Challenge for Thinkers, Designers and creative individuals.

[CraigD]

Hypography University. A Massively Multiplayer Online University.

I’m confused by KAC’s proposal.

 

Is it for an enhanced and expanded version of an online forum? Or for a superlative online university? Or for a massively single-player game, requiring only a fraction of the actual study and time of an actual university education, with plot elements, interactive fictional characters, (I want Steve Buscemi to play me! :hihi:) and various victory conditions? Or something else?

Rep System Abuse

Obviously repping would need to be limited in some way. …

The subject of how a rep system should work is a deep and controversial one. I’m skeptical that anything about how such systems should be controlled is obvious, and suspect they’re best explored in a fictional manner.

 

If a game exploring the implications of electronic reputation schemes is desired, I’d recommend a video game novelization of Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”. This 2003 novel is, IMHO, one of the definitive fictional treatments of rep systems, describing a 22nd century society in which money has been completely replaced by a reputation system called Whuffie. It’s full of twists and thrills, and involves “backed up” technology allowing characters to recover from accidental death or murder in a very video-game like manner.

[IDMclean]

HUMMON (Hypography University Massively Multiplayer Online Network) is a purposal for a massively multiplayer "game". The players would be non-fiction, just as we are here on the forum. The expressed purpose of the game is to educate yourself and others.

 

I am seeing the rep system as a measure of a person's individual skills, as tested and shown through repeated action in the game enviroment. A persons rep in the game would be independent of their rep here on the forum.

 

In the game world, players would not be capable of being killed, or otherwise disabled, excepting ban. As that is not the point of the game.

 

The ability to study would be real. That is ebooks and other public domain media would be made available through the game engine. Different areas of the game would be dedicated to different courses of study. My favorite areas to envision are the physics lab and the Prophesy Planetarium (three dimensional star maps :D ).

[pgrmdave]

I mean no offense, but is that really a game, or is it simply a different form of forum?

 

Definition of game (a fairly good paper, it seems)

http://web21.cse.ucsc.edu/classes/cmps080k/Winter06/lectures/classic-game-defn-01092006.pdf

[IDMclean]

Well, I would have to ask. Is World of Warcraft a game? It's important to know, because that is very much the style of game that I am going for with this idea.

 

I am not saying this would be a forum, but a virtual university. If tormod's not against it I would like to model it off of hypography the site. Even link resources when (and if) we get to that phase of design and development.

 

Each person would have an account, and an avatar. They would use the avatar to traverse the enviroment. There are rules to the game, and aims of it. Much as there are rules to the forums, and aims of it.

 

As of current I can't give details of the rules, but they would amount to fair, constructive, cooperative play in the university.

 

I am not sure of many details, but the general idea is to create an entertaining, utilitarian, educational online enviroment. In which people can pursue real world knowledge and understanding, while playing the game.

 

When I say online enviroment, I mean virtual representation of traversable 4d space-time.

 

The goal of the game is to gain diplomas, certifications, and reputation through assisted study.

 

There is allot of innovative things that could be done. Like standard (or membership) issued PDAs. Allowing the player access to their IM clients, internet browser(s), and assorted online utilities while in the game enviroment.

 

Just a small list of possible sponsors/backers for the game.

Nasa

European Space Administry

Newscientist

Popular Mechanics

The various peer review journals (scientific, would be my focus, but others would be acceptable also)

The universities, colleges, and other educational institutions.

Google

Mozilla

Netscape

 

In short, dave, yes, this would meet my definition of game. It has clearly defined solution confines, goals, player, opposition and an interface.

[CraigD]

Well, I would have to ask. Is World of Warcraft a game?

Yes. In the typical MUD, such as WOW, to use Juul’s terms, outcomes are variable and quantifiable, and clearly valorized: Finishing missions alive is good, dieing, bad. Or, in game theory terms, these are zero-sum, or “win/lose” games.

It's important to know, because that is very much the style of game that I am going for with this idea.

In an academic setting – physical, online, or, presumable, in a game – outcomes are less easy to quantify – a person with a high GPA is not necessarily better educated than one with a lower, nor necessarily a person with “higher rep”. Also, education is usually considered a non-zero-sum, or “win/win” game – “underachiever” are not “losers”, and doing very well doesn’t cause others to do poorly.

 

In short, I don’t think any worthwhile university satisfies Juul’s definition of a game.

 

A WOW-like interface for actual study is not, IMHO, a game, but a communication medium.

[IDMclean]

Well that would be a mighty fine line one could walk.

 

What is the difference between a game and a communication medium? I would argue that their is no useful distinction. A game communicates some message simply because it is a medium. Following Marshall McLuhan "The Medium is the message".

 

The game has quantifiable, and qualifiable goals. In WOW, dying is not penalized. yes it is inconvienant, but it is not the end. I have to ask, is not a game by that defination a self-terminating construct? That is once the condition is met, does not the game end? WOW then would not qualify as a game, as it has no termination point, besides quitting the game, which would not qualify because it is a metalevel event.

 

As my friend Don says "The only purpose of playing World of Warcraft is player versus player."

 

I believe it is a fallacy to assume that a game must be win/lose. In fact, it would seem to me that the paper was posted holds no such requirement.

 

Valorization of Outcome

• Valorize: to give or assign a value to

• Some of the possible outcomes of a game are better

than others

– Tic-tac-toe: 3-in-a-row is better than all other outcomes, and is

the winning state

– Super Mario Bros: going all the way to the end is much better

than losing a life

• Players are generally assigned conflicting positive

outcomes

– Tic-tac-toe: one player must have 3 “X” in a row, the other must

have 3 “O” in a row

• Positive outcomes generally harder to achieve than

negative outcomes

– This is what makes a game challenging

– If losing a life in Super Mario Bros was a good thing, the game

would be pretty easy…

 

In this manner, the game explicitly has only one obvious negative outcome, and that is not playing the game. Similar to that of World of Warcraft. The other outcomes of the game is in how good of a student you are, compared to other students. (opposition)

[CraigD]

What is the difference between a game and a communication medium? I would argue that their is no useful distinction.

I don’t understand your reasoning that no useful distinction can be made between a game and a communication medium – that is, no useful distinction between communication and game playing.

 

According to Juul, games must have (#1) well-defined/unambiguous rules, and (#4) require player effort (be significantly harder to win than lose). When I communicate, for example, by speaking into a telephone, I’m unconscious of any rules. While I follow rules about the content of my communication, such as to be polite and pleasant, these rules are not required by the medium – I can use the phone as easily and effectively to be rude and unpleasant. Although technically it’s easier for me to “lose” at using a phone (eg: dial random numbers, fail to place the head/handset near my ear and mouth), the ease with which I can “win”, using the phone successfully, is too trivial to meet the standard of “a player needs to work to win the game” – using a phone is not, I, or I think most people think, “work”.

 

According to Juul (if I understand correctly from the brief linked-to article) a game that one has mastered fully “is still a game, but [the playing of it] no longer qualifies as a game activity.” Most people have fully mastered most common communication mediums, so they are games only to the small minority of people who have not (eg: young children, who actually are known to treat phone use as a game).

A game communicates some message simply because it is a medium. Following Marshall McLuhan "The Medium is the message".

I don’t believe McLuhan’s aphorism is intended to be taken literally as “the medium of the message is the content of the message”, but rather, as “the medium strongly influences the contents of the message”. Otherwise, after a phone conversation, I would know only “that was the phone”.

The game has quantifiable, and qualifiable goals. In WOW, dying is not penalized. yes it is inconvienant, but it is not the end.

Actually, in WOW, death (other than in the PvP combat zone) is penalized by at least a 10% loss of durability to all items in your inventory. Though one can define any penalty as an inconvenience, simple statistical adjustments such as this seem to me to better fit the definition of penalty.

I have to ask, is not a game by that defination a self-terminating construct?

According to Juul’s definition, I think, what’s important is that (#5) the player is emotionally attached to the outcome. Because WOW is a commercial entertainment product, the customer is not banned from future play after dying, but the player is usually less happy to die than to live and complete missions. I think that, according to Jool’s definition, death constitutes a loss, and end of a play of the game, and reanimation the beginning of a new play, in much the way that, if one’s opponent agrees to, one may replay a lost game of chess from an earlier position.

 

In short, I continue to maintain that WOW is a game, attending a physical or online university is not, and additionally, that using a telephone or other common communication medium is also not a game as defined by Juul.

 

PS: BTW, I think an online university such as you (KAC) describe is a great idea. I’m just unable to see how it can, in any ordinary sense, be defined as a game.

[IDMclean]

Well first off, don't imagine it in the ordinary sense. I use the word university for convience. I doubt highly that a game such as what I am purposing will be capable of getting accreditation.

 

The win conditions are simple. Pass the tests, complete the assignments, and create the content. Not doing these things, or failing them would consititute the negative outcome that you are requiring a game to have. Juul's definition only requires that there are more valuable outcomes, and mutlipul of them. It is much harder to learn something than it is to not learn something.

 

Also I am looking at the ways that the medium can be used. For instance I have heard tell that some companies hold meetings in WOW. In the game I am purposing, that would be an excellent use for it, as the various functions of play are ment to facilitate orginized colabrative efforts. strictly speaking, that has no purpose in the game, but is none the less a meta use for the game.

 

Also, in "Understanding Media", Marshall writes about the effect of the medium itself as the overt message. Yes, we can talk about the content of a phone call, but in doing so we are only talking about another medium. Using the phone says something to all involved, just as using this forum says something to all parties involved. So just as it is possible to answer the question "Who called?" with "Kyle and the guys" it is possible to answer the question with "The phone which Kyle and the guys used called.".

 

When I communicate, for example, by speaking into a telephone, I’m unconscious of any rules.

 

That isn't to say there is not rules. In fact Communication is all about rules. Effective communication involves communial agreement on the meaning of words. if for example I start writing ytvisma kreqitzan you won't have a clue what I mean, unless I or a third party who has an Idea of the idea of those words explain their meanings. This forms the basis of Grammar, and Syntax.

 

Also, in phone communication, generally each person takes turns speaking, as the sound is 2 dimensional, and it's not easy to speak simutaniously.

 

There are many such rules governing communication, and other human interactions, which when taken into the correct context can be seen as rules of the game. In my view it is possible to contemplate life like a very large, continious game. There are conditions which are more favorable than others. The negative outcomes are easier to get than the positive. There are various grades of positive and negative outcomes. Obstensibly the possible outcomes are quantifiable, and I would say they are quite variable. Players (Life, including humans) are in opposition, or cooperation between one another. There are both implicit and explicit rules, some which bend, others that break, and even some which are as of yet impossible to manipulate. That is to say, life meets the requirements of Juul's definition of games.

 

Now it is important make the distinction between in game and out of game. In larp their are specific rules about that conduct. It is possible to exist in a game, but not playing. Same concept applies. One needs to distiguish between when one is playing a game, and when one is outside the game's intended purpose.

 

Personally I think that though Juul's definition is useful to a degree, it misses some key points for games. Interaction, and Interface are two important elements that he misses, I think. Also, games are subjective representation of a given problem set. in similar fashion as this:

The translation of the french comes out to be roughly "This is not a pipe."

Furthermore games, in my definition, require multipul agents. Traditionally that means player and opposing player. In computers it can be player and computer controlled player, or NPCs.

 

I listed some resources at the beginning of this thread regarding the nature of games. I would highly suggest reviewing them.

 

Anyone here grow up playing number munchers, math blaster, or the other various edutainment?

[TheBigDog]

I have been in contact with KAC and at least passively helping him with his game idea. From those conversations I have gotten a pretty good idea of what he is trying to accomplish, and at his request, I am writing a summary of his idea as I understand it.

 

This game is the story of a life. Your character’s life. When you “begin” you have a young, inexperienced character. The whole world exists for that character to explore, to learn, to experience and to grow. As you play the game, your character grows, nut just in “points” but in actual age. So you will have youthful energy at the beginning, more maturity later, and finally degrading of physical skills that require you to have accumulated other ways of being successful.

 

As you play the game, you will be choosing various goals or quests for your character. Think of each quest as a chapter in the life. And the string of quests as a book. With the idea that there may even be an engine that writes your character’s life story as it is lived. This could be played back as a movie, or even printed and read as a book.

 

Your character does not live forever. If not killed, it will eventually age and become too frail to continue adventuring. And eventually die of old age. At the end of the character’s life they would leave behind the all of their belongings, and (my idea) the book of their life as an artifact of knowledge. A way of leaving your life’s the experience for others so that secrets you may have learned will be known to those who posses your book.

 

The game play is all about living out a story. The objective is not mass slaughter and racking up points on the edge of a sword, but by gaining knowledge of the mysteries of the world, and doing the rare things that the average person cannot do. The experience you gain is knowledge. The more you see, the more you accomplish, the more you experiment and understand the greater your characters power to finish quests will become.

 

One of the central tenets of the game that KAC wants is to either penalize your character for utilizing violence as a means to an end, or ignoring violence so that it is just too uninteresting in the game for people to bother with it. And example would be a quest to bring water to a village. The water could be taken from a neighbor by brute force (the easy road), or it can be found by other means such as surveying with a divining rod to drill a well, carrying it from a distant place by organizing a work crew, building an aquaduct to create an endless supply, or convincing people to move closer to where the water is. In that example there are many things that you can do to solve the problem, and each of them will have a different way of rewarding you for your efforts. By finding win-win solutions your character will grow fastest in experience. Solutions that fail to help all parties will being less reward of experience. None of this is exactly what KAC told me, but it is how I have interpreted his intentions from our conversations.

 

So in summary… You begin with a young character. You choose a series of adventures and live them out with your character. Over the character’s lifetime a book is written documenting the story of their life. At the end of your character’s life they leave their legacy in the form of their book and their belongings. It is a game of peace, rewarding players for finding win-win peaceful solutions to the challenges faced by their characters. The characters themselves live in a massive open world with infinite ways to explore and interact with other game players. I would have a twist on this (for the sake of control) that your character actually exits the multi world to solve certain things on their own at different times. So it becomes a mixture of a huge multiplayer game and individual challenges that mark the milestones of your character’s development.

 

Another feature could be the ability of a character to actually create quests for later generations to solve. In this way as each character writes their own story they are at the same time creating a new adventure for others to follow at a later date. In this way it becomes a self building game and makes each character’s life unique in ways that cannot even be fathomed until play actually begins.

 

How’s that KAC?

 

Bill

[arkain101]

I had an idea going for a video game for some time and made a thread about it. I probably should of posted here.

 

Massive Multiplayer Online - educational science -Relativity video game

[IDMclean]

Alright, so this thread got ahead of everything.

 

Tier One: Design

Step 1: Conceptualization

Substep 1: Brainstorm

 

The standing purposed Concepts for concideration are:

• Game University
  
• FPRPG
  

 

This is not a very comprehensive list. I would encourage everyone concerned to sit down with a pen and paper and write down day to day concepts that might make for a good game, in your opinion. There is no right answer, any idea is well enough to consider.

 

For now we aren't concidering feasibility or anything like that.

 

Remember, keep it simple stupid. Two paragraphs should suffice to get out the basic concept. Try for as many as you can.

[IDMclean]

For those still interested, a number of open source MMOG engines have become available for use in the past 2-3 years. The Hypography University Massively Multiplayer Online Network is a very viable idea due to these developments.

 

We have the beginnings of a design document for the project, and we have the means of prototyping the mechanics and dynamics via free forum software.

 

Project Darkstar

 

I must express my gratitude and appreciation for the efforts everyone made in this thread. I felt a great swell of pride from reading this thread again.

[alexander]

KAC, reading back into it, i will make you a proposition.

 

I would love to help you with the game, but it only interests me if we do something really crazy with it. I would like to make a game that will have a very hard level of AI that will actually model things, like behaviors etc in the real world. We can make this a web-based, could be text/ascii based though i am not opposed to having a cool graphics engine to deal with (but there are plenty of really great games out there that are ascii art/ text based, like the good old rouge) game (written in Python for the back end, we can you django as the web-platform), what it is about, i can leave to you to decide, i would be in it only for the reason of creating behavior and learning algorithms that will detect patterns in one's behavior and way of playing and try to counter things. It will also have a never ending flexible strategy that it will learn and constantly fine tune... So if you want, and have time, we can do something collectively, hopefully we can get Craig and Buffy to join/pitch in...

[phillip1882]

i've always been interested in city builders, i loved zues for example, and real time strategy games, such as starcraft and warcraft 3. i was thinking of trying to combine the two ideas. basically you have 5 resources, wood, stone, iron, coal, and of course food. these resources can be combined in various ways to make goods, which your citizens trade. you have cultural buildings such as music halls, theatres, and philosophy centers. these affect your boarders. you have educational buildings such as schools, libraries, and collages. these allow research, and affect citizen class (poor, mid, wealthy). you have a couple different types of of markets, a general store, and a market that sells a particular useful good. you have things such as jails and police, and things such as irrigation, and late in the game, electricity. and finally you have an army. basically, imagine 3- 10 types of units per era, for example in the early game you have sword-men, archers, horsemen, and spear-men. in the mid game you have gunpowder units such as grenadier, riflemen, cavalry, and cannon. finally, late game you have tanks, air-planes, machine gunners, rocket launchers, etc.

the primary purpose of the economy would be military, but i imagine other victory conditions as well. such as economic, cultural, and diplomatic.

[IDMclean]

I've always been interested in city builders, i loved [Zeus] for example, and real time strategy games, such as Starcraft and Warcraft 3. i was thinking of trying to combine the two ideas. [...]

 

It sounds a lot like the Settlers series.

 

I would love to help you with the game, but it only interests me if we do something really crazy with it. I would like to make a game that will have a very hard level of AI that will actually model things, like behaviors etc in the real world.

 

[...]

 

I would be in it only for the reason of creating behavior and learning algorithms that will detect patterns in one's behavior and way of playing and try to counter things. It will also have a never ending flexible strategy that it will learn and constantly fine tune [...]

 

You and I, Alexander, have a prototype to design and implement then. The explicit purpose of this prototype is to test "an AI that will model things like behaviors in the real world". You have put forward criterion that we must design and implement learning algorithms that will detect patterns in the player's behavior and react?

 

What would the first generation of such a prototype look like? I imagine Tic-Tac-Toe because of Wargames. I imagine the Life simulator proposal would be best suited to implement this type of problem. I've always wanted to develop an AI in a game which had a sense of self-preservation and purpose or at least the appearance of those qualities.

[alexander]

oh no, not at all like tic-tac-toe, i was thinking more like Dwarf Fortress Wiki

[alexander]

or we can create a better version of Uplink's Hacker game (dunno if you are familiar with it at all or anything)