[arg_discuss] Topic of the Week Aug. 17: Ghost Players

[libfli at aol.com]

 imo there are still many in-game in-story ways to deal w/that situation.? 
perhaps designers need to head into production with a handful of back-up
mechanics in case they have unsolvable puzzles or the like -

and although "trust" and perhaps "making the players feel stupid" 
is an issue when you break into the player space with these ghost
players or whatever, i think the bigger issue
is making the players feel not needed.?? someone else already pointed
this out - (can't remember who - sorry) but as soon as you start solving
your own puzzles or revealing your own secrets, there is really no reason
for your players to stay engaged.? yeah, they can continue to watch
the world and story, but you've taken away the reason many
come to these experiences.

Jan




 

-----Original Message-----
From: Naomi Alderman <naomi.alderman at gmail.com>
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG <arg_discuss at igda.org>
Sent: Tue, Aug 18, 2009 9:27 am
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Topic of the Week Aug. 17: Ghost Players










How about Imaginary Ghost Players, as a tactic of last resort? Where the
players simply haven't done what you needed them to do, and yes you've
learned valuable lessons for next time about puzzle design but nonetheless
you really do need *someone* to have emailed your main character (the
brunette in distress) to tell her the password to the secret file...

In that totally hypothetical situation, I might hypothetically say that one
could legitimately write a blog that started "I had an email this morning
from one of you - I think it was one of you? - suggesting that I try the
initials of all my favourite authors in alphabetical order as the password.
And it worked!" Or some such. Hypothetically.

Although honestly at this point if you're running a "so-and-so needs your
help" game, it's probably better to just have so-and-so figure it out
herself.

I agree that actually creating sockpuppet players and inserting them into
player discussions is a way to lose trust. People work it out and then they
feel irritated. Or they don't work it out, and then they feel stupid: where,
if you're running a puzzle-based game, it's really important to try to leave
your players feeling clever, not stupid.

- Naomi


On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Christopher Amherst <camherst at gmail.com>wrote:


> I'll side with Steve on this topic.

>

> To me, "Ghost Players" are a technique that is just a workaround to a

> problem that could have been resolved on the design side of the

> equation rather than in the implementation side.

>

> The technique comes across to me as:

> 1) Failing to understand one's audience (in terms of buy-in and puzzle

> complexity)

> 2) Failing to build redundancies into distributing across the game's

> social network

> 3) An inability to adapt or be flexible to the changing nature of the

> game 'stage'.

>

> #1 and #2 are issues that can be resolved in the early stages of

> design, with the understanding that

> they will evolve as a function of time.

>

> #3 is an issue that needs to be accounted for prior to run-time and

> addressed as part of any contingency design.

>

> Signed,

> Christopher

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