2002 Introduction to the Article by Dr. Bartle

People ought to think about virtual world design.

Well, yes, of course ”isn't that obvious? You can't simply sit right down and program, as with regular computer games ; to do the job properly, you need a 600-page design document that took a team of people four months to write. How are the designers going to produce one of those if they don't think about it?

Well, by thinking about virtual worlds as if they were computer games. They are not. They are places. Furthermore, they are places inhabited by real, live people.

Traditional computer game design concentrates primarily on technical and gameplay issues; rarely are the people who are going to play the game taken into account. Yes, there are exceptions: Some games aim at a particular demographic (other than the default ”computer game designers); some games are tailored to change the gaming experience the more expert a player becomes. Basically, though, the aim is to persuade people to buy the game. What happens after they've bought it isn't really important.

With virtual worlds, it's not so simple. Different types of people will play the game; indeed, for a game to be healthy and keep on growing, a mix of playing styles is essential. They are ongoing products. They are only virtual WORLDS because of interactions between disparate players. If everyone is there for the same experience, it's not a world; it's a game or a chat-line or something else.

Programmers make the environment; people make it a world.

Nowadays, designers of virtual worlds routinely look at the kinds of players they expect (or hope) to attract and what those players will do. Will they spend most of their time battling monsters? Perhaps they'll manufacture goods and form trade networks to sell them? Maybe they simply like exploring, experiencing the sheer wonder of the world, seeking for it to amaze them at every turn ? Or could they devote their time to politics, implementing changes that will tangibly affect all other players? So many people, so much variety!

It wasn't always this way.

When I wrote "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades," few designers of virtual worlds gave any thought to how the people who inhabited them would act; those that did chose not to articulate their thoughts in public. As I saw more and more virtual worlds appearing and continual bickering between the proponents of "social" and "game-like" MUDs, it occurred to me that much of what was wrong was that many people lacked a basic understanding of why things in their favorite kind of virtual world were the way that they were. Design was by evolution: Take a working model, change it in some way, and see if the new model is better. The changes weren't entirely blind ”the designers had reasons for making them ”but, crucially, the effects of earlier designers' decisions were in general a mystery. Why do most virtual worlds organize players by levels, classes, races, and skills? Because the virtual world their designers cut their teeth on did!

My purpose in writing "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades" was to make people think about virtual world design. I felt (and still feel) that the observations I was making were essentially sound, but it wouldn't have bothered me if they had been disproved within months; the central point of my article wasn't "this is how people in virtual worlds interact," but "think how people in virtual worlds interact!"

When I wrote it, almost all virtual worlds were text-based MUDs. There were, and remain , several thousand of these in existence, some of which have been running for years. (And by " years ," I mean more than 15 ”how many regular computer games last that long?)

Today, however, we also have the large-scale graphical MUDs that Jessica and Bridgette have described in detail elsewhere in this book, which are variously known as "massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)," "persistent worlds (PWs)," and (as I've been calling them here) "virtual worlds." Do the points I raised in my mid-1990s article still hold true?

In essence, yes, they do.

The dynamics do change when there are several thousand people in a virtual world instead of several hundred at most. In particular, players who like to pick on other players can cluster in sufficient numbers that they can hunt in packs , which makes it harder for them to be controlled by guru-types who know all the answers but are individualistic. However, the basic relationships are still true: If you have a virtual world with far more socializers than achievers or far more achievers than socializers, you'd better have a host of newbies constantly adding to the pool or you're going to end up with a lump of die-hards and no one else.

Would I change any of the article were I to rewrite it today? Yes, I'd change the designation "killer" to be something else ”"busybody" or "bully," perhaps ”anything but "killer!" I've had more grief from that choice of word than everything else in the article combined! If only the temptation to map these players to the suit of clubs hadn't been so seductive....

Am I surprised that my article is still regarded as the first point of entry for anyone wanting to take a serious look at virtual world design? Well yes, actually I am; not because I believe that what I wrote is untrue, but because when I wrote it I assumed that by now some more apposite model would have superseded it. I remain convinced that this must happen (because research in the field can't remain stuck in 1995 forever!); however, for the moment it does seem to be holding up well.

This isn't to say that there aren't those who regard it as having been discredited. I've engaged in many debates on Usenet and web-based forums where people have criticized it heavily. The attacks are typically of two kinds: "This article promotes player-killing" and "You can't make these changes to the virtual world I use." The former is incorrect, in that the article merely predicts what will happen if you have no, some, or too much player-on-player activity. The latter is incorrect in theory (all games can be changed if you are prepared to make the effort), but correct in practice ( generally , you can't afford to make the effort!).

But ultimately, whether the article is "right" or "wrong" isn't the point. The point is to set you thinking. Look on it as a spark to light the fire of your own imagination and understanding.

And, as always, have fun!

Dr. Richard A. Bartle

Colchester, Essex, UK

March 17, 2002