User Generated Tasks

Sylvane

Disclaimer:  This is a post I made on the Trials of Ascension website.  I thought that I would post it here to get other’s views on this topic...<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Here is an interesting read I found on www.gamespy.com:

Massively Multiplayer Online Games

These are articles written by people at Gamespy, which relate to the past, present, and future of MMO's. There is something that I wanted to address from these articles.

Under Week 8 of this 8-week installment, several developers commented on the one thing that will be very important to MMO's of the future:

"User-Generated Content is going to be huge. It's one of those questions that's more a matter of 'when' than 'if,' because it's coming, and it's coming big time. There are lots of hurdles and difficulties, but if the players' talents and creativity can be harnessed like it has been with FPS mods and the like it will be a huge step forward for MMOGs."
Brad McQuaid
Original Producer/Co-designer of EverQuest
Currently President and CEO of Sigil Games Online, Inc.

This quote really struck a chord with me. User-Generated Content is the future of MMO's, but how can it be implemented?

One way I see this line of thought taking us is User-Generated Tasks. For someone to be able to create tasks using one's own imagination independent from the devs will be crucial in creating a sense of individual freedom. The ability to create a goal for others to accomplish would, imho, truly raise the bar for player interactivity, but how can this be done?

One way would be to hire NPCs to solicit tasks for you. If you are a shopkeeper, one of the NPCs you hire could ask customers if they are interested in doing a task for a certain reward. For instance, if you need a rare material for a project you are working on, you could have your NPC ask players if they are interested in retrieving this item for a certain sword or even a certain amount of cash. You could also post notes on the bulletin board at the local tavern that lead players to your NPC, when players ask the NPC about the task, the NPC then tells them the conditions of the task, though this is not required and may add some mystery to the task for good or ill. The NPC might also tell the person that inquires about the task how many other people have inquired about it, how long ago they inquired about it, how many times the task can be completed by players, and a time limit for completing the task.

The number of people who have accepted the task and how long ago the task was given should be disclosed to the player attempting the task so that they know how much competition they are up against. Though some task makers may not want this information to be revealed, especially if the task maker wants this task completed numerous times.

The time limit is needed since a task that has been accepted by a player cannot be rescinded by the task maker until the player attempting the task has been given adequate time to complete it. It also helps the task maker who has had players who accept the task, but give up, to not have the reward item in permanent limbo with the NPC hireling. The NPC, though, can be told to stop giving the task out to others at any time. Once the time limit is up for all the task players, the task maker would be allowed to take back the item from the NPC.

NPCs can also be told to only give tasks to those of a certain race, religion, nationality, guild, or even to certain people by name. Passwords, riddles, and other means to keep the tasks to certain players could also be employed.

Furthermore, multiple items may be required to receive the reward. If it takes you, as a smith, to create two-handed orm hammer (a nice sword indeed), 1 large piece of orm ore and a piece of the truck of a rubber tree, you could have adventurers seek out 2 of each of these pieces. For a reward, the adventurer gets a two-handed orm hammer in return. Now you may be down a two-handed orm hammer, but now you have the materials to make 2 of them. Everyone involved wins in this situation.

Now to make this possible, the reward must be given to the NPC before the task can be initiated. So, if you didn't have a two-handed orm hammer to give as a reward to begin with, you may have to use money or another item as a reward. If you want the task to be completed several times, you give as many rewards for that task as you want that task to be completed. This also allows players who accepted the task to choose what reward they want in return for completion of the task, thus adding flexibility to task creation and increasing the number of players that might be willing to go on the task for you. If someone trains primarily in swords, they may not want a two-handed orm hammer as a reward, if you give them the option of choosing a fine-crafted sword as a reward instead of the two-handed orm hammer, you have just increased your chances of getting the task completed by others considerably.

Now, if you do not have any NPC hirelings at your disposal, you could hire an NPC specially dedicated to this. They would certainly cost much more than an NPC that you have on staff, but who has the funds to keep an NPC on staff 24/7? Some may, some may not. Also, NPCs hired by others (perhaps those of guild mates, etc.) could also be incorporated to create megatasks, which I will explain later.

Next there would need to be a user interface. Players would need to know what tasks of theirs are currently in the game, how long it has been in the game, and who has accepted it. They also need the ability to tell the NPC to stop soliciting the task to others, and the ability to create new tasks. Each task would have a list of items that would be need to be acquired, and a list of rewards that the tasking player would receive once the task is completed. The task maker would also need a text editing tool in-game to create dialogue for the NPC and to set keywords to trigger the task (certain keywords could be passwords or an answer to a riddle.)

Some players may become renowned for the tasks and rewards they provide. Some players may use this alone to create an income for themselves, as they create fun and rewarding tasks, more players will want to accept these tasks and the objects the task maker receives from the tasks are then sold to others for a profit. Perhaps, if the task maker was good enough, people may actually pay to be sent on tasks!

Some players may rather be involved in the tasks they create, and use their NPCs to advertise adventuring parties for them. They can set a time and place for those interested in setting out on the task that the NPC will relate to players and the task maker can meet those willing at the correct time and place to set out. After the task is complete, the person who initiated the task could give those who helped him complete the task a token, like a note for example, to return to their NPC hireling for their rewards so as not to weigh down the adventuring group by keeping them on hand and curtailing the risk of possibly leading a brigand group to the middle of nowhere only for them to kill the task provider and taking his rewards.

This system would also relieve pressure on the devs to constantly produce new and different tasks, since most all items in the game (except for artifacts) can be player crafted. Since most tasks could be player created, devs could spend more time and energy filling the world with more content, i.e. dungeons, continents, etc. If task makers create tasks that include offensive language, or significantly push the boundaries of the role-play environment, players can report this to the devs, who could punish accordingly.

In the long run, I would like to be able to link several NPCs together to create "megatasks" the players can create for others. For instance, the task begins by speaking to Lana Hetom, who is the NPC hireling of Player Z. Lana informs the player to proceed to acquire and take X item to another NPC in another town who, in turn, gives the player a small reward and an arbitrary task token, perhaps a note (to show that the player is on the task by Lara), and requires that the player proceed to gain Y item and take this item to yet another NPC, and so on. By the end of the megatask, the players participating have just enjoyed themselves immensely, gained nice items as rewards, and probably made friends with those who went on the task with them. These megatasks are all player-created using the aforementioned tools, and fulfill the desires of all the GM wannabes in the game.

These megatasks can also be used help the economy of a town via resource gathering. A town leader or guild officer can have arbitrary tasks set up to keep the smiths and other craftsmen well supplied to create weapons and armor for the guards.

These megatasks can be used as entertainment in town festivals; the town officials can create a small scavenger hunt for those who wish to be involved!

The possibilities are basically endless.

Sorry for the long post, when you turn on the faucet, it is sometimes hard to shut off. As always, your input is welcome.

Clever_Glove

http://www.gamespy.com/amdmmog/week8/

Here's the orginal link from Nov. of 2003.

-=-=-=-=-
"If you respawn then isn't permanent death, it's something else."

Bartle:
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%
Test learn what it means here.

Yee:
Ach: 85% GRE: 65% AFF: 15% Imm 15%
test Click here to learn about it.

ianubisi

Player-made content seems all shiny and promising at first glance, but it is a huge logistical headache to consider. The things that are truly fun for most players don't involve resources that are easily controlled by the player. They are things that can only be resolved by the game engine, or other highly complicated software resources.

Add to this the whole idea of exploitation, and you cannot give too much control to the playerbase without opening yourself up to being completely bastardized by exploiters. The people who would play by the rules are going to be standing side-by-side with players who set up systems to aggrandize themselves outside the rules...after all, we're talking about allowing players to essentially determine how they award themselves for tasks completed, and thus handing over the rules to the player.

There is one fundamental problem with this entire idea, though, and that is that we are all an audience to a semi-participatory story. The developer is the storyteller, creating the mechanics in which we engage the story (the engine that drives the game). The better the developer, the better the story, the better our enjoyment of it. What I'm saying here is that you don't go to a movie or a play in order to write it and act it, you go to enjoy the creative ideas and efforts of the professionals who created this entertainment for you. This is no different in playing games, as we are all essentially passive audiences who are being provided entertainment from professionals.

Pushing content down onto the user is lazy. AO tried creating user-driven missions...they have a whole system for it. Hardly anyone, if anyone, uses it. Is the system bad? Not really...there's just nothing compelling in creating your own missions for other players to solve, other than to create hurdles for your friends or potential guildmates to jump through. To heck with that...I'd much rather see what a creative set of professionals can create for me rather than relying on the drek that 98% of the playing audience (myself included) can create for me.

Clever_Glove

As a person that wrote add-on modules for several games. (some published)

I can see the appeal in it. I would probably think up a small interesting story I could. And I would think other could as well. The problem would be, that 90% of wouldn't be so good. (although 10% would be excellent)

Ianubisi is correct about the challenges but on top of those you have to worry about product errorstion and copy right vilotions. Someone could easly put a "Harry Potter" quest inside a game. I like the idea, but it has allot of issues to overcome techically and legally before it's possable. And even then it probably wouldn't be something you'd see allot of.

 

 

-=-=-=-=-
"If you respawn then isn't permanent death, it's something else."

Bartle:
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.

Yee:
Ach: 85% GRE: 65% AFF: 15% Imm 15% Test Click here to learn about it.