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Very superstitious
A conversation this weekend gave me reason to think over something I've thought about for what seems like forever now (mid '90's). Let's talk superstitions. As players we might have one idea, but let's adopt our Mud Developer hat for a moment and look at it that way. Some superstitions are simply that, but others are the result of clever players actually reverse-engineering game logic/code. Assume Nda's are iron-clad and there is no chance of an insider defecting.
In the Elder Scrolls games, starting with Redguard, astrology has an actual impact. Those whose sun-sign is The Steed, for example, enjoys increased Speed whereas those born under the sign of The Thief enjoy improved Luck. These mechanics are explained in both the publisher's OOC documentation and in-world IC fiction. Would it ever be acceptable to say nothing at all? Isn't saying nothing in fact tacit approval of whatever superstitions/theories/hypothesis the players develop, even if the players are wildly off the mark?
There is still a sizable population in WoW that insist Hunters should always be the first to enter an instanced location because Hunters have better "loot tables". The publisher has repeatedly denied this. Would you?
Some players of DDO to this day assert that one should always use their Diplomacy/Etiquette skill against a chest before doing anything to it, because that decreases the chances of a trap and improves the loot within it, ostensibly because one is making the chest "nicer" to the character. The publisher has repeatedly denied this. Would you encourage it?
If you were a developer, would you create mechanics to encourage the formation of superstitions, or would you always provide some means for the player to determine if they are or are not on the right track. Consider DEF and TRISTITIA and BODYSCAN. Would you hide some of this information? What of the Divine? Should They foment superstitions, or should they reveal the true (read: mechanical) aspects of the world?
Bartle, in his book (Designing Virtual Worlds) insists that as much fun as the above might sound to some of us, players will determine it sooner than we expect and will publish it on websites in short order (he even gives real examples). I can't find too much on the subject beyond Nick Yee's research and conversations on the MudDev mailing list, so it looks like the topic is wide-open yet.
Would you, as a developer, encourage superstitions (pre-science humanity), or would you encourage a mechanical and regular universe (post-science humanity)? Clearly some of these answers might depend on how much information you would share with players. Do players see absolute numbers (Str: 18, you did 7 points of damage), or do they see comparatives (You are stronger than most, your scored a glancing blow)? Either way, I'm curious what most people like both as an academic exercise and how/if that might impact how/if we play Lusternia.
Thoughts?
In the Elder Scrolls games, starting with Redguard, astrology has an actual impact. Those whose sun-sign is The Steed, for example, enjoys increased Speed whereas those born under the sign of The Thief enjoy improved Luck. These mechanics are explained in both the publisher's OOC documentation and in-world IC fiction. Would it ever be acceptable to say nothing at all? Isn't saying nothing in fact tacit approval of whatever superstitions/theories/hypothesis the players develop, even if the players are wildly off the mark?
There is still a sizable population in WoW that insist Hunters should always be the first to enter an instanced location because Hunters have better "loot tables". The publisher has repeatedly denied this. Would you?
Some players of DDO to this day assert that one should always use their Diplomacy/Etiquette skill against a chest before doing anything to it, because that decreases the chances of a trap and improves the loot within it, ostensibly because one is making the chest "nicer" to the character. The publisher has repeatedly denied this. Would you encourage it?
If you were a developer, would you create mechanics to encourage the formation of superstitions, or would you always provide some means for the player to determine if they are or are not on the right track. Consider DEF and TRISTITIA and BODYSCAN. Would you hide some of this information? What of the Divine? Should They foment superstitions, or should they reveal the true (read: mechanical) aspects of the world?
Bartle, in his book (Designing Virtual Worlds) insists that as much fun as the above might sound to some of us, players will determine it sooner than we expect and will publish it on websites in short order (he even gives real examples). I can't find too much on the subject beyond Nick Yee's research and conversations on the MudDev mailing list, so it looks like the topic is wide-open yet.
Would you, as a developer, encourage superstitions (pre-science humanity), or would you encourage a mechanical and regular universe (post-science humanity)? Clearly some of these answers might depend on how much information you would share with players. Do players see absolute numbers (Str: 18, you did 7 points of damage), or do they see comparatives (You are stronger than most, your scored a glancing blow)? Either way, I'm curious what most people like both as an academic exercise and how/if that might impact how/if we play Lusternia.
Thoughts?
</RANT>
1
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Look at Aetolia and the old Hematurgy mechanics. Basically, the skillset revolved around ritual spells that you needed to learn/alias. You'd CHANT some words, perhaps write a rune on a tablet or target, crush some curatives, and so on. Once you did all the steps in the correct order, the effect would activate. The strength of ritual you could cast safely depended on your skill level, but you didn't learn them like skills, after spending x lessons. Instead, some quests or areas would drop snatches of paper with bits of rituals and hints to powers obfuscated both by metaphor AND a cipher conlang. The rituals were guild secrets, and you either needed to cozy up to an experienced ritualist who could teach you new rituals, or do the footwork of piecing together ritual fragments... or just look on the (unofficial) wiki for the complete list. It was a cool idea, but it a) extremely priviledged older/clued in players in a mechanical way and b) effectively punished players who were committed to maintaining IC only roleplay. Now you get an automatic list of rituals and have a unified syntax to cast them.
The developers have denied that it improves loot, fishing chance, or other random gains.
It is theorized, but not confirmed, that it does a few other things.
So everyone once in a while, people just leave it equipped to be on the safe side and to see if it has any other effects we haven't yet discovered.
On the other hand, can one-off or sideline mechanics be fair game to this? The Astrology example above might be suitable, but I suppose that would only work if players were never exposed to the ``modified'' values. That is, they would know the base or root score of 17 or ``stronger than most'', but not the score as it is improved by astrology. Perhaps they would know they are enhanced from other effects (a potion of Super Strongness), but their birth sign might not make it past the filter.
What if there was lore along the lines of ``Those born during the year of the Ox are exceptionally strong'', but the mechanic was a lottery of only 1:4 are so blessed, and the blessing barely nudged the needle of perception rather than prove to be an exceptional? Are placebo effects a Bad Idea? The false ``You are highly resistant to magic because your moon sign is The Sage'' might be fun. Would it increase bug tickets?
I'm definitely not talking about the core stuff. Swinging a sharp piece of metal, or singing and dancing a ritual, and so forth, if these are the ``important bits'' then they do need to be well documented and fairly uniform (if warriors pay a trainer to be better warriors, then wizards should too). I guess that looks like the consensus.
But what about those minor bits? Those one-offs? Would it be Ok if the impact of any effect is less than 0.05 (even 1D20 is pretty darn fickle, so let's use a proper rand() function), such as only a +(1-5)% ? How many of these individual effects should one permit to stack?
[Edit: changed end of third paragraph]
[Edit: changed ``Shadowbane'' to ``Asheron's Call'']
I personally love these kinds of things in games, so long as they aren't significant or required.
Tonight amidst the mountaintops
And endless starless night
Singing how the wind was lost
Before an earthly flight
- drop a marble to see which direction it rolls to determine who has the higher ground
- smoke a pipe to see which way the wind blows
- light a match to see how strong the wind is
- drop some sand/ash/flour to see how wet the ground is.
This was in the ``old style'' of Mud's of course, before everything was Diku-based (C, C++, C#, Java), so things were easier to change around; i.e. in the style of Forth or Postscript or Mudl.[Edit: changed #2 from ``smoke moke'' to simply ``smoke'']
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/09/why-dont-our-npcs/
http://uo.stratics.com/secrets/books/book_17.shtml
http://martin.brenner.de/ultima/uo/wispconf.html
And finally some isolated anecdote:
<blockquote>
There is an area deep in a temple in FFXI where you have to go through a ritualistic sort of procedure to open a secret door. First you have to acquire an item (the Paintbrush of Souls). This item gets taken to a particular room. Once in the room you have to 'talk' to a few objects in a certain order, then face your character at a blank canvas. The game tells you that your character starts to paint on the canvas, then puts a mark at the end of the line to let you know that you have to hit Enter to continue.
The trick to opening the door is you have to wait approximately thirty seconds before hitting Enter. You must give your character time to finish their painting. (The game gives no hints on your progress, nor when you are done. You just have to be patient, and wait a minimum of thirty seconds.) In FFXI, you can chat in real time in a variety of different ways. If you hit enter to send a chat message during the painting, it would abort the waiting period. I can't tell you how many times I had been in that area, where a raid leader would swear up and down that the *only* way to open the door is for *everyone* to be absolutely silent for two full minutes; if anybody typed anything at all, the door wouldn't open and it would be YOUR FAULT! [EO, M, 27]
</blockquote>
Being this as it may, many would craft a 100 or so trash to ``get the low rolls out''. Some would claim you ``stole'' their exceptional item because you were crafting at the same time they were. Others would complain the game ``stole'' their exceptional because they managed to lucky-roll an exceptional trash item before they were ready to craft the good item. No matter how many times people (including publisher) would try to explain how events are independent, they would ostensibly assert they KNEW how this stuff worked.
So yeah, I guess some ``superstitions'' are pretty bad, especially when helpdesk tickets are involved.
Had the Hematurgists developed differently, where the rituals were uncovered by someone and then shared to the guild, documented for every member to view (maybe with some of the functional rituals being hidden but not the combat related ones), with the discoverer being honoured and the like for bringing this knowledge to the guild then things could have been radically different.
Especially with some simple ritual that lets the player know if there are any more rituals out there not on their list.
This offers differentiation from the IRE norm, this offers the explorers a chance to go out and potentially discover something new, if you develop the guild with an ingrained attitude of sharing (Which GW2 and the NAEU BDO games show you can instill in players with little effort) this means that early adopters might have a hard time but it'll all be discovered and shared freely rather quickly.
And then you get to instill in them the possibility that one day, you might perform that completion check ritual and find out some new magic has been added to the game, then everyone rushes off to be the first to figure it out.
I think that's a thing that only muds can really achieve and it's a strength of the medium.