





                         The Laws of Online World Design



   These are taken from both experience and from the writings of others. Most

   are the sort of "Duh" things that many who have done this sort of game

   design take for granted, but others may be less intuitive. Many of the

   laws here were actually stated as such by others, and not by me. 





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   A Caveat



   Ola's Law About Laws

   Any general law about virtual worlds should be read as a challenge rather

   than as a guideline. You'll learn more from attacking it than from

   accepting it.





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   Design Rules





   The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide

   appeal



       have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but

      *

       making them ladders is better) 

       make it easy to switch between paths of advancementt (ideally, without

      *having to start over) 



      *make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and

       visible and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't

       help) 



      *ideally, make your game not have a sense of running out of significant

       milestones (try to make your ladder not feel finite)





   Modes of expression

   You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your

   online world. Character classes are just modes of expression, after all.



   Persistence means it never goes away

   Once you open your online world, expect to keep your team on it

   indefinitely. Some of these games have never closed. And closing one

   prematurely may result in losing the faith of your customers, damaging the

   prospects for other games in the same genre.





   Macroing, botting, and automation

   No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing

   your world.



   Corollary:

   Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way

   to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun.





   Game systems

   No matter what you do, players will decode every formula, statictic, and

   algorithm in your world via experimentation.



   It is always more rewarding to kill other players than to kill whatever

   the game sets up as a target.

   A given player of level x can slay multiple creatures of level y.

   Therefore, killing a player of level x yields ny reward in purely in-game

   reward terms. Players will therefore always be more rewarding in game

   terms than monsters of comparable difficulty. However, there's also the

   fact that players will be more challenging and exciting to fight than

   monsters no matter what you do.





   Never trust the client.

   Never put anything on the client. The client is in the hands of the enemy.

   Never ever ever forget this.



   J. C. Lawrence's "do it everywhere" law

   If you do it one place, you have to do it everywhere. Players like clever

   things and will search them out. Once they find a clever thing they will

   search for other similar or related clever things that seem to be implied

   by what they found and will get pissed off if they don't find them.





   Hyrup's "do it everywhere" Corollary

   The more detailed you make the world, the more players will want to break

   away from the classical molds.



   Dr Cat's Stamp Collecting Dilemma

   "Lots of people might like stamp collecting in your virtual world. But

   those who do will never play with those who like other features. Should

   you have stamp collecting in your world?" We know that there are a wide

   range of features that people find enjoyable in online worlds. We also

   know that some of these features are in conflict with one another. Given

   the above, we don't yet know if it is possible to have a successful world

   that incorporates all the features, or whether the design must choose to

   exclude some of them in order to keep the players happy.





   Koster's Law (Mike Sellers was actually the one to dub it thus)

   The quality of roleplaying is inversely proportional to the number of

   people playing.



   Hyrup's Counter-observation

   The higher the fee, the better the roleplayers. (And of course, the

   smaller the playerbase.)





   Enforcing roleplaying

   A roleplay-mandated world is essentially going to have to be a fascist

   state. Whether or not this accords with your goals in making such a world

   is a decision you yourself will have to make.



   Storytelling versus simulation

   If you write a static story (or indeed include any static element) in your

   game, everyone in the world will know how it ends in a matter of days.

   Mathematically, it is not possible for a design team to create stories

   fast enough to supply everyone playing. This is the traditional approach

   to this sort of game nonetheless. You can try a sim-style game which

   doesn't supply stories but instead supplies freedom to make them. This is

   a lot harder and arguably has never been done successfully.





   Players have higher expectations of the virtual world

   The expectations are higher than of similar actions in the real world. For

   example: players will expect all labor to result in profit; they will

   expect life to be fair; they will expect to be protected from aggression

   before the fact, and not just to seek redress after the fact; they will

   expect problems to be resolved quickly; they will expect that their

   integrity will be assumed to be beyond reproach; in other words, they will

   expect too much, and you will not be able to supply it all. The trick is

   to manage the expectations.



   Online game economies are hard

   A faucet->drain economy is one where you spawn new stuff, let it pool in

   the "sink" that is the game, and then have a concomitant drain. Players

   will hate having this drain, but if you do not enforce ongoing

   expenditures, you will have Monty Haul syndrome, infinite accumulation of

   wealth, overall rise in the "standard of living" and capabilities of the

   average player, and thus unbalance in the game design and poor game

   longevity.





   Ownership is key

   You have to give players a sense of ownership in the game. This is what

   will make them stay--it is a "barrier to departure." Social bonds are not

   enough, because good social bonds extend outside the game. Instead, it is

   context. If they can build their own buildings, build a character, own

   possessions, hold down a job, feel a sense of responsibility to something

   that cannot be removed from the game--then you have ownership.



   If your game is narrow, it will fail

   Your game design must be expansive. Even the coolest game mechanic becomes

   tiresome after a time. You have to supply alternate ways of playing, or

   alternate ways of experiencing the world. Otherwise, the players will go

   to another world where they can have new experiences. This means new

   additions, or better yet, completely different subgames embedded in the

   actual game.





   Lambert's Laws:



    * As a virtual world's "realism" increases, the pool of possible character

   actions increase. 



    * The opportunities for exploitation and subversion are directly

   proportional to the pool size of possible character actions. 



    * A bored player is a potential and willing subversive. 



    * Players will eventually find the shortest path to the cheese.





   Featuritis

   No matter how many new features you have or add, the players will always

   want more. 



   Pleasing your Players

   Despite your best intentions, any change will be looked upon as a bad

   change to a large percentage of your players. Even those who forgot they

   asked for it to begin with. 





   Hyrup's Loophole Law

   If something can be abused, it will be. 



   Murphy's Law

   Servers only crash and don't restart when you go out of town. 





   Dr Cat's Theorem

   Attention is the currency of the future.



   Dr Cat's Theorem as expressed by J C Lawrence

   The basic medium of multiplayer games is communication.



wiz It was between Wocket's area and Stark's, if I'm not mistaken.
   Hanarra's Laws



      *Over time, your playerbase will come to be the group of people who

       most enjoy the style of play that your world offers. The others will

       eventually move to another game. 



      *It is very hard to attract players of different gaming styles after

       the playerbase has been established. Any changes to promote different

       styles of play almost always conflict with the established desires of

       the current playerbase. 



      *The ultimate goal of a virtual world is to create a place where people

       of all styles of play can contribute to the world in a manner that

       makes the game more satisfying for everyone. 



      *The new players who enter the world for the first time are the best

       critics of it. 



      *The opinions of those who leave are the hardest to obtain, but give

       the best indication of what changes need to be made to reach that

       ultimate goal.



   Elmqvist's Law

   In an online game, players find it rewarding to save the world. They find

   it more rewarding to save the world together, with lots of other people.





   A corollary to Elmqvist's Law

   In general, adding features to an online game that prevent people from

   playing together is a bad idea.



   A caveat to the corollary to Elmqvist's Law

   The exception would be features that enhance the sense of identity of

   groups of players, such as player languages.





   Baron's Design Dichotomy

   According to Jonathan Baron, there are two kinds of online games:

   Achievement Oriented, and Cumulative Character. In the former, the players

   who "win" do so because they they are the best at whatever the game

   offers. Their glory is achieved by shaming other players. In the latter,

   anyone can reach the pinnacle of achievement by mere persistence; the game

   is driven by sheer unadulterated capitalism.



   Online identity

   We spend a lot of time making people able to have a very strong personal

   identity in our worlds (letting them define themselves in great detail,

   down to eye color). But identity is portable. How many of you have been

   playing the same character in RPGs for 15 years, like me? You cannot count

   on a sense of identity, of character building, to keep someone in your

   game.





   In game calendars

   It's nice to have an in-game calendar. But emotional resonances will never

   accrue to in-game holidays. The only calendar that really matters is the

   real world one. Don't worry about breaking fiction--online games are about

   social interaction, not about fictional consistency.



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   Social Laws





   Koster's Theorem

   Virtual social bonds evolve from the fictional towards real social bonds.

   If you have good community ties, they will be out-of-character ties, not

   in-character ties. In other words, friendships will migrate right out of

   your world into email, real-life gatherings, etc.



   Baron's Theorem

   Hate is good. This is because conflict drives the formation of social

   bonds and thus of communities. It is an engine that brings players closer

   together.





   Baron's Law

   Glory is the reason why people play online; shame is what keeps them from

   playing online. Neither is possible without other people being present.



   Mike Sellers' Hypothesis

   "The more persistence a game tries to have; the longer it is set up to

   last; the greater number (and broader variety) of people it tries to

   attract; and in general the more immersive a game/world it set out to

   be--then the more breadth and depth of human experience it needs to

   support to be successful for more than say, 12-24 months. If you try to

   create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing, long-lasting world that does

   not adequately provide for human tendencies such as violence, acquisition,

   justice, family, community, exploration, etc (and I would contend we are

   nowhere close to doing this), you will see two results: first, individuals

   in the population will begin to display a wide range of fairly predictable

   socially pathological behaviors (including general malaise, complaining,

   excessive bullying and/or PKing, harassment, territoriality, inappropriate

   aggression, and open rebellion against those who run the game); and

   second, people will eventually vote with their feet--but only after having

   passionately cast 'a pox on both your houses.' In essence, if you set

   people up for an experience they deke spurned

   lovers--somebecome sullen and aggressive or neurotic, and eventually

   almost all leave."





   Schubert's Law of Player Expectations

   A new player's expectations of a virtual world are driven by his

   expectations of single-player games. In particular, he expects a narrow,

   predictable plotline with well-defined quests and a carefully sculpted for

   himself as the hero. He also expects no interference or disruption from

   other players. These are difficult, and sometimes impossible, expectations

   for a virtual world to actually meet.



   Violence is inevitable

   You're going to have violence done to people no matter what the facilities

   for it in the game are. It may be combat system, stealing, blocking

   entrances, trapping monsters,stealing kills to get experience, pestering,

   harassment, verbal violence, or just rudeness.





   Is it a game?

   It's a SERVICE. Not a game. It's a WORLD. Not a game. It's a COMMUNITY.

   Not a game. Anyone who says, "it's just a game" is missing the point.



   Identity

   You will NEVER have a solid unique identity for your problematic players.

   They essentially have complete anonymity because of the Internet. Even

   addresses, credit cards, and so on can be faked--and will be. 





   Jeff Kesselman's Theorem

   A MUD universe is all about psychology. After all, there IS no

   physicality. It's all psych and group dynamics.



   Psychological disinhibition

   People act like jerks more easily online, because anonymity is

   intoxicating. It is easier to objectify other people and therefore to

   treat them badly. The only way to combat this is to get them to empathize

   more with other players. 





   Mass market facts

   Disturbing for those used to smaller environments, but: administrative

   problems increase EXPONENTIALLY instead of linearly, as your playerbase

   digs deeper into the mass market. Traditional approaches tend to start to

   fail. Your playerbase probably isn't ready or willing to police itself. 



   Anonymity and in-game admins

   The in-game admin faces a bizarre problem. He is exercising power that the

   ordinary virtual citizen cannot. And he is looked to in many ways to

   provide a certain atmosphere and level of civility in the environment. Yet

   the fact remains that no matter how scrupulously honest he is, no matter

   how just he shows himself to be, no matter how committed to the welfare of

   the virtual space he may prove himself, people will hate his guts. They

   will mistrust him precisely because he has power, and they can never know

   him. There will be false accusations galore, many insinuations of

   nefarious motives, and former friends will turn against him. It may be

   that the old saying about power and absolute power is just too ingrained

   in the psyche of most people; whatever the reasons, there has never been

   an online game whose admins could say with a straight face that all their

   players really trusted them (and by the way, it gets worse once you take

   money!).





   Community size

   Ideal community size is no larger than 250. Past that, you really get

   subcommunities.



   Hans Henrik Staerfeldt's Law of Player/Admin Relations: The amount of

   whining players do is positively proportional to how much you pamper them.

   Many players whine if they see any kind of bonus in it for them. It will

   simply be another way for them to achieve their goals. As an admin you

   hold the key to many of the goals that they have concerning the virtual

   environment you control. If you do not pamper the players and let them

   know that whining will not help them, the whining will subside.





   Hal Black's Elaboration

   The more responsive an admin is to user feedback of a given type, the more

   of that type the admin will get. Specifically, as an admin implements

   features from user suggestions, the more ideas for features will be

   submitted. Likewise, the more an admin coddles whiners, the more whining

   will ensue.



   J C Lawrence's "stating the obvious" law

   The more people you get, the more versions of "what we're really doing"

   you're going to get. 





   John Hanke's Law (cited by Mike Sellers)

   In every aggregation of people online, there is an irreducible proportion

   of ... jerks (he used a different word :-) 



   Rewarding players

   It is not possible to run a scenario or award player actions without other

   players crying favoritism. 





   Rewards

   The longer your game runs, the less often you get kudos for your efforts. 



   Dundee's Law

   Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act.

   Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called.





   J C Lawrence on Utopias

   Don't strive for perfection, strive for expressive fertility. You can't

   create utopia, and if you did nobody would want to live there.



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   Who contributed (purposely or inadvertently!), sorted alphabetically: 





      *Myself, of course. 

       Richard Bartle: along with Roy Trubshaw, developed the first MUD. 

      *

       Jonathan Baron: producer & designer for Air Warrior. 

      *

      *Hal Black: And another MUD-Dev member! 



      *Dr Cat: the man behind Dragonspires and Furcadia. 



      *Niklas Elmqvist: another active MUD-Dev member. 



      *Ola Frosheim Grostad: researcher into virtual spaces, MUD-Dev member. 



      *Marion Griffith: leads the !Overlord Project. 



      *Hanarra, aka Jason Wilson,: of Nightfall. 



      *Darrin Hyrup: designer and/or programmer for Gemstone, Dragon's Gate,

       Darkness Falls, and Magestorm. 



      *Jeff Kesselman: helped run Dark Sun Online, and is developing DSO2. 



      *Amy Jo Kim: consultant and web designer. 



      *Jon A. Lambert: active MUD-Dev member. 

       J C Lawrence: moderator for the MUD-Dev mailing list. 

      *

       Damion Schubert: a key designer for Meridian 59, Might & Magic Online,

      *and Ultima Online. 



      *Mike Sellers: a prime mover behind Meridian 59. 



      *Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt: one of the guys who wrote the original

       DikuMUD. 



      *Jeff Freeman, aka Dundee: UO emulator shard developer. 



      *And all the members of the MUD-Dev list as well.





      



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