I feel like such a dip. First I go on about Allen Varney’s writing, and now I feel the need to pimp out the work of Jim Rossignol, Keiron Gillen, and Alec Meer over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Kerion’s most recent post (very germaine to the site here, don’t you know) is all about the Making of A Tale in the Desert.

Abstractly these are simple challenges, but its implications could lead to all manner of human problems. To see how players reacted to this, consider the Test of the bureaucracy. “A few people are assigned the precious opportunity to start a bureaucracy,” explains [Teppy], “You do well in this test by growing it as big as you can. It’s an organisational puzzle. Anyone in the bureaucracy can take it over, and so gain its resources. It’s easy for them to do it. In fact, people who are lower ranked in the bureaucracy, so are giving lots of points for you, but getting few for themselves… and there’s the most of them, they have the most to gain by taking over, ruining your hard work and taking it for themselves. It’s a test to see how you manage a large organisation.”

Other great posts from the site include:

• Commentary on the first EVE Econ report.
• The true story of yet another bughunt.
• An interview with Henry Jenkins.
• The making of Dungeon Siege.
• A pimp for Drift City, an F2p driving MMOG.
• The making of Sacrifice. (I really love this game.)

If you’re into PC gaming (and if you’re not, why are you reading this site), I highly recommend their work. Poets all.

Not only was the Werewolf event in ATITD eventually successful, apparently it also led Teppy to think along some new lines about how A Tale In the Desert is played. First, his comments on how the previously discussed Werewolf event went:

“Although over 400 people participated in the event (an ATITD record), only the minority designated as Werewolves and Seers reported that the event was fun. Most normal Villagers said that the event was boring because they had nothing to do. At least a dozen people told me that ‘all you can do is hope that a seer contacts you.’  I re-ran the event a few days later … with largely the same result …  So I decided that I would run the event one final time … Before this final run I conducted a chat in the ENN channel talking about the need to take risks playing this event. I restructured the prize pool to further encourage that, making it so that Villagers needed to participate in Werewolf lynchings to win prizes. While waiting around as a Villager, hoping a Seer makes contact may seem like a safe strategy, a careful analysis indicates that it may not be any safer than initiating contact with random people. And, I proposed, it’s not nearly as much fun. I spent about 5 hours playing Werewolf as a Villager, taking risks at every turn. It was great! I felt like a contestant on Survivor! My full account can be found in the ENN logs, but the quick summary was that this “risky” play style was a blast.”

He then goes on to say that, essentially, the event made him realize that a lack of communication may be part of the problem new players have with ATITD’s play-style.

So I’ve been thinking, how does this apply to ATITD as a whole? So many people have told me that ATITD itself is among their greatest game experiences. Yet we’re still a very small community. But, I have the same intuition about ATITD as I did the Werewolf event within ATITD: If only we (you guys, and me!) can communicate *how* to approach ATITD, we would see our ranks grow.

Now, I love rotting flax as much as the next guy, but I’m not sure this is entirely the issue that ATITD faces when trying to attract new players. Lots of MMOGers still have to spend a long time getting over the “…wait, you don’t kill anything?” part of the equation. Just the same, interesting to see how it all turned out.

For the record though, give Damion a point.

Teppy sent out an email announcing a ‘welcome back’ event for ATITD III. Go back and see what’s happened since you left, etc. Standard stuff. What caught my eye was his announcement of a cool Halloween-themed event. While most in-game events net you trinket and baubles, and meaningless candy, this ATITD event sounds hella cool:

I’m attending a games conference next week, and on the newsletter, one of the people attending mentioned a game called “Mafia.” A local friend from Burning Man suggested playing a game called “Murder,” and while browsing the web, I noticed an old acquaintance had written a web page about a game called “Werewolf.” It turns out that these are all essentially  the same game, but how strange to encounter this three times in one week! I’ve decided to adapt Andrew Plotkin’s “Werewolf” version as a special Halloween event. After doing some research online, I believe the biggest Mafia-type game ever played was around 100 players, so my goal is to beat that: To have the biggest such game in history, within ATITD. I’ll explain how it works:

• Starting Friday at 7:00PM EST (GMT-0500) you will be able to build a Mortuary Temple. The cost is 13 boards, 13 Slate, and 13 Bricks. Mortuary Temples must be built within 100 coordinates of a Chariot Stop. You’ll have 24 hours to build your Mortuary Temple.
• On Saturday at 8:00PM EST (GMT-0500), you’ll find out if you are a Villager, a Werewolf, or a Seer (special Villager). Don’t reveal this information publicly!
• Play proceeds in a series of 60 minute rounds. The first round takes place at “night.” Werewolves sniff around at the Mortuary Temples to pick up the scent of Villagers. Werewolves can also pick up a Villager’s scent by sniffing them directly. Any Villager whose scent has been picked up can be attacked. If three werewolves attack a Villager in the same night, the Villager dies. Werewolves can recognize other Werewolves by scent, and may do this up to 3 times each day.
• During the “day,” it’s the Villagers’ turn to play. Each Villager votes on one person to lynch - hopefully a Werewolf! If a person gets 7 votes, they die, and it is revealed whether they were a Werewolf.
• Some Villagers are Seers. A Seer can check to see if a player is a werewolf up to twice a day. In other words, because of their knowledge, Seers are dangerous to Werewolves! If you are a Seer, it’s best not to let that be commonly known, or you are likely to be targeted by Werewolves the next night. Seers can not vote.
• The game ends when there have been no killings for 2 consecutive days. If there remain more Villagers (including Seers), then the Villagers win, otherwise the Werewolves win. Ghostly prizes will be awarded to only one side, and only to those that remain alive until the end.

Given the appreciation gamers already having for play, this is a no-brainer win-win situation that I’m surprised I haven’t seen elsewhere. Certainly, there have been instances of classic games in massive titles before (clone-alikes of puzzle games in Puzzle Pirates, Pipes in Dungeons and Dragons Online), but this is an intuitive, easy Real Life game ported to a game world in a somewhat logical manner. I think it’s brilliant, and I hope the event goes well.

Waaaay back in the WoW Beta I remember talk floating around about mini-games in taverns. Darts, or games of that nature. I’m not sure that such simple fair would get used all that much, and the developers obviously decided to invest their time elsewhere. Just the same, the promise of games-within-games is intriguing.

For example, licensing the mechanics of Settlers of Catan would allow for an interesting form of PvP. Two teams rush to claim an island, utilizing the resources to greatest effect before the other side can. So, it’s like: “I’ll trade you two wood for my … AXE TO THE FACE!” Now that would be some good times.

Some days, I just love Terra Nova to Death. Ed Castronova has some info from Ludium I about the possibility that there is ‘girl stuff’ that can be done in MMOGs. Teppy (bless em’) has gone ahead and included them in ATITD III.

“The Marriage Game” is now known as The Test of Marriage. One change  from the way it was presented at Ludium I is that your score is the sum of  your progress and your mate’s progress *or* the number of marriages that  you (”Casanova”) have been in. This made it a lot more palatable to our  players, without changing the optimal play strategy. It will be  interesting to see the distribution of “Casanovas” vs. “good spouses”, and  to see if there is some correlation with player gender. 

Not only do I think these are great ideas, this Marriage game should be in every single MMOG, from EQ to WoW. The duo/couple is probably the most common RL and in-game group, and having some sort of formal recognition of that connection would be freaking sweet. Don’t forget to allow same-gender unions!

All this week, Kill Ten Rats has had posts about games that do things right. They’ve had commentary on the good elements of Eve Online, ATITD, and Puzzle Pirates.

I’ll toss out some game elements I really like from the games that I have played:

• Housing in EQ2 and SWG - Consistently, whether it’s a hardcore raider or a foofy RPer, I’ve yet to meet a MMOG player who didn’t like the idea of character housing. The idea of having a place to hang your hat is really appealing, and both EQ2 and SWG do a great job with their systems.
• Class System in FFXI - Being able to try out different class roles with the same character is wonderful. I (as with many MMOG players) get attached to my main character, and I’d love to be able to experience new things with him. Deleting him and rerolling is not the ideal.
• Puzzles and Traps in DDO - The best thing in that game, in my opinion. Real-time interaction with traps and puzzles made for some actually quite enjoyable moments.

I’m not all that nice, though. Here are some things I have yet to really see nailed:

• Combat - My favorite combat system is probably WoW’s, and I still don’t like it that much. The idea of MXO’s combat is terrific, but the implimentation sucks. I was really looking forward to the crazy customizability of Tabula Rasa’s combat, and then they changed the game design. Considering as much combat as I’ve done in MMOGs, you’d think I would have a better time doing it. Learn from console games! Fresh experiences on the lowest level leads to fun further up the food chain.
• Crafting - I love Puzzle Pirates‘ system, about 50%, and I love SWG’s system about 50%. If those systems had the sex and made babies, I would be in luuuuuuve.
• NPC Interaction - Please see Oblivion and Mass Effect for what you should be aiming at, developers. Eye contact, please! Also: if you have to voicecast every role make sure they don’t sound bored at talking to my awesome self, okay?

The banner for May is in honor of the Beta test for A Tale in the Desert’s Third Telling. The second Beta period goes up this Friday. If you’ve been interested in the game previously, and haven’t checked it out, the next few weeks are a good chance to get in on the ground floor. Fun, and very very different, game.

Raph has a post up entitled “What are the lessons of MMORPGs today?” As a commenter says, it’s a ‘whats wrong with those damned renderMUDs nowadays’ post, and it comes off as kinda cranky. Or, at least it makes me a little cranky. Witness my crank-fu after the cut.

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