Theory of Laws in MMOs

I know I caused some trouble with this Puzzle Pirates thing, but it's a good case study. This post is long and rambling and unevenly written, so sorry about that.

Matthias really struck the heart of the matter when he said "The MMOG genre usually relies on the spirit of the game rule to ensure that as many people as possible have fun." This is where our difference in ideology lies, and everything is just a consequence of that.

Here's a random thought to chew on: "directly maximizing as many people's fun as possible is sometimes counter-productive." The CPL thinks you can maximize the spectator's experience by making rules about not hiding in corners in an fps game, but that will certainly lead to tournaments no one wants to play in or go to. "Maximizing the fun of as many people as possible" also smacks heavily of the "tyranny of the majority" concept. A majority might decide, for example, that Jewish people should be persecuted, that gay people should have fewer rights, and so on. Allowing those things would "satisfy the most number of people." (This is by definition, since in this hypethetical we're saying the majority wants these oppressive things.) So in the United States, we have rules to protect minorities from the "tyranny of the majority." There are some things that the majority doesn't get to push on other people, at least not so easily.

So does this system of rules we have in the US fail at "maximizing the fun/happiness of the majority"? After all, the majority might want to do something, and they can't. Yet...if they could, then the damage to the world or the society might be so great that no one would end up being happy.

Also note that "protecting the rights of the individual" are important in the above concept. Individuals have a few rights that are important enough that they can't be trodden upon just if the majority wants to. Also note that the things the majority can't do is a relatively small set. The majority is free to pass all sorts of laws about all sorts of things, as long as they don't violate the important, small set of "constitutional rules."

So now I offer you two possible systems of rules for MMOGs.

System 1: Sirlin's Pro-Individual Laws

A) The point of this system is to give the players as much freedom as possible. This system asserts that to do otherwise is counterproductive to creating a community. Players are free to pursue anything in the game they like, whether or not it was intended by any game designer, and whether or not anyone else thinks they should pursue them...as long as they act within the rules of the game.

B) The game creator asserts that there are a very few areas where the rights of the indivdual need to be secondary. Any behaviors that crash servers, for example, are not allowed, even if the method uses only "legal" moves. An exploit that produces or "duplicates" in-game money or very valuable items is also in this realm, as such a behavior leads to immediate, irreperable harm, even when done through "legal" moves. The game creator does have room for discression here, and the rules are on purpose somewhat nebulous. Stopping game-destroying bugs is more important than individual player's rights.

C) There is a large class of behaviors that seem "unfair" or "too good" and yet are technically legal and that do NOT fall under the above paragraph's "emergency powers." Examples from World of Warcraft would be a method of splitting linked monsters so they can be fought one at a time; the advantages of fighting on rooftops where city guards cannot reach you; using a warlock and rogue combo to pull a boss to an area where the fight is substantially easier; using the build-in macro system to backstab with a sword, even though the designers only intended backstabbing with daggers, and so on. These behaviors provide advantages to some individuals, but they are not world-shattering. They also make other players "unhappy" and sometimes feel "griefed." But that's the price everyone pays to play in a free system where seemingly arbitrary codes of conduct are not used.

D) When exploits are discovered, the game creator must decide whether they are "world-shattering" or not (ie, if they fall under paragraph B or C). If they are not world-shattering (and the overwhelming majority of all exploits are not), then the course of action should be to quietly fix the exploit. Players who use the exploit in the meantime are not punnished at all, as any such system of punishment creates too much burden on the behalf of players. Players should be allowed to use all legal moves available to them, as long as they do not violate paragraph B. If the game creator discovers a world-shattering exploit, then the course of action is to immediately announce that all users of this exploit will be warned in-game, then banned. In the meantime, the creator will fix the problem as soon as possible.

System 2: The Pro-Group Laws

A) The point of this system is to protect the "fun" of the largest number of people. A very few people always ruin the fun of the many, so the few should either stop doing that or be kicked out. It's impossible to list all ways that someone could make someone else unhappy so the rules are left intentionally vague. Note that this system is basically the same as System 1, except that Paragraph B) of System 1 is expanded to include almost everything.

B) If enough people are unhappy about a behavior and/or if the game creator is unhappy about a behavior, then the "spirit of the game" rule can be invoked at any time to legislate out otherwise legal moves. This means that these behaviors are still possible to do by using only legal game rules, but doing them is prohibited and leads to a warning, then a ban.

C) Somehow, the creator must maintain an even hand. There are so many gray areas that enforcing gray-rules fairly and evenly without discrimination or internal corruption becomes a major concern. Players are also faced with an artificial set of nebulous rules on top of the actual coded game rules. Even though Sirlin highly frowns on additional artificial rules of almost any kind, the creator feels negatives are outweighed by the positives of satisfying "the majority." Individual rights of players never existed in the first place since the creator owns the universe. If a minority enjoys riding the edge of rules but they are causing trouble, then there is no problem with banning them, as the majority is what matters.

What type of community will develop under each of these rulesets? Is one ruleset better than the other if you had to start a new government in a new country (and you weren't allowed to choose democracy)?

--Sirlin

Puzzle Pirates Really Messes Up Big-time

Uh oh, looks like another gaming injustice has taken place. Unfortuantely, I'll have to call you out personally on this one, Daniel James aka "Cleaver," creator of Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. Great game, great business story of how you got your game together, truly embarassing banning decision you just made.

There is a player in Puzzle Pirates known as RobertDonald. I know him as "Sloppy," as that's what the Street Fighter community called him. Sloppy was not very well liked, and I wouldn't say I'm really friends with him, so don't think for a minute this has anything personal to do with me looking out for a pal. Sloppy was always wierd and brought rubics cubes and strange dolls to tournaments. I never knew him to cheat in one of our tournaments, but we allow almost everything imaginble except bugs that crash the game, so it's pretty hard to cheat. Anyway, he would always find unfair things the games and exploit them to no end. Note that these were ALWAYS things that were technically allowed. I never lost to him in a tournament, but he certainly caught people off-guard a lot.

When I heard he was banned from Puzzle Pirates, I pretty much guessed how it all played out, even before reading up on it. After reading up on it, it's remarkable how much agreement there was about him, even from people who want him banned. Everyone says he always played within the rules. Everyone said he was always polite. Everyone said he was shrewd. He rocked the world of Puzzle Pirates so damn bad, that there were really two categories of players: him and everyone else.

Here's a thread all about it.

So it looks like he used this "blockade" tactic where you declare a blockade on an island that a guild (aka "flag") owns. 24 hours later, they have to defend the blockade in a match of 3 out of 5, I think. This takes hours. If Sloppy wins, he gets the island. Then gets to ruin the island by building a bunch of shops, but whatever. If Sloppy loses, the enemy keeps the island. Maybe there is some cost to the challenge, because everyone is talking about "dropping a chest" as part of a cost. In any event, Sloppy schedules these blockade attacks at times that are personally invonenient the enemy, then he just doens't show up, so he loses. He does this every week, basically attacking the enemy's real life schedule so they will be demoralized, bored, frustrated, and give up. Over time, they do give up. Meanwhile he has many business dealings in the game that allow him to keep up this pressure.

Sloppy is mopping the floor with these guys. He claims when people actually go to war with him and a real game is played (neaerly never) he wins 20-0, and I have little doubt that that is true. He claims that the game appears to favor medicore players, giving them insane defensive advantage, but that at a high level (that few people are aware of), attacking wins. Not sure if he meant attacking when you actually play, or attacking when you afk and bore the enemy. Such a distinction isn't really important though, since the game allows either tactic.

The creators of the game have long known of Sloppy's tactics. They have repeatedly changed the rules to stop his tactics, and he always adapts to the new rules. The creators were not able to list ONE SINGLE RULE he ever violated. No other players were able to list ONE SINGLE RULE he ever violated. So Cleaver finally played the ultimate cop-out card: Sloppy violated the nebulous "spirit of the game" rule. It's the last refuge of the scoundrel, inhabited by otherwise fun games such as World of Warcraft and now Puzzle Pirates. When an obviously flawed system is exposed, the "spirit of the game" cop-out is how a misguided game designer can solve the problem.

What's most confusing out of all this is that Cleaver himself admits the blockade system is broken. This is totally obvious statement since Sloppy's tactics should clearly not be allowed in the first place. Why is this game so dependent on people being awake at 4am on tuesday or whatever? Why are there no in-game protections from repeated afk attackers? I think 100% of people involved (remember, including the game developers) agree that the system itself is flawed. Why, then, is a player banned for exposing this flawed system while still staying inside the rules?

If there is another side to this (what could it possibly be?) then I'd love to hear it. Barring that, I request a formal apology from Puzzle Pirates staff be given to RobertDonald, that all his characters be reinstated with no penalty, and that a redesign of the blockade system (and any other offending system) be undertaken. Your best tester is RobertDonald, you know. He's forcing you guys to do better, and I know you can do better now that all these loopholes are exposed.

Sloppy, if you're out there, I will hire you as a "super expert ninja tester/game balancer."

--Sirlin

Buying Gold in MMOs

Buying gold in MMOs such as World of Warcraft has been a hot topic for years. It's all over the forums on www.worldofwarcraft.com right now. One side thinks "I've worked so hard to earn my gold, why should someone with real-life money get to buy it?" The other side thinks, "I have a job and can't play 15 hours per day. Why should kiddies with more free time get to mindlessly grind gold? They have more time, but it's worth it to me to spend $1 to get over 10 gold, so I do." Neither side can seem to understand the other.

I'm not sure why one side sees grinding gold as some amazing accomplishment that they earned. Farming gold is just as retarded as buying it on ebay, really. A lot of these complaints are coming from the angle that buying gold makes the playfield uneven in the competitive game of World of Warcraft. Newsflash: World of Warcraft is not a real competitive game. I think I've covered that one. There is no beginning, middle and end to a game (except in CTF matches), and people don't come to the table with the same resources the way they do in chess or Street Fighter or tennis.

This is the part where some of you write me mail about how people don't come to the table with the same resources in those games either because some people bring skill and others don't. Or maybe you'll say some people have more time to practice tennis so they get to bring more skill. Surely you know how bankrupt those comments are. The whole point of competitive games is that skill is the one uneven thing you are allowed to bring into and otherwise even match. Some people need lots of time to develop skill, and others don't. But no one buys skill (directly).

Also don't write me about how tennis gear or Magic cards cost money, so people bring different things to the table based on money in those games. No they don't. If you are a real Magic tournament player, you can get any card you want by trading or buying. A certain amount of cash or connections is needed to even play for real. Similarly, tournament tennis matches don't happen between people with $9 gear and people with $9,000 gear. Tournament tennis players have access to reasonably similar amount of gear and get ot compete based on a combination of skill, strategy and stamina.

MMOs are inherently uneven playfields. Unemployed kiddies grinding for gold vs. wealthy professionals buying it only highlights this issue; it doesn't create it. I guess I'm saying you can't really complain about people bringing different amounts of resources into a game that's entirely based on uneven playfields in the first place.

You know who the real loser is? Blizzard. Why aren't they finding a way to make money off this? Sony is. They have new servers for EverQuest that are flat out labeled as 'gold buying' servers. You know going in that you can trade real money for in-game money, and so can everyone else. If you don't like it, go on another server (where it happens anyway, btw), but at least Sony gets to make some money off it.

If you're still upset over this issue, maybe take up a real competitive game such as chess, Street Fighter, counter-strike, Magic: The Gathering, or...I don't know...Scrabble. No one will ever trade US dollars for extra letter tiles against you.

--Sirlin