Emerging out of Complexity

With Greg’s permission…I will be discussing the game play in Diablo 2 in a different context.

Initially, I discussed how item greed in the game contributed to some of the cultural changes in that particular genre of games. Currently, there are a lot of controversial issues surrounding this genre, such as virtual item sales and severe game addiction that were not present 10 years ago. Because Diablo 2 was like a predecessor to World of Warcraft in game play, I can state that it had a large impact on how WoW was created. Now I shall divert my attention inward to examine what happened in Diablo’s game play that spawned this new way of playing.

The operational rules of Diablo 2 were fairly standard and resembled the style of a typical adventure role playing game. The design of the game was obvious and the object was clear: make your character, follow the story by completely quests and defeating the enemy. From the numerous character dialogues to the elaborate cut scenes explaining the plot, there was no question about what you were supposed to do. In the single player mode it is not likely that you would discover new ways to play the game and deviate from the rules. You are alone in the game’s system with a limited number of elements and relationships regardless of how rich the game environment is. That is why I noticed a difference in game play when I played the online multi-player mode. With other players present, the number of relationships just increased exponentially and pushed the game toward a higher level of complexity. This made it possible for new and unpredictable behavior to emerge.

The new rules in Diablo were to collect valuable items and to become the player with the best toys. To play the game properly meant to learn a set of new implicit rules that were not written in your game manual. These rules were numerous, complicated, unintuitive, and sometimes unreasonable. Where did all of these rules come from!? A high degree of complexity allows countless possibilities within the game. Players were able to explore all the possible ways to play and the constant interaction between players caused certain rules to emerge and solidify. Within this space of possibilities, players were rewarded for exploring a certain combination of them. It is at this point when players realized it is more fun to play the game when the community admired them for having possession of rare items. Suddenly, all of their game time was spend collecting items rather than progressing toward the end of the story.

The same can be said about the sudden increase in virtual item stores and online sales. Naturally, there is a very strong and complex relationship between the people who play the game and those who run the virtual item businesses. One cannot function without the other because the game has extended and now includes parts of the world outside the actual game. The sphere of possibilities increased and new rules emerged. Now these new set of rules apply to activities outside the game world and both systems function together symbiotically. Hacking was another way an individual gained access to a pool of possibilities. However, even if this was a successful shortcut to great rewards most of these were temporary because game patches were frequently released to wipe out hacks. I can recall a duration several years ago when I suddenly saw items I’ve never seen before on some of the characters in the game. It was obvious they were hacked because the item gave the character the most ridiculously unfair bonuses. For a while these items set the standard for the game but it only lasted several months. I also recall another time where a “hacked map” was the temporarily the standard for play. These were still emergent properties of the game but they were not allowed to evolve.

The other “legal” emergent properties are continuously evolving together with new players entering the system while old players are leaving. Some players never leave the system but also contribute to the change just as much as the others. I would like to point out that the ones who do have the most influence are the creators. They can at any time stop certain behaviors from occurring inside the game just like they did with the hacks. This makes me wonder why they don’t stop the online stores from selling their game’s virtual items. I suppose they must be benefiting from this in several ways, with one being that the stores sustain the popularity of the game. The designers of the game (whether intentionally or not) succeeded in delivering a game with high replay value. Simply completing the game’s story, even if it was fun for the first or second time, does not reward the player enough to play again and again. The creators seemed to have a strong sense of awareness about iterative processes in the game’s system. A tiny change inside the game can result in a possibly revolutionary change on a larger scale <ahem, the Butterfly Effect>. To be able to anticipate these changes is pretty talented, but it can also be beneficial to leave some room for “emergent surprises”. That is what makes a game interesting and meaningful.

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My Vision on Future Gaming

Being a huge fan of MMORPG’s and open-ended games, I have envisioned a world in the future where people of all ages play, not just one MMO, but several simultaneously. We have seen the huge success and popularity of these games to the point where the game takes over the individual’s life. Some have managed to turn the game into their actual life by making money and a living off the game such as Second Life. In these present cases, the game is literally the person’s second life. According to statistics, a game addict spends roughly 1 out of every 4 hours of their current life logged into their game. Why!? Many people are drawn to MMO games because it allows them to experience life that is different and more interesting than their real lives. Day after day of the same mundane job in a boring city is, well…boring. There are also those who are socially more comfortable in an online virtual reality setting and can make emotional connections easier this way. There is a wide spectrum of reasons but the trend is clear: experiencing multiple lives is thrilling and seductive. Also, more people are becoming heavily dependent on computers in this fast paced technologically advancing society. The younger generation is more technologically savvy than the previous. Taking into account all of these factors, it is not so farfetched to imagine a world where everyone is playing several interconnected MMO’s experiencing multiple lives in one lifetime. One way this can be accomplished is if a reasonable living can be made in your real life or inside one or more of these games. Just like that woman who made a million dollars in Second Life doing “real-estate”, all one would have to do to make money is play the game. For these games to have appeal to a larger variety of people, one would have to create desirable game worlds for people of all ages and interests. It will give people the opportunity to try out several professions, redo their childhoods, have multiple relationships (husbands or wives), and etc.

If I take this idea one step further into the future, there might even be a way to slow down the passing of time when someone is in the game world. This will allow people to experience these multiple lives out of the actual reference frame of real time. This is not the process of slowing down real time but increasing the speed at which the person experiences the game…meaning speeding up information processing. Quantum information theory might lend a hand towards this technology. If this process were pushed to the limit then one might possibly be able to play a game for hours on end and come out as if no time has passed. This scenario is depicted in the book by Phillip K. Dick called “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Elderitch” where the characters in the book take futuristic leisure drugs to experience being different people in a more desirable setting. They can do this for an unlimited time and come back to reality where no time has passed.

Of course this would mean that no one would ever leave their computer stations and we would all turn into big piles of mush.