ETC Applied Research Team

Final Presentation December 15, 2003

The Team

Ben Smith David Jimison Eben Myers Shanna Tellerman Brenda Harger, Faculty Advisor

Original High Level Goal

To research character and emotion in online games from a fresh perspective (Art & Drama) and to write a research paper that provides practical applications to game design.

Emergent Stories in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Using Improvisational Techniques to Design for Emotional Impact

Distinct Medium of MMOGs

Defining Characteristic

• Hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously inhabit the same persistent game world.

Unique Features of MMOGs

• Play together • Real-time • Unscripted • Potentially never-ending

Design Challenges

• Unpredictable player behavior • 1,000 heroes • Multiple play styles and skill levels

Stories

• Stories are important to human beings • Satisfying stories have an identified structure

Stories and Games

• Linear stories tend to be used in linear games.

• Multi-linear stories are also used in games.

Emergent Stories

• Authored on the fly.

Improv

Storytelling on the fly • Real-time • Unscripted

• Character • Relationship • Objective • Where (setting)

CROW

Character

• External and internal characteristics – Physical body – Status – Given circumstances – Personality traits – Inner needs

• Three types – Biological – Professional – Social

Relationship

Objective

• Objective is a goal – Physical – Psychological – Combination • Objective should be expressed as a verb

Where (setting)

• Time period and location for the story

CROW Web

• CROW elements are dynamic and interrelated • Action should cause change in one or more elements of CROW • Change in an element of CROW can affect other elements of CROW

Moments of Truth

• “...we rely on works of fiction, in any medium, to help us understand the world and what it means to be human ... we lose consciousness of the medium and see neither print nor film but only the power of the story itself (and) think about what truth it has told us about our lives.” (Janet Murray,

Hamlet on the Holodeck

)

Moments of Truth

• An empathic connection to a universal feeling through a specific incident in a story

Moments of Truth don’t have to be profound.

Important Points

• MMOGs are a distinct medium • Emergent stories can help meet the challenges of this medium • Improv techniques (CROW and CROW web) create a foundation towards moments of truth

Challenges

• We’re not gamers • We are 5 people writing together • The scope of our topic and our ideas is huge

We’re not Gamers: Playing Games • Together • Individually • Always discussed from a critical and analytical angle

Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction * Animal Crossing * Def Jam: Vendetta * Earth & Beyond * Final Fantasy X * Grand Theft Auto III * Grand Theft Auto: Vice City * Halo * Ico * Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy * The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker * Max Payne * Metal Gear Solid: Substance * Metroid: Prime * No One Lives Forever 2 * Silent Hill 2 * The Sims * The Sims Online * Splinter Cell * Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic * Super Mario Sunshine * Toontown Online

Point of View and Camera

Linearity

Reward Structures

We’re not Gamers: Talking to Gamers • Surveyed ETC students • One-on-one conversations

We’re not Gamers: Research • Gamespot, Gamespy, IGN, Mobygames, and many others… • Talked to designers at EA

We’re not Gamers: It’s a Strength Ultimately, being non-gamers meant we could bring an outside (artistic/dramatic) perspective to the topic.

We are 5 people writing together: Managing time together and apart • Meetings/discussions • Outlines • Divided up writing • Group editing

We are 5 people writing together: Communication

We are 5 people writing together: Greater than the sum of our parts

Huge Scope: Expanding the Scope First • All games not just online games • Breadth first study of video games

Huge Scope: Narrowing Down • Looked for topic areas that were new and different.

Sparks

Deliverables: Written Words

• Paper • Documentation of our thoughts/process

Deliverables:

EA Workshop

• January 9 th • Held at Maxis • Open to all of the EA community • Our objective: – Present our ideas in the form of practical applications that game designers can employ

Future Publications?

We will take ideas from our paper and write them into different published forms.

• Conferences (ACE ‘04, ICEC ’04, GDC ’05) • Magazines/Journals (Game Developer, Journal of Game Studies) • Online (Gamasutra)

Special Thanks

• • •

The Sims Online

Jeff Lind - Dev. Dir./Team Lead Andrew Boyd - Designer Jessica Lewis - Associate Producer • •

Earth & Beyond

Chris Klug - Creative Director Sean Dugan – Writer • • • •

The Sims 2.0

Lucy Bradshaw - VP Production/Dev.

Lisa Dennis - HR Bob King - Animator Billy Hsu - Console Development • •

LotR: Return of the King

Eric Leive - Artist Jane Ng – Artist • • • • • •

ETC Students/Alumni

Jon-Paul Dumont Richard Colvin Jon Parise Nate Jones Ira Fey Ted Hung

…Questions?