RE: Content

[WFreitag@aol.com]

>> 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.
>
>But Mickey Mouse doesn't have to give anyone stage directions at the front
>gate.  You can simply have 20 different places for the player to go, all
>within similar walking distance.  Preparatory information is along the
>walk, and players will choose for themselves whether they enter a specific
>plotline.  You don't have to have all possible tailorable plotlines, only
>enough plotlines that the majority of customers can find one they like.
>In other words, I think it's a mistake to assume that elaborate customization
>to perceived individual needs is necessary.  You can just run them through
>the rides.

What you've just described is remarkably similar to the structure I used in 
several walk-in live action game worlds I ran in the early 90s. But I think 
we should do a lot better. Customization to perceived individual needs isn't 
the way I'd describe it, because I don't know who's going to figure out how 
to do the perceiving. (It ain't gonna be me.) Rather, I'm looking for 
responsiveness to individual choice. There's not much benefit to making one 
choice at the beginning for which of 20 plotlines to participate in, if those 
plotlines are linear thereafter. (If that's the best we could do, might as 
well put the effort into one really good linear plot and herd everybody 
through it. Yes that does work, but my ambitions extend farther than movie 
rides.) A plot web (see below) is better, and better still would be to weave 
a plotline around whatever choices the individual makes. Those possibilities 
fall squarely into the domain of interactive storytelling.

The two scenarios I described, Mickey Mouse inside and outside the gates, are 
worst case possibilities. I know they can be greatly improved upon even with 
current technology. But I chose them because the first one is pretty much how 
plots in computer games work, even well-designed world games like Spyro. (One 
notable exception: Myst yet again, which let the player do quite a bit of 
exploration and built up the mystery before loading a mission on the player.) 
And the second is pretty much how computer role playing games work.

>> The development of the craft of interactive storytelling offers
>> the hope of better solutions.
>
>Don't discount obvious, hamfisted solutions as you search for "better"
>ones. One world view is that everyone is very unique and special and needs a
>lot of handholding.  Another is that we're fish spawning in a river and 
you're
>controlling a redundant pile of resources moving through your theme park.

I've found that neither of these world views, when put into practice, works 
very well. The audiences I've entertained have generally, between 
individuals, wanted different sorts of experience, but they actively disliked 
handholding. They also change their minds a lot. Hence, my preference for 
allowing them to make meaningful choices rather than me trying to determine 
their needs and meet them by fiat. 

For example, my live game Spaceport Adeline has five main solution paths that 
were designed to appeal to the five most prevalent playing styles I've 
encountered among its audience (which in this case is primarily role playing 
gamers, some also computer gamers and some not). There's a path for heroic 
rebel faction-joiners, another for rowdy outlaws, another for puzzle-solving 
loners, and so forth. But no attempt is made to steer an individual player 
into a given path. Every path competes for the attention of every player, on 
the theory that players will choose the path that appeals to their style. For 
example, a puzzle-solving loner encountering a puzzle is likely to solve it. 
The puzzle is designed so that in solving it, the player is drawn into a plot 
that offers more puzzles. A gregarious would-be rebel leader encountering the 
same puzzle is likely to ignore it (which he's free to do, since the puzzle 
doesn't block his way) and look for something more fun to do, eventually 
leading him to paths more suitable for his style. The paths intertwine such 
that each path makes frequent contact with others, so the initial decison of 
which path to follow is constantly being revisited. (That's what I meant by a 
plot web.) At any time one can leave any path if an alternative starts 
sounding like more fun. There's also a complete spatial overlap; all of the 
locations and activities of the Spaceport have a purpose for each of the 
paths. Finally, and perhaps most important at all, players are not required 
to make progress and are not punished in any way (such as being unable to 
participate in attractions) for not doing so.

Yeah, that much can be done now (or ten years ago). No story engine, fractal 
narrative, or artificial intelligence required. BUT... it's not good enough. 
It can only ever appeal to gamers. Its too much about players following 
paths, not enough about the paths responding to the players. Been there, done 
that, sold the t-shirts. I want do do better.

So, hello AI, hello story engines, hello fractal narrative, hello interactive 
storytelling problem...

>> 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.
>
>Plenty of people inside the games industry can explain why Myst sells.
>The question is whether their explanations are pejorative, whether they
>personally feel a need to tell everyone how much they hate Myst.  As far
>as I can tell, the general consensus amongst game developers is that simple
>mouseclick UIs sell to casual gamers, Myst caught the rise of the new CDROM
>medium, pretty pictures are good in a "slideshow" or "coffee table photo
>album" sense, people often bought this game as a gift for someone else
>or it came bundled with something, and nobody actually finishes Myst except
>hardcore gamers.  That's because Myst has the classic blunders of the
>adventure genre, like that ridiculous maze puzzle they threw in.  So, the
>remarkable thing about Myst is creating a product that casual audiences
>will buy, but not finish, and not feel ripped off enough to criticize the 
game
>or return it.

Yes, I agree that that seems to be the consensus, and I share your suspicion 
that it is largely perjorative. The analysis that led to that consensus seems 
to have considered everything except the possibility that the game might  
actually appeal to people.

Myst does have some of the classic blunders of the adventure genre, but 
others it avoided -- for example, one can explore much farther without 
solving any puzzles than any other adventure game ever allowed. Its 
competitors and even its own sequel made worse blunders, thus lending 
credence to the unfortunate idea that the original's success was a fluke.

The reasons for its appeal are easy to perceive when one looks at it in terms 
of how its qualities compare with the ideal qualitites of an interactive 
world, instead of with the ideal qualities of a game. The metrics are just 
different. How many people finish, for example, is a useful measure of how 
much an audience likes a game, but a useless measure of how much an audience 
likes a world. Myst doesn't measure up perfectly in all respects 
(accessibility: excellent, objectivity: good, attractiveness: good, richness: 
fair, responsiveness: poor) but overall it scores far better than most games, 
especially at the time it was released.

- Walt