Other Influences

The design of virtual worlds is influenced by printed works, film, television, and role-playing games. Individual worlds may draw from other fields, too; for example, there are text MUDs set in console game worlds like that of Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Final Fantasy series, and there are scripting languages based on those used for military simulations. Anything requiring imagination can potentially be of value: These genuinely are “imaginary” worlds.

However, external factors are not the only ones at work here.

The greatest influence on the design of virtual worlds is (for better or for worse) the player base. Thus, anything that can influence existing or prospective players is itself an influence on the design of the virtual worlds they elect to play.

Some of this influence falls into the domain of marketing, which from the point of view of a designer can be viewed as a single pressure that is a convenient abstraction of the many other pressures the designer really, really doesn’t want to know about. Further influence comes from customer service, which affects game designers more (in that they have to plan for it in their design), but again it can be viewed as a single pressure that is the summation of many other pressures off the designer’s radar.

The remaining sources of influence are more direct, and should be consulted regularly:

• Competitors. Virtual worlds evolve by trying new ideas, yes, but also by taking ideas that work from other virtual worlds and by discarding ideas that have been shown to fail. Every virtual world has some innovation, and they shouldn’t be ignored simply because they weren’t written by you or they use a different genre.

• Opinion-forming publications. Reviews are important, as are regular columns: After all, even if a columnist were unilaterally to refer to virtual worlds as “MMOs”, sooner or later players would show up calling them MMOs. However, a magazine’s editorial policy matters the most, as it sets the tone for the articles. Computer Gaming World treats virtual worlds in a different manner than Wired, even though both are admirably responsible about the subject. Readers of one will get a different impression of virtual worlds than readers of the other.

• Opinion-forming players. Players listen to each other, whether it’s in the virtual world, in an online forum, or at a rant site. Surprisingly for designers, not every word uttered by players is patent nonsense; surprisingly for marketers and customer service people, not every word uttered by players is blindingly insightful. Players can swirl into a great maelstrom of creativity, but few of them truly understand game design ¹. This is a theme that surfaces time and time again when considering the design of virtual worlds.

Designers should not delude themselves that they can manipulate any of the above. Your fellow designers will usually be only too happy to explain to you those advances of which they’re particularly proud (it’s not like these things can be kept secret once beta-testing begins), but they won’t change their minds on your say-so. Similarly, although those journalists that your marketers allow you to speak to may seem wide-eyed and gullible, that doesn’t mean they really are. As for manipulating players, the customer service departments of some virtual worlds prohibit designers from even speaking to them, so disastrous can the consequences be if they do!

These are sources that can influence designers; the only way to influence them in return is through the designed virtual worlds.