The Critical Aesthetic in Use on Designing Virtual Worlds

The Job of the Critic

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Films have critics, computer games have reviewers, but what do virtual worlds have? Virtual worlds have rant sites.

That’s not entirely fair; the main listings sites for textual worlds do carry player-written reviews that are often thoughtful and insightful (and not necessarily written by people with a vested interest in making prospective players either play or fail to play the world in question). For graphical worlds, though, with their much bigger player bases, rant sites rule.

Content Created by Players

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Back in Chapter 1, I described the two mechanisms by which players can add content: Within context and without context. In my discussion thus far, I’ve assumed that any content added by regular players within context, as with house building in Ultima Online. What are the implications of allowing them to add it

without context, as with arbitrary room construction in LambdaMOO?

A first observation is that allowing players to build out of context passes control of the critical aesthetic to those who consume it. This implies accessibility, removing the pretentiousness and snobbishness that comes from artistic elitism (which I’ve undoubtedly been guilty of demonstrating in this chapter). One player’s opinion is just as good as any other player’s opinion.

My Take on All This

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ideally, designers should create their world in such a way that they never need to add new content. In practice, this can never be. Nevertheless, new content should only be added to rectify problems in the way that the world works—that is, bug-fixing, balancing, and functional enhancing. Designers should not look to add or change content—even for artistic reasons—if it is not necessary ¹. All other content should be emergent from player activities. This means you need a virtual world with enough depth and breadth that players can, through the effects of their own actions, create content for themselves, and for others. The real world does it, so why can’t we? Players should have no access to out-of-context content creation tools. Whether they