Re: Content

[Joseph Breitreiter <joseph@the-one-song.org>]

Bob (mantic@mbo.net) wrote:
> I do not believe that it is necessary for end users to scribble all
> over the sim software's content in order to customize it and shape new
> content.  Because talents vary this could even be prohibitive to the
> player who cannot scribble well. I am of the opinion that engineered
> customization tools should provide all users with building blocks in the
> fashion of Role Playing Games, Mr Potato Head and Legos. Such elements
> have an exponential effect on variety, but are more manageable.

Hello,
        This is an interesting choice of items, as they represent sort
of a continuum between high fidelity/low mutability simulations and low
fidelity/high mutability simulations.  Most of the product coming out
the entertainment industry seems to lean toward the Mr. Potato Head
paradigm of providing a fixed set of cosmetic options.  I'd like to see
more ultra-modular Lego-style systems and rules-based RPG-like systems.
Of course, I'm saying this as a software engineer, book enthusiast, and
occasional game player.  I have no legitimate data to suggest there is a
viable market for this sort of thing.  Hurray for academic R&D and open
source projects.

> Wedding these kinds of content customizations to simulated environments
> offers other possibilities. Perhaps a player might create and play a
> character awhile, and then decide to leave that character in the world.
> By using a rules based neural net learning system in addition to other
> tables and systems such user-created denizens would be very dynamic,
> shaping the experience of other players. And this wholly on the basis of
> simulation.

        Agreed, but this makes two assumptions.  First, that the
designers are willing to trust the player to create part of the world,
and thereby to shape the experiences of other players.  Second, it
assumes that the player has sufficient agency to create an interesting
character.  If the character is a generic potato with a bunch of
bric-a-brac stuck on the outside, then an autonomous version of the
character is essentially a monster with a name.  I can think of few
things more depressing than running into an NPC-lobotomized version of a
former character, and finding he had been damned to repeat "Welcome to
Arni Village!" for all eternity.

> Simulation would not necessarily conflict with staged drama, either. It
> may dilute the effect, but I think that such living worlds would serve
> very well to entertain players while they meander about following
> otherwise linear or cyclic plots. And with personality systems similar
> to the Erazmatron there would even be a certain level of emergent drama
> in the mix.

        Whether the action takes place in EQ-style map zones or
Erasmatron-style stages, you'd still need some sort of recognizable
world simulation.  IMO, the challenge is to identify the optimal set of
touch points between world simulation and drama management systems, not
to select one or the other.

                Regards,
                Joseph B.


---
~ J. Joseph Breitreiter       ~
~ joseph@the-one-song.org     ~