Role-creation in MMOs Pt. 1.

This blog post was initially going to be about “class,” in the Marxist sense of the word, in World of Warcraft. Yet, the more I thought about the issue, the more troubled I became with the general idea of “class” in the Dungeons and Dragons sense of the word. Using the theories that I’ve brought up in my previous posts, I’ve been trying to analyze this central mechanic to virtually all RPGs to detect a social meaning behind the game. As I mentioned earlier, I was going to try to attach the various classes in WoW to classes in real life, viewing the tank classes as a sort of knowledge class, the healer class as an aristocracy who demands power based on their inborn traits, and the dps classes as the unwashed masses, begging the tanks and healers to join up with them briefly so they can take part in the game. While I think these relationships are pretty apt, I think ultimately that they fail to confront the central problem with character class in RPGs: Why do we demand a division of labor in RPGs?

Part of this, of course, comes from the heritage of sport in our culture. Virtually all team sports demand for this division of labor, implicitly in their structure. Obviously, this isn’t a real answer to our problem, though, as a sports theorist would need to look back through the history of sport to determine where this development initially came from (a task I’m not really qualified for), but for our purposes, we can definitely draw a relationship between the positions in baseball or football and the positions in your traditional raiding group in an MMO. Ultimately, in the tasks demanded of a team in a game, results are more easily achieved through this division of labor.

There are two driving forces behind this sort of division: First, a division made necessary by the implicit nature of the game. In baseball, the diamond is a huge expanse that requires players to be placed in an even pattern to make fielding a possibility. We can’t even imagine a game without the positions, for if we didn’t have the labels “outfielder” and “infielder,” the players would inevitably (if they were smart!) break into similar positions. Though we have ultimately codified this division of labor, the rules defining positions, in this case, are not limiting rules, but merely definitive aspects of the game.

Secondly, there are divisions caused by the implicit strategic approach to the game. Continuing with our baseball analogy, we can look at the different approaches to lineup. It is smart to put your fastest player at the top of the lineup, to increase the likelihood of getting a player into scoring position in the first inning. When that approach is implemented, it introduces a demand for a fast player. Thus, through strategy, a role has been created.

Not to spend too long on the sport discussion, but we can observe these two methods of role creation in soccer. The first shows up in the left-wing and right-wing positions. Based upon the implicit nature of the game (it’s played on a huge field), the team inevitably splits the players between those who play on the left, right, and center. From there, we find that play in the center tends to be slower moving, due to the fact that the game can be affected from the left, right, and center when the ball is in the center, while play on the wings is faster, because the play can only be affected by central players, and those on that specific side. Thus, we have the fast winger and the slow central midfielder. On the other hand, the style of play of that slow central midfielder is defined by strategy. Since players in the center affect both the left and right of the field, central midfielders tend to be the best passers in the game. Thus, teams begin recruiting players who have high passing skills to play that central position, and eventually we have the central playmaker.

When we carry over these role creation methods to World of Warcraft, however, things become problematic. The first of these role creation methods, the roles created by the nature of the game, becomes a problem when the world of the game and the roles are created simultaneously. For example, the central game-task of World of Warcraft, the defeat of a boss, was a priori to the construction of character classes, though the inverse is similarly true. The nature of the game is that we have three roles, the tank, who protects the other characters by taking most of the damage, the healer, who keeps the tank alive by restoring his health, and the dps, who actually kill the enemy. If all three character classes were conflated into one, where each player is capable of tanking, healing, and dealing damage, we can assume that most players would just divide the labor into those three categories again. Unlike sport, which assigns players roles based on the ultimate goal of the game, a goal that is a priori the creation of the roles, MMO architecture requires the roles and the goal to be entwined.

For the sake of the rest of my day, I'm going to stop for now, but prior to ending, I want to give a little preview of what's to come. I know a lot of people would call me out for conflating MMOs to sports, rather than to their obvious parent, the table-top role-playing game, a complaint that I completely agree with. Thus, in my next post, I'm going to attempt to find some structure behind the table-top division of labor, that can conjoin with some of what I talked about in this post. Finally, when we put this all together, I think we can see more clearly why the character class mechanic has become so important that it is even found in sports video games now. Wish me luck!

Upcoming Posts

So I've been thinking a lot about the recent posts I've bumped out, and feel like I should start applying some of that mechanical theory into practice. I have a couple of purposes in doing so, one, in showing the applicability of the theory towards academic work, two to show that a cohesive study of video gaming is worthwhile as both a marketing and production device. If we can develop a better understanding of the mechanics of games, and the connections between media objects, we can simultaneously develop a marketing strategy that doesn't lump together games on mere genre (Call of Duty and Halo must automatically appeal to the same people, since they are first-person shooters!), or textual material (DC Comics Universe must appeal to comic book readers, and comic book readers alone!). Needless to say, I believe there are overarching cultural structures informing the mechanics behind games, and it is in the best interests of both marketing firms and game developers to better understand the objects they work with.

In light of that, I'm going to start work on a brief cultural criticism of World of Warcraft, based loosely on the works of Plato and Marx. I am also working on a general evaluation of casual gaming based on the writing of Arthur Schopenhauer.

In Defense of Media Specificity

Taking a look at what I wrote the other day, I’m worried that it might sound like I don’t believe that media specificity plays a role in how we interact with video games. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The role of medium in determining meaning within any media object cannot be underestimated. At the same time, however, assuming similarities between objects due to medium is faulty logic. As always, these issues become clearer when we look at examples.

Recently, Telltale Games, an adventure game studio that also produces the popular Sam and Max adventure series, released Back to the Future: The Game. In this game, the player solves puzzles to advance a fairly generic rehash of the original movie, though shifted to the Prohibition Era. Inherently, we relate BTTF: TG to the original film, Back to the Future, as well as to its heritage in adventure games, via Sam and Max, the Monkey Island series, King’s Quest, etc. To fully understand the cultural content of the game, we must make these relations, while recognizing that the game is a fully independent artistic object, existing in a radically different plane than the film. To treat the two objects, film and game, as identical, is to commit the fallacy of medium equivocation.

Nevertheless, when we broaden our scope to the entire genre of the video game, we run into the trouble I mentioned earlier. Ironically, we treat video games as if they are necessarily identical because they both are viewed on a screen and manipulated via a controller. If, however, we imagine the mechanics and goals of a game like Halo in comparison to a game like BTTF: TG, we find that the phenomenological experience of each game is radically different, to the point that we cannot even consider them of the same medium, much less genre. To compare them as similar objects would be to compare a cookbook to a book of poetry; some of the aspects are similar, and they are presented in a similar fashion, but the similarities end there.

The Medium Fallacy: Towards a New Phenomenology of Media Objects

How do you like that title? If I ended up writing my dissertation, I'd have given it that title. Anyhow, I've been reading Claude Levi-Strauss' The Savage Mind, and some of his discussion of the so-called "concrete science" has gotten me thinking about our approach to studying video games (in particular), and media objects in general. Levi-Strauss draws a clear distinction between magical thought and scientific thought, not as the former serving as a primitive version of the latter, but as each standing as its own, independent form of connection building. Levi-Strauss achieves this conclusion by noting the different methodology and goals of each type of thought, rather than just pointing out that they occasionally grasp for the same goal. Too often, we note arbitrary relationships between objects, and declare them "equal" without noting their multivalent phenomenological differences. Similarly, the conclusion that gaming can be discussed as a whole due to the shared medium of the field, when there are so many divergent experiences within each of these media objects, leads us to false conclusions and false value judgments.

To truly understand how a video game functions (or any game, for that matter), we need to sever the game from its medium. Nobody would claim an eidetic difference between a Wii game and an X-Box game, yet we do just that when we compare video games to board games (for example). This, of course, is not to suggest that there are not eidetic differences between video games and board games, but to note that there are similar eidetic differences between Wii games and X-Box games that in no way are related to the medium the game is presented on, the television set. For example, Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy, while presented on a video screen, requires the user to command his avatar via a joystick, commit actions via buttons, commit other actions via hand motion (a shake of the controller makes Mario attack), and aim via the off-hand controller (the user points the Wiimote in the left hand at the screen to collect certain objects and to shoot at enemies). On the other hand, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption requires the user to only commit the first two of these actions, but also requires a deeper relationship with both the story and the digital material economy of the game. These two experiences, both in competition for "Best Game of 2010" seem about as different as playing either one and playing Monopoly on a board.

Of course, game theorists began the taxonomy of video games years ago, and have already attempted to construct some over-arching categories, most noticeably during the so-called ludology/narratology split of earlier years. Similarly, some game scholars have distinguished the ludic (competitive gaming) from the paedic (playful gaming) to distinguish winnable games from sandbox gaming. For the sake of a larger theory of video gaming, this taxonomy is absolutely necessary, yet it still seems to miss some of the more obvious aspects of video gaming. All of these distinctions are built around supposed goals of use, or perhaps interpretive conclusions. While we must notice the goal-distinctions between a game such as Red Dead Redemption (complete all of the challenges of the game, explore the world, conclude the story, etc.) and a game such as The Sims (follow your Sim through life until you get bored of it), we fail to note the mechanical, and thus sensual, distinctions and similarities between the games. For example, implicit to the distinction between these two games is the fact that the user has a mechanical, reflexive control of his avatar in a game such as Red Dead Redemption, but serves a more "advisory" role when controlling the avatar in The Sims. Nevertheless, in both cases we guide a non-self avatar through a series of challenges, despite the distinction in controls. Thus, both games could be validly compared to childish play with dolls (through avatar play), though Red Dead Redemption follows more of a controlled style of play, while The Sims is more similar to third party story-telling.

Ultimately, these half-formed thoughts are urging for a re-approach to the taxonomy of video games with more a focus on mechanical interaction with the game. In the sensory experience of the game, the difference between the sudden decision-making of a game like Halo and the careful strategy of a game like Civilization are as distinct as the relationship between a novel and a cookbook. Just because the game is presented on a screen guarantees no similarities beyond presentation. Similarly, just because a game shares goals does not guarantee even a marginally similar sensual experience. If we are to understand how games function (from the academic standpoint) and what games are valuable (from the marketing perspective), we need a total engagement with the games eidetic nature, rather than reductive assumptions about presentation and goal.

Produsers, Difficulty Sliders, and 2KShare

As a lifelong fan, I've spent far too much money on lousy baseball video games in the past. For some reason, I have yet to find a game for this sport that I love so much that manages to embody baseball in the way I imagine it. However, I do have some hopes with the recent rise of Sony's MLB: The Show series (though I don't have a PS3, so I can't play it). This year, the main baseball video game producer, Take 2, decided to basically copy Sony's take, a move that, honestly, greatly improved their game. Nevertheless, on initial play, I still found the game to be lacking.

Generally when I play a baseball video game, I want the game to mimic the sport that I watch on television regularly. While Madden, Fifa, and NBA 2K have all managed to at least cause a suspension of disbelief for me, all of the baseball games I've played have failed in this aspect. Certain key aspects of the game haven't been incorporated (presumably in favor of an abstracted game play that the designers decided was more fun), while other aspects that should be abstracted are left realistic, thus making the game not enjoyable. Examples are in order.

For the first situation, I've found that baseball games have a great deal of trouble with foul balls. For a pitcher to throw a complete game in real life baseball, he usually has to throw around 120 pitches. By reducing the number of foul balls in the game, the programmers trouble the pitcher stamina mechanic, causing either a pitcher who gets exhausted in the sixth inning, after only throwing 60 pitches, or a pitcher who can plug through a complete game every time, because he only throws 90 pitches a game. Both situations disrupt the "realism" of the game, and lead to potentially problematic playability issues (i.e. most baseball fans know to pull a pitcher when they get to around 100 pitches. If the pitcher gets exhausted after 60, the player feels cheated. If the pitcher can continue to 150, you might as well do without the stamina mechanic).

On the other side of this issue, baseball games have a nasty habit of leaving certain extremely difficult aspects of baseball nonabstracted in the game. The particular mechanic that bothers me is the ability for batters to identify pitches that are in and out of the strike zone. Most players, we can assume, do not have the reaction time to be able to read a 95 mph fastball as it leaves the pitcher's hand and approaches the plate. Recognizing this, the game designers have tried a variety of abstracting mechanics. Many have tried to slow down the pitches to the point that the player can see the pitch. The problem with this is that it falls in the uncanny valley of mimesis: The game is trying to appear real by not abstracting the batter's eye mechanic, but doesn't appear real in that the pitches move far too slowly. A more acceptable approach would be to wholly abstract the mechanic, as The Show did in previous years. In The Show, the batter was given the opportunity to guess which part of the plate the pitcher was going to throw to (e.g. low and inside, up and outside, etc.). If you guess correct, you can see where the pitch is going before it gets there, and whether it's in or out of the strike zone. By including this highly abstract mechanic, the player can easily run up pitch counts, draw walks, etc. Still, some players have strongly resisted this mechanic, in that they feel it makes the game unrealistic, and potentially too easy.

What we find in both of these situations is a tension between reproducing the sporting event, i.e. a baseball game, as it would be seen on television and creating a fun and properly challenging game experience. Since each player approaches these games differently, sports games have found a reasonable solution in the development of "difficulty sliders." These sliders allow you to tweak the mechanics of the game to fit your desires: For example, as I mentioned above, I feel that baseball games don't allow enough foul balls. Ideally, any baseball game would include a slider that could determine the likelihood of batter contact, and another determining the likelihood of solid contact, and by setting batter contact high but solid contact low, I could produce a game that allows lots of foul balls, but not too many solid hits.

The problem with the slider solution is that these sort of mechanic manipulations are exceedingly complicated, and require excessive testing. Most players don't want to have to play dozens of games, making minor tweaks of the sliders, before they can finally produce a game that matches their vision of what the game should be. Thus, with the development of sliders, a secondary community has formed on message boards online (particularly operationsports.com), where those players who do enjoy developing sliders can post their most realistic sliders, as well as discussion with other players who help them test their designs. By posting on the internet, the slider developer can rely on other players to help test, and thus speed up the time needed to produce a valid set of sliders.

Surprisingly, 2k has widely endorsed this fan activity, in fact creating a service called 2kShare for users to easily exchange sliders. This function is embedded in the game itself, allowing a user with internet access to immediately download and implement other sliders, rosters, etc., without having to sit around manually adjusting what might be dozens of fields. Ironically, this service is basically 2k accepting that they are incapable of successfully accounting for this aspect of the game, and therefore relying on the fan base to do it for them. Instead, 2k takes the role of a world-maker, a producer of a system that can be adjusted to fill the expectations of a wide range of different fans. As the game updates each year, it is less important for 2k to produce a balanced game then to produce a set of sliders that account for every aspect of the game that a fan might want to adjust. We can't accuse the designers of laziness in relying on produsers to create difficulty settings for them; in fact, they aptly recognized that the game designer paradigm itself doesn't allow for successful difficulty balance! By recognizing that their fans are not a unitary group with single desires, 2k is moving in a direction that could eventually produce the most accessible and successful sports games ever made.