Contents

Glory and Shame: Introduction A Unique Audience The Power of Shame and the Problem with Glory Achievement Vs. Development

Achievement Vs. Development

The time has come to dispense with abstract and semi-concrete examples. What, once and for all, is the difference between achievement and development in multi-player game design, and what does any of this have to do with glory and shame? Achievement is all about meeting the challenges posed by game design. Development is your growth in the society of the game world. Achievement, in a competitive environment where hundreds or thousands are striving for a sharply defined set of goals, is glory for the winners, shame for the losers and also-rans. Development comes not from your ability to achieve game goals, but rather from the ability of the game, intended or not, to reveal who you are. This is how people can come to believe they genuinely know people they've played an online game with. This is where the lasting bonds among online gamers come from, and is the reason why the emergence of online gaming as a major entertainment medium is inevitable. As game designers, however, it is our preoccupation with the achievement side of the games we make, and the side effects of glory and shame that we, with little thought, unleash upon our customers, that retard this medium's emergence.

Development over Achievement

The day we become conscious of the power of our medium, and of the power our design decisions have over it, is the day when online gaming leaves its Keystone Cops, silent movie era. Here are a few suggestions that can help you get there:

• Don't build a pyramid. If your game mechanic can only be mastered by a rarified slice of humanity then you will have the harsh, rough, chest beating culture of the meritocracy game. It may evolve into something better, but if it does, it will be no thanks to you. People tend to think that these games have the testosterone-poisoned cultures they do simply because they involve combat. This is simply not true. Look at Tribes, and its ability to employ a variety of contributions from people in a combat setting. Imagine the culture it would create if it became a massively multi-player offering. Instead of a pyramid, build a game structure like a collapsible camping cup - many interlocking layers, nearly equal in size, needing each other to work.

Starsiege: Tribes allows players to occupy a variety of roles

• Shelter your young. Perhaps the most powerful developmental tools the multi-player game has at its disposal are rites of passage, yet only rarely does it employ them. Don't tack on training to your game. Make raising your players part of the game. One major difference between shame in multi-player games and in real life is that, in the former, it can happen inexplicably and without warning. This, more than any other single factor, drives promising new players away from multi-player games - forever.

• Devise a game design where achievement allows and encourages many different sorts of people to make themselves useful in many different ways. Do that, without falling back to the database driven, cumulative character scheme, and player and community development will follow. Do that, and you'll conquer the world.

Jonathan Baron has been with Kesmai since 1993, specializing in multiplayer online simulations, in particular the Air Warrior series of multiplayer air combat simulations. Coming from a previous career in politics in Washington, where he served as an aide to Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Bill Richardson, then a Congressman from New Mexico, he was drawn to online gaming's social engineering aspects. He is currently working on an SF RPG for Kesmai Studios, set in a universe he was unable to disclose at press time. His major interest, away from work, is flying N1516B, a 1948 Luscombe 8E airplane.He can be reached at bluebaron@kesmai.com.

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