Re: Content

[WFreitag@aol.com]

>Which would you rather do: watch a movie or play on the holodeck?

Speaking for myself, sometimes one and sometimes the other. I don't think I'd 
give up watching movies altogether just because a holodeck is available, any 
more than I've given up books because movies are available.

But more important, even when using the holodeck I wouldn't always use it for 
story-like experiences. In a holodeck, as in any simulator, one can be 
"active" without being involved in a story. If the holodeck could 
convincingly immerse me in 1980's Tokyo, or ancient Rome, or the 1939 New 
York World's Fair, or even present-day Las Vegas, I'd spend at least as much 
time with those activities as I would in plot-driven adventures, which may 
always be a special taste, even in a world with holodecks. Decades before 
"Dream Park" (a fictional artificial environment where participants play out 
elaborate D&D-style fantasy role playing adventures) there was "Westworld" (a 
fictional artificial environment where participants just sort of hang out in 
an old-West town and occasionally get into a random gunfight), and I still 
think that should the technology come into existence, the Westworld model 
will prove the better-selling of the two. (Westworld, Dream Park, and 
holodecks all share the drawback that they periodically malfunction and try 
to kill all the guests, but we can work on that problem later.)

My primary creative interest is in immersive interactive worlds. Interactive 
storytelling is one means to that end. The obvious problem with Westworld is 
that once they've seen it, the audience is not likely to stay very long, nor 
to come back very often. The problem with Dream Park is that (most of) the 
(potential) audience isn't likely to show up in the first place. What would 
work better is a "walk-in accessible" world, as easy to enter as Westworld or 
Disneyland, that subtly engages the audience over time and allows them to get 
involved in plot-driven stories at their own pace and in proportion to their 
willingness to do so. Having Mickey Mouse meet each guest at the front gate 
and say, "Thank goodness you're here, the Wicked Witch has kidnapped everyone 
and you're the only one who can save them" isn't the way to do it. Having him 
meet each guest _outside_ the gate and say, "Before you go in, here are 47 
critically important decisions you have to make about your character 
identity, starting situation, participation style, and goals" is even worse. 
The development of the craft of interactive storytelling offers the hope of 
better solutions.

But I give game play its due also. It, too, is a means for enriching 
interactive worlds. I think there are many games today in which the virtual 
world is the primary work, and the game play is just a way to hold the 
audience's interest in that world for a longer time. The obvious example is 
Myst, but Spyro the Dragon may be a more instructive one. Spyro is generally 
regarded as "a good game," and personally I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yet the 
actual game play contains little of the manual dexterity challenge of a video 
racing game or fighting game, few puzzles whose solution amounts to more than 
"charge into it" or "breathe fire on it," and almost none of the tactical or 
strategic challenge of, say, chess or bridge or Monopoly. I think Spyro is 
actually "a good world" and its game play does its job by not getting in the 
way too much. In other words, the types of play best suited to enrich an 
interactive world may be very different from the types of play best suited to 
challenge a gamer. If I'm right, then one could go farther than Sypro in this 
direction. A work based on interactive worlds like Spyro, with some trivial 
(to a gamer) motivations to explore those worlds (such as the way Spyro 
collects gems that litter the landscape), and replacing the puzzles, enemies, 
and bosses with interesting things to look at and play with and perhaps 
interesting little bits of back story to find along the way, could be the 
next Myst. That is, the gamers would hate it but it would sell a zillion 
copies, and no one inside the game industry would be able to explain why.

Yet another way to enhance a virtual world is through the use of believable 
artificial characters. That's why I support and take an interest in research 
on character behavior models, even though I don't believe that this work will 
lead directly to breakthroughs in the interactive storytelling problem 
itself. Similarly, this is why I think Erasmatron has far more potential than 
has been demonstrated with it so far, and it will show more of that potential 
when authors begin treating it as a world building tool first, storytelling 
tool second, instead of the other way around.

As storytelling evolved through theater, novels, and film, it remained the 
primary motivating element in each medium. In a way, these media are all a 
single art form and all engage the audience in similar ways. But this is not 
the case for interactive worlds. Storytelling, whether interactive or 
non-interactive, will have to win itself a role there, the way music did in 
theater and film (but not in novels). As with music in theater, different 
styles of interactive world will involve interactive storytelling to 
different degrees.

- Walt