Archive for June, 2007
Back when I played in the beta and early release of Ultima Online almost a decade ago, I almost couldn’t believe my luck. This would really be the game I’d longed for. I could meet people online in a fantasy world, and together we’d have emergent, collaborative stories unfold of derring-do, chivalry, and virtue.
And vice, of course! Mustn’t forget the vice. I eagerly looked forward to the duels that would take place when one character took in-character offense at another’s words. I contemplated a Robin Hood–style character who would help himself to the contents of rich player’s purses and earn fame handing out my ill-gotten gains to newer players.
I relished the thought of being a homesteaded in an isometric world, carving out a place for myself in Britannia through the work of my own two virtual hands.
I had a horrible time. My big mistake? Assuming that other players wanted pretty much what I did from such a game—or at least something compatible.
I tried to have fun. I didn’t worry about whether other players roleplayed the way I thought they should. Instead, I wrote a guide on how to speak “Britannian.” (Oddly enough, it’s still floating around out there. I wrote it as “Josephus the Scholar.” It even got mentioned in a book! I had no idea. Too funny.)
And when my young and idealistic animal tamer got killed seven or eight times in a row, I shrugged and started to gather feathers so I could make some more arrows. Mind you, I’m not complaining about UO being too “difficult,” even though a post at Tobold’s blog on that topic inspired this little ramble. (Oh, and I see it’s actually to the new Hardcore Casual’s first post. Good post, Syncaine!) In fact, I argued passionately for three freedom to stab my fellow players in their backs and rifle through their goodies.
I just didn’t count on people who played the game simply to dominate other players.
The PKers did ruin the game for me. The in-game law enforcement meant I could create my wicked characters, and the PKers themselves meant I couldn’t really function as a good guy. My hard-won equipment would be stripped from my corpse, and I couldn’t even get to the interesting places I wanted to explore.
And, of course, the “gamist” players cared mostly about advancing their characters, a more-subtle incompatibility to my own preferred style of play. (I wanted to level, but I wanted to do it while roleplaying.)
The PKers were a malicious minority who really did ruin the game for a vast number of others. But I was in a small minority, too, dreaming of a game that just couldn’t exist.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if a visit to Britannia today would show me a game much closer to what I hoped for back in the day. Can anyone still playing tell me?
Great gaming minds tried to make UO work, and basically they failed. (The game hasn’t failed. It’s still going! But for a while at least, it was nothing like what the creators—and I for that matter—envisioned)
Could a massively multiplayer fantasy simulation be made to work, one where talk of PVE and PVP were irrelevant, because the world functioned and you functioned in it? I now know the audience would be small. Most people don’t want a game where vendors go to bed at night or where the goodies on their corpses can be taken. And in fact I can fully understand why. But if someone set out to do it and make it genuinely enjoyable, could it be done?
June 29th, 2007
This is a write-up of an NPC from a pirate-themed GURPS campaign I’m currently running. Based largely on the Seas of Daring, Seas of Dread setting presented in Ken Hite’s amazing excellent GURPS Horror, 3rd edition . The setting does somewhat resemble that of a popular movie trilogy, but this is purely coincidental. I’ve had to leave out some details because my wife, a player in the campaign, does read this blog. |
Captain of the sloop Fata del Mundo, Ernesto Medina y Soto has managed to keep a low enough profile that he and his prate crew travel the Spanish Main with impunity. They take just enough to live large and have even earned a reputation as employable for extra-legal activities that require a ship. They’ll honor any paid commission to the letter, even having gone so far as to hand over to one employer a fortune in plundered doubloons they took from a captured ship when no one would have been the wiser.
Having worked the Caribbean for better than twenty years, Captain Medina y Soto is no stranger to the supernatural happenings that abound just beyond the edges of civilized society. He keeps rock-salt–loaded pistols at all times for the occasional zombie, meticulously observes those “superstitions” that have kept the dark forces of uncreation away from his ship, and damn well what the Inquisition is really after. He’s a damn good shot, too.
Medina y Soto is a lech. Any woman who spends more than half a minute with him will have to fend off his advances. Fortunately his advances—though ardent, passionate, and sincere—are also easy to rebuff. He takes rejection in good grace, seeing it as part of the challenge to overcome all demurs.
Medina y Soto is astonishngly ugly. He is not just fat, but profoundly so. His skin is marred by acne scars, and a generous wen lies to the side of his nose. And his conviction that any form of personal hygiene will make him vulnerable to duppies and darker things means that he reeks most foully. No amount of elaborate and colorful dress—which he does affect—cancels out his smell.
This makes it all the more astonishing that his personal charm is often enough to win over the good graces of even cautious maids.
He talks loud, lives large, and acts at all times with unshakable confidence. His considerable bulk only adds to the sense he projects that he belongs in any space he occupies. And the cruel jabs and demeaning bluster he hurls at his crew is backed up by not one whit of real threat. He loves his comrades, and they know it.
Captain Medina y Soto generally shows up as an employable entity with a ship for parties of PCs who don’t otherwise have access to one. Early in a campaign set in the magical secret history of Seas of Daring, Seas of Dread, he can also be an invaluable mentor, initiating gormless PCs into the terrible realities that await them on the high seas and giving them a few tools to help them survive just one more day.
GURPS stats
Ernesto Medina y Soto
Attributes [165]
ST 15 [50], DX 12 [40], IQ 14 [80], HT 11 [10]
HP 15, Will 14, Per 14, FP 11
Basic Lift 45, Damage 1d+1/2d+1, Basic Speed 5.75
Advantages [87]
Ally (Crew) (50% of starting points) (Group Size (6-10); Constantly) [48], Charisma (3) [15], Fearlessness (2) [4], Signature Gear (Fata del Mundo (a sloop)) (20) [20]
Perks [1]
Alcohol Tolerance [1]
Disadvantages [-46]
Appearance (Ugly) [-8], Fat [-3], Lecherousness (12 or less) [-15], Odious Personal Habit (Doesn’t bathe . . . ever) (-2) [-10], Social Stigma (Outlaw) (-2) [-10]
Quirks [-3]
Almond-sized wen on the side of his nose [-1], Keeps a skin of sack with him at all times [-1], Keeps two pistols loaded with rock-salt shot at all times [-1]
Skills [57]
Area Knowledge (Carribbean) IQ/E - IQ+0 14 [1], Boating/TL4 (Sailboat) DX/A - DX-1 11 [1], Brawling DX/E - DX+2 14 [4], Gunner/TL4 (Beams) DX/E - DX+0 12 [1], Guns/TL4 (Pistol) DX/E - DX+7 19 [24], Intimidation Will/A - Will-1 13 [1], Knife DX/E - DX+1 13 [2], Leadership IQ/A - IQ+2 16 includes: +3 from ‘Charisma’, [1], Merchant IQ/A - IQ-1 13 [1], Navigation/TL4 (Sea) IQ/A - IQ+0 14 [2], Occultism IQ/A - IQ+3 17 [12], Ritual Magic (All) IQ/VH - IQ-3 11 [1], Seamanship/TL4 IQ/E - IQ+0 14 [1], Shiphandling/TL4 (Ship) IQ/H - IQ-2 12 [1], Shortsword DX/A - DX-1 11 [1], Strategy (Naval) IQ/H - IQ-2 12 [1], Tactics IQ/H - IQ-1 13 [2]
June 28th, 2007
Games are the best (and second-most effective) education tools available.
Slate had an article yesterday on educational video games that I think serves as a pretty good high-level survey of the ongoing discussion right now, especially since it pointed to Koster’s key point from some time ago that adding an artificial incentive to perform an educational activity isn’t very effective but requiring learning in order to achieve a genuinely interesting goal does. (Koster responds directly to Slate’s article here.)
Here are two things I know:
- People will go way out of their way to acquire skills and learn things that help them achieve a goal that interests them and that they perceive as achievable.
- When people are motivated to learn something for such goals, they learn it faster and more efficiently than they will under any other circumstance (except in cases where survival is at stake, in which case they may achieve an even greater efficiency).
In other words, when people understand why learning something is worth their while—when they recognize for themselves the reward—they have all the motivation they need. Thus self-motivated, they will learn more rapidly than they ever would in a classroom or at a parent’s insistence.
I know a dozen people whose vocabulary exceeded their own parents’ (though with a geekier slant) thanks to Gary Gygax’s sesquipedalianism.
I knew a boy, something of a slacker, who rapidly learned the fundamentals of programming when he got caught up in a game in which you could tweak the code of your virtual robot to increase its chances in fights. (Alas, I don’t remember the name of the game.)
To make a video game—or any game, for that matter—that is effectively educational, the designer or design team has to focus on two key elements: goals and obstacles.
This is, of course, exactly what any halfway decent game designer already does. MMOs, for example, primarily focus on power-acquisition goals that are just fun enough to justify the obstacle of spending more time playing the game. The goals have to be satisfying, however arbitrary, and the obstacles have to be just challenging enough that people don’t think they can’t surmount them but do feel a sense of accomplishment when they do. A series of increasingly difficult obstacles centered on a theme, ubiquitous in all game design, is the right approach.
But to be educational, the obstacles have to require something more than just dedication or quicker button-pushing. Some RPGs (such as some of the Ultima games) require a little bit of language acquisition in order to complete them.
I’m willing to bet that a child (or grown-up for that matter) could get the benefit of six years of class-learning in a foreign language in the course of about two months of regular gameplay in an immersive single-player spy-based roleplaying adventure game in which acquiring the actual skill to learn the language was essential to completing the game and the mini-goals along the way provided the tools to do so. Early goals would require demonstrable skill in simple vocabulary and easy phrases. Later goals would hone in on those subtle points of a language that can trip a non-native speaker up, punishing sloppy and quick reading with setbacks and rewarding fluency with access to better in-game skills and tools and, ultimately, the final parts of the story.
The game could offer language instruction directly, in the form of mini-games or simulated classroom learning, but also reward language fluency acquired outside the game. If people find they learn faster on their own, they’re free to do so, but if they enjoy the in-game learning, that’s available too.
A couple of months after the game’s release (if the game is done right), high schoolers across the country would be chattering in French during study hall.
(I’m not an expert on the economics of the game industry, but I’m willing to bet that an A-list game of this sort sold at $50 would be able to make far more money than a language-learning program sold at $150)
Am I crazy? I know I’d drop fifty bucks on a well-written game like that in a nanosecond. Not because I’d finally learn French, but because I’d like a damn good, immersive spy-themed adventure-RPG set in the period after World War II. (Base it on Tim Powers’s incredible Declare to get some good supernatural elements, and I’ll spend $150!)
June 28th, 2007
For the past several weeks, lots of stories concerning video game addiction have come out, in part because the American Medical Association has been chattering about it, trying to come to a conclusion on whether video games can properly be classified as addictive.
As a passionate gamer, I’ll ring in with my opinion. By the popular definition of “addiction,” I think it’s safe to say that some people do get addicted to video games, MMORPGs in particular. At least, many people play them compulsively, to the point that they ignore other important aspects of their life.
I know this because I have acquaintances who do this and friends who do this, and because I’ve done it myself. In fact, MMOs are specifically designed to entertain with a system of reinforcement and punishment that fosters addictive or at least compulsive behavior. Such games are certainly more worthwhile than slot machines—they have social dimensions and narrative richness and cost a lot less. But the lower cost actually means that people sink more time into leveling their characters or questing for gear than they’d ever do feeding slugs into a one-armed bandit.
Whether or not this behavior is properly defined as a psychiatric addiction is, to me, irrelevant. The fact is that it can mess up people’s lives.
So can alcohol, of course.
In fact, I think treating video game addiction like alcoholism is probably the best approach. We don’t need to outlaw or even further regulate video games, but we do need to watch ourselves and those close to us for signs of problem behavior. Let’s be honest with ourselves, seek help when we need it, and help others when they’re in need.
So even though I think the AMA and the media mostly say pretty silly things about video games and addiction, I’m very glad people are talking about it!
Do we have any other ex-addicts out there? If so, how did you break your addiction?
And hey, if you think you have a problem and don’t know where to turn, you can speak up here safely and anonymously. There are tried-and-true methods that work, and we can talk about them.
June 27th, 2007
Over the past few weeks, I have—for the first time ever—become addicted to a CCG. And ironically, I’ve never even played it.
I never thought I’d get caught up in a CCG. I much prefer roleplaying games, rich with collaborative storytelling and infinite possibilities. The fantasy trappings of games like Magic: The Gathering have struck me as a fairly thin veneer on top of a stilted card game.
But I’ve been swept away by A Game of Thrones. This is no doubt due to my passionate love of George R. R. Martin’s astonishingly good fantasy series, perhaps the greatest fantasy series ever, ever written. On my birthday a month ago, I received a few booster packs from some good friends (along with other Song of Ice & Fire–related gaming goodness), and it lit a fire that nothing save getting every single card will quite be able to extinguish.
Obviously, at this point the pleasure I’m deriving owes much to the glee of gloating than the game, but it’s also quite fun to see the rules each card has, not just the artwork (which is, of course, uneven—some stunning, some astonishingly amateur). And even though I don’t know anyone else who collects the cards, Fantasy Flight Games has seen fit to release some pre-built, playable decks (I don’t know how competitive they are, but at this point it doesn’t matter). As a collector, I’ve gone ahead and acquired them, but I’ll certainly be shoving them into friends’ hands so we can try out a quick game.
Alas, it appears A Game of Thrones isn’t nearly as popular as other CCGs (none of which particularly appeal to me). Though a new expansion is coming in August, my local game store has decided to stop carrying the cards. Let’s hope the expansion will instill new vigor in the fan community and give me a chance to get out and play more.
But I find the simple act of collecting surprisingly entertaining. I now have notebooks with card sleeves to display every single one, bright divider sheets, boxes for storing the surplus, and careful indexes.
June 27th, 2007