The trouble with explorers

The trouble with explorers

4 May 2004

Revised 7-29 May

by Mike Rozak

Recently, Ubisoft announced the cancellation or "Uru Live", an online adventure game. I was saddened to hear the news because I enjoy adventure games, and the online concept intrigued me; particularly what kind of people would be attracted to such a service.

I didn't even get a chance to try Uru Live out since Ubisoft cancelled Uru Live while it was in beta; I was waiting for a released version before trying it. While most of the discussion is about online adventure games in general, any reference to Uru Live details comes from other people's experiences with the beta; Uru Live may have developed into a different beast if it had gotten past beta. Therefore, don't read this essay as post-mortem of Uru Live.

I was interested in Uru Live because I have played a couple MMORPGs, found them to be poorly implemented on-line versions of off-line CRPGs (such as Elder Scrolls: Morrowind or Dungeon Siege), and was underwhelmed. Not only did I get bored of killing orcs after the tenth one (let alone the 10,000th), but MMORPGs tend to attract people whose personalities don't match my own. Off-line CRPGs are only populated by me and a few thousand NPCs; they are devoid of bloodthirsty teenagers.

I have also been considering writing my own online adventure game platform (aka: interactive fiction, or IF) targeted at hobbyist authors. I was hoping to see what problems Uru Live encountered and how they dealt with them. Obviously, they encountered insurmountable problems. From what I've heard, they didn't have enough on-line users to make the venture worthwhile. Since then I've wondered why they didn't get enough players.

Rather than investing a few million dollars to produce my own adventure-oriented online world only to have it fail, I decided to undertake some thought experiments and try to understand the reason for Uru Live's failure. This document is the result. It is not "the definitive work" for online adventure games, but merely intended to propose some ideas and start a discussion.

Multiple models

I have taken too many years of physics. Consequently, I am a strong believer in particle/wave duality. For people that have forgotten their physics, particle/wave duality an odd tendency for light to act as a particle when physicists do experiments that try to prove that light is a particle, and to act like a wave when the experiments try to prove that light is a wave.

I apply this understanding to the modelling the universe in general: I don't believe in a grand-unification theory of anything, since no model can completely describe the universe. I prefer to approach a problem that requires modelling by creating several different models and seeing what each has to say.

For my thought experiments I have used or created several different models. The models are:

1. 
   Not enough content - The effect of content generation costs on on-line adventure games.
   
2. 
   Explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers - Richard Bartle's model.
   
3. 
   Keeping players interested - Since I volunteer at zoos and have dealt with a number of species, I often view humans as intelligent primates. This model tries to gain some insights by mixing primates' interests and virtual worlds.
   
4. 
   Achiever vs. explorer content - And how they differ.
   
5. 
   The nightclub model - Virtual worlds and nightclubs both involve socialisation.
   
6. 
   A God-game made real - Sim City with real life people.
   
7. 
   A virtual world is a platform, not a place - A marketing model.
   
8. 
   Playgrounds, Disneyland, and the Holodeck - Adding story to virtual worlds.
   

Model 1: Not enough content

The original MUD was created by Roy Trubshaw because he "enjoyed single-player adventure games (Crowther and Wood's ADVENT, Aderson, Blank, Daniels, and Lebling's ZORK, and Laird's HAUNT)." (Designing Virtual Worlds, Richard Bartle)

MUDs, as they exist today, are nothing like Adventure or Zork. (I haven't tried Haunt.) While some still retain the text interface, they have almost completely discarded the adventure components in favour of CRPG and socialisation elements.

Why did this happen?

Roy Trubshaw's original MUD was eventually inherited and maintained by Richard Bartle. When asked why adventuring took a sideline to socialisation, Richard Bartle stated that he intended to use MUD more as a social tool than just an adventure game, and suspected that people who wrote MUDs after him just followed his example, perhaps blindly.

Thousands of virtual worlds are now run by hobbyists (as MUDs), and a few dozen by corporations (as MMORPGs). The vast majority of virtual worlds are still more closely related to CRPGs than adventure games.

Could a successful virtual world model exist that emphasises adventure-game aspects but which no-one has yet discovered? The Uru team obviously thought so; but they cancelled Uru Live due to poor attendance.

So why did no adventure virtual worlds exist?

I did a thought experiment... (Just to emphasise, this whole article is one long thought experiment.)

I imagined that I wrote on adventure game (like Zork), and put it online. What would users think of the experience? What features would they request? Here's what happens (in my thought experiment):

1. 
   The first feature I'd add would be the ability for users to "chat", since it seems silly that people wandering around the adventure game couldn't talk to one another.
   
2. 
   Next, I'd add the ability for players to work together on puzzles and hand each other objects.
   
3. 
   It takes 20-40 hours to complete Zork (or any adventure game). After that, players run out of stuff to do and stop playing. In an online environment, players would complete the game in half the time (or less) because they'd give each other hints; then they'd run out of stuff to do, but rather than stop playing, they'd start whinging about lack-of-content.

   In other words, after working on content for a year, I'd have one week of public release before some players would be asking me for more. So much for my long-awaited holiday...

   
   

So what are the solutions?

1. 
   Do nothing (but socialise) - If I do nothing (except produce content as fast as I can) users will eventually consume all the content. Most users will leave. Those that stay will sit around and chat. They will request even more chat functionality, so I'll stop working on content and emphasise socialisation features. Eventually, the adventuring component would fall completely by the wayside (except as different scenery for chat rooms.)

   I could always keep producing content at full speed, regardless of what features players were using. After a few years I'd eventually get a decent amount of adventure content. The question is: In the meantime many users would be attracted to the virtual world because of the socialisation, not the adventure content. If I suddenly began emphasising the adventure content, would my existing users leave? Would potential adventure-gamers think about visiting when all the virtual world directories indicated my world was targeted at socialisation?

   
   
2. 
   Rely on user created content - Since I can't create all the content myself, I provide tools so the users can create their own content. Some MUD authors took this approach creating MUSH's. The problem with this approach is that 99% of what users create is junk, and if it isn't junk, it will probably clash thematically with the content created by the other users. Chaos ensues and users leave. (Just imagine a Jazz band with 1000 players, only 20 of which are good. For that matter, just imagine a Jazz band with 20 good players, each trying to do their own thing.)

   As Andrew Plotkin pointed out, an Uru Live beta-tester, I am overstating the "chaos" aspect. When the author-created content runs out, people will find ways to amuse themselves by creating "content", either through socialisation, creative uses of world physics, or out-of-game venues, such as web-pages. Some of it may even be enough to keep the virtual world alive. Relying solely upon user created content worries me though, because if not managed properly, the user created chaos has the potential to destroy a world.

   
   
3. 
   Automatically generated content (monsters) - Rather than trying to create the content myself, I'd have it randomly generated and spend my time improving the random generators.

   The easiest randomly generated content is to create monsters. If I place enough monsters between puzzles in my adventure, then players will spend so much time fighting the randomly-generated content that my 45 minutes of new content every week will take them 20-40 hours to get through.

   Monsters introduce some issues of their own; they imply that characters have skills (namely combat skills), and that the more monsters that characters kill, the better they get, and the tougher the monsters must be. I have just (unintentionally) introduced levelling and the levelling treadmill.

   Magic spells aren't far behind.

   All the loot that players collect, and their need for bigger and better armaments leads to an economy, and maybe even crafting.

   Furthermore, if player characters can kill monsters, players will ask for features so player characters can kill other player characters... and in turn, enable griefers. Griefers cause all sorts of other problems that eventually lead to guilds and numerous other constructs that are now commonplace in virtual worlds.

   Interestingly, but the time all is said and done, the adventure component of the virtual world disappears and is completely replaced by an online CRPG.
   

4. 
   Mix of socialising and monsters - I could also take the direction of supporting socialisation and combat functionality. Or, I could mix socialising and user-created content. (I couldn't, however, mix user-created content with combat because users would exploit the user-created content to make their own characters stronger.) Both of these models exist as virtual worlds.
   

1. 
   Type 1: Killers and achievers in equilibrium. (What I have labelled "Automatically generated content.")
   
2. 
   Type 2: Socialisers in dominance. ("Do nothing (but socialise)")
   
3. 
   Type 3: A balance between all four types, with enough explorers to control the killers. ("Mix of socialising and monsters")
   
4. 
   Type 4: An empty virtual world. ("Rely on user created content")
   

Model 2: Explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers

In 1996, Richard Bartle published a paper, "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs", (http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm). If you haven't read it, I suggest you do so before continuing on.

The gist of the paper is that players of virtual worlds (online adventure or CRPG games) fall into four general categories that can be arranged into a 2x2 matrix. These categories are:

• 
  Explorers - Users who like to explore the world. In off-line terminology, these people like playing adventure games, like Myst.
  
• 
  Achievers - Users who like accumulating points or money, usually by killing hordes of monsters. CRPGs are offline games targeted at achievers.
  
• 
  Socialisers - Users who like interacting with other users. They have no off-line equivalent.
  
• 
  Killers - Users who like acting on other users, often by killing their characters or causing them grief. Killers have no off-line equivalent.
  

Why? I'll get to this in a minute.

Note: Throughout the document I use a different definition for "explorers" and "achievers" than Richard Bartle provides. In "HCDS: Players who suit MUDs", explorers are defined as players who try to find out as much as possible about the virtual world, while achievers are people who give themselves game-related goals and set out to achieve them. Instead, I equate explorers to the online equivalent to people that like adventure games, and achievers to the online equivalent to CRPG players. This does twist the model around, in the same way that using a piano to play music written for harpsichord affects the music of Bach. You might even argue that it invalidates the model, although I would disagree. I found such a transposition of the original to be useful to the problem I'm addressing: why online adventure games seem to fail. If my adjustments offend you then pretend there's no connection between what I'm describing and Bartle's model.

My take on player types

Richard Bartle's paper goes on to explain how a virtual world can modify its design to attract different player types, and how each player type affects the other player types. For example: If hordes of killers move into a virtual world, all the achievers and socialisers will leave, shortly followed by the killers (because they have no-one left to kill but themselves.)

Although Bartle lists the reasons why one player type affects another, I thought I'd examine the subject from a different angle and see if the results were the same.

The first question I asked is, "If I'm player type X what do I think of player type Y? Do I want more of them in the game, fewer of them, or don't really care?" This could be tested by identifying players as explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers, and then asking them if they'd like to see more or fewer (or don't care), explorers, achievers, socialisers, and killers in the world.

Here is my guess at how it would turn out:

• 
  Explorers would like to see mostly explorers in the world, don't really care how many socialisers or achievers there are, and don't want any killers. (What explorers think they want and what they really want isn't always the same; see below.)
  
• 
  Socialisers would like to see more socialisers in the world, don't really care how many explorers or achievers there are, and don't want any killers. (See below.)
  
• 
  Achievers would like to see more explorers and socialisers in their world because socialisers and explorers don't try to climb the levelling ladder. The more of them, the better an achiever's level ranking (compared to the population in general). Achievers do not want many other achievers around since too many achievers makes it too difficult to be number one. Achievers don't mind lower-level killers, but they don't want any killers that could actually kill them. (See below.)
  
• 
  Killers would like to have socialisers around because they're easy prey. Achievers and explorers are a don't care. They definitely don't want any more killers since that would provide competition.
  

• 
  Explorers don't mind having a few other explorers around, but don't want hordes of them. Why? It ruins the immersion. Just think of explorers as adventure tourists, the sorts that take safaris in Africa, canoe down the Amazon, or visit Antarctica. (I know quite a few people like this.) They love it when they're the only ones there, are okay if a handful of other people show up, and whinge if there's a crowd (ie: more than 10 tourists visible. Locals are considered part of the experience, so there's no limit on them.).

  Creating a virtual world exclusively populated by explorers would be a problem since it would need to be a very large virtual world (or with many shards) to ensure that they only rarely run into one another.

  A few users on Uru Forums commented about this issue, stating that they often prefer to play alone.
  

• 
  For reasons I'll explain later, socialisers need achievers and killers (although too many killers will scare them away.)
  
• 
  Achievers need some killers because killers make the game more exciting and challenging, which is something that achievers like. Achievers don't like being killed by killers though, especially when the killers so overpower the achievers that they have no chance to recuperate and eventually level-up to overpower the killers.
  

My comparison of "explorers" to "adventure tourists" brings up another interesting issue: How many explorers are there in the real world? How many achievers are there? Socialisers? Killers?

You can answer the explorers vs. achievers ratio by visiting your local game store and seeing how many adventure games are on the shelf compared to the number of CRPGs. In my favourite computer-game store, there are usually one or two adventure game boxes per ten CRPG boxes, implying that there are 5-10x as many CRPG players as adventure game players. Or, in other words, there are 5-10x as many achievers as explorers. (Note: This is only a guesstimate. As a reviewer noted, explorers may take longer to finish a game than achievers, or may not play as many games. Or vice versa. My game store may be atypical. Etc.)

Another way to answer the question is to see where people holiday (assuming they have the money). Do they go to Florida, Spain, or other safe destination, or to search for gorillas in Africa or trek around Nepal?

How many killers are there? This is more difficult because killers only show their true colours when they have power or anonymity. In real life, that means people in management positions and prank phone callers. My guess is that 5%-10% of the real-world population are killers (not literally, but in the player-types sense).

5%-10% of the population are explorers. The rest are evenly divided among achievers and socialisers, 40%-45% each.

Anecdotally, I've observed that some populations are skewed towards explorers, socialisers, achievers, or killers:

• 
  Killers are more common in online virtual worlds (10%-20% of the population) because they're anonymous. They cannot exhibit killer behaviours in the real world without negative consequences so their only outlet is in a virtual one. Explorers are less common (2%-5%), for reasons that I'll explain.
  
• 
  Teenagers seem to lean towards killer or achievers player types, or at least that's how I recall my high school experiences. Teenagers are also the majority of game players, so any virtual world that ignores the achiever and killer market also loses much of the very-large teenage market.
  
• 
  Managers and politicians tend to be killers or achievers.
  

The cost of content

Virtual worlds are in competition with the real world, television, and other virtual worlds. If the content (what draws the player to the virtual world) is not compelling enough, the player will leave. All player types need content. All content costs money.

• 
  Explorers need adventure-game style content.
  

  The cost of explorer-targeted content depends on the number of hours of entertainment provided as opposed to the number of explorers. For the most part, explorers are okay with other explorers using the same content as long as the other explorers don't show their faces and disrupt the illusion of isolation. Virtual worlds can easily solve the illusion of isolation by creating numerous shards. African safaris can't; they must limit the number of explorers roaming around in 4WD vehicles.

  
  

  Explorer content (adventure games) is the most expensive to create, about 2x-4x times as expensive per hour of play as CRPG content. Myst III (adventure game) was 2.5 years of development, maxing out at 25 developers, and providing 20-40 hours of play. Diablo II (CRPG) took 3 years and maxed out at 40 developers, providing 50-200 hours of play. The arithmetic shows that Myst III was 2x as expensive as Diablo II for every hour of expected play. Because explorers will give each other hints in an online adventure game, the content of an online Myst III would only last 10-20 hours, making it 4x as expensive per hour. (Developer numbers from "Postmortems from Game Developer", CMP Books.)

  
  
• 
  Achievers need CRPG-style content.
  

  Like explorers, achiever content also depends upon the number of hours of entertainment, not on the number of achievers.

  
  
  
• 
  Socialisers also need content. They need to be given new things to talk about and new people to talk with.

  Just think of parties/socials you've put on. You invite a dozen people to your house, eat some dinner, and they spend the night talking. Imagine if you invited the same people to your house the next night, and then the night after that, etc. They'd soon run out of things to talk about. There is only so much discussion-worthy news a day. To liven up the party you bring out some games (cards, Pictionary, etc.), or invite some new blood (newbies). Even that runs out of steam eventually.

  A virtual world's customer-relation team can spend lots of time coming up with entertainments for socialisers, such as get-togethers, costume parties, weddings, etc. This, however, gets expensive, especially since the costs are related to the number of socialisers. (Costs for explorers and achievers are related to the number of hours of entertainment, not the number of players.)

  This is where achievers, explorers, and killers come in; they provide something for socialisers to talk about. Killers are especially good subjects, because not only do they do gossip-worthy things, but they're dangerous to the socialisers, forcing socialisers to pay attention to their antisocial activities. (Just consider: How much of the nightly news is created by people that are literally killers, or figuratively killer player-types?) If the socialisers also do occasional exploration, achievement, or killing, all the more to discuss.

  
  
• 
  Killers use other players as their content. They are expensive because they produce customer complaints and/or cause paying customers to leave the game.
  

Using the new observations, let me re-explore the fate of virtual worlds targeted at specific player types:

• 
  Explorers - Virtual worlds targeted at explorers don't work well because a) there aren't many explorers in the general population, b) explorers don't really require the online experience (unlike socialisers and killers) so they can just as easily have fun offline for less money, and c) explorers cost a lot of money to keep happy.
  
• 
  Achievers - Virtual worlds targeted purely at achievers do work (kind of).

  The content is relatively cheap (compared to explorers) because the per-hour cost is low (1/2 to 1/4 the price) and there are so many more achievers than explorers. (5x to 10x as many). Multiply these together and you'll see that an achiever-hour is 1/10th to 1/40th the cost of an explorer-hour.

  
  
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