Art versus Science

[Richard]

Sorry for my not having responded to this article sooner, but I've been away on vacation. Given that it looks like complaints about my book are going to form the basis of several articles this series, I'll endeavour to check in regularly so I can comment on them in a more timely fashion.

I wrote Chapter 7 of "Designing Virtual Worlds", wherein I make the case for the design of virtual worlds to be considered an art form, primarily to demonstrate to designers that they have nothing to be ashamed of: they are not inferior to other creators of entertaining or provocative material that bears the label "Art". I hadn’t reckoned with the alternative view that Dave seems to be espousing here: that Art itself is inferior to Science.

The crux of Dave’s objection (as I see it) is that I’m developing a “theory” of virtual worlds that is neither provable nor disprovable, therefore it’s not a theory. Well strictly speaking, from a Science standpoint, all theories are not only provable but are actually proven; anything else is merely a falsehood or an hypothesis. Dave is therefore correct: it isn’t a formal theory.

However, I wasn’t speaking from a Science standpoint, I was speaking from an Art standpoint. I was using the word “theory” in the same way that it’s used in “Film Theory” or “Theory of Art”. These aren’t theories in the scientific sense, but they are in the Comparative Studies sense. The idea is that an individual wishing to understand a work of art subscribes to one or more individual theories (which may or may not be consistent with other theories – or indeed one another) and applies these to “read” the work of art. You choose the theory you subscribe to based on criteria such as its relevance to your interests, the compellingness of its derivation, the degree to which you are convinced by its conclusions, the similarity of its judgments to your own aesthetic sensibilities etc..

In this context, I’m perfectly happy for people to criticise the theory I presented on any of the above grounds; given that it’s the first theory of virtual worlds to be presented, it’s almost certain to be ill-formed and incomplete, so the very best I can hope for is merely that it points in the right direction. I would be more than pleased if a better theory were to be presented, and overjoyed if several competing theories were to emerge so we could get real debate on the subject. I’m somewhat dumbfounded, however, to be told that I have no right to formulate a theory of virtual worlds in the first place, in the same way that a Media Studies researcher would be if told that Film Theory was disallowed. Dave is within his rights to criticise the lax use of “theory” in this sense, of course, but I feel it’s a little unfair that he chose my book as the vehicle to attack an entire artistic tradition!

I’d also like to take issue with Dave’s assertion that I have missed the question of whether the shaping and moulding of players to meet some design goal is possible. It’s a central plank of my book that this not only possible but quite fundamental – read “Polly’s Tale” parts 1 and 2 to see just how fundamental I mean. I also state in no uncertain terms that although designers can, should and (to be true to themselves) must make efforts to direct the activities of players through their virtual world’s design, this ends the moment that world goes live. I particularly refer you to the end of Chapter 7, where I say:

“This is my world. I created it. It’s my gift to you. Take it. Live in it. Make of it what you will. It’s your world now.” (page 668).

The above-quoted paragraph is one of the most important in the whole book. Of course the designer is the “architect of the social order that will emerge inside the game”. How could they ever not be?! The critical issue is that the designer must accept that they relinquish control to the players at launch. What happens afterwards is moderated by the design, but determined by the players.

A final point I’d like to make is Dave’s reference to a footnote where I state that virtual worlds are not community, which he uses to support his argument that I don’t believe designers to be the architects of the social order that will emerge. The full footnote reads:

“Sorry, theatre fans, but virtual worlds aren’t performance. Sorry, literature fans, but virtual worlds aren’t story. Sorry, urban planning fans, but virtual worlds aren’t community.” (page 632).

The footnote is attached to the sentence, “I assert that the two closest art forms to virtual worlds are computer games and film”. At this point in the book, I’m looking for existing critical aesthetics to use as templates from which to derive an equivalent for virtual worlds. Now as I just mentioned, it’s fine for someone to come up with a theory that focuses on what’s important to them, in which case using Urban Planning as a starting point might make some kind of sense. Personally, as I regard virtual worlds to be places, this isn’t the theory for me (virtual worlds have communities, but they aren’t themselves communities). That’s not what I’m talking about at that juncture in the book, though. In context, the footnote has very little to do with my views on whether designers are the architects of a virtual world’s social order; I was therefore somewhat surprised to see it used in this way.

For the record, I believe that virtual world designers design virtual worlds. Through their designs, they influence the communities that form within them and how these are structured. They don’t, however, design communities any more than football coaches design games.

Richard

[MahrinSkel]

You may be perfectly happy to have your work criticized in the same context in which it was created: An aesthetic codification of the comparative attributes of online games vs. dramatic works. But I choose to criticize it in *my* preferred context; its contribution to the *craft* of making online games. If someone of your qualifications writes a work entitled "Designing Virtual Worlds", it's reasonable of me to evaluate it as a practical handbook of virtual world design. As such a handbook, it has much to recommend it (and I did recommend it).

Suddenly finding this treatise on the Hero's Journey dropped into the middle of the discussion is disconcerting. Having it become the defining common thread of the entire book isn't just disconcerting, it's downright infuriating. You're equating function (how games work, the behaviours they induce in players, the social structures that arise from both) with meaning (how players feel about those mechanics and those behaviours, how designers and aesthetes *should* feel about all of it), and arguing that meaning is the more important of the two, and more than that you're doing so in such a way that implies that it's the only valid way to view the question.

Even if I granted the pre-eminence of meaning over function (which I do not), I don't believe we have nearly enough information on functions to even *guess* at their meaning. What is the *meaning* of a particular player behaviour have to do with anything when we don't really understand where the behaviour came from in the first place yet? Will understanding the place of that behaviour in the Hero's Journey do anything to help me figure out what to *do* with it?

Do you have the "right" to formulate such a theory? Of course. Do you have the right to define the grounds by which your definition of a critical aesthetic may itself be criticized? Not in my mind, and therefore not in my column. Although I did not include the full context of the quote, I did not *use* the quote out of context, since my entire point was that from my view, online game design has far more in common with Urban Planning than with motion pictures (or any other narrative form). There are things that work, things that don't work, and things that work only when arranged in the right ways. Only to the extent that we find multiple "Right Ways" is there any room for a "dramatic theory" of online games, and we don't have nearly enough of those to use the term with a straight face right now.

Did I attack an entire artistic tradition? No, I asked "What the hell is this artistic tradition doing in my experimental engineering?"

--Dave

[Raph]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Did I attack an entire artistic tradition? No, I asked "What the hell is this artistic tradition doing in my experimental engineering?"

--Dave

So speaks an engineer. :)

Knowing WHY we make these things (which is to my mind, an artistic answer n matter which way you slice it) is indeed to my mind a more fundamental question than HOW we make these things. It speaks to one's motive in undertaking the labor, one's goals for the labor, and it also speaks to what techniques of craft should or should not be applied.

As an example that reeks of practicality: we have the ability to do "pocket zones" or "instanced dungeons" or whatever you want to call them. Some of us have viscerally positive reactions to them--Richard Garriott, for example. Others of us have negative reactions to the idea ont he basis of gut instinct--myself, for example. An aesthetic would tell us why, and it will also speak to why this particular craft element might or might not be applicable to a given game.

An aesthetic shapes the craft, not the other way around.

[Richard]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
But I choose to criticize it in *my* preferred context; its contribution to the *craft* of making online games.

The art defines what is craft.

Let’s apply your critical aesthetic to an imaginary virtual world. Suppose the virtual world were poorly-crafted. It doesn’t matter how well it’s designed, if it’s put together badly it will fail. Your critical aesthetic will reject it. Good call.

Now let’s suppose the virtual world is well-crafted. The best software engineers in the world work on it to create a superb piece of programming; the art direction is top notch; the sound effects and music are compelling; the interface is a breeze to use. It greatly contributes to the craft of making online games. Yet when it’s launched, the players spend 10 minutes in it then quit in disgust because they say it sucks. They don’t like the fact that it’s a medieval fantasy world with handguns that can kill them PD from a range of 250 meters, no defence.

Now the thing is, both you and the players are right. You, as an engineer, are interested in craft and craft alone, and you can appreciate the workmanship that has gone into the creation of the virtual world. The players are interested in having fun, and although they will complain (loudly!) if it is crafted badly, craft is not why they play.

The players have a critical aesthetic that applies to the virtual world. Your critical aesthetic applies not to the virtual world, but the virtual world engine. This is why you can think it’s a great virtual world and they can think it sucks.

When a designer creates a virtual world, they do so for the players. Thus, they need an understanding of the players’ critical aesthetics – even if the players themselves have only an unarticulated awareness of these. Craft is hugely important, yes, but what craft? Well, the craft that is required to support the design, which itself works to a critical aesthetic. This is why I said the art defines what is craft.

If someone of your qualifications writes a work entitled "Designing Virtual Worlds", it's reasonable of me to evaluate it as a practical handbook of virtual world design.

I did try to make it fulfil that role, among others.

So what would you have called the book, then?

You're equating function (how games work, the behaviours they induce in players, the social structures that arise from both) with meaning (how players feel about those mechanics and those behaviours, how designers and aesthetes *should* feel about all of it), and arguing that meaning is the more important of the two, and more than that you're doing so in such a way that implies that it's the only valid way to view the question.

I’m not equating meaning and function, I’m attributing meaning to function. Without an understanding of why function is important, all you can do is assert that it is important.

Players play virtual worlds for fun. We have a corpus of “function” associated with this, that has accumulated over the years. We know it’s important because its appearance in virtual worlds has made those virtual worlds successful; other pieces of functionality have been tried and failed. Thus, we have an evolutionary model for function.

Now that’s all well and good, but it has its problems. In particular:
1) Things which were, in the past, necessary functionality may, after the addition of new functionality, become irrelevant or harmful. Do you need a level system if you have a skills system (or vice versa)?
2) When designers add new functionality, all they have to go on to gauge the likelihood of their success is their own gut instinct.

Now, if we have a system that ascribes some meaning to individual pieces of functionality as components of the overall system, we can address these situations. In my book, I provided such a unifying system, which focused on the needs of players. Now you may disagree with my approach – indeed you may consider it so bad that it’s harmful! However, you don’t seem to be doing that; rather, it appears that you’re saying any attempt to assign meaning to function is bad, and that putting the meaning above the function is worse. I really can’t see what your objection is – it seems glaringly obvious that any half-decent theory of meaning will be better than none at all.

I don't believe we have nearly enough information on functions to even *guess* at their meaning.

Now this is a fair point. I agree that we have very little information on functions, but am more optimistic that we nevertheless have enough to make some rough guesses. My book contains such a rough guess. In the disproving of this guess, hopefully a better understanding of function will arise, resulting in better guesses. Perhaps it would have been better to wait before making guesses; as I said in the book, though, if I hadn’t done it someone else would have soon enough…

Do you have the "right" to formulate such a theory? Of course. Do you have the right to define the grounds by which your definition of a critical aesthetic may itself be criticized? Not in my mind, and therefore not in my column.

I wasn’t defining the grounds by which my definition of a critical aesthetic may itself be criticised, but I was expecting that it would be criticised on the same grounds that other critical aesthetics are criticised. I wasn’t expecting that the very notion that critical aesthetics themselves have any merit in the context of designing virtual worlds would be attacked. Well, actually I was, but only from the perspective of people from other artistic traditions looking down their noses at virtual worlds as if we designers were a bunch of philistines.

Did I attack an entire artistic tradition? No, I asked "What the hell is this artistic tradition doing in my experimental engineering?"

It’s giving you something to engineer.

Richard

[Xentax]

The crux of Dave’s objection (as I see it) is that I’m developing a “theory” of virtual worlds that is neither provable nor disprovable, therefore it’s not a theory. Well strictly speaking, from a Science standpoint, all theories are not only provable but are actually proven; anything else is merely a falsehood or an hypothesis. Dave is therefore correct: it isn’t a formal theory.


Respectfully, I disagree:

No theory can EVER be proven. The meaure of a theory's validity is measured by two things:
1) It's ability to explain observed data
2) It's ability to PREDICT other observable behavior

A hypothesis is a premise -- a proposed explanation of observed data that *can be tested*. It's the foundation of a theory, to be sure.

Thus, a theory like Newton's regarding thermodynamics is accepted, until new data is found which is shown to not fit the model. The theory must then be either revised or replaced (hence the theory of Relativity, which shows how Newton's laws of motion are a reasonable *approximation* of actual mechanics under limited conditions, but the "real" system is more complex).

So, a theory is a subset of hypotheses -- those which have been tested against and whose predictive capabilities have been measured (and, of course, the only interesting theories are those which both fit observation and predict with reasonable accuracy).

Hypotheses are a subset of premises, defined as those which are capable of being validated in an objective fashion.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I agree with the premise that "[Virtual world designers] don’t, however, design communities any more than football coaches design games."

Strategists of war are fond of saying that "No plan survives first contact with the enemy". Sounds like the same concept -- you can design the world, but you have only limited capability of controlling where that world will go once its inhabitants dwell within it.

[setarkos]

Originally posted by Xentax
No theory can EVER be proven.


Unless it is maths of course... Not to be overly pedantic, but there is a bunch of different viewpoints on what is and is not science, the whole field is terribly confusing and is covered in what is called The Philosophy of Science. Now, in the more classic direction of objectivism/positivism (tied to modernism/functionalism etc) where one assumes that there actually are some truths out there on which it is possible for everyone to agree and that we are also able to uncover them (quite bold assumptions), one tend to require that scientific knowledge is falsifiable and verifiable.

A hypothesis is a premise -- a proposed explanation of observed data that *can be tested*. It's the foundation of a theory, to be sure.

A hypothesis is just a statement that is to be challenged? And a theory is a collection of hypothesises, or perhaps a well established hypothesis, except in math where it is a collection of theorems. According to my webster there are several meanings for the word "theory":

1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
3: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
4a: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
4b: SUPPOSITION, CONJECTURE
4c: a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
5: abstract thought : SPECULATION

Hypotheses are a subset of premises, defined as those which are capable of being validated in an objective fashion.

I am sure Newton were convinced that he was very objective... but apparently not objective enough... ;)

I agree with the premise that "[Virtual world designers] don’t, however, design communities any more than football coaches design games."

Well, I don't, especially not given this analogy (which I am not really able to follow). If the designers know their audience then they may shape the community just like a host preparing for a party shape the atmosphere and interaction patterns that will make the party a success... That most designers don't know their audience that well is a different story. (I may read a bit too much into the use of the word "game" here.)

[Xentax]

Well, abstract math is a different animal, because you CAN prove or disprove things, given certain assumptions (postulates).

I'm not sure if you're referring to abstract math (like the Pythagorean Theorem, which I agree doesn't fit the Scientific definition of a theory, since it CAN indeed be proven given only the most basic of postulates), or more "scientific" math, such as the formula for acceleration due to gravity in a vacuum. The former, I agree; the latter however is a classic example of a theorem that is commonly believed to be "proven" but is, in fact, merely a VERY well tested and accepted theory but nevertheless is not truly "proven".

The definition of theory I used, which I'll call the "Scientific Theory", is from American Heritage:

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

So, assuming everyone's ok with that being THE definition for a Scientific theory, the question becomes whether any *Academic* Theory should be defined in that way. Robert's position is one of study, but NOT necessarily one of science (if I'm understanding his position correctly).

As far as the analogy goes, I think point (it's the one I'm making, at least) is that, while you can design the world, you can only *influence* the community that forms within it, and the magnitude of that influence can vary considerably over time and based on circumstance. The community won't quite look the way the designers originally expected or anticpated, to some degree or another.

The analogy isn't perfect -- I mean, in a football game, the other team is out to thwart the coach, while in a virtual world (arguably), the community is not necessarily at direct odds with the designers. But, to the extent that the vision of the designer is not shared (or at least not *carried out*) by the community, the comparison is valid.

The analogy I might use is how a pianist performs a composition which he did not write. The result will resemble the composer's expectations to some degree, but it's not likely to be exactly as laid out, either. Take that to N pianists, and you'll get some that want to perform the piece as exactly as possible, some that want to put their own touches or flairs or emphasis on it, and some that are more interested in seeing how much earstrain they can create...

[mikedsc]

I read "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", by Joseph Campbell recently. (Not an easy read; but easier than Macroeconomics! :) ) And I remember thinking... it'd do Dave some good to read this book and see firsthand where Richard is getting his correlation.

From what I see, Richard is creating a huge model/theory that explains why players come, play, and inexplicably (mostly) leave. Not just leave the game, but all games.

Campbell frequently interchanges "myth" and "dream". The three great areas of the Hero's Journey is something like entering the dream, moving through the dream, and coming out of the dream. That sounds blatantly like entering virtual worlds, moving through virtual worlds, and leaving virtual worlds.

And Campbell also expounds on the meaning of myths in culture, their essential and fundamental role in social structure and belief. It's not cut-and-dried; and if you're NOT thinking while you're reading, then you're not reading carefully enough. Richard points out that he's not giving the reader a blow-by-blow account of how to design: he's raising the questions that need to be asked and informing the reader of things they need to know.

[Xentax]

I can tell you right now why *I* at least have "mostly" left online games -- which we're arguing, at least, is a proper subset of virtual worlds (to some degree).

The short answer is, I (and at least some of the others that leave) burn out -- either on the game in question, or on the genre. For some, that's permanent -- they're not going to "get sucked back in".

For me, it's a sea change but not a complete reversal. I play one or two games (of all genres) at any given time, but I've become more of a nomad, wondering from game to game. I'm playing SWG right now, but I know I won't be playing it for the next 5 years on a regular basis.

There are two inter-related reasons I've largely burned out on online RPGs. One, the levelling grind gets old after awhile, when you've climbed that hill more than a few times in your past. SWG is trying to mask the hill, to some extent, by not having a pure numeric level system and instead focusing on discrete stages (which, naturally, people add back up and come up with a level again). Advancement is one of the key reasons to play the game, yet that same journey can be unappealing when it seems to be "same old" and too long to boot.

The second reason is, on the surface, unrelated. I simply have less disposable time for gaming sessions than I used to, since graduating from college. Many others go through the same change sooner or later, either moving to full-time work, marrying, having kids -- something in their lives causes them to re-allocate time they used to spend gaming. This can often cause the person to leave a virtual-world type game completely, because it's hard for them to appeal to the casual player when stacked against a game which can be played (mostly) to conclusion with 20 or 50 hours of gameplay, while MMORPGs require a hundred or even a thousand hours to reach the high end of the game. Combine that with a feeling of "yet another levelling curve" and I think it's easy to see why some people move on to other things.

[Bear]

I do not presently, nor am I ever likely to in the future, understand this obsession that programmers seem to have with pigeonholing people. To some extent this is true of all the number-crunching professions (engineering, accounting, the hard sciences) but in programming it seems to me to be particularly egregious.

Programmers design games that frequently appear to exist primarily for the purpose of showing off how smart the programmer is. It *feels* like the player is factored into the game design as being just another mob. Then, when the player(s) refuse to conform to design expectations the designers tend to react the same way that they react to a bug. Their first response is trying to work out a bug fix that forces the abberant "mobs" (players) to start behaving the way the designers had envisioned. When that doesn't work......

The new game Dave is working on seems to be less restrictive this way than most. I particularly like the idea that newbies and vets can group together without penalty. What, in the name of economic sanity, was the original idea of "penalizing" someone for wanting to play with a friend of theirs who happens to have spent a few more hours building their character? This is a crime worthy of punishment?

So removing level restrictions on association is a worthy beginning. Removing levels altogether is even better, and I seem to recall seeing something like that also. I look forward eagerly to watching this game unfold.

Science or Art, doesn't matter. Either way the creators....forgive me please....THE CREATORS will use all of their considerable power to command the players into following the designers desires, simply because they can.

Odd that I haven't seen many comments about the simplest problem I personally have with MMOGs. Predicatbility. What ever changes? Even in AC 1 you could just about always depend on the main portions of the game to remain unchanged.

I don't mean destroying towns or moving mountains. But do you have to have the same damn mob selling the same damn meat pie for 5 years, immortal and unkillable? Please. This is art? Science? Nope.

This is anal retentive obsession with a Vision, even if it is not called that openly.

Bear
"Empahtically Uninformed and Belligerent"

[Richard]

Originally posted by setarkos
If the designers know their audience then they may shape the community just like a host preparing for a party shape the atmosphere and interaction patterns that will make the party a success... That most designers don't know their audience that well is a different story. (I may read a bit too much into the use of the word "game" here.)

Designers can shape a community, but they can't design it; designing is not creating. My analogy with football was perhaps a little flawed because I was aware that what I'd call a "football match" some readers would call a "soccer game", so I went with "football game" as a compromise without realising that the "game" part may resonate too strongly with the kind of "online games" we're talking about.

A good soccer coach can pick a team and train the players and give them instructions what to do. When they have a competitive match, however, all he can do is bellow from the touchline and occasionally "patch" the team by making substitutions. In other words, he can design the team but not the match; that emerges from the actions of the coach's own players and those of the opposing team.

Virtual world designers can plan what they want their community to look like. They can choose their beta-testers, "train" them through tweaks in the virtual world's design, and let them loose. They can't, however, design the community because they don't have mind control over the community's members.

The party analogy is good. A host can choose the guests, set up the atmosphere and the activities that make the party a success. However, whether it's actually a success depends on what the partygoers decide. If a bunch of work colleagues turn up having just heard that one of their number on maternity leave has just had a miscarriage, there may be nothing the host can do to make the party a success. The host can shape the party, but they can't design it; the party emerges from the actions of the partygoers in the context of the situation proivided by the host.

I think maybe it's just I'm using the word "design" somewhat particularly here..!

Richard

[Bear]

Originally posted by Richard
Designers can shape a community, but they can't design it; designing is not creating....Virtual world designers can plan what they want their community to look like. They can choose their beta-testers, "train" them through tweaks in the virtual world's design, and let them loose. They can't, however, design the community because they don't have mind control over the community's members....The party analogy is good...I think maybe it's just I'm using the word "design" somewhat particularly here..!

With all due respect, why do virtual world creators want/need/desire to "plan what they want their community to look like"? Why is it a given that a virtual world must be constrained to fit the presumptions and preferences of the designer? Aren't the best parties the ones that get out of hand? Don't you usually have more fun when things get lively and the host just ducks into a corner, praying the cops won't show up? "Theme" parties are boring as hell.

I think it was Dave that used the analogy of urban planning. A particular area may be zoned commercial, or residential, or industrial. But in my life I have noticed that the most sucessful urban areas seem to be the ones that refrain from trying to specify exactly what type of commercial/residential/industrial development happens.

This is a less than perfect analogy, but I recall a few years ago when the city of Lexington, KY got slapped down for trying to be too controlling. Lexington is surrounded by farming country. When the city expanded to engulf a new area, the zoning planners tried to tell one farmer that his plank fences had to go. They did not fit the residential decor which had been imagined for the area. A state judge slapped some sense into the city. He said that they were guilty of "unnecessary regulating" and not only allowed the fence to remain, but fined the city officials involved for malfeasance.

One of the reasons, at least in middle America, for the decline of our cities and migration to suburbs is an effort to escape from the kind of tight-minded control that forces everyone into the same round peg hole. No one likes being forced to paint their house to someone else's standards, or have some clerk issue an imperial edict about what type of bush they may or may not grow in their yard.

One reason that I personally stopped playing online games was a distaste for being dictated to about what did or did not constitute acceptable play style. I got tired of being told in effect, "This way is right, this way is wrong. It is our playground, so if you don't like it, go away."

An online MMOG is not a chess match, where the rules are clear cut and set in stone. Why not set up base conditions and then turn your customers loose? You make the world, let the players design the game?

Bear

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by Bear
With all due respect, why do virtual world creators want/need/desire to "plan what they want their community to look like"? Why is it a given that a virtual world must be constrained to fit the presumptions and preferences of the designer? Aren't the best parties the ones that get out of hand? Don't you usually have more fun when things get lively and the host just ducks into a corner, praying the cops won't show up? "Theme" parties are boring as hell.
If we're going to be held responsible for the results (and we are) then we have no *choice*. When the cops *do* show up, the host is going to be the one who has to explain about the poodle in the microwave and the drunk teenagers puking in the neighbours hot-tub.

--Dave

[David Mandrak]

I've not read the majority of the discussion above yet (too much thinky-stuff, and I'm sure the positive signal-to-noise ratio is in violation of some Internet regulation), but anyone who's not yet read this article may find a lot to chew on regarding the design of "social software" (especially MMORPGs):

A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy (http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html)

Dave Panchyk

[mikedsc]

Bear, then what do you say to Richard's definition of virtual worlds as places, not games?

Personally, I'm edgy on the idea, because it's an idea I've never heard of before, but I feel it has at least some merit.

Btw, has it occurred to you that the host never wants to have to duck into a corner and pray? If you ask me, the host ought to be able to sit back and watch and only be an essential member when something of HIS fault or HIS responsibility goes wrong. If there's a blackout, he's the one to go and fire up the auxiliary generator. If the chips are stale or all gone, he needs to refill the foodstuffs (or start praying for manna from heaven)

[Richard]

Originally posted by Bear
With all due respect, why do virtual world creators want/need/desire to "plan what they want their community to look like"?

Well, the thing is, designers have to make many decisions that have an effect on the community they will get. They must decide, for example, whether or not to have a permanent allegiance system, clans, craft-style guilds, parties/fellowships. For those they have, they must decide their powers (can they own stuff?) the powers of their leaders (can they close them down?), their structure, any physical manifestations of them (flags, uniforms) - a whole bunch of stuff.

There are a lot of decisions to be made there, all of which have an effect on the community that will result whether the designer wants them to or not. Somehow, all these decisions have to hang together in a coherent fashion.

Now it's perfectly possible for designers to pick and choose what features and settings to have on a whim. However, these could conflict with one another. For example, you may decide that you don't want people to be able to leave an allegience hierarchy unless kicked out by their superior (giving a rigid community structure), but allow parties to be formed between people across allegiences (giving a fluid community structure).

From a designer's point of view, it makes sense to decide what kind of community you want and then make these community-defining decisions so they all refer to the same kind of community. This leads inevitably to some decision on what kind of community the designer wants.

Designers do have other reasons for wanting a particular kind of community, but few of these are common to all designers. The above, pragmatic reason, is. Basically, if you don't plan for what community you want, you may not get any at all.

Richard

[Bear]

I believe I understand what you guys are saying. With power comes responsibility, and even refusing to use that power is a choice. So no matter what you do it will have an effect, which results in responsibility. This much I can follow.

Where I get irritated is in the matter of play style. To continue my party analogy, say the host has a swimming pool. Whether or not to make this pool part of the playing area of the party is a choice, and the host is responsible for that choice. Then the host decides whether to set rules like requiring a shower before entering, no swimming by anyone who has been drinking, etc. Or they can turn people loose to skinny dip if it pleases them, or dive in fully clothed. I recognize the potential liability here.

On the other hand, the host need not specify what kind of music is played. The host could simply offer the use of their stereo and let the guests decide whether to play disco *shudder*, heavy metal, rap, or whatever.

I am just trying to advocate allowing as much freedom of choice for the players as possible. How come in some games creativity is encouraged, whereas in other games any evidence of creativity on the part of the paying customer is labeled an exploit? Sometimes leading to expulsion even when there are no known rules against it?

Ignore me. I am tired tonight.

Bear

[Richard]

Originally posted by Bear
I am just trying to advocate allowing as much freedom of choice for the players as possible. How come in some games creativity is encouraged, whereas in other games any evidence of creativity on the part of the paying customer is labeled an exploit? Sometimes leading to expulsion even when there are no known rules against it?

So what you're arguing in favour of is not that designers shouldn't plan their community; rather, it's that they should plan for a freer, more anarchic community than is common.

Well, there are any number of "reasons", not all of which are either defensible or even understandable. Here are some off the top of my head:

1) The designer is designing for their own personal preference and hasn't really given the community they're designing for much thought. It's merely implicit in all their decisions.

2) The designer has been told by the people who hold the purse strings what kind of "audience" they want, and are obliged to work to that specification.

3) The designer has a pompous sense of knowing what's best for players, and wishes to "educate" those who don't follow that belief so that they understand the "right" way to play.

4) The designer's vision is being ignored or misinterpreted by the live team. They impose their views on a virtual world not designed for those views.

5) They are concerned about bad publicity that may result from horseplay in the context of the virtual world. Although players accept/enjoy what's going on, potential newbies are put off.

6) The designers have spent 3 years building their creation and they're not going to let a bunch of hoodlums wreck both it and their reputation.

7) They're completely out of their depth and don't understand what they're doing. Design proceeds increasingly by knee-jerk reaction.

8) The designers don't find anarchism to their tastes. They are working to a different critical aesthetic to those players who do like it.

There are others, of course.

As I said, some of these are more reasonable than others. For commercial virtual worlds, for example, number 2) is going to dominate.

Richard

[mikedsc]

Therein lies the rub. :)

Some of us LIKE going to parties where you're required to follow the rituals, rules and regulations of guest-right and hospitality.

Thus, I see your point as that you're in the role of a lobbyist voicing the interests of the people (possibly including yourself) who want more freedom of choice in virtual worlds. And like legislators, designers have their own agendas (read: visions) to fulfill. Thus, is all you're trying to do is make a suggestion and hope someone will pick it up and run with it?

Sometimes, the host invited people to the party for a purpose. Such as a birthday party. Depending on the honored person, the party is designed to suit that one person. The people invited are his/her friends, the activities planned are his/her preferred, the location selected is to his/her liking. If the person doesn't like craziness, the person hosting the party might not permit skinny dipping or rock music. If the person is a chocolate addict, there might be huge quantities of chocolate lying around the house.

There are also dinner parties where the aim is to have fun as a side effect. Family reunions, company banquets, black-tie dinners. The fun factor largely comes from the "pleasure of company", not from the activities or milieu. The most stupidly planned party might be fun just because your best friend came with you. Not necessarily because of anything that happened, but just spending the time with your friend is enough fun.

Oh, and this?
in other games any evidence of creativity on the part of the paying customer is labeled an exploit?
The people who did the labeling are idiots, simply put.

[MahrinSkel]

Is it safe to come out now?

Yeah, okay, let's try this again. It seems to me that a great deal of the problem is that we lack a vocabulary to really describe what we're dealing with, so we're borrowing one from other places (and those places have been borrowing from each other). When I use the word "theory", I use it in the engineering sense, which is different than the "hard science" sense, which is different from the "soft science" sense, which is itself different from the "artistic" sense. Across any one of these transforms people can think they are talking about the same thing and keep things more or less coherent, but by the time we play semantic telephone from the arts to engineering....

Normally an engineer and a literary critic would have little cause to get worked up over their different uses of the word "theory", both of them know what the word means *for them*, and they would rarely use it talking with anyone using a seriously different form of it, at worst each would accept the other's definition as a metaphor or analogy for what it "really" meant. But when a "nuts and bolts" online game designer tries to discuss the "theory" of community with a "story and self-actualization" online game designer, things get...interesting.

My approach to online game design is dynamics oriected, when I look at a game, I see an inter-related system of rewards and punishments that provokes a certain behaviour pattern in its players. I observe both the systems and the patterns and I look for an over-arching meta-pattern that ties them together, these arrangements of rewards and punishments provoke these patterns of behaviour.

I then extend it to the next level up: I observe the community structures that are formed by the player behaviours that in turn result from the game systems, and I look for causal connections from the lowest level (which I control as a designer) to the highest level (which is entirely the creation of the players).

The *idea* is that although the community is entirely composed of players, and forms and is sustained totally through their efforts, there are causal links between the layer I control (the game) and the one the players control (the community). The question that immediately raises (to me) is how much we can shape the community through the way we arrange the systems of gameplay.

Before you can answer that question, you have to study the dynamics of community. Why do communities form, why do they grow, why do they disperse? Why do they *not* do all of the above?

I'm working on the assumption that communities are adaptive self-organizing systems, and the principles of "emergence" are directly applicable to them. In emergent systems, there are three basic types of systems: Stable, boring systems where results can always be predicted; Chaotic, incomprehensible systems where there is no meaningful relationship between inputs and results; And complex systems where the relationship between cause and effect is not immediately evident, but can be meaningfully traced. Inside this narrow regime of complexity are a variety of systems that can be described as "adaptive", the same patterns relating cause to effect will appear again and again because there are only so many ways to close your feedback loops.

When I look at the communities that form in an online environment, I see just such patterns. And I'm not the only one to see those patterns, the realization that online communities, indeed communities in general, can form repetitive patterns is a very "hot" topic in certain circles right now. Given a certain arrangement of interaction tools and personal desires, certain patterns will manifest themselves regardless of the intent of those who originally formed the community.

What makes online games different is that we can re-arrange the personal desires and interaction tools. Not all of them, and not to an unlimited degree, but far more than anyone else. So at least in principle, we can design a community the same way that a bonsai gardener can "design" a miniature tree: by setting the constraints within which the community will grow, deliberately stunting its growth in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing result.

What I took issue with was Richard jumping straight to questions of "What is aesthetically pleasing?" when I know we haven't figured out "What is actually possible?" or begun to handle "What is ethically permissible?" To skip the first is to build castles in the air, mental masturbation over "What would the perfect game community be like?" To skip the second is dangerous. Suppose it is possible to design a game where players are exploited for their labor by other players in inescapable arrangements reminiscent of indentured servitude, *and* get the exploited players to accept this: Is such a design ethical? Before you blow that off as meaningless theorizing, what if I told you several similar situation have already arisen, some of them are ongoing as we speak? Because they have, and are.

The initial trigger, way back when, was Jessica's column on the ethical issue coming before the aesthetic. My personal focus came a step before that, on the practical. It's not very useful to get worked up over the ethics of crafting an aesthetically pleasing community without any awareness of the process by which it would be created, but doing so could easily cause us to "swear off" certain possibilities of our craft without any idea of what they would actually *do*.

What Richard took exception to was my insistence that his usage of the word "theory" was incorrect. In fact, both of us were correct, or neither, depending on which form of "theory" you pick. Then Slashdot picked it up, and some others with their own axes to grind piled on, and I thought it might be a good idea to lie low for a few days.

--Dave

[mikedsc]

I think the ethics have been spelled out quite nicely by Everquest. You know their motto.

As to "What is actually possible?", you're suggesting that instead of doing trial and error, we closet ourselves in stuffy attics and figure out the exact psychology of the individual and the collective, then... ah. See, you have to test out your theory. Scientifically, that portion is the Experiment.

The way I see it, Dave's view and Richard's view aren't at odds at all; like you say, your views are highly compatible.

It is possible to engineer a novel, for instance, to a specific purpose. Many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels are difficult to read largely because they were allegorical. It wasn't aesthetically pleasing. But that might just be because Hawthorne was no good as an artist (or his audience found this sort of novel aesthetically pleasing. You never know with Puritans.) However, it is possible make this hugely allegorical novel aesthetically pleasing. C.S. Lewis's Narnia series as one huge allegory; yet people love to read it.

If you modified your approach, say... we find out what we want and THEN we see if it's possible... What's wrong with that? No, it's not the BEST way, but it is not possible to know what we do not know until we know it, so one always makes do with what one has.

[Bear]

Originally posted by mikedsc
Therein lies the rub. :)

Some of us LIKE going to parties where you're required to follow the rituals, rules and regulations of guest-right and hospitality.

Thus, I see your point as that you're in the role of a lobbyist voicing the interests of the people (possibly including yourself) who want more freedom of choice in virtual worlds. And like legislators, designers have their own agendas (read: visions) to fulfill. Thus, is all you're trying to do is make a suggestion and hope someone will pick it up and run with it?

Sometimes, the host invited people to the party for a purpose. Such as a birthday party. Depending on the honored person, the party is designed to suit that one person. The people invited are his/her friends, the activities planned are his/her preferred, the location selected is to his/her liking. If the person doesn't like craziness, the person hosting the party might not permit skinny dipping or rock music. If the person is a chocolate addict, there might be huge quantities of chocolate lying around the house.

There are also dinner parties where the aim is to have fun as a side effect. Family reunions, company banquets, black-tie dinners. The fun factor largely comes from the "pleasure of company", not from the activities or milieu. The most stupidly planned party might be fun just because your best friend came with you. Not necessarily because of anything that happened, but just spending the time with your friend is enough fun.


The thing is, when you go to a party for out of a sense of obligation, like a family reunion or a birthday party or a fund raiser, you are not paying admission in order to have fun. The kind of party you describe is, to me, a duty. Not a source of entertainment.

And yes, I have been simply repeating my oft expressed desire that someone make the kind of game I would like to play. All I CAN do is vent my opinion. I am not a game designer, nor a programmer. So my opinion is somewhere between unimportant and irrelevant most of the time. I just like to vent occasionally. No offense intended.

Sorry that I did not answer your PM sooner, I was out of town. I truly regret that you think I sound repetitive and venemous. Repetitive I will admit to. I only have a handful of topics and opinions, and once I run through the list I just start over from the top. But I never intended to sound venemous.

As far as your idea, I love it. It sounds wonderful. I just fear you may have bitten off more than anyone could chew. My mind boggles at the level of effort required to produce something that complex. But if you pull it off I would love to try it out.

Bear

[Richard]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Is it safe to come out now?

No, it's never safe to come out!

But when a "nuts and bolts" online game designer tries to discuss the "theory" of community with a "story and self-actualization" online game designer, things get...interesting.

I thought I'd said in my book that I meant "theory" in the same way that it's used in "theory of art", but a quick re-read of the opening to chapter 7 shows that I didn't. This may be the root of the problem...

Oh well, one for the second edition!

The *idea* is that although the community is entirely composed of players, and forms and is sustained totally through their efforts, there are causal links between the layer I control (the game) and the one the players control (the community).

This is so obviously true that I take it almost as an axiom in my book. That's one reason I was confused as to why you might think I was skeptical about it.

Given a certain arrangement of interaction tools and personal desires, certain patterns will manifest themselves regardless of the intent of those who originally formed the community.

For good designers, of course, the tools will have been added (or withheld) deliberately so as to encourage the emergence of those patterns the designer wants.

So at least in principle, we can design a community the same way that a bonsai gardener can "design" a miniature tree: by setting the constraints within which the community will grow, deliberately stunting its growth in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing result.

I'm not convinced the word "design" applies to communities. We can shape them, yes, but in what sense is that "design"? What does a "design" for a community look like?

What I took issue with was Richard jumping straight to questions of "What is aesthetically pleasing?" when I know we haven't figured out "What is actually possible?" or begun to handle "What is ethically permissible?"

Oh, I'm certainly guilty of jumping the gun somewhat! I did explain why, though, on pages 627/628 .

I'd argue that although we haven't figured out all that is actually possible, we have figured out enough to be able to begin constructing a framework based on the 20 years or so worth of evidence we have so far. As for ethical issues, I do outline many of those in the book; whether they are part of an individual's critical aesthetic is up to them (and designers wishing to make a point will certainly challenge some of them).

Also, since we can never truly know all there is to know about community in virtual worlds, waiting until we do so before constructing a critical aesthetic would mean we'd never get a critical aesthetic.

To skip the first is to build castles in the air, mental masturbation over "What would the perfect game community be like?"

But not to ask the question is to explore areas that will be dead ends because they are unacceptable to players.

To skip the second is dangerous.

I agree, but the formulation of a critical aesthetic is not dependent on it; it can inform a critical aesthetic, of course, but it's not a necessary precondition for it.

I personally wouldn't buy a rug made by 10-year-old girls working 12 hours a day in a sweatshop, but I could still formulate a critical aesthetic for determining which of the rugs that come out of such sweatshops are artistically "superior" to others. Someone else, who sees nothing wrong in putting money into a local economy where childhood labour is a traditional and much-needed source of income, might also have a critical aesthetic for rating rugs. It may be that given 10 rugs both I and the other critic would rate them in the same order of merit; we'd be doing so for different reasons, though, because our critical aesthetics differ (and they differ because our morals differ).

It's not very useful to get worked up over the ethics of crafting an aesthetically pleasing community without any awareness of the process by which it would be created, but doing so could easily cause us to "swear off" certain possibilities of our craft without any idea of what they would actually *do*.

If we accept your argument about morality being a precondition to a critical aesthetic, should we not also apply it to the creation of processes? In other words, before we do anything shouldn't we have a fully fledged moral system to which we can appeal? We might want to "swear off" certain possibilities because what they promise offends our morality?

In other words, if you want to apply morality to the art, you should also apply it to the craft; if it's a precondition for the art, it must be for the craft. If you think it's OK to attempt the craft without a completely thought-out moral system, it's also OK for the art.

Richard

[Yxven]

I think developers should not spend a lot of time trying to design the community. Basically the idea is that a developer should be spending his/her time creating things that players CAN do not be trying to tell them what they CAN'T do.

Which creates more content? Hard coding specific guild systems ie noble house elven band ect with specific guild systems ie guildleader is the only one who can invite/boot/own buildings. Or creating a general guild system? Enter name of guild here. Enter motto enter type of guild ect. Then create a simple permission based power system so they can govern themselves how they wish.

For example Ultima Online: Orc lords in UO dropped an axe a tunic and an orc helm. If you were to wear all 3 you looked very much like the orc. This created orc guilds. It can be implied that the designers designed this as they provided the orc helms but then what of the lich guilds? There is no in-game items that make you look like a lich. I think well-coded guild types inadvertently discourage un-coded guild types.

There are certainly some times where the devs need to step in and say 'err no.'
For example: Everquest's party system only originally supported 8 people in a group. This wasn’t because the developers were telling the players "Don't make more friends than 7." It was because the game engine couldn’t support encounters designed for more players than 8 at that time. (I remember reading this somewhere it may not be 100% accurate)
These exceptions certainly come more frequently when considering game balance. But for the most part tweaking game balance does not create verbal backlash within your virtual community. (Unless you do a poor job, of course)

A bad community system is ac1's patron/vassal system. The system in ac1 works like this: based on 2 skills (leadership and loyalty) you can set up an 'experience chain'. 16%-30%? of the experience points you make is granted (it doesn’t make you earn less exp it just produces extra for your patron) and then 93% of that bonus experience is then passed up to his patron. Ideally this system would reward veteran players for helping new players. In practice this became the only guild type in ac1. This system is why my character is in a 9,000+ player guild. I don't know more than 4 guild mates (and have no loyalty to my ‘allegiance’) but I cannot compete unless I partake in this evil. (or the other evil know as ebay)

[Yaka St.Aise]

MahrinSkel wrote

When I look at the communities that form in an online environment, I see just such patterns. And I'm not the only one to see those patterns, the realization that online communities, indeed communities in general, can form repetitive patterns is a very "hot" topic in certain circles right now. Given a certain arrangement of interaction tools and personal desires, certain patterns will manifest themselves regardless of the intent of those who originally formed the community.

What makes online games different is that we can re-arrange the personal desires and interaction tools. Not all of them, and not to an unlimited degree, but far more than anyone else. So at least in principle, we can design a community the same way that a bonsai gardener can "design" a miniature tree: by setting the constraints within which the community will grow, deliberately stunting its growth in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing result.

[snip]

It's not very useful to get worked up over the ethics of crafting an aesthetically pleasing community without any awareness of the process by which it would be created, but doing so could easily cause us to "swear off" certain possibilities of our craft without any idea of what they would actually *do*.


Because we'd be unaware of the means to turn said possibilities into fact ?
Because we would discard valuable ideas based on mis-educated ethical prejudices ?

Ethical concerns are unlikely to prevent us from open-mindedly envision things beyond our craft abilities, unless we are intellectual bigots, or - as Bear would put it - anal-retensive freaks afraid to even think about what we aren't positive we can control.
...which is not impossible, yet would led me to think this is what we ought to work on (our control-freakishness), even before we focus on improving the means of control. ;)

Besides, there is some room left for intermediate levels of mastery between "without any awareness" and "optical surgery accuracy" when it comes to the craft of shaping communities, and "empirically educated guesswork" (to stick to 3-words labels) doesn't sound that bad, either.

Not to overlook the merits of an analytic/systemic approach of community building/shaping from an engineering perspective, mind you, but while better tools often open new possibilities, they are defined as "tools" in first place by their finalist suitability to a purpose, which originates in the intent and will of the one who designed (an maybe uses) them.

As everyone seems to agree, community-shaping is among the many elements of MMOGs where "no stance is already action", hence the need to think before you act, and then take a voluntary stance, be it with imperfect tools and imperfect skill, then be ready to adapt to unexpected results.
Which is where better understanding of community dynamics really kicks in, and better tools to engineer it really kick ass.

Total awareness and control via statistical - even stochastic - approach to communities is an illusion because it doesn't factor in the fact that the very way you sample, analyze and interpret data (pattern recognition is a hoot, here) depends on the set of prejudices you bring along to the workbench, and will by default pass for a vision if you believe the truth is in the data.
It is, again, if unknowingly, an aestethic stance (not a pose) to attempt not taking any.

While I agree that conveniences beats quality in the market, limiting our ethical and eventually aesthetical concerns to what is currently practical puts much more limitation on where we figure we might go (and eventually go), than selecting within practicality-free ethical and aesthetical boundaries our wished paths, then figuring how the convenient tools of the time may allow us to proceed.

The total-engineering approach sounds to me as ludicrous as the raw-artistic one when it comes to community shaping, and (call me skewed here) the former reeks as much of undigested mechanistic philosophy as the latter of postadolescent romanticism, and both share some level of naivete in their attempt to find the Truth of the matter.

"Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom." [Clifford Stoll and Gary Schuber]

I'm not advocating laisser faire design on the community issue, I'm merely stating the obvious, that any attempt to shape community in a perfectly controlled fashion (by executive orders or pavlovian binding) is either doomed to fail, badly detrimental to player enjoyment (which in my book is another type of failure) or both.

Not to say it couldn't be somewhat succesful, from a drug-dealer perpsective... ;)

Best,
Yaka.

PS: Now, I'm teased: what is thing too big to chew on ?

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by Richard
This is so obviously true that I take it almost as an axiom in my book. That's one reason I was confused as to why you might think I was skeptical about it.
A lot of people in the business still put "community" in the "And then a miracle happens" block of their development plan. Yes, you and I and most of the people who have been participating in this debate have a deeper understanding of what it means to say that a game "creates" a community in some ways, but in others we're so close to it we can't see the forest for the trees. There are things so manifestly obvious to us that we don't bother to explain them. That Game --> Behaviour --> Community chain is one of those "too obvious to explain" things that people who *haven't* been down the same path we have don't get.
For good designers, of course, the tools will have been added (or withheld) deliberately so as to encourage the emergence of those patterns the designer wants.
But which tools can we get away with taking away? UO, for example, saw floating chat as an important design element to connect speaker with speech, but the players felt it was so clumsy guilds routinely used IRC instead. There are limits to what we can get away with trying to deny the players.
I'm not convinced the word "design" applies to communities. We can shape them, yes, but in what sense is that "design"? What does a "design" for a community look like?
Suspiciously like a "Vision", but without the dogmatic "Right way to play" connotations. At this point in time, much of shaping a community is "gut feel" (at best).
I'd argue that although we haven't figured out all that is actually possible, we have figured out enough to be able to begin constructing a framework based on the 20 years or so worth of evidence we have so far. As for ethical issues, I do outline many of those in the book; whether they are part of an individual's critical aesthetic is up to them (and designers wishing to make a point will certainly challenge some of them).

Also, since we can never truly know all there is to know about community in virtual worlds, waiting until we do so before constructing a critical aesthetic would mean we'd never get a critical aesthetic.
An incomplete theory can be worse than no theory at all, if it is not testable/falsifiable so you know when to abandon or revise it. Then competing interpretations of principles cannot be resolved, failed attempts to apply them will usually be dismissed as simply an error of implemetation. Games don't fail because the audience wasn't ready to appreciate them, they fail because they were flawed. But the proponents of a theory based on aesthetic principleswould be very reluctant to admit the theory was a failure, if the Arts are any guide they'll blame the audience.
to ask the question is to explore areas that will be dead ends because they are unacceptable to players.
Because films and novels tailored to meet the approval of critics *always* succeed in front of a larger audience, right?
If we accept your argument about morality being a precondition to a critical aesthetic, should we not also apply it to the creation of processes? In other words, before we do anything shouldn't we have a fully fledged moral system to which we can appeal? We might want to "swear off" certain possibilities because what they promise offends our morality?

In other words, if you want to apply morality to the art, you should also apply it to the craft; if it's a precondition for the art, it must be for the craft. If you think it's OK to attempt the craft without a completely thought-out moral system, it's also OK for the art.
In my opinion, craft is independant of moral judgements. The same engineering techniques that put a man on the moon built missles to deliver nuclear weapons. The same chemical processes that produced (comparatively) safe pesticides to relieve hunger also created nerve gas. Having the *ability* to get players to subordinate their efforts to the purposes of others can result in effects that are either positive or negative in a moral sense, but a morally informed critical aesthetic might forbid their use (or even exploration) because they *could* be used improperly.

--Dave

[Bear]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
In my opinion, craft is independant of moral judgements. The same engineering techniques that put a man on the moon built missles to deliver nuclear weapons....

....Having the *ability* to get players to subordinate their efforts to the purposes of others can result in effects that are either positive or negative in a moral sense, but a morally informed critical aesthetic might forbid their use (or even exploration) because they *could* be used improperly.

--Dave

Thank you for pointing out something that SHOULD be obvious to everyone, but painfully isn't.

Bear

[Richard]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
In my opinion, craft is independant of moral judgements. The same engineering techniques that put a man on the moon built missles to deliver nuclear weapons.

Craft is not independent of moral judgments. If it were, medical scientists would routinely experiment on unwilling human volunteers in order to advance their craft (they already do it on animal ones).

I don't think that any "community engineer" should be given carte blanche to experiment on communities. There are some things that it would be irresponsible to do, even if it were to further the understanding of community development and lead to a whole lot of good in future.

Here's an example. Suppose that you have, through observation and data mining, established a relationship model for the members of a particular community. You want to see how resistant these relationships are to outside pressure, so you can better understand what kind of relationships are more likely to be lasting and fruitful; other community engineers can then decide to encourage or discourage them for the communities they engineer.

So into your happy little community you deliberately introduce elements to disrupt it. You get your results, but only by hurting the members of the community. They wouldn't have been hurt if you hadn't experimented on them, so basically you hurt them. If you were to introduce, say, homophobes into a gay community or mysogenists into a female community or racists into a Jewish community or paedophiles into a community of children, sure, other people would be the tools of the community's disruption but you would be the cause.

In my view, irrespective of whether there is a critical aesthetic involved it would be morally wrong to interfere like this with a community, whether or not the results are useful later. Moral judgments should be applied to all activities. Naturally, we don't all have the same morality, and there may be people out there who think it's fine to do this. The people they do it to might not necessarily agree, though...

Richard

[mikedsc]

Case in point, there's Einstein's reaction to Hiroshima and Nagasaki after his work in the Manhattan Project. I don't know the specifics, except that he became utterly pacifist and anti-war. I got the impression that Einstein didn't think that nuclear weapons would be used.

[Yaka St.Aise]

Originally posted by David Mandrak
I've not read the majority of the discussion above yet (too much thinky-stuff, and I'm sure the positive signal-to-noise ratio is in violation of some Internet regulation)

Please, don't let anyone know ;)
, but anyone who's not yet read this article may find a lot to chew on regarding the design of "social software" (especially MMORPGs):

A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy (http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html)

This one by Clay Shirky I had overlooked, thank you for correcting it.
Good piece of advice, and good piece of literature.
well worth the read: even though most of us here may feel a level of deja vu, there are some gems here, and it is the kind of things that you never hammer enough.

Best,
Yaka.

[Nanakii]

Craft is not independent of moral judgments. If it were, medical scientists would routinely experiment on unwilling human volunteers in order to advance their craft (they already do it on animal ones).

What you've just done is provided an explanation of why craft is not independant of moral consideration and this is something that should be obvious to everyone.

Dave seems to be concerned that moral judgements might prohibit creative possibilities but this is only a problem if the judgement precedes your vision. Normally we judge actions or people, not passive processes, meaning that judgement ought not to come until we reach the point where potientially harmful actions emerge. We can consider the moral dimensions of a process without rushing to judgement.

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by Richard
[B]Craft is not independent of moral judgments. If it were, medical scientists would routinely experiment on unwilling human volunteers in order to advance their craft (they already do it on animal ones).
What about the results of such research, once it has already been done? Not hypothetical, after all, medical researcher had to wrestle with exactly that problem after WWII. After filing off the serial numbers so the Nazi doctors who did the original research would never receive even posthumous credit for it, they used the results.
I don't think that any "community engineer" should be given carte blanche to experiment on communities. There are some things that it would be irresponsible to do, even if it were to further the understanding of community development and lead to a whole lot of good in future.

...

In my view, irrespective of whether there is a critical aesthetic involved it would be morally wrong to interfere like this with a community, whether or not the results are useful later. Moral judgments should be applied to all activities. Naturally, we don't all have the same morality, and there may be people out there who think it's fine to do this. The people they do it to might not necessarily agree, though...
Right of Departure. People don't like how I run my world, they don't have to enter it again. If I set out to create Hell (is other people) Online I can't make people play it.

Nobody has to participate in my fiendish experiments, there's no coercion involved, so how can there possibly be a moral dimension to my design choices?

--Dave

[Yaka St.Aise]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
Right of Departure. People don't like how I run my world, they don't have to enter it again. If I set out to create Hell (is other people) Online I can't make people play it.

Nobody has to participate in my fiendish experiments, there's no coercion involved, so how can there possibly be a moral dimension to my design choices?


I beg to differ.

Your stance on this issue basically denies the value of persistence and history within a MMORPG, by stating something like:
"Please, do come in my game and give me good money for both a box (useless without an online account), and the monthly fee.
...oh, by the way, this game won't probably be around anymore by next month."

Because when you start such an experiment on an existent user community, you have to face the fact you unilateraly change the deal between you and a community which was in first place led by you (the service provider) to believe its members could expect some level of persitence in the game universe, which probably plays no little part in getting people to devote time and money to use your service (not even to mention pre-payments for up to a year subscription).

Actually, there is some possible level of coercion involved, too:

Depending on how, when and under which premises you undertake your "Fiendish experiments", some players may end up staying in a game you unexpectedly turn into an increasingly displeasant place for them, thus failing your commitment to do whatever it takes (within reasonable limits) to satisfy your customers.

This failure means your customers face a choice forced upon them by you (as in coercion), between forgoing something they invested in, finance, time and emotion wise, or try to maintain some enjoyability in their hobby despite your active efforts to squash it.
"Right of departure", in this context, basically boils down to: "Endure my abuse or leave your home because I'm dumping my garbage in this very house I rent you."

The persistent and multiplayer qualities of MMORPGs mean that the community aspects of the game actually happen as much in game as they do around the game, which in turn is made possible by the fact that people both experience and believe in some level of persistence in the game universe.

Even in the realm of non-commercial services, the moral values of responsibility and commitment should ring a bell by any gamemaker who expects people to join in and support the experience over time, but when it comes to commercial MMORPGs, intentionally failing to deliver, or bending the terms of the deals afterwards constitutes at least a breach of moral obligations, up to a fully-qualified scam.

Not to say you couldn't get away with it...:rolleyes:

It is one sorry deed to botch a game for your players out of incompetence, and sadly it happens often enough, yet is not as bad as doing the same willingly, which in my book qualifies as grief play (playing so as to actively and willingly disrupt the experience and enjoyment of other players).

Just because the EULAs allow us to treat our customers like shit doesn't mean we should feel compelled to do so.

Yaka.

[MahrinSkel]

Originally posted by Yaka St.Aise
This failure means your customers face a choice forced upon them by you (as in coercion), between forgoing something they invested in, finance, time and emotion wise, or try to maintain some enjoyability in their hobby despite your active efforts to squash it.
"Right of departure", in this context, basically boils down to: "Endure my abuse or leave your home because I'm dumping my garbage in this very house I rent you."
That sounds suspiciously like every Patch Day I remember. How do you draw the distinction between "I'm doing what I think is neccessary to improve the game" and "Now I'm just screwing with your heads"?

--Dave

[Yaka St.Aise]

Originally posted by MahrinSkel
That sounds suspiciously like every Patch Day I remember. How do you draw the distinction between "I'm doing what I think is neccessary to improve the game" and "Now I'm just screwing with your heads"?


They might not be able to figure it if you don't want them to, but you do know where the line is.
Providing you have some sense of what you are doing (ie have some mastery of your craft), your knowning of why you take (or not) such or such action means you also can figure whether you are crossing the line.

There are times you have to make tough/unpopular decisions for the common best interest, which is precisely the responsibility that comes with the power of the admin/designer/wiz, and my point was exactly that: responsibility towards the community you are in charge of - and indebted to, when they pay your bills.

Knowing what you are doing to your game world and users, and because of it being able to make informed decisions is exactly why we need to improve our knowledge of the art and craft of making games, in which some science is included.

But at the end of the day, your decisions, no matter how well or ill-informed have consequences on real human beings and their virtual representations in what is a real (if computer mediated) human society you are in charge of.

Of course, the stake is arguably lower than in real world, because it's only a game, right ?
Well, most people don't keep paying and playing hours daily if they feel it's just another game.
No matter how crappy the context, it is more than just a game because of the community living in there, and many people will eventually get attached to their community and stick to it in bad times, and not use their "Right to departure".

Stupid, are they ?
Possibly so.
But predictably so, too.
It is what patriotism, faithfulness in love and dependability in friendship are about.

Anyone who cares about community shaping can't pretend to ignore it, lest being disingenuous and/or making a fool of oneself.

Leveraging the players attachment to their community to impose on them bad times with the knowledge they won't leave has a name (to add to the previously mentionned "griefing"): exploitation.

Whether your patching is required to fix a bug or a design flaw, or by the necessity to adapt to unforeseen developments resulting from player's behavior (which brings us back on topic of community shaping/management), you have to assess what is the best decision for the common good of your users, not what is the funniest/most exciting/intriguing option for you (the admin) that you can come up with.

Claiming you have every right to do whatever you fancy because the players have a "Right to departure" seems totally overlooking the fact you owe these people your job and the funding for both the production and exploitation of the game (yup, pre-prod stage, too, because nobody would fund a team to make a commercial game that expects no customers).

So, to shamelessly quote myself:
Just because the EULAs allow us to treat our customers like shit doesn't mean we should feel compelled to do so.

People expect the admin to be the God (rather than the Governor, as was discussed here a while ago) of their world, and indeed, he/she is.
...yet only as long as they do believe he/she is a god of good and make offerings to show their gratitude.

But as a human whith a RL professionnal practice, you are expected to behave and show some professional ethics, which are the basis of the confidence any trade relationship depends on.
Written contracts are here to define boundaries prior to commitment, and set the record straight when things go sour, but you usually won't sign a contract whith a provider you don't expect will deliver, no matter your odds to win the litigation in court later.

Then, when you claim you can - without moral concerns - be a god of fear, anger and pettyness (to paraphrase Mark Twain), you forget you are only a human professional in RL, paid by real people whose trust you need to earn, to gain their RL money and goodwill when you sometimes screw up (it happens).

Moreover, managing customers expectations, like community, is also integral to the job of the admin/designer, and like community, it is a case of "taking no stance is already a decision".

I actually have no problem with the idea of actively torturing your players (contrary to Richard, I believe), providing you make clear before you start the game it is what's in the deal.
That could provide a whole new meaning to the "Dungeon" in D&D...:D

Still, not stating, loud and clear, and prior to customer commitment that your players are likely to be mistreated by God for no reason (they can figure) is an implicit statement that mistreatment is unlikely.

Back on topic and to clearly answer your question: I believe some assessments and choices you make - both in design and administration - necessarily are moral and ethical ones.
Ethics shouldn't bar us from exploring hypothesis and ideas about community shaping, but it should bar us from experimenting whith non-consentant guinea-pig players without concern for their enjoyment.

This is something you can do in beta-test stage, or on a server expressely set for experimental purposes, as long as players know what to expect.

But in the restricted context of recreational (as in enjoyable) for-pay game, you have a duty to care for your customers satisfaction, and this sometimes boils down to respect them as human beings.

Having god powers should entail proportional sense of responsibility, but for all those powers your are not god, and for this reason should - in addition - probably feel bound by earthly moral rules.

"Right to departure" is akin to "Right to suicide." in the symbolic world of a game, when the choice is forced upon unexpecting players who have spent a lot of time and personal commitment in the little world you lured them in, under the pretense of being a fair, benevolent God, only to wreck havoc on them later on.

Again, your power in a gameworld is more akin to this of a God than an earthly ruler...

Better use it wisely,
Yaka.

PS: ...wow, this has turned out into a long one. Thank you to those who made it that far, for your time and attention.

[mikedsc]

http://www.trhickman.com/essay.html

Tracy Hickman (co-author of various Dragonlance books) defends Role-Playing in a series of three essays. His writing style seems to lack the pizazz it had in his many novels, but he makes a point.

Oh, and Essay 3 is titled "The Moral Imperative of Fantasy", and focuses on the Dungeon Master's responsibility to create an ethical game.