After talking to the team about Faith, I had some thoughts which I hope may be constructive and help Faith succeed.

Having contemplated this quite a bit, I've concluded there are two main requirements for innovation to succeed. Probably I could define these more broadly, but they're the case when the innovation concerns a contemporary virtual world or MMO, and success means engaging casual gamers well.

First, the virtual world should possess involving/interesting themes and aesthetics. This may seem obvious, but the nature of its importance often isn't.

(Much of this will be review, but bear with me.) The reason for the success of many works is that they incorporate themes which are relevant to people, and which people respond to. MMOs tend to reference broader themes, since the main character often has significance only as he relates to greater conflicts, e.g. war's folly, racism, technology, religious symbolism and fanaticism, and shared humanity. ...Without themes, the vast majority of players would just think to themselves, "This fictional universe of this virtual world doesn't appeal to me. It's just what some idiot made up. I feel very detached from the narrative." Of course, there will always be people who don't respond to narrative, for whatever reason, but you want to provide opportunities for those who can to do. People won't play Faith just to RP, because they don't know if it's a world they would feel comfortable doing so in, so you can't expect to attract a playerbase that does all the work for you (in populating the worlds of Faith with citizens instead of just with wandering gamers, that is).  ...Many of these themes, especially ones I just listed, are very overused, and I think there are quite a few which would not only be a nice refresher, but could even have profound effects on individual player actions rather than just players' perceptions of their world. The archetypal RP characters that Nick Yee describes don't come from within the MMOs themselves, they mainly originate from characters in fantasy books which have similar themes (and of course, many people read the same books, and books share cliches, etc.). In the absence of personal themes, players borrowed them from somewhere which had the same broader themes. It's my belief that more personal or "existential" themes are very worth the effort of incorporation. Features of the world (note the term features rather than "quests") which provide people with opportunities to make real choices which necessarily define their character.

As far as aesthetics... hmm, I suppose this relates heavily to my upcoming second point. There's two aspects of it. First, content. You want textures and structures which are artistic, which inspire people to explore and live in the world. What really possesses people's aesthetic senses is not always easily determined, either. Although I think it's seen easily enough once you're able to detach yourself from what you know of the world and just try walking around the world pretending you have no identity other than someone who just magically appeared in the virtual world. Myst may have partially done so well because the protagonist is someone in that exact position, actually.

Another aspect of aesthetics is how the content relates to itself. To explain this better, I'll paste myself from elsewhere. ".... the consistency of the concepts conveyed by the game, within the game (as judged by the player, of course). If you expect the world to act a certain manner, then it should. For instance, if a world consisted of an exaggerated, cartoon landscape in which you could use a magic wand to turn household objects into small woodland creature, then a particular object which should qualify as a kitchen sink which virtual world architects had neglected to designate as transmutable would evidence a lack of [this]. It operates within the realm of implemented features and ideas expressed by the virtual world. ... Immersion can only persist as long as the player remains enchanted with [this aspect] of the world."

There's probably no obvious way to address aesthetics except to pay careful attention to the content you create, and employ talented artists, unfortunately. Well, until an open beta where you can listen to players (and aye, I'm sure there will be smart ones who will provide you reasonable advice, no one said you had to listen to any sort of majority).

Second, a virtual world should comfortably introduce features which are related to player/world-interaction. This is the only real requirement, actually, since if done properly it necessitates the first one.

That is, if you wish to introduce players to a feature they're not familiar with and may reject out of complexity or unfamiliarity, you don't want to force it upon them unless you have to (and you shouldn't). What I mean is to at first present players with features that are either intuitive or simple and readily made familiar, and allow players to progress and experience the virtual world satisfactorily, and then open the way for a more rich experience by allowing players to learn more advanced features when they've decided they're ready and desire to do so. Players should feel they're able to adequately express themselves and live in the world of Faith without needing to learn all the systems involved at a pace that isn't forced. Mainly, players should feel they can express themselves (and by that I just mean they don't feel restricted linearly) at any level of play.

If your game is progressing well but at some point you realize that the way you've set up the mechanics doesn't follow this strictly, I would recommend redesigning all relevant mechanics. I'm sure you will aim for this kind of set-up, but that's just the one consideration which I would really recommend. Faith won't be unsucessful if it doesn't do this, but it will be much more influential if it does this well.

Now, to discuss some concrete implications of what I've said.

A reason I believe your team may not fully realize the significance of themes / types of themes in respect to RP comes from what I've read of the Faithfuls' Faiths. This system will very probably decomplicate players by setting their primary characteristic to be that of a person who is a member of the Faith of which they're apart. Establishing broader themes for different Faiths and then allowing players the ability to apply those themes is a cheap and dirty way for players to define themselves for RP purposes, which promotes archetypal RP characteristics. When a player doesn't have to make a choice about whether to save someone's life or kill them, rather he can just click a button to associate himself with an organization whose members would be more or less likely to do so, you have lazily unhealthy (a description that I'd say borrows from the Bartle mentality) features. Of course, there are pros and cons to every design feature, and I don't make an issue out of this since your MMO will do fine with or without such constructs. For instance, perhaps you really want to simulate the real world in which people who come from the same backgrounds have similiar personalities and beliefs and are deficient in their individuality. This would allow the few actual individuals to stand out. However, if you want players as a whole to take creative initiative, there may be some kind of conflict there. As always, this is only a suggestion, though it's not an empty one.


Hmm, I think that's actually all I wanted to say. I wrote all of this about a week back, except for the 3 paragraphs relating to the second point, so I'm almost certainly forgetting some things, since I'm out of the mindframe in which I wrote this post. There's not much to be said when Faith is at such a heavily conceptual state, and you can't argue the logistics of ideals.

I'm sorry I don't make very many concrete points, and I hope this doesn't read like some kind of abstract essay. What I've typed is what I believe is important and relevant to Faith. Anyway, that's it.

Thanks Wysi, I'm taking some time going through your post. Just wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn't being ignored.

Regards,

Chris

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Chris E-A. It's in the name.

Thanks. Also, this isn't like a question topic, so if you just read it and decide you only want to respond to affirm that you've done so, that would be an example of something which would be perfectly fine.

A few other things I forgot to mention, also, which aren't important but I'll post them anyway.

First, Terragen, as found at http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ is something which has really amazed me for a while. It's procedurally generated, which would make it similar to how I understand the content system Cael's been working on will operate, so if you haven't seen this I would recommend you take a look, because I really love what that program can do. Generating something like http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/v/tg09gallery/CraterLake_aerial.jpg.html and then creating systems  for building/construction which would allow a player to transport materials from a far-away town and then slowly build a hidden residential area suitable for a criminal group out of that area, for instance. Or perhaps just turn the area into a city, with floating huts, a tower on the island and a wall around the edge.

Second, there's a quote from a book called "Access All Areas" which I thought is the kind of thing which could be inspirational to you guys. I'll edit this post to type that in soon. Edit: "For too many people, urban living consits of mindless travel between work, shopping and home, oblivious to the countles wonders a city offers. Most people think the only things worth looking at in our cities and towns are those safe and sanitized attractions that require an admission fee. Their alertness has atrophied due to the lack of any real adventure in their lives, and their senses have dulled to help them cope with the cacophony of noise and meaningless spectacle that surrounds them. It's no wonder people feel unfulfilled and uninvolved as they are corralled through the maze of velvet ropes on their way out through the gift shop. ... Rather than passively consuming entertainment, urban explorers strive to actually create authentic experiences, by making discoveries that allow them to aprticipate in the secret workings of cities and structures, and to appreciate fantastic, obscure spaces that might otherwise go completely neglected. There's certainly more to the hobby than just having a good time: the new and deeper perspectives explorers can get from standing atop a city, or peering up at it from underground, or just coming to appreciate the extent and complexity of the world behind the scenes, are truly incredible. But it's also just unbelievably fun. When you full embrace the urban exploration mindset, the city becomes a wonderful playground, and playing in it seems like working your way through a fun and challenging adventure game--except it's real. ... Urban exploration is an incredibly enlightening hobby, and the world would be a better place if more people thought of themselves as urban explorers. ... Structures and infrastructures are interesting in all phases of their life cycles, and places that are under construction or in use can hold as much wonder, beauty and opportunity for adventure as abandoned places."

One more suggestion which I remember over vacation. While it's true that you probably wouldn't want to invite everyday people to participate in discussion of important design issues, there's no real reason to keep hidden the ideas you discuss in the forums for project staff.

The reason Faith will be unique isn't because no one thought of the ideas you may have, but because people are caught up in their preconcepts or have a different idea of what an MMO should be. As you have probably noticed, I have considered MMOs on the same lines as the designing team, since I asked intelligent questions and was prepared for answers that interested me. The reason is that the vast majority of features which I've come up with, and what I see Faith has come up with, are intuitive. Once you have the perspective that the dynamism of reality is an ideal model, you just have to borrow an aspect of a feature as it exists in reality to make the feature more functional in the MMO environment. I once tried discussing my ideas on MMO with a community that was making an MMO, discussing feature in hundreds of post over the course of about a year, but people were generally either not interested in something different or they weren't able to apply the reality model when considering the feature (which is necessary) and so became caught up in the details. That's not to say that there aren't aspects to Faith, such as the degree of skill with which you implement things such as AI, which wouldn't be easily reproduced by other teams, but I don't think features related to the kinds of questions I've asked are the kind of features which the Faith team should care to be reserved about, personally.

In fact, allowing guests and members to read posts between members of the design team about such features, and also allowing a separate forum where both parties can post their ideas and discuss features, would help people to see this project. I wasn't someone who you would have wanted to attract since I'm not interested in the Faith aesthetic (the spirit behind the aspects of the world which you've unique decided on, such as Faith/Faithless) especially and am also busy (and unreliable), but if someone who was, say, also a former SWG player and had the same motivations as your group and had thought about MMOs intelligently came here, and didn't see any posts of interest, they could just skip past this forum, since the content is scattered around and vague enough that it's not immediately apparent that there is any real coherence or quality to ideas being discussed here. That was also one of the reasons I had prefered to ask as many questions as possible in the public forum, so that people could read the Ask us anything topic and see from your answers the depth of the project, since I'm certain there are other skilled people out there who would be interested in helping you guys and have observed the same ideas about the potential of MMO. Possibly the forum organization as I describe it wouldn't work as well because people would be tempted to just post topics in the public design forum to respond to other topics in the staff design forum which they disagree with unintelligently, in which case perhaps you could just make a rule that a person can't post a topic which is a direct response to something stated in the staff design forum, and that any direct response or helpful comment on what someone said in the staff design forum should be private messaged to that person.

Maybe attracting new project member and allowing the public to review and discuss ideas the design team has come up with isn't a priority for you (in fact, I'm sure it isn't), but even that potential aside, there's no significant reason not to, and it would make things less difficult for people who are interested in Faith to become involved in whatever way. This is of course regardless of me, since you kindly answered all my questions about Faith, but whatever the case, I'm on the record as having promoted.... hmm, the spirit of sharing? Hopefully this post turned out well and seemed casually referential rather than instructive.


There's nothing more I can do for you.