| Author |
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| xnbomb |
Re: Why a curtain?
| catherwood wrote: |
| danteIL wrote: |
| I think that artificially preventing player-PM communication under certain circumstances can hurt game development. |
"feedback" and "development" makes it sound like the game hasn't been fully designed yet or wasn't quite ready for launch. |
I wholeheartedly agree that not having some channels for communication between players and puppetmasters can be a serious problem for a game. This is because some mechanism of feedback is necessary for a game to be a living thing, for it to adapt in any way to the fashion in which the players approach it. Regardless of how well the game has been designed and planned out, therein lies the chaotic, unpredictable part of it that makes it fun and alive and more real; that it doesn't behave like an algorithm or automaton, but can adapt.
There is no reason that the necessary communication cannot be mediated through characters, though. They are the interface between players and puppetmasters, and if properly employed they allow messages to be sent and received in both directions. Yes, that sort of meta-communication can be a delicate dance. But I find it to be worth the effort for some of the reasons that catherwood describes. It would impair my enjoyment of the game to be talking to the puppetmasters about the game itself while it is still happening. The suspension of disbelief, the ability to believe in the game world for the purpose of enjoying playing in it while still knowing it is a game, is hard enough as it is. Once I can see the wizard behind the curtain throwing switches and pulling levers, it becomes that much harder.
Now, this may not be true for everyone. Maybe some of you can totally ignore knowing the wizard and talking to them while they put on the show, but for me, this breaks the illusion to a great extent.
EDIT: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that player forums like this one are also such a channel, whereby they can send messages to PMs, assuming PMs are reading them (which is usually a good assumption, but not always?). The tricky (or great?) thing about this approach is that as a player you do not know if the message is received unless you get some reaction in the game that suggests that it has been (although the beauty there is you cannot quite trace the causality, since whatever it is might have happened in the game anyhow). And likewise, puppetmasters can communicate with players in terms of the things that happen in a game, which may or may not require the action of what most would consider a character (deus ex machina, anyone?).
 Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:50 am
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| catherwood |
Re: Why a curtain?
| danteIL wrote: |
| Note that I'm not talking about the divide between in-game and out-of-game domains -- but more about issues of communication and feedback. I think that artificially preventing player-PM communication under certain circumstances can hurt game development. |
"feedback" and "development" makes it sound like the game hasn't been fully designed yet or wasn't quite ready for launch.
While I'm watching a movie (like "The Matrix"), I don't want to be having a conversation with the director (as if the Wachowski brothers needed any feedback from me while writing it). And while playing the Metacortex game, the PMs were right in staying completely invisible, if they wanted me to believe that I was looking at a real corporate website and not an intro screen to a video game.
If there is to be any two-way communication -- whether for feedback or to further develop the plot -- it has to be done thru the characters. I want to call the human resources department or email the metacortechs.com webmaster if I see something funky with his website, not some people I know at unfiction (which btw I did not know at the time, which was great!)
If you are having meta collaborations with the authors, you're not playing inside the game world any more. That might be a wonderful experience, but it's just a *different* sort of experiment in fiction.
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:23 am
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| konamouse |
In some cases it has really enchanced the TINAG concept (i.e. the first Sammeeeees).
In other cases, it helps lend legitimacy and promise of quality (i.e. EE).
I think it depends on the game design and the ability of the PM to avoid muddling with the play.
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:54 am
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| danteIL |
Why a curtain?
What are people's thoughts about the necessity of the "curtain" between PMs and players? There seems to be an unwritten(?) rule that players and PMs have no direct contact with one another during games -- and furthermore in the (perhaps ideal) extreme that players are even kept ignorant about PM identities.
I'm curious what other people think. I have some thoughts of my own, which tend toward the 'unnecessary' part of the spectrum (and I recognize that it *is* a spectrum). The primary arguments, it seem, center around notions of 'immersion.'
Note that I'm not talking about the divide between in-game and out-of-game domains -- but more about issues of communication and feedback. I think that artificially preventing player-PM communication under certain circumstances can hurt game development.
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:49 am
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