do anything.	"Guess the verb" frustrations frequently occur in linear games because linear games often rely on exceptional physics.	Since sandboxes can only use universal physics, guess-the-verb problems are not an issue.

Note: Sandboxes often include quests, which are small linear games, allowing them to take advantage of some features of linear games. Linear games often include cut-scenes, which are short linear narratives, allowing them to take advantage of some features of linear narratives.

Of course, you can modify this list however you see fit. The point of the table is that it shows that linear narration, linear avatar games, and sandboxes have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some players will prefer linear narration, others linear games, and others sandboxes. Individual preferences will also change over time. There is no "right" answer.

Ultimately, when designing a game, the designer needs to decide how linear the experience will be. A very linear experience will have certain strengths and attract one sort of player, while an open-ended sandbox will have other strengths and attract different players. (Note: People don't seem to like to watch totally linear experiences on their computers; they prefer TVs for that.)

Visualisation

In A tangle I tried to visualise what was happening in an avatar game. Here's another way to visualise what is happening...

In a linear narrative, the protagonist moves about and "does stuff", all the while time slowly advances. If you graph the protagonist's movement through space in X and Y, and time in Z, then what you get is a thin squiggly line that traces the character's movement (and actions) through time.

Now, forget what I said about X and Y being the protagonist's location in space, and Z being time. X, Y, and Z (and any other dimensions) merely represent the "location" of the character in arbitrary dimensions. Some of the dimensions might be locations, but many could be based on choices, such as how good or evil the character is. Even though the XYZ dimensions no longer have a specific meaning, the character's actions and "story" are still represented by a thin squiggly line in arbitrarily dimensional space.

Then, imagine the story becoming less linear until it turns into a linear avatar game. In the visualisation, the thin squiggly line thickens up, but still remains squiggly. The thickness of the line represents the number/frequency of "small" choices a player has. When the player is allowed to make major choices, the squiggling line branches, forming a tree; if the branches recombine then a rhizome is created. If you squint hard enough you'll even see the string or pearls formed by points where the player's small choices are narrowed into a thin line.

As the experience turns into a sandbox, players are presented with many more minor and major choices; The the squiggle thickens and produces abundant branches. It becomes so thick and so laden with branches that the squiggle becomes a complete tangle. This tangle is the visualisation of the sandbox, where players can do anything they wish.

Visualising storylines

If you have ever read a novel (which you probably have), then you've noticed that novels don't just provide the story of the protagonist. They also include other characters; Often, half the chapters of the novel will follow the story of other secondary characters. Some novels even include several protagonists.

If a thin squiggle represents one character's story, then a novel is a collection of squiggles. Because books and movies are inherently linear, an author will first narrate a bit of the protagonist's squiggle, then jump over to another character's squiggle and narrate a portion of that, then back to the protagonist's squiggle, etc.

By convention, novels only narrate characters' stories where the stories (a) are interesting to the reader, and (b) significantly and repeatedly affect the protagonist. For purposes of visualisation, if a character meets or somehow affects another character's story, then their squiggles touch. This means that a novel is a collection of thin squiggles (each representing a single character's story), all of which touch one another at one or more points.

Therefore, a linear avatar game is a collection of thick squiggles that occasionally touch. Most avatar games only follow the protagonist, so the game only includes one squiggle. However, some allow players to control different characters in different parts of the same instance of the world, resulting in the same basic structure as a novel (containing multiple squiggles, albeit thicker.)

Extending the idea to sandboxes produces several highly tangled squiggles that intersect one another. This tangle of tangles is almost impossible to visualise in detail. I don't think I've ever played a single-player sandbox game that had the player controlling several different characters in the same instance of the world. Single-player sandbox games do allow players to create several characters, but they each have their own world instance. Providing a sandbox with several characters (in the same instance) doesn't make much sense, since a sandbox provides so much flexibility that a single character is all the player needs to experience the game's instance.

However, I have played a multiplayer sandbox, where each player has their own character in the same world. A multiplayer sandbox is known as a world-like MMORPG.

A multiplayer linear avatar game is like a game-like MMORPG, but not quite. I haven't actually seen any multiplayer linear avatar games as I've described. I have seen game-like MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft, that are part way between a linear avatar game and a sandbox. WoW isn't a pure linear avatar game because the storylines aren't well defined. Guild Wars comes closer, but it only has one storyline.

There are a few reasons why I suspect pure multiplayer linear avatar games don't exist at the moment:

No one has seriously tried the idea. Most games are clones of other games with small evolutionary modifications.
Existing game-like MMORPGs evolved from world-like MMORPGs, and haven't made a complete transition. As a rule, existing MMORPG players do not like linear games, since MMORPG players are attracted to world-like MMORPGs because of the other players, by the open ended gameplay (sandbox), and/or by the extended gameplay. A multiplayer linear game won't have the open-ended gameplay, nor will it take 500 hours to complete.
It's a lot of work to make a game-like MMORPG with multiple storylines. Since storylines are inherently linear (with occasional branching), if there's only one storyline in a world then you and your closest 100,000 friends will experience the same storyline in the same world, making you feel like you're on an amusement park ride, not in a world. Therefore, a world must have many (4 to 20) storylines. This many storylines is not only a lot of work, but it is "wasted" content that most players won't ever see; Bean counters will strenuously object.
"Multiplayer stories" don't make any sense since the experience is akin to sitting in a darkened movie theatre with thousands of other well-behaved people; they have no effect on the experience. As any die-hard sandboxer will tell you, multiplayer sandboxes make the most sense. A multiplayer linear game, often derided by sandboxers as a "massively single-player game", is some place in-between multiplayer stories, which are pointless, and multiplayer sandboxes, an obviously-successful application. Thus, it's unclear whether a multiplayer linear avatar game makes sense.
My thought experiments have revealed some reasons why they might work, even though players can't affect each other's larger "storylines". Player interaction can have smaller effects:
1. Friends can help each other out on their storylines.
2. Players can use the game world (and storylines) as a way to meet other people. See The dating game.
3. Storylines can be designed to (occasionally?) require interaction with other players. Such interaction might include the buying and selling of items, teaming up with specialist player-characters from another storyline, or even some PvP. See The game loop.

Creating a multiplayer linear avatar game

Here are the challenges with multiplayer linear avatar games, as I see them:

The world and its backstory must be rich enough to handle 4-20 storylines. The World of Warcraft's backstory explains why players want to go out and kill things, but not why a player would want to partake in a private eye or a town mayor storyline.
The team must create enough content for 4-20 storylines. While this isn't nearly as much work as creating an equivalent number of single-player linear avatar games, it's probably 3x-10x as much content work. Don't forget that each storyline must include a few variations as well as a few major choices that require branching, requiring yet more content.

To reduce costs and to make the world feel populated, some/most content should be shared between at least two of the storylines. For example: The same crypt that attracts a vampire-slayer (storyline) might also attract an archaeologist (storyline).
The 4-20 storylines must all be individually interesting, at least to a portion of the game-playing population. If only 1% of the players elect to play a storyline then it probably isn't worth including. The most popular storylines in MMORPGs are (1) kill things, (2) kill other player characters, (3) trade, (4) explore, and (5) forget about playing the game and just socialise. That leaves 15 storylines, some of which might include being a detective, Don Juan, military commander, ship's captain, or mayor of the town. Only ten storylines to go! (I suspect there is a connection between successful storylines and The dream factory.)
As with a novel, players with different storylines will cross paths...
- All the storylines must somehow interact with other storylines. An isolated storyline that includes no interaction with other players might as well be a single-player game. Likewise, if the storylines cluster into two disconnected subsets, then split the game into two or redesign the storylines.
  
  For example: If explorers only ever interact with archaeologists, and archaeologists only ever interact with explorers, then either re-design explorers and archaeologists to interact with other storylines (like merchants), or get rid of both of them.
- A specific interaction must make the game more fun for at least one of the players involved. Ideally, interactions will be fun for both players, but this won't always be the case.
- Corollary: Interactions that are neutral fun-wise should be gotten rid of. There is no point forcing player interaction unless it will make the experience more fun.
- Corollary: Players who like to play alone must be able to avoid interactions with other players. There might be a cost though, such as NPC merchants charging more than player merchants.
- While players may not enjoy some of their player-with-player interactions, on the whole, player interactions should make the player's experience more fun. Any storyline where player interactions end up being a net minus for the player should be removed, since players of that storyline would find a single-person version to be more fun. The Player pyramid may have effect though; Theoretically, some storylines could have a net negative player-with-player interaction if the player were allowed to play for free.
- Furthermore, any storyline which is a net negative to all other storylines should also be removed. However, if a player pay enough money and ends up subsidising other players then many sins can be forgiven.
Example: One player might choose the storyline of thief, while another might be a merchant.

At some point, the storyline of the thief might allow the thief to rob a player merchant (resulting in controlled PvP); obviously, the thief player will find the experience fun, while the merchant will dislike the experience. To counteract the merchant's negative experience with the thief player, the merchant will need a positive experience with another player, such as making a spectacular profit from another player, or perhaps having the pleasure of fingering the thief.

The thief storyline cannot be designed to cause grief every time the thief interacts with other players, since that would make the thief storyline a net negative. Consequently, some players will need to find encounters with the thief to be beneficial and pleasant, such as an archaeologist player that hires the thief to guide the archaeologist through a series of trapped tombs.

The thief is only allowed to rob other players when his storyline permits (which means only a couple of times). If the thief were given carte blanche, the storyline would not only be a net negative, but it would be an unknown negative, enabling a few particularly-successful thieves to ruin the experience for hundreds of players.
At best, marketing will only be able to attract half of the current crop of MMORPG players. 50%-75% of them will intensely dislike the linearity and/or the relatively short gameplay of multiplayer linear avatar games. Consequently, marketing must convince players who like single-player linear avatar games that they'll like the multiplayer equivalent. This will prove difficult since most of these players will either dislike other players impinging upon their world and/or having to connect to the Internet while playing. They will also erroneously assume that all multiplayer games are time syncs and cost $15/month. See The law of new inventions.