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

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.

The Automated Online Role-Player

[ksiddique]

This is definitely a fun read about a bot that plays Star Wars Galaxies.

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.

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.