Diogo Ribeiro
Erudite
This is the fifth thread in a series about discussions on roleplaying. The first dealt with characters and roleplaying; the second discussed class and skill-based systems; the third reflected on character creation; and the fourth delved in concepts and appraisals of sentient weapons.
Today I found myself willing to try something slightly different, even with the little time I have, so this is the first in the series which will try, as the title may suggest, to be about the concept of roleplaying in MMORPGs and more especifically about how roleplaying may or may not translate well into online environments.
Two articles about online games and their intrincancies nudged me into this direction. One was an article from The Escapist which cleverly addressed the problems in trying to bring a tabletop experience into CRPGs; the other was a 4 page article I recently stumbled on at the Obsidian board which refered to an incident in EVE Online (the article can be found here, here, here, and here).
I briefly stated what I felt about it:
Metadigital, one of the more intelligent posters at the Obsidian forums, and always a pleasure to talk to, questioned me:
To which I answered:
We then proceeded to mate in the ocean like two horny salmons to the sound of John Tesh's mystical tunes, sponsored by a setting sun. Or not.
In any case, the basic premise for this post is to simply ask what are your opinions on this? Should there be a heavy handed regulation for such times when gaming and metagaming become blurred? Or should it be a free for all fest? What do you feel could be done to bring actual roleplaying into MMORPGs, or how to make it have a more pronounced role? Or are you of the opinion that in computer RPGs this is largely impossible and each game should have its own self-regulation methods?
Today I found myself willing to try something slightly different, even with the little time I have, so this is the first in the series which will try, as the title may suggest, to be about the concept of roleplaying in MMORPGs and more especifically about how roleplaying may or may not translate well into online environments.
Two articles about online games and their intrincancies nudged me into this direction. One was an article from The Escapist which cleverly addressed the problems in trying to bring a tabletop experience into CRPGs; the other was a 4 page article I recently stumbled on at the Obsidian board which refered to an incident in EVE Online (the article can be found here, here, here, and here).
I briefly stated what I felt about it:
Role-Player said:There never really is a way, wheter these situations take place in a real or virtual environment. I think this is one of the main problems with the concept of role-playing, more specifically with keeping in character, when it comes to computer RPGs. It's hard for gamers to convince others they're roleplaying a space pirate or similar archetypes when their actions can be easilly deemed as being against the game or metagaming.
To me this situation in EVE Online is a great example of a group of gamers roleplaying their characters in the virtual gameworld. From their motivations, to their tactics, to the whole Ubiqua Seraph situation - all of it just feels like they are dedicated gamers and can deal with this kind of things. While it was no doubt disastrous for players on the receiving end of the well coordinated attack, would there be as much complaints if this act by the Guiding Hand Social Club was instead played out by NPCs in an add-on developed by EVE's developers? Would it be considered cheating or despicable then? It feels like a contradiction - it's a game genre that perhaps allows for the most organic changes made by players, but most gamers tend to frown on such changes. They want to activelly change the gameworld but are afraid of what those changes may mean to them.
The whole problem is that unofficial means of communication (such as forum messaging, private chats or channels, emails) and unwritten game rules allow for this kind of situation to rise. As an example, when I have the time I play a certain MMORPG. No point in naming it, though it's basically centered around building our own empires, mine resources and train out armies to eventually become king cheese. One of the things several players do is set up personal forums for alliances. In those forums players exchange information about other players' soldiers and spy offense and defense, their gold per turn, miners, wheter these players belong to the alliance or not. This is metagaming, insofar as sharing information about users who are not part of the alliance (and therefore never consented to having their stats displayed) and about users whose offense and defense is too high for certain users to fight against.
So basically I can log in a given alliance forum, be nice, scoop up information then find myself using it for personal gains, or for alliance coordinated attacks. I may even build a spy network to infiltrate and undermine a fellow alliance member's fortification and armies based on information he gives me (though I'd have to be careful not to be exposed). I assume a scenario where I actually sell information about other players' status would also be possible ("sell" in terms of ingame monetary resources, not real life currency). I am not aware if such things are done but I wouldn't be surprised. That would have certainly explained all the spy attacks I received after exposing my statistics to fellow alliance members; someone could be playing double agent.
The thing is, these situations are considered to be morally reprehensible simply because they are being done outside the field of the game. Nothing prevents players from establishing alliances and communicate between themselves and set up attacks or somesuch; but all else can be dubbed metagaming. But just where does it begin and where does it end? How do we let everyone know that player A is a metagamer and player B is roleplaying a double agent? Perhaps more importantly, how do we make every other player understand and play along with the differences, to make them sacrifice themselves for a given idea of roleplaying and of virtual co-existence?
It seems to me that the more one tries to put the RPG back into MMORPG the more hassle one finds.
Metadigital, one of the more intelligent posters at the Obsidian forums, and always a pleasure to talk to, questioned me:
metadigital said:1. How is this any different from every single group attempting to establish a secure channel for intelligence? The WW2 Germans and their Enigma code machines: were they meta-gaming? I think it is not so unacceptable to have secure channels; after all, if the characters were of the virtual world, there would be other means to facilitate their communications, such as scraps of paper under the counter of the local greasy spoon, or a want ad in the local newspaper.
2. Isn't this just garden-variety espionage? Nowhere near as clever as Harold Adrian Russell (Kim) Philby (Aside: ...In 1988 Philby consented to a week-long interview with The Sunday Times, in which he justified his treachery to his native country by saying that when he made his commitment to the KGB, he believed that the western democracies were too weak to resist the rise of Fascism in Europe and that only the Soviet Union would be able to defeat it. ...)
3. I don't find it morally reprehensible. And I would go further with your example: how do we really differentiate between the "meta-gamer" and the "role-playing double agent" ...
To which I answered:
Role-Player said:1. By unofficial means of communication I mean communication that is based and takes place outside the confines of the virtual gameworld. To me the one, main difference that stands between the Germans' transmission of codes trough secret channels and the situation in EVE Online is that the second was dealt with in two different worlds, the real and virtual ones. In the Germans' case there was no kind of fallback, no secondary world where they could get an advantage, or plan one, nor where they could contemplate and operate reality from afar in some substantially different world. No German could log off reality, ask someone what would be the best strategy against his enemies or read a walktrough on how to beat them, then log in again and use that knowledge to succeed, or outright win the game. I think for both situations to be the same, or comparable, I reckon it would be necessary that there existed a second world, and that one of them allowed for the acquisition and use of information that was not subject to the same rules as the 'main' world.
Secure channels may be acceptable, and perhaps even necessary, but I think they should be used strictly inside the virtual gameworld. This isn't a failproof method to prevent metagaming but it seems like a way to ensure that any communication, public or private, pertaining to the game remains in the game, not outside. PMs, whispering to a given player, or assembly points exclusively made for, and used by, alliance members come to mind. Without wanting to suggest a 1984esque situation, the logs of conversations in those three channels could be monitored for any metagaming activities that would be considered seriously damaging to the game and gamers; system admins could deal with those situations afterwards.
2. It was an intricate job, and I admire the level of commitment and hard work they went trough in regards to the game component; it would have been a long, arduous but brilliant campaign for able roleplayers to participate in. But this was also brought down by the apparent befriending of players in real life. Seems a clear case of meta and standard gaming that I don't particularly support. Interactions outside the game should not influence interactions inside the game. Not to this point at least. Meta garden-variety espionage.
3. Several players do, and I find myself divided but it's mostly a case by case basis. When one is part of the ranks of an alliance there are some assets one can gain access to. Extra citizens, money and information. These are part of the rules and are also a given between a group of players who willingly participate in an alliance. The information however, is a mixed bag. No doubt nothing would prevent someone from telling me someone else's fortification defense values, or army offense ratings for example, especially if they had encountered them in battle or spied them... But that is acceptable when done in the game. When you have people posting lists of their 'farms' (other players who are recurringly attacked and robbed of their resources multiple times) along with their status in some forum, this questions the use and morality of information. You already can access this info within the game trough your own work; is it really justified to expose enemy strenghts and weaknesses to others outside of the game, and let them be easilly obtainable with close to no effort on behalf of players? Personally I am not in favor of this.
Well, the quick, obvious answer to your question is 'we ask them' but that doesn't always work. A player's motivations are what in turn defines a character's motivations. The problem as we seem to agree comes from guessing these motivations and expect the rest of the gameworld and its virtual inhabitants play along with them. Admitedly I have no ideas that would solve this problem. At first glance the best step forward in achieving this would be to have all the players consciously abide to a code of conduct - not all too dissimilar from the codes of conduct I've abided to in distant P&P sessions - that would have all players agree to roleplay and to do as little metagaming as possible (the cases of enforced roleplaying I've seen in some Neverwinter Nights servers springs to mind), but this is too optimistic and can't account for all possible permutations where gaming and metagaming intertwine. For the most part it seems we're stuck with dealing with these situations and behaviours as it's seemingly impossible to fully police these activities at this moment.
We then proceeded to mate in the ocean like two horny salmons to the sound of John Tesh's mystical tunes, sponsored by a setting sun. Or not.
In any case, the basic premise for this post is to simply ask what are your opinions on this? Should there be a heavy handed regulation for such times when gaming and metagaming become blurred? Or should it be a free for all fest? What do you feel could be done to bring actual roleplaying into MMORPGs, or how to make it have a more pronounced role? Or are you of the opinion that in computer RPGs this is largely impossible and each game should have its own self-regulation methods?