Multiplayer Interactive-Fiction Game-Design Blog

Word of mouth

1 March 2006

by Mike Rozak

According to Richard Bartle in Designing Virtual Worlds, MUDs with the longest lifespan seem to cater to all player types: achievers, explorers, killers, and socialisers. MUDs that attract only specific player types (such as only killers) quickly die out.

Recently, I've been trying to design a setting for my virtual world. One setting that interests me, both from a development POV, and as a hypothetical player, is a "realistic" alien environment, like the TV shows, "The Future is Wild" or "Alien Planet". For those of you that haven't seen these shows, they use computer graphics to imagine what Earth's animal life might evolve into 25 million years from now, or what animal life might be like on an alien planet.

Although neither show includes sentient life, if they did, the aliens certainly wouldn't look like humans with pointy ears. Intelligent alien life might look more bizarre, like land-dwelling octopi, for example.

The problem with a realistic alien setting is:

1. 
   Most people can barely relate to pointy-eared humans in Star Trek. Very few can relate to intelligent octopi.
   
2. 
   A completely alien planet with intelligent octopi characters screams out "explorer", drowning out other possible storylines. Some storylines, such as a romance, are impossible; it's hard to be romantic with an intelligent octopi.
   

A broader model

Richard Bartle explains why a world needs to contain a mix of achievers, explorers, killers and socialisers. Basically, socialisers benefit from achievers because achievers give socialisers something to talk about. Achievers benefit from explorers, who explain the finer points of the world. Killers like having socialisers around as prey. Explorers like having achievers around that they can slowly release pearls of wisdom to them.

Previously, I tried to come up with a broader models in Ecology of a MMORPG and Intertwined relationships.

However, I think I can go a bit further now:

1. 
   As I discussed in Storylines II and Storylines III, you can think of a virtual world as a collection of single player (linear) games where (a) the games take place in the same world, and (b) the games and players interact with one another. (I'm not saying that virtual worlds are limited to a combination of linear storylines, however.)

   Current MMORPGs rely upon the following games/storylines: Kill monsters for a living, kill player characters for a living, craft and trade for a living.

   
   
2. 
   Although individuals jump from one storyline to another during gameplay (such as crafting to combat), players tend to stick with their favourite storyline/game. This means that a player personality type (not necessarily Bartle's four/eight types) is associated with each storyline.

   The same general rule holds for movies, books, and television: Individuals reliably like a few genres (types of storylines) and avoid the rest. Personally, I like science fiction and fantasy, but dislike romance. I have friends who are the opposite.

   
   
3. 
   In a virtual world, storylines interact with one another, sometimes positively, often negatively.

   In MMORPG terms, PvP doesn't work well with scripted world-building (like Second Life) because PvP players use the infinitely-powerful building-scripts as a weapon; it's like giving every single PvP player their own arsenal of nuclear weapons to use... and results in complete and utter devastation.

   PvP combat and crafting/trade seem to work well when combined into one game, however.

   To switch media to movies, "romantic comedies" are a combination of two genres/storylines, romance and comedy. Romantic comedies do well at the box office. "Romantic horror films", to combine two different genres, do not do well. (Has there ever been a romantic horror film?)

   
   

Word of mouth

Despite my model's reassurances, I don't think my alien world would work, and here's why...

Players of virtual worlds actively recruit their friends to play because the game is more fun when one's friends are involved. I suspect that friend-networking is the single largest marketing force that virtual worlds have. Advertising and fansites fall a distant second and third.

This relationship means that marketing (and design) of virtual worlds is less like a TV, books, or single-player games, which are all solitary experiences, and more like the marketing (and design) of a movies and restaurants. People go to movies and restaurants with friends; I may really like a Chinese restaurant's Mongolian beef, but if my friends don't like Chinese food, we won't visit my favourite restaurant. Instead, we'll choose a restaurant that everyone can enjoy (or at least not dislike).

As far as my alien world goes, I may like it, but my friends almost certainly won't; It's way too weird for them. They'll want to play something different. I'll be in the minority and be forced to follow them wherever they go, such as World of Warcraft.

Categorise players based upon what form of entertainment they consider "fun", using whatever metrics you like. (This might be Richard Bartle's player types, or something different). It seems to me that friendship is only weakly correlated to player type. In restaurant terms (and to state the obvious), friendship is only weakly correlated to restaurant preference; I don't choose my friends based upon what sorts of food they eat. The inevitable result is that most restaurants are "family style" restaurants that offer a varied menu. Likewise, most virtual worlds must cater to most player types.

The "cater to all player types" rule is only strengthened by the realisation that friends will bring their friends into the virtual world too. The friends of my friends have play styles that are completely unrelated to my own.

Consequently, if my realistic alien VW doesn't cater to players interested in romance, I'll not only lose romance-liking players, but I'll lose any player who has friends that like romance. The effect on world popularity is almost exponential! If 1% of all players would ardently like to play in an alien word, and if 10% of all players would only play if they were cajoled into playing by the rabid 1%, then the probability of getting four friends to play, one of whom strongly wants to play, and three of whom are in the 10% group, is 0.001%. That's an awfully small market.

Revisiting the restaurant analogy: I guesstimate that 5%-10% of Australians are vegetarians. The percentage of vegetarian restaurants, however, is certainly less than 1%.

Exceptions

I can enumerate some exceptions to my rule of "Thou must cater to all player types and build the equivalent of a family restaurant":

1. 
   Age grouping - The friends of most teenagers are teenagers. The friends of most adults are adults. The friends of most retirees are retirees. Therefore, you can produce a virtual world targeted solely at teenagers, adults, or retirees.
   
2. 
   Age-specific storylines/genres - Teen sex flicks only appeal to teenagers. Undoubtedly, some storylines/games will have similar age resonances.
   
3. 
   Education - In the US, most friends of college-educated adults are also college educated. Most friends of high-school educated adults are also high-school educated.
   
4. 
   Wealth - Education and wealth are correlated. Furthermore, wealthy people tend to spend most of their time with other wealthy people, because of the exclusive neighbourhoods where they live, their job, and the awkwardness of showing their less wealthy friends their latest $100K sports car.
   
5. 
   Language (and culture) - Most people's friends are from the same country (aka: language and culture).
   
6. 
   Segregated cultures - Many cultures are segregated based on gender, race, and/or religion. Such segregation could be mirrored in virtual worlds targeted at the culture.
   
7. 
   Short virtual world experience - The shorter the virtual world experience, the less strongly this rule holds because friends are more willing to put up with an experience they really don't like.

   For example: If a friend wants to see a romance movie, I will go (with protests). However, if that romance movie were ten hours long, I would suddenly find an illness/excuse to avoid the movie; Ten hours of fantasy, such as The Lord of the Rings, and I'm feeling fine with an open appointment book.

   
   
8. 
   Niche markets - If a player wants to experience an alien world so badly that he's willing to forgo his real-life friends (or if a player doesn't have any real-life friends), then the player will play alone and (hopefully) meet new friends in the virtual world. See The dating game. This observation implies that my alien world would attract somewhere between 0.001% (if players insist on hanging out with real-life friends) and 1% (if players abandon real-life friends) of all players.
   

Effects on world design

The requirement to cater to all player types affects world design:

1. 
   A family-restaurant world must be compartmentalised by danger level, weirdness/explorer appeal, player-vs.-player, etc. While a single player game, such as a horror survival game, can be universally dangerous and weird, a virtual world must contain a bit of everything. Players interested in romance will probably want a safe (non-combat) environment without anything too weird (no octopi aliens). Explorers will want the aliens, and a bit of danger. Crafters and traders won't mind the aliens, but they won't want any danger.
   
2. 
   Whatever the storyline, a family-restaurant world can't change too much throughout the storyline.

   This one is a bit tricky to explain... To be satisfying, storylines require that world changes based on the player's actions. Change in multiplayer games requires fractured reality. Unfortunately, what is a "satisfying change" in storyline A, is not the same as the change required for storyline B. Different changes require different fractures, potentially producing a world with so many fractures that players from different storylines will never meet.

   Example: If all players were on the same storyline of killing the evil overlord then at every milestone (such as killing an important minion of the overlord) the player could be moved a new section/fracture of the world. GuildWars does this with pre/post apocalypse fractures. The evil overlord storyline might have three fractures: one before the evil overlord gained power, one during the evil overlord's tyrannical reign, and the last taking place during the revolution. This fracturing wouldn't work with multiple storylines (a consequence of catering to multiple player types) because players interested in trade (and not interested in slaying the overlord) wouldn't care which fracture they're in. Nor would they appreciate being randomly moved from one evil-overlord fracture to another. So, which one do they get placed in? Whichever one is used, two thirds of the time, players from the evil-overlord storyline won't be able to interact with players from the trade storyline.
   

3. 
   A niche virtual world must provide an easy and effective way to meet other players. See The dating game.
   

I've been purposely vague about what the different "player types" are because (a) it's not necessary for the argument, and (b) locking into specific player types limits one's perception of possibilities.

Richard Bartle posits four basic player types (extended to eight in his book):

• 
  Achievers - Like winning at the game, playing against computer-controlled enemies.
  
• 
  Explorers - Want to understand the game.
  
• 
  Killers - Like fighting against other players.
  
• 
  Socialisers - Use the game as a way to meet other people.
  

• 
  Drama - People and relationships.
  
• 
  Fantasy - Deal with exploration (weirdness), danger, and heroism.
  
• 
  Historical - If I'm going to read fiction, I might as well learn something from it.
  
• 
  Horror - Fear and some weirdness.
  
• 
  Mystery - Almost a game, the reader of a murder mystery tries to identify the murderer before the author names him at the end of the book.
  
• 
  Romance - Intimate relationships.
  
• 
  Science fiction - Exploration (weirdness) along with some science (learning).
  
• 
  Suspense/detective - Real-life danger.
  

• 
  From novels - Most novel genres are also present in television and movies.
  
• 
  Action - Lots of danger and special effects (aka: explosions and gunshots).
  
• 
  Comedy - Obvious.
  
• 
  Soap operas - Partly romance, partly drama.
  
• 
  Gangster - Elements of danger as well as the opportunity to be the bad guy.
  

• 
  Adventure - Puzzles, exploration (weirdness), and story.
  
• 
  Casual games - Cards, Tetris, etc.
  
• 
  Computer role-playing games - Resource allocation, combat, and exploration (weirdness).
  
• 
  Creation games - Second life.
  
• 
  God games - Resource management and strategy.
  
• 
  First-person shooter - Twitch combat.
  
• 
  People games - The Sims.
  
• 
  Platform games - Twitch action.
  
• 
  Player vs. player - Fighting games, some MMORPGs.
  
• 
  Real-time strategy games - Resource management and strategy.
  
• 
  Vehicle games - Racing, flying, etc.
  

I listed all these player types (genres) because they're all valid depending upon how you look at the issue. The lengthy list also illustrates that people's ideas of "what's entertaining" varies greatly.

The same can be said for food: Family restaurants usually offer 50+ meals, not only including traditional American dishes, but also genericized fare from "niche" restaurants, "Mexican" taco salads, Indian curries, Chinese spring rolls, and a few vegetarian dishes. Likewise, a virtual world that doesn't explicitly target a niche market must offer an equally large menu of experiences, catering to the enormous variety of entertainments that players find entertaining.

More ramifications

At the moment, most MMORPGs only target a tiny fraction of the player types listed here. Even with a scope limited to Bartle's player types, most MMORPGs only cater to achievers and killers. According to my thought experiment, expanding a world's design so that it caters to even one or two more player types (whatever your player-type model) should significantly improve the MMORPG's appeal... assuming it's trying to be mass market.