Multiplayer Interactive-Fiction Game-Design Blog

Player vs. X

5 December 2004

by Mike Rozak

Virtual worlds are commonly categorised into those that a player vs. player (PvP), or player vs. world (PvW). In a PvP world, the fun comes from interacting with other players, using the world as a medium for the interaction. In a PvW world, the fun comes from interacting with the world that the author has created.

A third category of world exists, which is not so much "versus" as "creates" or "changes". Many players like to create objects in a world, and ultimately change the world. Worlds such as "A Tale in the Desert" and "Second Life" are often about creation.

Furthermore, several different elements of a virtual world can be used to entertain PvP, PvW, or creation players. These are:

• 
  People (aka: players and the author)
  
  • 
    Direct interaction
    
  • 
    Indirect interaction through the player's character
    
• 
  Non-player characters
  
  • 
    Interaction with hand-generated NPCs
    
  • 
    Interaction with automatically-generated NPCs
    
• 
  The world (buildings, landscapes, physics)
  
  • 
    Interaction with hand-generated world elements
    
  • 
    Interaction with automatically-generated world elements
    

So what does this mean?

I'm not sure. However, the chart raises some questions, such as:

• 
  Why do some people like to interact with players and their creations, while others like interacting with the authors and their creations? Maybe interacting with the author's content is seen as a safer activity than the other players. After all, its the author's job to make sure players enjoy themselves, while many players will willingly ruin another player's experience for their own gain.
  
• 
  Why do some people like creating? Maybe changing a virtual world makes someone feel like they have an impact, particularly if their attempts to change the real world have failed.
  
• 
  Why would a player prefer to interact with people, or NPCs, or the world? Could some players prefer people because of the depth of interaction while others shy away from them due to the uncertainties of relationships? Maybe players like NPCs because they're people substitutes, but not quite as scary. The world could be seen as an even more predictable alternative to people and NPCs.
  
• 
  Why would someone prefer to interact directly with a player, versus indirectly against the player's character? Interacting with a player directly may be seen as more real and consequential than interacting with the player's character. After all, I'm willing to kill my friend's character for a bit of fun, but not willing to hurt my friend's feelings.
  
• 
  Why do some people prefer hand-generated content while others prefer automatically-generated content? Hand-generated content has depth and meaning, but there isn't much of it and it's very brittle. Automatically-generated content is plentiful, changeable, and resilient.
  

Another question that arises is whether players who want different experiences can coexist? Can a world be both PvP and PvW? Can a PvP world allows players to create content? Or is PvW and a creation world possible?

In an attempt to answer this question, I listed out major design decisions that would be beneficial for a PvP, PvW, and creation-based world.

Player vs. player

To make a player vs. player world you need:

• 
  Lots of players in close proximity so that they continually bump into one another.
  
• 
  Lots of interesting ways (physics and equipment) for players to interact with one another. The obvious answer is combat, but other forms of interaction exist, such as economics, political, and social. Players should be able to use the world physics in creative and interesting ways; The buzzword "emergent gameplay" fits in here.
  
• 
  The world's geography should facilitate interesting PvP interactions. There are reasons why computer-based capture-the-flag games occur in maze-like interiors instead of wide-open plains.
  
• 
  A world design that cajoles players into acting in a manner that's both more fun for them to play, and more fun for other players. This often involves role playing.
  
• 
  The world changes based upon player activities, but only so much that it doesn't ruin the gameplay for all. Ultimately, this means that major changes to the world can only be made by large groups of players.
  
• 
  The backstory is used to modify the players' behaviour, explaining why the player are in conflict, and providing a framework for role playing.
  
• 
  Races and classes are used, like the backstory, to modify the player's behaviour. They give players a reason to fight one another (race A hates race B), and a reason to work together (class A and class B are more powerful working together).
  
• 
  NPCs are either resources to be mined or tools for interaction. NPC AI is so inferior to player AI, that NPCs are only good for resource acquisition (kill monster to get XP/money to be able to kill another player), and henchmen doing tasks for the players that other players don't want to do (like guard and perhaps shopkeeper).
  
• 
  Other players are either team-mates, enemies, or neutrals (and of no consequence). The system needs to facilitate communication between team-mates and identification of enemies.
  

To make a player vs. world game you need:

• 
  Few players, or lots of players scattered over an even larger world.
  
• 
  Lots of varied ways (physics and equipment) for players to interact with the world. The physics need to be different than those in a PvP world. PvP requires emergent gameplay. In a PvW world, emergent gameplay is nice to have, but it creates so many difficulties for the author and any AI in the world that it's not usually included. However, varied physics allows the user to do different things.

  Here's an example of the difference: Traditional adventure games (PvW) allow players to chop down a tree with an axe, or burn a leaf with a magnifying glass. They do not allow the tree (or forest) to be burnt with the magnifying glass or the leaf to be chopped with the axe, because the world isn't intelligent enough to deal with the consequences. Conversely, a PvP world that allows trees to be burnt and leaves to be chopped allows players to interact with one another by burning down each other's forests, and chopping up leaves produces fibres for basket weaving.

  
  
• 
  The world's geography is designed to be interesting to the player and funnel the player along the plot. Geography can be used for the purpose of stunning scenery, or as a problem to be solved.
  
• 
  The world's design encourages players to do things they normally wouldn't, or see things in different ways. Getting the player to change his/her behaviour so that its more interesting for other players is pointless.
  
• 
  The world changes based upon the player's activities. However, because the world AI/programming cannot handle a large variety of changes, the changes usually follow a prescribed path, called a plot. This creates a world where players can be in the same place but at different "times" (progression paths along the plot); whether they see each other or not depends upon the context. The combination of temporal and spatial separation creates problems for socialisation.
  
• 
  The backstory serves to interest the player, as well as provide clues for any puzzles the player might encounter.
  
• 
  Races and classes are generally undesirable. While having multiple races and classes allow the player to player the same game a second time, they cause all sorts of design problems for the author and AI because the PC's skills can't be predicted. The most compelling reason for multiple races is so players can each have a unique appearance. Classes are only desirable if players are expected to team up into parties.
  
• 
  NPCs are obstacles to be overcome, or a source of backstory, equipment, and immersion. A enemy can also be used to encourage socialisation (since several people must team up to defeat it).
  
• 
  Other players are potential help to solving puzzles. Encountering other players once in awhile is fun, but too many encounters ruins the experience.
  

A world that fosters creation would have:

• 
  Lots of players scattered widely enough that they have their own corner of the world to design. Transportation must be fast enough that players can quickly traverse the world.
  
• 
  Tools that allow for creation. These may be mostly user interface, or they may include in-game ways for players to construct buildings, plant trees, etc.
  
• 
  An economic system that controls building so that not too much is built at once.
  
• 
  Indestructible creations; after all, spending a month building a sculpture only to have a character tear it down is very disheartening.
  
• 
  A virgin world. If the players are to create all the content, the world might as well start out empty and without any significant backstory.
  
• 
  Other players are sources of ideas and compliments... Sometimes they are just copycats and sources of derision.
  

Unfortunately, putting PvP, PvW, and creation in the same world produces conflicts, some of which are unsolvable. May virtual worlds try to cater to all three and produce a familiar compromise. (Items in red reflect serious conflicts between PvP, PvW, and creation.) :

• 
  Both a high player density and low player density are required - The solution is to have parts of the world that are intended for PvP (high density of players) while other parts are geared towards PvW (low density). But what happens when the PvP people decide to use PvP against the PvW players? It's called griefing. The solution is to prevent PvP activities (such as killing) in PvW sections, but this forces a location-dependent schism in the world physics.
  
• 
  Physics must encourage emergent gameplay (for PvP), so the world's AI and puzzles (for PvW) must handle this complex physics - A compromise solution results in both poor emergent gameplay, and lots of extra world programming game AI and puzzles to deal with the physics. Usually the extra game AI/puzzles are just scrapped and replaced with more monsters since PvW players get frustrated when they can't use the emergent gameplay aspects on AI/puzzles.
  
• 
  The world's geography must be both maze-like and internal (PvP) and scenic (PvW) - This can be done reasonably well, although there are cases where the two motivations interfere.
  
• 
  Transportation must be rapid for people interested in creation and (maybe) PvP, but slow for PvW - This poses a bit of a problem, although teleportation devices can be common in creation and PvP areas, but rare in PvW areas.
  
• 
  Players are encouraged to act in interesting ways for themselves and other players - Not a terribly large hurdle to overcome.
  
• 
  The world changes based on the group's activities (PvP), and the individual player's activities (PvW), and the player's creations (Creation-based) - Many conflicts arise, so game designers don't let the world change at all. PvP ends up being and endless fight over territory that can never be won, and PvW turns into a series of FedEx quests. Player's creations are limited in scope to manufacturing identical swords.
  
• 
  The backstory must provide motivation for role playing (PvP) and clues for puzzles (PvW) - Not a major problem.
  
• 
  Races and classes are both desirable (PvP) and undesirable (PvW) - The compromise is to produce races that are visually different but functionality the same (some have pointy ears, some a short, but no real ability differences). The classes are functionally different on the surface, but given the right magical items (such as healing potions for fighters) they end up being mostly the same.
  
• 
  NPCs are both resources (PvP) and obstacles/information (PvW) - The compromise it to hand-place NPCs for quests played by PvW players, but provides fields of monsters for PvP to use as an XP/money resource.
  
• 
  To PvP players, PvW and creation-based players are either neutrals or a source of XP, money, and goods (just like monsters). To PvW and creation-based players, PvP players are either neutrals or a dangerous distraction to the real game. - So, the PvW players really dislike having the PvP players, and the PvP really like having the PvW players. See Richard Bartle's player-type paper.
  
• 
  PvP players will cheat at PvW content since they see it as a means to gain XP/equipment and improve the PvP changes. PvW players will avoid PvP content (death-match arenas, etc.). Players interested in creation will avoid both.
  
• 
  Creation as a PvP tool - The most fun-to-use creation tools allow players to create scripts, or at the very least, new 3D models. Both scripts and 3D models can be used by PvP players (as well as PvW players) to upset the game balance. Many games compromise by hobbling creation so much that players are reduced to manufacturing thousands of identical swords, which isn't much fun.
  
• 
  Creation-players would rather start with a virgin world, PvP and PvW players would not - This can be solved by making portions of the world that are controlled exclusively by the author, while others are open to player modification.
  
• 
  PvP players are interested in players' creations only if they serve as a good staging ground for PvP, while PvW view the creations as content (although of inferior quality) - Which means that PvP and PvW players will scout out the player creations and decide if they're interesting. The interesting ones will be popular, while most will be left abandoned.
  

Creating a world solely targeted at PvP, PvW, or creation removes these conflicts, but does a world with fewer conflicts lead to an uninteresting world, as Richard Bartle has observed?

The PvP, PvW, and creation conflicts illustrate an even larger problem in virtual worlds:

A virtual world attracts certain personality types. Because people in a virtual world can see and interact with one another, the personality types interact and often positively or negatively impact the personality types attracted to the world. This sets up positive and negative feedback loops that are difficult to predict. Furthermore, the personality types of the existing player base affects what features the developers are asked to implement.

To use a traditional example: I like watching animated movies like Shrek. However, I don't like watching them in theatres because I have to put up with young children crying. Therefore, I watch Shrek at home. In a virtual world, I can't help but invite all the other viewers into my living room, so to speak. Would I watch Shrek if I couldn't detach the experience from the crying children? Would some people, such as other children, be attracted to Shrek more because of the other children than the actual movie?

According to Richard Bartle's experience, a world with only killers (a sub-set of PvP) will tend to die out, while a world with PvP and PvW players will be more stable. Similarly, worlds with only socializers tend to die.

So, while it's possible to design a world exclusively for PvP, PvW, and creation, such designs may not be optimal. Worlds that attract a combination (such as EQ1 and WoW) seem to have more players than specialised worlds (such as WWII online, Uru Live, and Second Life). (EQ2 seems to be solely PvW; it'll be interesting to see how many players it attracts.)