Koster's Laws Of Online Gaming Revisited

Thanks to F13.net for its article attempting a re-appraisal of the original 'laws of online gaming' document, as first posted by Raph Koster and others starting on October 9, 1998. The curmudgeonly analysis includes rebuttals of original laws such as "No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world" ("There's a very simple fix for this. Dump the treadmill, dump the numbers, and make gameplay fun"), and there's an equally tetchy rebuttal of the rebuttal at F13, suggesting: "Any amount of development time spent making the game more realistic or lifelike is wasted development time, stolen from useful tasks like making the game fun."

Comments

Money for Time

[Synkronos]

So long as there is a point in the game that it is 'cooler' to be at than the starting point (eg. level whatever as opposed to level 1), people will trade money for the time taken, no matter how fun the intervening time is. They want to have more fun now, which to them means being 'cooler' and hence higher level. Basically this is a form of automated grinding, except that you are getting another person to do it rather than arbitrary code.

The same situation applies for coded grinders. Now, instead of paying money, you are paying with idle computer time... leave your machine grinding while you go to work. Again, irrespective of how fun the time ground might have been. So basically this kind of thing will never be eliminated.

Re:Money for Time

[coldtone]

The reason that people pay for stuff isn't just to be cooler, (But I admit it is part of it) it's to be able to enjoy the game.

Take EQ for example, as you gain levels the games becomes easier and more fun to play, you start off in the games weak, poor and slow. Little snakes kick your ass. You can't really travel outside your zone (Without encountering certain death) and you don't even have a fraction of your classes true abilities. And since the vast majority of players are high level you can't even find people to play with. This sucks.

Compare that with a high level character. You can travel wherever you want, only the highest level mobs are a problem, and even then you can almost always escape death. You can travel anywhere, there are tons of people you can group with, you can easily afford to buy stuff from other players (Since its easy to make 100pp + an hour compared with a couple of silver when you start out.) Its simply more fun! Much of the tedium is removed.

I just wish all the levels where like that, and not have to invest 100+ hours that I don't have.

Terrible Rebuttal

[Singletoned]

The guy doing the rebuttal makes a terrible job of it. When he agrees with the original rule, he uses clever arguements such as "Well, duh". When he disagrees, he does so just for the sake of it, and generally entirely misses the point, or picks up on some minor point and makes his entire rebuttal about that. For example:

You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your online world. Character classes are just modes of expression, after all.
Say it with me: "MMORPGs require more time and effort to create than pen and paper games."
This law is flawed - heavily. It doesn't matter how many different classes you have - because there are only four base classes - fighter, spellcaster, rogue, and crafter....(continues)

He misses the point about about having differant forms of expression and instead picks up on the secondary point that classes are modes of expression. Koster never mentioned that you should have lots and lots of clasess, but instead the rebutter rambles on for a very long and tedious paragraph about how you don't need lots of classes, when he's actually agreeing with the guy. He even says "It's about time we left the character design up to the player". What's that you say, increase the amounts of expression available to the player? You're agreeing with him, you idiot!

To be fair I couldn't bring myself to finish the article. Koster's laws are very interesting, but the rebuttal is just pointless and annoying. maybe it finishes well, but I really, really doubt it.

sorry for the flame

[truffle]

The original laws as stated are interesting and mostly hold true today, the commentary is uninspired, poor, and mostly incorrect. I'm now going to give one example, but I could easily come up with 30 such examples from this article.

For example:
Law: someone is going to automate your gameplay
Reponse: only if you make your gameplay tedious!

That is simply not true. To prove this is not true, I just have to come up with one automation scenario not rooted in relief of tedium. Consider a theoretical RTS in which a player controls many units. Skill is required to issue commands to those units (there are many units, each unit's state has to be evaluted and the appropriate command selected, in real time). Now enter a tool that will give commands to units under conditions you identify, for example if you fall below 25% health, run to the back of the formation. Now we have an automation tool thats purpose is to increase effective skill, not relieve tedious gameplay.

All the reasons for automation I can think of off the top of my head are:
- Increase power (generate money, skill points, experience)
- Increase effective skill (previously discussed)
- Relieve tedium
- Break the system - in this case, a person automates the system just to prove he can

In general the article is strong on attacks, and weak on solutions. For example, there is lots of "get rid of the treadmill" commentary with 0 solutions posted explaining how this is done. Love the original laws, hate the commentary.

Re:sorry for the flame

[Soukyan]

To some, micromanagement in a RTS game is tedium. I am one of those people. Consequently, I don't bother playing the game at all. But those who may automate the task do so to alleviate that bit of tedium so they can concentrate on the fun portions (or so that they can win, although using an external tool to alleviate tedium is actually just cheating to increase the odds of winning, but I digress).

A fun game lacks tedium. I do not automate my moves in a chess match because I am having fun when I play. Mind you, this is just in comparing a game (chess) to a game (a computer-based RTS), and I understand that it's apples to oranges if we start to involve elements of each game. But in a RTS computer game, shouldn't the gameplay be fun and engaging enough that the player will want or need to be involved in every aspect? Does chess not involve strategy? Just some thoughts on that.

As to the lack of solutions in that rebuttal, I can probably guess why that is the case. Raph Koster is the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) these days. He's making plenty of money and he busted his ass to earn that position. In terms of creativity though,some people are hesitant to share their ideas for solutions not because they may come under equal criticism, but because there is money to be made from good ideas. Koster did not share his money-making ideas until after he had earned his money from them. I wouldn't expect free solutions from anyone, especially not in the capitalist societies of today. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Re:sorry for the flame

[*weasel]

Ah... and we get back to my favorite Mulligan quote:
"would-be game designers take note: Ideas are a dime a dozen and worth what they cost"

People don't tend share their 'solutions' to gameplay problems because they either don't have them, aren't confident in them, or are deluding themselves into thinking that their idea is original, and carries some sort of value locked away in their head. (right up there with everyone's big movie idea, and unwritten great american novel)

The simple truth is that it's easier to point out problems than to fix them. Constructivie criticism takes time and thought. Bitching can be done on the fly.

While I wouldn't expect, for example, Brad McQuaid to bother sharing what he thinks about a thorny design issue (although on more than one occassion, he has joined such discussions), there's no reasonable excuse for unfunded critics to keep quiet.

And you're dead wrong about Koster sharing only after he started getting paid. He was sharing his ideas on Mud-Dev well before he started 'making plenty of money'. The guy honestly cares about sharing information to advance the state of virtual world design ... or at least spends a hell of a lot of time and effort into making legitimate contributions as his front. He gets paid, not for thinking of things that other people haven't, but by seeing them through.

An Idea is to an Implmentation as Criticism is to Constructive Criticism.

Soooo these games suck - got a better idea?

[fallingdown]

Both of these guys have specific axes to grind. Schild is clearly responding to the mess that is SWG. He continually calls for the removal of "treadmills," etc. without offering clear alternatives. Rather than adding additional insight to the discussion, his entire rant could have been cut-n-pasted from any one of a thousand message boards.

Snowspinner is a bit more interesting and his statement that "Stories aren't the fun parts about games any more than worlds are. Play is" should become the marquee screensaver for game developers every where.

F13.net, Corp News, et.al. continue to try and fill the shoes of the original rant sites like Lum the Mad and they constantly come up short. I'm sure these guys are all clever and smart people but it's all pretty much been said - and said better - when the MMORPG genre was a little more fresh.

On a side note: I think the player base should expand their definition of what "roleplay" is. Lots of people "roleplay" in these games, its just not the sort that was intended or expected. Look at PvP in any form - FPS or MMORPG - and you'll see people acting and talking in ways they would never dream of in real life. Alliances are formed. Arch enemies are made. Roleplay driven by the environment rather than some hackneyed back story. It's much more interesting and you never hear a thee or a thou uttered once. That's the sort of roleplay that these games should encourage.

Re:Soooo these games suck - got a better idea?

[Mongoose Disciple]

I don't believe that all PvPers are Sociopaths. I think it's possible to seperate griefers from PvPers.

I agree, but it's often a matter of perspective as to what separates the two.

To a typical MMORPG player, the game is the kind of thing where "everybody wins" -- the game is about getting levels and phat loot, triumphing over the computer-controlled adversaries and the environment. If there's a sense of "beating" another player, it's in doing more (being higher level, having phatter loot, etc.) or doing it faster (being the first to kill the Pseudonatural Diremongoosaurus and steal its magic pants). Your achievement doesn't inherently disallow the achievement of others.

Your typical PvPer is cut from a different mold. To them, for someone to win the game, someone else must lose. I'll laugh at anyone who says this is a juvenile or abberant thought pattern -- chess, basketball, poker, and a million other familiar games are built in this mindset.

Let's say a PvPer, on a game in which it's possible, playerkills your typical MMORPGer and takes his magic pants. It's unlikely that you'd find the truly archetypal examples of both types of players playing the same game, at least for very long, but let's pretend.

From the MMORPGer's perspective, the PvPer is an immature griefer. Why, he didn't earn those magic pants the proper way by killing the Pseudonatural Diremongoosaur! He just took someone else's! That isn't fair. Griefer!

From the PvPer's perspective it looks very different. If he wants magic pants and it's easier to PK for them, he certainly will. If he wants to establish himself as king of the game, he's going to do that by going out and beating people, not by trying to out-catass them. If they complain, call him names, and generally give him a bad reputation, that's not a sign that he's doing something wrong... it's a sign he's doing something right.

I guess you could call that mindset sociopathic, but then, basically everyone in the real world who is successful at anything is a sociopath.

Re:City of Heroes

[glowimperial]

It is true that City of Heroes does this one thing well, but as a MMO player, I have never seen so many of my pals try out a game and be so dissatisfied immediately after launch. I know lots of folks who didn't make it past their first week of gameplay, due to total boredom and the pathetic chat system. IMHO the chat system is one of the key building blocks of any online game, since basically online games do 2 things. 1) allow people to manipulate objects in a database via an interesting interface. 2) allow people to talk to each other.

Re:City of Heroes

[Winterblink]

I played CoH mostly with real life friends, and we all set up a Ventrilo server for voice comms. The chat system never was an issue for us, but yes it ended up being an issue when I was grouping with strangers. A very valid point!

What isn't a treadmill?

[Hegemony Cricket]

No really...someone tell me.

A game that requires you to complete challenges in order to gain a reward is, in effect, a treadmill.

Tetris is a treadmill - stack shapes, clear, new level, repeat
Doom is a treadmill - Kill enemies, find widget, proceed to next level, repeat.
The Sims is a treadmill - Manage daily activities, increase abilities, make money, buy stuff, repeat.
Ico is a treadmill - Lead the girl, find widget, kill enemies, solve puzzles, unlock next level, repeat.
Metal Slug is a treadmill - Go forward, kill enemies, rescue hostages, find vehicles, find weapons, repeat.

I only point this out because the gaming community has a tendency to grasp on to handy derisive phrases and then repeat them without digging into the meaning.

Anywho...the overall perception of the treadmill is what breeds discontent. It always exists, it is the foundation of just about every reward over time based game play system.

But, if the gameplay is bad or mundane, then the treadmill sticks out. There isn't any gameplay aspect compelling enough to distanciate you (i.e suspension of disbelief and all) from the fourth wall of the underlying mechanics.

However, if the game is good, the treadmill recedes from the forefront of your consciousness, and the decent gameplay it enables takes over.

The real issue here isn't the treadmill concept, but how many times the exact same treadmill has been cloned.