# Image

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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Traditionally, virtual worlds make a distinction between stats (short for “statistics”) and knowledge. Stats are what characters have (strength, dexterity, magic points, and so on); knowledge is what players have (how to bring down a dragon, the route to the citadel, that player B is an idiot, and so on). The virtual world knows everything about stats and nothing about knowledge; for this reason, the terms tangibles and intangibles are used when referring to attributes of characters [^79] as opposed to attributes of players. A player’s knowledge of tangibles is itself intangible, of course.

Only tangibles are meaningful to the virtual world, but both tangibles and intangibles are meaningful to players. Virtual worlds generally have no way even to know that player A thinks player B is an idiot, let alone to model the fact. Players, however, do like to know this stuff, and are excellent at assimilating it. Many virtual worlds therefore provide what are essentially bookkeeping facilities for players, wound into their own context to maintain a degree of immersion. However, they don’t actually use any of it to introduce goals for the players—they have no access to the content of the information, just to its form. There is therefore no gameplay reason why a player should be able to make a private annotation to another player’s character; it just adds to their enjoyment.

The most important intangible is a character’s name. Unless the name is constructed from components that the virtual world knows about, it has absolutely no handle on what a name might “mean.” Players will hazard a guess that Cupcake and Hardcore might have different personalities, but the virtual world doesn’t know. Names that are names in real-life are especially potent: Anyone picking such a name has some reason for doing so (typically to do with role-playing or real-life self-image). There are plenty of other intangibles, however. It costs a virtual world practically nothing to allow characters to have different color clothes, hair, weapons, and so on, but it allows people to individualize themselves and make personal statements. This is made easier by the fact that these are recognizably intangible: At character-creation time, players aren’t going to worry about the gameplay effect of having blue eyes, whereas they might for having a particular weapon or skill. They can concentrate on their image. Purists often sneer at such distractions from what a virtual world is “about.” Why would anyone in their right mind want to wear a suit of crimson armor if there are cheaper regulation gray ones that offer a better defense? Shouldn’t designers be investing their time in extending gameplay rather than adding yet more eye candy? Some designers do go overboard in this regard, it’s true, but then some non-gameplay features can be absolutely critical. Strictly speaking, for example, communication between players is rarely necessary for gameplay reasons, yet take it away and you don’t have a virtual world.

That said, the purists do have a point in that although there’s no reason why a suit of crimson armor should have any gameplay differences from a regular suit of armor, there’s no reason for it not to, either. If someone has gone to the trouble of collecting all the various crimson parts (breastplate, helmet, gauntlets, epaulettes, grieves, and so on), it doesn’t hurt to make the parts or the suit as a whole give more protection against, say, fire than a standard-issue suit; what’s more, it makes it a little more interesting for achiever types. Even someone who is wearing it only because it makes them look good might feel more satisfied if they can convince themselves there is a “legitimate” gameplay reason for sporting it [^80]. Note that this does not apply for customizations that players pay for. There is money to be made in selling players one-off character modifications or pieces of customized kit, but only if it doesn’t affect gameplay. It’s okay to replace a shield with a functionally equivalent one that looks different, but it’s not okay to replace it with one that acts different; otherwise, players who can’t afford to pay for such a change will complain bitterly that they are disadvantaged [^81]. Changes to intangibles are acceptable, but changes to tangibles aren’t.

Tangibles mainly interest achievers. It therefore comes as little surprise to learn that intangibles are particularly important to socializers. Therefore, designers who want to make their virtual worlds attractive to socializers usually incorporate a number of intangible-friendly tools in their worlds. As the celebration of identity lies at the very core of virtual worlds, chief among these will be the means made available to players for determining their appearances in the virtual world.

The mechanisms for creating a basic character differ between textual and graphical worlds, and the various options are discussed fully in Chapter 5, “Life in the Virtual World.” For now, though, we’ll assume that a new character has been created: This new character is the player’s opening statement. Customizations subsequent to it are modifications to that statement and can say important things about the way individuals view themselves. It is therefore in the best interests of designers to make customization easy, so that people can go where they want to go. The simplest method is to allow players to make freeform notes about themselves that other players can read as an adjunct to their name, but this is just one of three general approaches available:

- Tangibles real for the virtual world. A character can remove a suit of armor and give it to some other character who will benefit from its protective attributes.

- Intangibles real for the virtual world. Your character can dye their hair yellow and their hair will thenceforth be reported as being yellow—even if hair color is transparent to the mechanisms of the virtual world.

- Intangibles virtual for the virtual world. You can annotate yourself with a publicly readable note that says dogs adore you, but the virtual world would take no account of it were you to encounter one.

Players can therefore use a combination of methods to make statements about—that is, to express—themselves. They can write their description such that when someone looks at them they’re told they see “a mighty knight;” they can wear some impressive-looking armor that makes them appear like they’re mighty knights; they can wear some top-of-the-range plate mail that makes them be a mighty knight.

Freeform descriptions aren’t as important in graphical worlds as they are in textual ones, because people go by looks in the former and by “look” commands in the latter. Most MUDs have freeform descriptions, and they’re considered the main way (other than by name) to flesh out a character. There are two problems, however, neither of which is immediately apparent.

The first is practical. On the face of it, it might be thought that there could be trouble with hugely unsuitable descriptions [^82] if people are allowed to depict their characters however they see fit, but this is only the case for griefers (who are trouble anyway).

Other players may inflate their status, but it’s easy to spot and only makes the perpetrator look foolish (well, not quite “only”—it spoils immersion for others, too). No, the main problem with the content of personal descriptions is that they are often either touchingly illiterate or irredeemably clichéd. There may be a thousand ways to say that a character is tall, dark, and mysterious, but if every male character you meet is basically tall, dark, and mysterious then they all kind of merge into one. They even have eyes that seem to pierce your very soul the same way [^83]. Female characters are green-eyed, flame-haired, pale-skinned beauties who move with the catlike grace of a dancer while wielding matching swords. Oh, and they have heaving breasts, too. There must be a factory somewhere manufacturing them.

The second problem is less easy to fix by taking someone aside and having a quiet word. The thing is, it’s an act of will to change a description. The player may change, but unless they notice it their character’s description won’t. Even if it does, there are limits; “tall, dark, and mysterious” may mean a player feels out of place and misunderstood yet possessing of hidden depths, but if they later feel at home, at ease, and gregarious, how do they change their description to reflect that? Their character shrank a few inches and went blond overnight? Worse, will they even effect a change if every time they meet someone new they’re treated like they were tall, dark, and mysterious? Freeform descriptions can anchor players too much; in graphical worlds, the same applies to their character’s visual appearance. I didn’t implement character descriptions in MUD1 precisely for this reason: Players can explore their identities more freely if they aren’t tied to some image [^84].

There are two basic mechanisms for getting around this.

The first one is to have characters die occasionally, so players have to create new ones. This gives players the opportunity for some redefinition. Persona death has other implications, however, so this is not necessarily an option for most designers.

The other approach is profiling. The idea here is that characters have computer-generated descriptions based on their actions. It’s not as expressive as freeform text you’ve written yourself, but at least it gets updated. Its most basic form is to tag a character’s name by some epithet based on some combination of that character’s level of experience, class, race, and gender: “Felice the heroine” rather than just plain “Felice.” Special titles and epithets, for example “Felice the giant-killing heroine,” can be added for particularly exemplary deeds, either automatically or by admiring administrators.

Longer biographies can be built up separately, for anyone to access if they want to know more about a character’s actual deeds. This allows people to form an opinion about a character, which is particularly useful in virtual worlds where characters never really “die.” The half-life of these descriptions should depend on their importance. “Felice vanquished the maiden and saved the dragon” might be a big deal for a relative newbie, but not worth a mention after a couple of weeks. “Felice beat seven kinds of hell out of Tommy and took his shoes” would probably hang around to stain Felice’s reputation for somewhat longer.

Profiling also can be used as a more general tool to provide information for other parts of the system. For example, if a group of players finally destroy the demon lord after two months of trying, the server could automatically generate a newsflash (for a login message, for a web site, for a mobile phone message, for email) to inform everyone what’s happened. Done right, it may even be possible to create faux articles for the virtual world’s virtual newspapers.

It’s therefore not only individual players who can benefit from a virtual world’s acceptance of intangibles: the whole community can.


[^79]: These terms extend to the virtual world in general (as described in Chapter 1).
[^80]: The same applies for role-playing props. If there’s a gun on the wall then you ought to be able to fire it, even if laser weapons are better (apologies to Chekhov).
[^81]: There is an argument that this doesn’t apply for virtual worlds (or particular instantiations of them) that are designed to use charging for gameplay-significant objects from the beginning, advertising it as a main feature of their business model. Of course, such worlds might not attract many players, but hopefully they’ll get more money from each one. The main standard-bearer of this approach is Achaea, where player expectation is so geared up for it that they sell over half a million objects with tangible properties a year—a phenomenal figure!
[^82]: If they’re descriptions at all—web site addresses sometimes feature, for example.
[^83]: Which can still happen when they’re asleep, unless the virtual world provides facilities to switch descriptions depending on character states, which most don’t.
[^84]: This is an example of where virtual world designers don’t always understand their virtual world’s design. Why do most textual worlds have free-form descriptions in them nowadays? Well, it’s because someone way back when added the facility to an ancestor world and they’ve simply inherited it. Why was it added in the first place? Was it because the designer who did it knew what they were doing or because they didn’t know what their own “parent” world’s designer was doing? In either case, how can the designers of today’s worlds be sure it’s the right thing for their world? How many of them even consider that the feature might be optional?