Phatose on 28/10/2009 at 23:30
I thought the term was "Artificial Life"
Bakerman on 28/10/2009 at 23:32
Simulation? I guess that's not the right kind of term, but it does tend to describe all three points you mentioned.
EvaUnit02 on 29/10/2009 at 00:30
Thanks for responses thus far.
I'm pretty that this isn't Emergent game design. Wasn't the accepted definition of that player behaviours, action, strategies, etc. that were completely outside of what the developer predicted? Stuff that happens within the defined vanilla game's rules, nothing to do with modding.
demagogue on 29/10/2009 at 00:35
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
Albeit I'd never heard of 'throwness' previously.
Well thrownness isn't a term in the gaming industry; it's a term in philosophy and psychology. I just thought it might be relevant here. Even if they don't use the term, they
should IMO, because a lot has been written on it that could contribute to game design. (In a quick Google search, I'm not seeing anybody talking about it in the gaming context.)
Actually, to be precise, thrownness is the psychological state a person is in when they "wake up" in a world or situation that's just there, doing its own thing outside of him; it doesn't care about him, and he has the total freedom to care about anything (or nothing) in it. It's more like the ruler to measure how well the "living world" design is doing its job than a design principle itself ... because I think you can feel more or less of it depending on the circumstances. [You guys had some good terms going, anyway ... "Sim life", "simulated living world", "open world", "a working world", "Lifeworld"?]
For what it's worth, the stuff I've read on thrownness (mostly from Heidegger, who coined the concept) has some interesting ideas ... Two that he mentioned:
- Thrownness is the aspect of world that actually gives it its "there" character, that really embodies it as a real-feeling presence (a part of immersion). It's like when you enter a town ... if you see AI doing their jobs, like planting a crop in a field, it turns it into a real living space you can really feel as a presence in front of you, a field you can walk on that's there doing something. If you know that the "planting" is just a stock animation to "inform the player" (Age of Empires style), that feeling is killed and it's not a field that's really "there", it's just a glorified icon or symbol or at best a texture on the floor.
- Thrownness is the pre-requisite for "freedom" (as in the feeling of "free action"). Because "care" is always a two-way street, if the world/game mechanics all internally "care" about the player, than the player never has the freedom to choose what about the world he will care about, so his relationship to it never feels entirely "freely of his choosing." In gaming terms, it's like you really feel like a free agent, totally free to intervene in a world, if the world is doing its own thing and you can put yourself in it and change its flow within your power. If you know an AI has been sitting in a closet since the beginning of time, waiting for you to touch a trigger-box, it really kills the sense that you're a free agent in the world that can really change the flow or progress of the world's course, much less change it in a direction you want to. If he's doing his own job, you can help him or hinder him, the feeling of free-action in the world is much greater, exactly to that extent.
Ostriig on 29/10/2009 at 00:58
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Thanks for responses thus far.
I'm pretty that this isn't Emergent game design. Wasn't the accepted definition of that
player behaviours, action, strategies, etc. that were completely outside of what the developer predicted? Stuff that happens within the defined vanilla game's rules, nothing to do with modding.
I wouldn't say Emergent Gameplay is a wide enough term to encompass the full breadth of the design concepts you described, but I do think it's part of it, one of the results. I tend to see emergent gameplay as not being related to the player's direct actions exclusively, but also to the evolution of the gamespace in a non-predetermined way, in that such a development could also present the player with new situations demanding new reactions.
For example, I've always interpreted
true random encounters (as opposed to statistics-adjusted dice roll spawned ones) as an instance of emergent gameplay, possibly putting the player in wildly unpredictable situations, and I'd say that what you describe has every bit of potential to turn up that sort of thing. A truly working ecology coupled with a factions system and a wide open space could have massive impact on the unfolding of a player's experience.
I guess terms like "Living World" or "Artificial Life" fit the described reqs, though if I wanted to go for something more pompous I'd probably pick along the lines of "emergent world simulation" blah.
P.S. I like the description of this "thrownness" thing! Obviously, there's only so much of it you can or should apply in videogames, but a lot of it sounds much like some of the things we've been harping to see videogame devs attempt more and push further in their products.
Tonamel on 29/10/2009 at 01:22
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Wasn't the accepted definition of that
player behaviours, action, strategies, etc. that were completely outside of what the developer predicted? Stuff that happens within the defined vanilla game's rules, nothing to do with modding.
No, the definition of emergent behavior is the one I gave: Complex, somewhat unpredictable behavior arising from a set of simple core rules. (just checked, and the great and powerful Wiki (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_behavior) agrees with me, though they say it in a profoundly overwritten way. It's not something exclusive to game design, so it isn't a system that requires player involvement.
Also, what does your initial question have to do with modding? Did I miss something?
Ostriig on 29/10/2009 at 01:46
He was clarifying his statement about new scenarios outside of what the devs predicted, but still done exclusively with the game's original assets, not with stuff added by mods or the like.
As for the wiki definition, there's the entry for "emergence" which you quoted, but there's also an entry on (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay) "emergent
gameplay" in particular, and that definition's pretty much to the point - "Emergent gameplay refers to complex situations in a video game that emerge from the interaction of relatively simple game mechanics", apparently quoted/translated from a French magazine.
Phatose on 29/10/2009 at 01:47
Well, throwness is an interesting concept, but I don't think it's what is being looked for here. It's a description of the goal of the techniques, not the techniques themselves.
