Comments on: GDC 2010: Single-Player, Multiplayer, MMOG: Design Psychologies for Different Social Contexts

By: GDC 2010: How to Honestly Lie To Your Players « Double Buffered

GDC 2010: How to Honestly Lie To Your Players « Double Buffered — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:46:32 +0000

[...] Meier talked about the “Unholy Alliance” between designer and player, and Ernest Adams talked about the “Tao of Game Design”. On reflection the concepts have much in common: [...]

By: Raph

Raph — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:43:39 +0000

People always tend to miss that the Laws are a collection of aphorisms from a lot of different folks.

The “hate is good” law can be rephrased as “team rivalries” or “passion.” WoW uses this heavily with its realms.

In fact, I can’t actually think of any of the laws which are cynical, or outdated. I’ll have to go re-read them.

By: JZig

JZig — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:06:19 +0000

Thanks for the clarification on Second Life, makes sense. Thanks for posting, and for the talk!

Personally I would say that my experiences on battle.net playing pure PVP RTSs or on XBox Live playing shooters are FAR more hateful than my experiences playing World of Warcraft. I would suggest you try them out, but honestly I don’t wish the Xbox Live social experience on anyone

By: Ernest Adams

Ernest Adams — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:00:38 +0000

Very accurate summary, thank you. I do realize that Second Life isn’t a game. However, it IS a massively-multiplayer online environment in which people can talk to each other. I only mentioned it because the VERY FIRST thing anybody said to me when I got into it was a gratuitous insult. That provides a nice illustration of the core problem.

I do believe it’s possible to make MMOs that don’t obey Koster’s Laws — many of which were formulated in the MUD and Ultima Online days. But we need to make the effort. I’m glad that you agree that creating incentives to hatred and abusive behavior is a bad thing.

– Ernest Adams

By: GDC 2010: Officially a Thing « Double Buffered

GDC 2010: Officially a Thing « Double Buffered — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:52:52 +0000

[...] Different Social Contexts: Ernest Adams is always a good listen. Expect notes of this. (Posted my Notes) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)GDC09: Plans For AwesomeGDC09: ‘Winging [...]