Chapter: Influences on Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds are not a self-contained phenomenon, insulated from the real world. Trivially, the hardware on which they run is part of the real world and therefore they themselves must be considered a part of it. However, there are other ways in which the real world can influence the virtual. From a designer's point of view, the most important of these are those that also involve the construction of imaginary?if not quite virtual?worlds. In practice, this means books, magazines, movies, television series, and (perhaps most importantly) role-playing games.
Printed Works
The single most important influence on virtual worlds from fiction is J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings[72] trilogy. Although it would be of huge significance merely for having established the genre of High Fantasy, its ultimate worth lies in its depiction of an imagined world. It's not the particular world it describes that is momentous (although Middle Earth is indeed classic source material for people writing new text-based games); rather, it's that creating a fully realized, make-believe world was shown to be actually possible. Prior to The Lord of the Rings, worlds of such depth were practically unknown.
[72] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1954.
The word "practically" is used because there were immensely detailed imaginary worlds before, but they evolved over centuries and had many authors. Folk tales, while perhaps originally having some basis in fact, nevertheless changed over the telling, drifting toward some popular shared setting that gave listeners a context. Individual stories had a place and time, so no background had to be given, and they in turn made a contribution to enriching the overall canon. These collections of tales set in what were to become shared fictional worlds gave rise to such well-loved anthologies as Britain's Arthurian Legends, the Middle East's 1001 Nights, and China's The Water Margin.
The other great source of imaginary worlds is religion. This is a little trickier to discuss, because whereas few people today would disagree that the worlds of Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic gods were completely imaginary, the suggestion that there might be fictional elements in the Jewish Torah, Roman Catholic Apocrypha, or Hindu Ramayana?to name but a few?is just asking for trouble. The issue of real world religion in virtual worlds is debated in Chapter 8, "Coda: Ethical Considerations;" for the moment, it's sufficient to note that religion can be a source of imaginary worlds comparable in breadth and depth to those that are accepted myth, but you'd have to be brave or stupid to use a living one.
What J. R. R. Tolkien showed was that imaginary worlds did not have to emerge from amalgamations of the ideas of many people; it was possible for an individual to construct a believable world from first principles (although he did draw on many tropes from existing myth as part of Middle Earth's architecture). The sheer amount of vision he produced, maintained over six books in three volumes, is breathtaking. It's small wonder that the imaginative possibilities raised by The Lord of the Rings are as much an inspiration for designers of virtual worlds today as they were for the authors of MUD1.
That said, the actual content of MUD1 wasn't drawn from Middle Earth. The game's terrain was English and the inhabitants were pure fairytale?it had "dwarfs" rather than "dwarves," for example, and no elves, orcs, nor hobbits whatsoever. There was a fictional influence, but it was due to the sword and sorcery of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian[73] series rather than The Hobbit[74]. Long novels aren't as good as action-oriented short stories for evoking the heart-in-your-mouth style adventure that MUD1's world was intended (among other things) to deliver.
[73] Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword. Chicago, Weird Tales, Popular Fiction Publishing Co., December 1932.
[74] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1937.
Beyond The Lord of the Rings, the influence of fiction on virtual worlds is three types:
Direct. The virtual world is an implementation of a familiar fictional world such as Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time[75] or Terry Pratchett's Discworld[76].
[75] Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World. New York, Tor Books, 1990.
[76] Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic. London, Colin Smythe, 1983.
Partial. The virtual world is inspired by a particular work of fiction or a genre that is derived from one. It might have the same "mutant academy" idea of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's X-Men[77], but let you create your own superheroes.
[77] Stan Lee (writer) and Jack Kirby (artist), X-Men. New York, X-Men, Marvel Comics, September 1963.
Indirect. The virtual world implements or is inspired by some other work which itself is an adaptation of a book or comic series. A virtual world design team might decide to adopt the Dungeons & Dragons magic system without necessarily knowing that E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (authors of Dungeons & Dragons) themselves adopted the idea from the novels of Jack Vance[78].
[78] Jack Vance, The Dying Earth. New York, Hillman Periodicals, 1950.
Given the choice, most professional virtual world designers would prefer to design their own, original virtual world. They have good enough imaginations that they don't need to steal from fiction (yet are regularly asked "where do you get your ideas from?"as if they couldn't just think them up unaided). Like a scriptwriter adapting a book for the big screen, designers working to a license might genuinely enjoy what they're doing but, deep down, they'd rather be exploring their own imagination than someone else's. For this reason, designers tend to approach novels analytically, deconstructing them for their form rather than their content.
There is, however, a fourth category of fiction that has subject matter in itself of use to designers. These are the books that are about virtual worlds; not in the pedagogical way that this book is, but far more speculatively. Books of this kind are of great interest to the designers of virtual worlds because they actually involve consideration of design issues. Suppose that all implementational and commercial problems have been solved, and people can physically visit invented worlds from reality: What might they find there?
In early examples of the genre, such as Larry Niven and Steven Barnes' Dream Park[79] and Vernor Vinge's True Names[80], the authors had not encountered virtual worlds[81] and were therefore writing from a position of pure conjecture. Nevertheless, they raised several issues about the design of virtual worlds that have proven to be quite prescient. Dream Park, for example, asks questions about narrative and ownership that were to be raised again some 20 years later when the debate about ongoing content provision for fifth-age graphical virtual worlds began in earnest. True Names made the distinction between player and persona (the real-world identity of an individual being a persona's "true name") and explored some of the consequences of identity masking that this enables.
[79] Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, Dream Park. New York, Ace Books, 1981.
[80] Vernor Vinge, True Names. James R. Frenkel (ed.), Binary Star #5. New York, Dell, 1981. Full text available at http://members.tripod.com/erythrina/index.html.
[81] Although True Names makes a direct reference to Adventure (ADVENT) and Dream Park does the same with Zork.
When Cyberpunk brought new meaning to the term "cutting edge" in the Science Fiction literary scene of the mid-1980s, the future of virtual worlds immediately seemed laid out with neon clarity. In Dream Park, virtual worlds were glorified real-world theme parks; in True Names, they were stored in computers that people reached through electrode "portals" suckered to the head; by William Gibson's tour de force novel Neuromancer[82], access was through neural jacks making direct electronic connections to the brain. Surely this was to be the ultimate in imaginary experience made real? The notion of cyberspace?data represented as imagery within a shared virtual environment?burst into public consciousness. Virtual worlds were merely a manifestation of virtual reality; the interface not only brought the message, it determined it. The syntax shaped the semantics.
[82] William Gibson, Neuromancer. New York, Ace Books, 1984.
It was easy to forget that Cyberpunk fiction was just that: fiction. It was predictive in the cautionary sense, showing how things might become, not how they would become. Part of Cyberpunk's agenda was to show that although technology offers a way forward, people could corrupt it for their own ends. That which has the potential to bestow liberty can be twisted to the cause of oppression or anarchy. Thus, it was in the interests of Cyberpunk authors to show cyberspace as a slick, high-tech victory of form over substance, hip and happening yet shallow and soulless but for its dark, in-shadow periphery. The cold, objective way that virtual space was depicted (as a network of freeform, three-dimensional statistical symbols) conveyed the impression that getting to cyberspace was more important than what was there when you arrived.
Many people find the neurotechnology envisaged in Neuromancer exciting, because (were it ever available) it would provide a means of entering a virtual world totally and completely[83]. It is unlikely, however, that any virtual world they did visit would look like a classic Cyberpunk vision unless the designers deliberately took such as their model[84]. This was acknowledged in William Gibson's later Cyberpunk novel, Idoru[85], which distinguished between network-as-medium and network-as-place by explicitly referring to virtual worlds as MUDs.
[83] Personally, I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than have a chip in my head.
[84] A virtual world set in a fictional Cyberpunk milieu such as Neuromancer's "Sprawl" has, of course, been done many times?a fact sadly lost on the "kewl d00ds" who play games such as EverQuest as if merely being in cyberspace meant being in Cyberpunk.
[85] William Gibson, Idoru. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1996.
Cyberpunk teaches designers a number of valuable lessons about the sociology and psychology of players and the responsibilities of developers. Virtual worlds are not insulated from the real world; they can't be regarded as solely the purview of their designers, publishers, or even players. Their influence extends into the real world, and therefore the real world extends into them. Ultimately, though, the relationship is one-sided: The real world always wins in the end.
Cyberpunk was the evangelizing prophet of virtual reality, but, once the hype died down, other authors were able to look at the new reality and use that as their starting point for speculative work. Media darling LambdaMOO was an obvious first point of contact for people considering writing speculatively about virtual worlds, although in itself it was hardly representative of what was already out there.
Perhaps the most impressive of those novels first to be informed by extant virtual worlds is Tad Williams' Otherland[86] series. This monumental[87] work traces the fortunes of a number of disparate individuals accessing the "Otherland" virtual world of its title. Among the many things the series gets right that Cyberpunk got wrong are
[86] Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow. New York, DAW books, 1998.
[87] Four paperbacks weighing a total of 850g?about a pound each. I told you it was impressive…!
Client/server model dynamics. The gradual shift in importance from how powerful the client hardware is to how powerful the server hardware is.
Multi-faceted worlds within worlds. This is typical of MOOs and other builder-centric code bases (such as the book's "Otherland").
Inter-world object mapping, so that taking an object from one sub-world to another replaces it with a functional equivalent (an analogue). This is indeed how designers intend to handle transfers of objects and characters between virtual worlds.
Player attitudes to gender-presentation betrayal. When people say they're something they aren't and get in too deep.
Understanding of immersion (the sense of being "in" a virtual world). Cyberpunk mistook visualization for immersion: The two are not the same.
Virtual worlds modeled on the real world. If what you see looks and behaves like reality, you feel you're "there" more than if it looks and behaves like a gridwork of platonic solids.
Recognizing that people have expectations of degrees of reality within the virtual world. Fulfilling these expectations leads to increased immersion and denying it leads to decreased immersion. People don't want worlds to have anthropomorphic content merely because they feel more comfortable in them that way.
The difficulty of distinguishing between computer-generated characters in the virtual world and ones under the control of human beings, and (more importantly) the consequences of not being able to tell. People have already been fooled into believing that virtual players are real ones for extended periods; many more will undoubtedly follow.
Of course, the series also gets some things wrong of its own account. The attitude that characters (in the first book) have to persona death, for example, is at odds with how people in the real world tend feel on the subject (real people are far less stoic). On the whole, though, it offers much for virtual world designers to ponder. Besides, no designer could possibly criticize a book that names a virtual mall after LambdaMOO and has the opening line:
It started in mud, as many things do[88].
[88] I asked Tad Williams, and he confirmed that this really is a sly reference to MUD (that is, MUD1). Is that groovy or what?
Film and Television
Most original fictional ideas appear in magazine, comic, or book form first, because these are far less expensive to produce than movies or TV series (or even stage plays). Many of the top-grossing movies, year after year, are based on stories or characters that first appeared in print.
Unsurprisingly, the influence of film and television on virtual worlds falls into the same categories as does that of books and comics:
Direct. Star Wars Galaxies is set in the Star Wars[89] universe. There are textual virtual worlds based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer[90], The Lion King[91], Battlestar Galactica[92], and Tron[93]?to name but a few.
[89] George Lucas (writer and director), Star Wars. USA, 20th Century Fox, 1977.
[90] Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. USA, WB network, 1997.
[91] Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton (writers) and Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff (directors), The Lion King. USA, Walt Disney Pictures, 1994.
[92] Donald P. Bellisario, Battlestar Galactica. USA, ABC network, 1978.
[93] Steven Lisberger (writer and director) and Bonnie Macbird (writer), Tron. USA, Walt Disney Pictures, 1982.
Partial. There are virtual worlds derived from the concept behind A Bug's Life[94]. Toontown[95] is a graphical world set in the Disney cartoon universe.
[94] John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton (writers and directors) and Joe Ranft (writer), A Bug's Life. USA, Walt Disney Pictures, 1998.
[95] http://www.toontown.com
Indirect. The original Sailor Moon[96] comic books were concordantly made into an animated series, which in turn was implemented as a virtual world (indeed, several of them).
[96] Naoko Takeuchi, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon. Tokyo, Nakayoshi, Kodansha, February 1992.
Meta. The Truman Show[97] says much about virtual world design, of narrative, and of the nature of reality.
[97] Andrew Niccol (writer) and Peter Weir (director), The Truman Show. USA, Paramount Pictures, 1998.
Because of the crossovers between the media, the treatment of virtual worlds in film and television has paralleled that of novels, from the theme park beginnings of Michael Crichton's Westworld[98] to the neural implants of the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix[99]. Superficially, then, it appears as if books and movies will always tend to explore the same themes. This is not, however, necessarily the case.
[98] Michael Crichton (writer and director), Westworld. USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1973.
[99] Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski (writers and directors), The Matrix. USA, Warner Brothers, 1999.
It is the nature of books to tell and films to show. Thus, Westworld showed damaged robots being repaired for re-insertion into the virtual world (identifying what later came to be known as spawning), whereas Dream Park told what it was like to play (presaging the "it's just a game" arguments that still surface today).
By showing, a movie or TV series can present a situation in a direct manner, whereas a book (or even a comic) would take time to tell the same thing. If you see an image on a screen, it can convey in an instant what might take a minute to read. There are limitations on what can be shown, though, that don't apply to what can be told (you can't really "show" thoughts, for example, just the consequences of people having had them). Books are about imagination, whereas films are about sensory experience. Films concretize what books visualize. It's not an inconsistency of law that heavily pornographic movies are illegal but heavily pornographic literature isn't: With films, what you see is what you get; with books, what you get is what you see.
For designers of virtual worlds, one of the most important tropes from film and TV that would not work as well in print is the holodeck from Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Next Generation[100] and spin-offs (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine[101] and, in particular, Star Trek: Voyager[102]). The holodeck is a programmable environment with which real (in the context of the TV show) people can interact as if it were (their) reality. For example, a character might create and then enter a simulation of Victorian London, assuming the role of Sherlock Holmes. This works on the screen better than it does on the page because the world and the character's degree of immersion in it are immediately apparent; they require no unveiling. The situation is at once accepted, and the episode can progress to examining the issues it suggests. This can't happen in a book unless you're already familiar with the concept of holodecks from the TV show.
[100] Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek: The Next Generation. USA, Paramount, 1987.
[101] Rick Berman and Michael Piller, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. USA, Paramount, 1993.
[102] Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, and Michael Piller, Star Trek: Voyager. USA, Paramount, 1995.
Holodecks, although occasionally used for serious purposes such as testing engine designs, are primarily viewed within the Star Trek universe as an entertainment medium. From this perspective, the main lessons to be learned from holodecks are
They allow characters to express sides of themselves that they may not be able to do in reality[103]. One captain may play a low-life film noir detective; another, a romantic lead. The holodeck is a liberating, albeit temporary, release from reality.
[103] "Reality" here is in the context of the Star Trek universe, not ours.
They distinguish between undirected and directed environments. A representation of a bar where characters can go to hang out would be an example of the former; an interactive "holonovel" to prevent a 1930s-style evil emperor from ruling the galaxy (while rescuing a feisty princess) would be an example of the latter.
Creating virtual environments is in itself a fun activity.
The representation of a living person without their permission is rude, but not forbidden. This is just as well, given that they always find out.
They are a magnet for alien life forms unable to distinguish between the false reality presented by the holodeck and the true reality in which the holodeck exists. It's a metaphor for people who believe everything they see on TV[104].
[104] Or read in books, such as this one.
They malfunction to the extent that they pose a greater threat to the health of crewmembers than a direct hit from a photon torpedo to the ship's hull with all shields down. This is as a consequence of Star Trek itself being subject to the same laws of drama that it imposes on its holonovels.
Many of the virtual worlds that exist today are, in some ways, more mature than Star Trek's vision of the future; this is particularly the case with regards to the social norms that have evolved through their use. However, where the concept of the holodeck is most useful is in thought experiments: Were holodecks to exist, what new areas of narrative, performance, and self-awareness would they enable? Are these desirable or undesirable consequences? Could these new areas already exist?or be made to exist?in some form, using the technology of today?
The difference between showing and telling is not the only one between books and movies. Equally important is that, in general, movies will get more exposure (and will therefore be the more influential) than books. This means they will provide a greater cultural touchstone. Few people have read Philip K. Dick's short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale[105], but the movie it inspired, Total Recall[106], grossed $119,394,839 in the United States alone in 1990[107]. The movie might cause virtual world designers to consider how to stop player involvement derailing prewritten plot lines; the short story won't, simply because few?if any?designers have read it.
[105] Philip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." New York, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mercury Press, April 1966.
[106] Ronald Shusett & Dan O'Bannon and Gary Goldman (writers) and Paul Verhoeven (director), Total Recall. USA, TriStar, 1990.
[107] Source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/y90.html
In the same way that some worlds work better as books than on the screen (for example, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia[108] series) and some work better as movies than in print (for example, George Miller and James McCausland's Mad Max[109] series), some virtual worlds work better in text than in graphics and vice versa. The reasons for this are explained in Chapter 4, but for now it's enough simply to note the fact because it leads to an interesting analogy (that most readers will doubtless have figured out already).
[108] C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London, Geoffrey Bles, 1950.
[109] George Miller (writer and director) and James McCausland (writer), Mad Max. Australia, American International Pictures, 1979.
Basically, it can be constructive to regard textual virtual worlds as being like books, and graphical ones as being like movies. Books and textual worlds are cheap to create, more amenable to risk-taking, and they talk to the imagination; movies and graphical worlds are highly expensive productions, less inclined to experiment, and they talk to the senses. Similarly, few textual virtual worlds have the same profile as graphical ones, so when people see that Star Wars Galaxies has a hairdressing skill and think it's cool, they won't necessarily know that text-based games like Castle Marrach have had the same thing for years. They just think Star Wars Galaxies is better than EverQuest.
So it goes.
Books and movies, well known and respected art forms that they are, nevertheless rarely contain practical information that virtual world designers can actually use. They can suggest genres, directions, issues, problems, and (occasionally) solutions, but not in any great detail. It's like using a Canaletto painting of Venice as source material for a novel set in the city in 1740: You may get a great sense of La Serenissima's atmospheric grandeur, and may in time be able to construct an impression of what everyday life there might have been like, what challenges the people faced; on the whole, though, a resident's diary would be far more useful for your purposes.
So is there an equivalent to the resident's diary for virtual world designers, for those times when realism is preferred to idealism?
Yes, there is: role-playing games.
Role-Playing Games
Role-playing games (RPGs) have always had an important influence on virtual worlds.
Role-playing is basically acting, and therefore has its roots in ancient history. It has many uses beyond theatrical expression (for example in psychology, education, and training), but it wasn't until the 1973 arrival of E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)[110] that the concept of role-playing games finally crystallized. Dungeons & Dragons was a fusion of traditional tabletop wargames and interactive storytelling, in which one player (the referee, later to be known as the Dungeon Master/Mistress (DM) or Games Master/Mistress (GM)) designed an imaginary world into which a number of players would go. The referee would describe what the players could see, hear, feel, and so on, and the players would explain what they (or, more correctly, their characters) would do. The referee would then roll a few dice to determine the consequences of these actions in the context of the imaginary world, which would in turn cause the players to try new actions, and so on. Virtual worlds are very close to tabletop RPGs except they have computerized referees.
[110] E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Dungeons & Dragons. Lake Geneva WI, Tactical Studies Rules, 1973.
Being games, RPGs need rules. Because the referee has to construct the imaginary world, these rules do not only describe how to play the game but how to create a game world?which may entail writing new, world-specific rules. Thus, these are actually rule systems. Although referees can and do create vast campaigns (as these worlds, or partial worlds, are known), it takes a lot of time to do so. For this reason, referees may use rule sets that have been adapted for their chosen genre (imperial Rome, horror, far future, wild west, whatever) and use these as a starting point. Others will acquire predefined modules, often written by professional games designers, which define a self-contained sub-world. These sub-worlds have explicit goals for the players and solution paths appropriate to the players' characters' abilities.
Some of the genre-specific information researched for these games can save valuable time for the designers of those virtual worlds that are set in the same place or period (which, as tabletop role-playing games tend to draw on the same fictional and historical influences as virtual worlds, is often the case). Indeed, the information they provide can be so well organized, accurate, and complete that it can benefit people not remotely interested in role-playing games or virtual worlds. Anyone wanting to write about, say, the golden age of piracy, should seriously consider buying a specialist rule set for that genre as a starting point[111].
[111] Where else are you going to find out how many knots a 300-ton pinnace beating a 5-knot wind could make?
Virtual worlds can therefore benefit from tabletop RPGs in four important areas:
The basic rules of the game.
The rules for creating an imaginary world.
Rule sets for particular genres.
Modules for actual game experiences.
It is no coincidence that this reflects well the driver/mudlib/world model/instantiation breakdown of virtual world codebase architecture; the two systems really do have a lot in common. They even have branches at some of the same points: Steve Jackson's GURPS[112] system, for example, is LPMUD-like in that it provides common gaming and creation rules for different environments (feudal Japan, swashbucklers, time travel, you name it), whereas Kevin Siembieda's Rifts[113] system is more MUSH-like in that it ties multiple sub-worlds into a single coherent whole.
[112] Steve Jackson: GURPS: Generic Universal RolePlaying System. Austin, TX, Steve Jackson Games, 1986.
[113] Kevin Siembieda, Rifts. Taylor MI, Palladium Books, 1990.
Virtual worlds borrow from RPGs at all levels. MUD1's level system came from D&D, as a neat way to give players intermediate goals. The DikuMUD codebase draws heavily on first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) and Bioware's reincarnated NeverWinter Nights implements the 3rd edition AD&D rules very faithfully indeed. There are textual worlds set in environments designed for role-playing games, such as Mark Rein Hagen's Vampire: The Masquerade[114]. There are even virtual worlds based on specific game modules, for example city campaigns for Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms[115].
[114] Mark Rein Hagen, Vampire: the Masquerade. Stone Mountain GA, White Wolf Games Studio, 1991.
[115] See http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~tojan/fore/forefaq.htm for the Forgotten Realms story.
Although pencil-and-paper role-playing games can be used as a means to "dry run" virtual worlds, it is a mistake to believe that everything in the one is always transferable to the other. The two may be similar, but they are not identical; where they differ, the differences are profound.
The human referees of role-playing games have an intelligence that the computer referees of virtual worlds do not. They can create new content immediately, and are responsive to the needs of their players. What they lack, however, is speed, memory, and bandwidth. A human-moderated world may be more vivid than a computer-moderated one (because its level of detail can be tailored to the moment), but it doesn't work the same way as the real one and is thus ultimately less convincing[116].
[116] Computer-moderated worlds don't work the same way either, of course, but they act enough like the real world to merit the term "virtual." Note that this is to do with how a computer-moderated world handles multiple events in parallel in (near) real time, rather than the differences between speech, text, and graphics.
What's more, players of a human-moderated world can exert out-of-context influence over the referee and each other. If a squid picks up a sword and starts fighting with it, a player might say to a human referee, "Hey, squids can't do that!" The referee can reply appropriately to the situation. For example: "If you check the manual, page 54…" (correcting a misconception); "this one can" (mild hint); "perhaps it only looks like a squid?" (stronger hint); "some swords can control their wielders, you know" (mis direction); "you're right, its balance would be all wrong" (recognition of mistake); "you spot a thin wire attached to the sword" (taking the objection as an implicit command for the character to look closer).
If a squid picks up a sword in a computer-moderated world, well, the squid picks up the sword. The virtual world is as inviolate as the real one: Waving your fist at rain clouds while asking your deity of preference what you've done to deserve a soaking may make you feel better, but on the whole you're not going to get an apology[117].
[117] Some heavily role-playing virtual worlds may be flexible enough to do this, and ones with strongly-managed storyline events (for example, Achaea) can do it too. It basically depends on whether there's an administrator on hand able to address the issue there and then; in this case, there effectively is a deity for you to wave your fist at!
So what developments in human-moderated worlds don't transfer to computer-moderated (that is, virtual) worlds?
Anything subjective. Alignment does not travel well, because a computer can't quantify the concepts involved. Can a "good" character attack a player who boasts of being a thief? What if they've seen the character steal something? What if the theft was of an object that had itself been stolen from the thief? What if the thief originally bought the object from a fence, who got it from another thief? Human beings can make value judgments, but computers are hopeless at it.
Anything individualistic. Most modern role-playing games are classless and skills-based. They let players decide the directions in which to advance their characters. Most virtual worlds have classes, races, and guilds to coerce players to band together. This helps players who don't know each other in real life to bond; it also serves as a means to introduce goals into player activities. It promotes role-playing[118].
[118] Actually, it doesn't. The heaviest role-playing virtual worlds (MUCKs, MUSHes) have fewer constraints on characters, not more. This is a pet peeve of mine, which will become more evident when I harp on about it in Chapter 3.
Not everything theoretical. Although the general principles of world design and role-playing have been analyzed over the years, and a good deal of what has been discovered is indeed applicable to virtual worlds, not all of it is. The danger here is that the studious virtual world designer will miss the boundary and go too far (for example, in creating believable non-player characters) or emphasize the wrong thing (for example, plotting over atmosphere).
Anything meta-interactive. Players can interact with a virtual world[119], but they can't do so beyond its context. Builders can breach the context, but they can only act on the virtual world, they can't enter any kind of dialogue with it. Players of diceless role-playing games like Erick Wujcik's Amber[120], on the other hand, interact with the referee (that is, the world) the entire time.
[119] Players for whom this is their defining activity are called "explorers." See Chapter 3.
[120] Erick Wujcik, Amber Diceless Role-Playing. Detroit, Phage Press, 1992.
So long as these distinctions are not important to the rule system, a transfer is achievable. Gary Gygax's RPG Lejendary Adventure is now being developed as a virtual world[121]. It is possible.
[121] http://di.gamepoint.net/lejendary/en/
Transfers (and nontransfers) of expertise in the opposite direction, while perhaps important for the designers of role-playing games, are of little consequence for the designers of virtual worlds; they are therefore not considered here, except to note that there is a significant overlap between the "hard core" virtual world players, the players of single-player role-playing games such as Bioware's Baldur's Gate, and the players of pencil-and-paper role-playing games[122].
[122] Newt Forager, a secondary character in Jolly R. Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table comic book series, got into role-playing games from playing MUDs. Aren't you glad that you read all these footnotes?
It should be mentioned that there is a third option for role-playing that calls on neither computers nor human beings to moderate the world. This is live-action role-playing (LARP), where people use the real world to model a fantasy world[123]. In Dungeons & Dragons, you roll dice to see if your arrow hits an enemy; in Dark Age of Camelot, the computer calculates the odds; in a LARP, the flight of the (safety-tipped) arrow through the air is the only measure of success. Things the game wants to have that the real world doesn't are represented by symbols. For example, casting magic spells might be represented by throwing flour or birdseed at the target, or by passing a small token.
[123] In practice, there do tend to be human referees too, but they're not essential.
The influence of LARP on the design of virtual worlds has not been great, mainly because of the relatively small numbers of people involved. This is a shame, as there are many different LARP systems of potential interest to virtual world designers, offering practical illustrations that ground the mere speculation of, say, Dream Park. Virtual world designers are, on the whole, aware of LARP, but not appraised of it. They're consequently more likely to talk to actors rather than LARPers when they have their next brilliant idea to pay people to spend eight hours a day in character while role-playing personalities in their worlds. This is another shame.
Why isn't LARP more popular? Practical matters of organization aside, the main problem is that content in LARP is thinner and more expensive than in tabletop role-playing games or virtual worlds. If the referee of a tabletop game creates a village near a mine, it doesn't matter if the adventurers never visit it?the content can be used elsewhere, the next time a generic village is needed. For a virtual world, it matters only slightly less; players may not visit the village very often or for the reasons the designer intended, but they will nevertheless visit it in time. In a LARP, if the adventurers don't make an appearance it means several people have been sitting around in villager costume for an entire afternoon to no avail; for this reason, LARPs' gameplay is often more collect-the-plot-piece oriented than their cousins', with most of the fun coming from the deep role-playing involved rather than the adventuring. While role-playing to this degree is great fun for many people[124], it can be very hard to get into, particularly if you're shy or retiring (that is, actually likely to be good at role-playing).
[124] Although it's not strictly LARP, I've seen re-creations of English Civil War battles that involved several thousand people (excluding ambulance staff).
One thing that these real world- and human-moderated worlds do show is that the role-playing experience can transcend any preconceptions of something being "only" a game. Role-playing is routinely used for non-game purposes, and appeals to people who would not (nor would they wish to) consider themselves as gamers. It's even used as a game by people who don't see themselves as gamers?How to Host a Murder is basically a mini-LARP. Many of the people who visit EverQuest, Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies do not believe themselves to be gamers at all (which is only fair, given that they aren't).
Other Influences
The design of virtual worlds is influenced by printed works, film, television, and role-playing games. Individual worlds may draw from other fields, too; for example, there are text MUDs set in console game worlds like that of Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy series, and there are scripting languages based on those used for military simulations. Anything requiring imagination can potentially be of value: These genuinely are "imaginary" worlds.
However, external factors are not the only ones at work here.
The greatest influence on the design of virtual worlds is (for better or for worse) the player base. Thus, anything that can influence existing or prospective players is itself an influence on the design of the virtual worlds they elect to play.
Some of this influence falls into the domain of marketing, which from the point of view of a designer can be viewed as a single pressure that is a convenient abstraction of the many other pressures the designer really, really doesn't want to know about. Further influence comes from customer service, which affects game designers more (in that they have to plan for it in their design), but again it can be viewed as a single pressure that is the summation of many other pressures off the designer's radar.
The remaining sources of influence are more direct, and should be consulted regularly:
Competitors. Virtual worlds evolve by trying new ideas, yes, but also by taking ideas that work from other virtual worlds and by discarding ideas that have been shown to fail. Every virtual world has some innovation, and they shouldn't be ignored simply because they weren't written by you or they use a different genre.
Opinion-forming publications. Reviews are important, as are regular columns: After all, even if a columnist were unilaterally to refer to virtual worlds as "MMO*s", sooner or later players would show up calling them MMO*s. However, a magazine's editorial policy matters the most, as it sets the tone for the articles. Computer Gaming World treats virtual worlds in a different manner than Wired, even though both are admirably responsible about the subject. Readers of one will get a different impression of virtual worlds than readers of the other.
Opinion-forming players. Players listen to each other, whether it's in the virtual world, in an online forum, or at a rant site. Surprisingly for designers, not every word uttered by players is patent nonsense; surprisingly for marketers and customer service people, not every word uttered by players is blindingly insightful. Players can swirl into a great maelstrom of creativity, but few of them truly understand game design[125]. This is a theme that surfaces time and time again when considering the design of virtual worlds.
[125] Those who have read this book, of course, will be able to claim otherwise.
Designers should not delude themselves that they can manipulate any of the above. Your fellow designers will usually be only too happy to explain to you those advances of which they're particularly proud (it's not like these things can be kept secret once beta-testing begins), but they won't change their minds on your say-so. Similarly, although those journalists that your marketers allow you to speak to may seem wide-eyed and gullible, that doesn't mean they really are. As for manipulating players, the customer service departments of some virtual worlds prohibit designers from even speaking to them, so disastrous can the consequences be if they do!
These are sources that can influence designers; the only way to influence them in return is through the designed virtual worlds.
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