Slashdot Mirror
Designing Virtual Worlds
It never occurred to me that my review would be read by a wider public, most of whom had never heard of me or even Dr. Bartle, and would see only the hostility, and not understand the narrowness of the focus. When the column was picked up by Slashdot I was stunned, when I realized it was also linked by Clay Shirky in Many to Many and by Joystick101 among other places, I felt slightly ill. Without intending to, I may have damaged the reputation of Dr. Bartle and of his book, and I feel an obligation to set the record straight with an actual review of his book. I'm not sure why it has not already received such a review, except that only a few dozen people in the world currently make their living at virtual world design and would really be qualified to write it.
What is in the book? The "Introduction to Virtual Worlds" of the first chapter does a very good job of laying out what a virtual world is, and defending that definition as a category that includes but is not limited to the online games that are the most common examples of the type. The history lesson included a lot of information even I, after six years in the industry and a serious attempt at studying it, was not aware of. The second chapter gives a very good overview of the process by which the world is created both in business terms and in structural arrangements. The third includes a reprise and updating of Dr. Bartle's now-classic Players that Suit MUD's, the touchstone for every theory of player motivation in online games, and continues into a description of the properties and dynamics of the communities that form in and around the worlds.
Where most of the first three chapters are a primer -- containing the base knowledge needed to understand the whole field in functional terms -- the 4th and 5th chapters focus much more on the worlds as games. The mechanics of game systems, the structure of "advancement" systems and the psychology that makes them run, all of the myriad elements that make a virtual world a game.
Chapters 6 and 7 take a more academic overview of the field, discussing the "why's" of the worlds, what they are, what they may become, and what other fields of human endeavour they are most similar to and therefore may have lessons to offer. Chapter 7's effort to establish the academic and artistic "legitimacy" of virtual worlds was the main source of my disagreement with the book: I think that virtual worlds are entirely capable of standing on their own merits and do not need to be considered credible by the academic arts to be worthy. But this is the "almost theological" issue, and although significant to myself and a handful of others in the field, it's not something that should be counted against the work as a whole.
Chapter 8 focuses on the fact that as virtual as the worlds may be, the people in them (and therefore the relationships) are real, and therefore certain ethical factors normally not considered an issue in game design become much more important. Added to this are questions of "ownership"; if there is no game without the players, but the operator has a finger on the power button, who is in control? Who should be? The book doesn't solve many of these problems (every solution is likely to be unique to a particular setting), but does lay out where most of the fracture lines occur.
What I liked: The book establishes good points and brings the reader up to date on the known principles of the field, with copious references to other writings on the subject provided in the footnotes. The general focus on the "players eye" view is a very important attribute: too often, discussions of virtual worlds have the "God's Eye" designer's view from orbit, and forget that in the end it's the ground-level "fun or not-fun" experience of the players that makes or breaks a design.
What I didn't like: Dr. Bartle is much more broadly educated than I am (they don't give out any titles for an Associates degree in electronics), and tries very hard to make a case to the academic community that virtual worlds are worthy of consideration as serious works of Capital-A "Art." Since I am not concerned about credibility with the dilettantes and dabblers who make up most of academia in the Arts, the repeated references to the Hero's Journey and the effort to define a dramatic theory of online games in Chapter 7 distracted and occasionally annoyed me. But those interested in such things will probably find his efforts there as workmanlike as the rest of the volume.
Summary: This book is a must-read for anyone who works in the field of online games, and highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand the theory and structure of the systems that make them run, or to effectively discuss them with the teams that work on them.
You can purchase Designing Virtual Worlds from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I think one of the most interesting things to me in the games, esp. set in virtual worlds is the relationship of cause and effect.
In real life, we get to "learn" some cause-effects, and use them in making future decisions. But, I personally believe, that there are no hard and fast cause-effects that do not alter when the frame of the system in question is either reduced or enlarged.
I play the games so that I can understand the cause-effect equation. I can sometimes try something in the virtual world and see a real world physical or psychological effect. At other times I can try something in the real-world and see its effect in the virtual world.
The round trip i.e. real-virtual-real is very much possible and observable by me. But the other round trip i.e. virtual-real-virtual is not possible for me, and the only way that I can imagine that is to consider it to be loosely a "mirror" form of the real-virtual-real string.
These cause and effect in the real-virtual-real and virtual-real-virtual strings, and how they in some way help me make sense of my body-mind duality is why the virtual worlds are very real for me .... That is why I am drawn to these "virtual" worlds that very "real" for me ...
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I've been writing some lecture notes for a class on designing virtual worlds that illustrate the real world (usually under water here) and have not discussed with those in the class the how, why, and philosophy of designing virtual worlds.
thanks for the review!
From where I stand, I see two very distinct type of "gamers" these days.... Rather than get to the point, I'll regail you with a story.
I've been playing video games of all sorts for plenty of years now, and I have no problem admitting that I am not hooked on Counter-Strike. I'm involved with a gaming center that hosts one of those servers, and it is regularly active. I don't love CS, but I don't consider myself a bad player either.... Most of the maps in rotation are simple deathmatch type maps, none of the maps from version 1.5.... Typically, I rank in the top 3 or 4 out of 20 players when I hop on once or twice a month, a stat that surprises me even now. However, being the "old school" gamer, I often switch to maps that aren't so usual... With the CS 1.5 maps or classic maps (vegas, 747, as_ maps), I completely blow everyone else out of the water. I wouldn't say that it's the "lag" of newer maps, nor the fact that most of these guys don't know the maps... Heck, I hardly know some of these maps, so much of this is just a raw skill competition.
I honestly believe that well over 80%, maybe up to 90% of "regular" online gamers are in it primarily for the social contact and environment. I'm sure there's plenty of people (like me) who would rather play for other primary reasons, such as the andrenaline rush or competitive nature, and those factors influence the social gamers greatly, but nontheless.... The vast majority of gamers seem to enjoy or are addicted to the social aspects more than anything else, and learn how to "go through the motions" and base their gameplay on mastery of these motions, and complain when things are altered in the slightest, even to the benefit of gameplay.
I would have been much more interested to hear from the author about his own firsthand experiences with the dynamics of balancing social and gameplay components.... How *DO* you improve a game that people are addicted to, when addicts tend to fight change of any sort? As for that entire article, it seemed too pseudo-intellectual, and I see no benefit of questioning where the lines are drawn between art, social matters, and gaming... After all, I could classify the results of a masterful promoter attracting masses to an art exhibition as art itself.
Having worked in a Virtual Reality Gaming Cafe, I can tell you that the more "artificial" a world is, the less "transition sickness", or the disorientation that players get from spending long times in VR is greatly reduced. For example, Decent in full 3D on a good VR headset will generate more transition sickness than say, DOOM would, as Decent has a more "real" environment to the brain.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
The University of Illinois PLATO system had "Multi-User Dungeon" type games before 1978. Just a reminder that lots of innovative things happened on PLATO that then got "reinvented" years later. Having a 512x512 plasma(AC) screen based terminal hooked up to a mainframe and being able to write interterminal games easily was a lot more fun than trying to use the "graphics" on a trs-80 or apple.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Take Big Brother 4 for example, the participants acknowledge the show for what it is: a game. Therefore, they don't take it quite as seriously as The Amazing Race, which is also a game.
Now, you probably all are wondering where I'm going with this. Games are still that, games. No matter which way you play them, or how seriously you take them, they are still games. And the beautiful thing about them is they are designed to provide entertainment. Whether you find watching them and being pulled into the drama entertaining, or laughing at them, or debating the philosophy behind the strategy, you are still being entertained, which is allowing the game to do what it was designed to do.
+5, Female
lots of good art history and how it relates to immersive worlds:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735 711712/
I pretty much agree with you, so imagine my surprise to find, a few links deep into the posted article, a reference to a case of what someone seriously called a rape in a MUD. This has to be read to be believed.
everything in moderation
I am curious about Dave Rickey's comment in his old article (Engines of Creation #6) where he mentions the connection between increased territory directly corresponding to increased pvp population. His proof lies in the introduction of a new expansion to EQ that increased the territory on the Zek server (pvp server).
The pvp server population increased after the expansion was released, so he assumes that the two are directly related to each other. My qualm is that it is has been my experience that expansion packs increase the general population anyway, so how can you say that increased territory, not the popularity of expansion packs, increased the pvp population. Would the pvp have increased anyway even if the expansion didn't include a territory increase?
Well, is it *all* of them or *most* of them? If its *most* of them then there must be some that are worthy of the term "virtual world" and thus something to write about. If its none of them, then why not say so...
In any case a virtual world (The Matrix if you will) is hardly going to spring into being fully formed. There have to be steps to get there. Hopefully this book is about what steps have been tried.
What MMOGs have you tried, and what would you do differently?
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
Dr. Bartle is confused on the meaning of the word "theory".. He seems to be talking about a "theorem" which can be proven or demonstrated. A theory is merely tested numerous times and seems to hold. I had this argument before with an Earth Sciences friend about theory v. theorem. They're always used to talking about theories as if they really are true and proven. It's sort of embarrassing that Dr. Bartle is confused on this point in my opinion.
Strangely, even though Bartle confuses theory in his rebuttal.. he did use the word appropriately in the first place.. and humorously enough it seems to be Mr. Rickey who was confused. In any case, theories in art and science are the same in essence since they have to do with accepted and observed "norms". It's just easier to have dueling theories in art since they mainly just describe ideas and not naturally occurring phenomena.
dictionary.com seems to want to toss in an extra def of theory which means a set of theorems in mathematics.. I believe this to be a very particular exception to theory's common usage and meaning.
e
This is a classic debate (look up "Kuhn vs. Popper"), but he's not making a good case for either side.
Real theories are falsifiable - they make predictions which, if not bourne out by experiment, invalidate the theory. Thus, they can be tested. Over time, with more experimental tests, theories become more solidly based. Further work can be based on real theories. The hard sciences progress that way. Engineering technology can be built from real theories, because they have reliable predictive power.
"Art theories" (really, "schools"), or "paradigms" are more like fads or social trends. They have a limited life cycle. They form weak bases for further development and don't lead to engineering technology.