"People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous."
October 20, 2013 6:18 PM   Subscribe

 
Ultima Online is a Hall of Fame game. It averaged 6/10 in reviews.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't his intention to earn hall of fame status for creating the best griefer paradise of all time.

One of the commonest pieces of feedback I get is that I am choosing some philosophical ideal over the player’s experience. It might be getting wedded to an aesthetic or visual I love that is just confusing the issue. It might be sticking with PvP for too long in order to serve an ideal of virtual citizenship, not paying attention to how many players are being chased out of the game.

Right, see, the customers demanded and end to the only thing that made UO a legendary game because it was only fun at the cost of the griefing victims who quit the game in droves.

People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.


I am glad that instead I can just say: Raph Koster sucks and inertia is the only reason he has repeatedly been trusted with projects he is not capable of handling.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:25 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


(But hey, I have friends and family who still play UO, so he can obviously do some stuff right)
posted by Drinky Die at 6:27 PM on October 20, 2013


I think that is great advice. And so hard to implement!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:41 PM on October 20, 2013


I'm just amazed Ultima Online still exists. It's older than Diablo!
posted by JHarris at 7:00 PM on October 20, 2013


Wait, so does this mean I should tell Raph Koster that I thought the original incarnation of Star Wars: Galaxies was awesome sucked golf balls through a garden hose?

I'm confused.
posted by Spatch at 7:03 PM on October 20, 2013


Wait, so does this mean I should tell Raph Koster that I thought the original incarnation of Star Wars: Galaxies was awesome sucked golf balls through a garden hose?


Go ahead. We're used to that.
posted by Lord_Pall at 7:05 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Awesome advice, by its own standards.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:23 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


"I'm pretty sure it wasn't his intention to earn hall of fame status for creating the best griefer paradise of all time."

I had a blast playing it, and it wasn't that hard to be smart enough to avoid th griefers.

I *loved* that you could craft so many elements of your world, which were quite real, valid, and usable. It makes me basically despise the crafting systems for practically every other game, because when it comes down to it, I want a nice little house somewhere, a shop, and a real boat in the harbor somewhere... oh, and I want to craft weapons that are potentially as good -- if not occasionally better than -- anything that some arrogant guild grinds for incessantly from their uber-special dungeons... the ones that they do their utmost best to abuse. Make the best drops item enchantments that only the best of the best crafters can expect to use to anywhere near their full ability.

I long for there to be an MMORPG that actually takes crafting and user-created objects seriously again...
posted by markkraft at 7:40 PM on October 20, 2013 [5 favorites]


I strongly disagree with these points:

--- Everyone who dislikes your work is right.

No. Everyone's reactions are valid, but not everyone's critiques are valuable. Critiques along the lines of "well, it sucked balls, I didn't like it" are useless. Well-thought-out critiques are valuable: "X made me feel such-and-such a way, which I didn't like and detracted from the experience, because it seems like you're trying to do Y, but instead you end up doing Z because of this and that reason".

Most criticisms are like the former. It's totally okay to not like something, but it's worth absolutely nothing if the person criticizing can't even coherently articulate why. The latter, good feedback, is super rare.

--- People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.

I subscribe to what I call "The Airplane Theory of Creativity" (cheesy, but I came up with it myself):

In order for a plane to fly high, it needs two things: airspeed, and angle of attack -- which roughly correspond to motivation and ambition. The two are similar, but not the same -- motivation is about how much drive/enthusiasm you have, and ambition is how much you're trying to achieve.

- A plane with low airspeed, low angle of attack: Never gets off the ground. (Nothing happens without motivation).
- A plane with high airspeed, high angle of attack: Takes off, flies high! (Achievement!)
- A plane with high airspeed, low angle of attack: The plane that flies low, and doesn't go very high. (Not much is achieved thanks to low ambitions.)
- A plane with low airspeed, high angle of attack: The plane attempts to fly, but stalls, and crashes to the ground. (High ambitions without motivation leads to self-paralyzing perfectionism)

Lessons learned: ambition is important, but motivation is crucial.

When a plane stalls, the right maneuver is to increase airspeed even at the expense of reducing the angle of attack temporarily. So disregarding the people who tell you that you're awesome is a good way to privilege one's airspeed and disregard the absolutely necessary importance of making sure that you're motivated, that you're pacing yourself, and that you're excited to work on what you're doing.
posted by suedehead at 7:41 PM on October 20, 2013 [22 favorites]


Drinky Die: "I am glad that instead I can just say: Raph Koster sucks and inertia is the only reason he has repeatedly been trusted with projects he is not capable of handling."

I'm constantly surprised that Koster is still a going concern anywhere in the games industry. Between UO, SWG and that terrible book "Theory of Fun", he's got a singular talent for crap, but yeah, there's that inertia that seems to just keep on letting him move along. As far as voices for game design or critique go, I sure wish his would quiet down a lot more because there's not really much of value that he has to say and just about anyone else ought to have the chance to speak.
posted by barnacles at 7:42 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


I had a blast playing it, and it wasn't that hard to be smart enough to avoid th griefers.

The huge untapped customer base game companies were positioning themselves for didn't want to play "Dodge the griefer." They wanted games in the mold of EQ and WOW.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:55 PM on October 20, 2013


"The huge untapped customer base game companies were positioning themselves for didn't want to play "Dodge the griefer."

(i.e. Idiot gamers wanted to play the same simple game, because nothing is better than grinding in order to collect a dozen ______.)

I'm not saying that I approve of giving griefers free reign, mind you, but c'mon... who doesn't want the ability to seriously effect the world one plays in and play the kind of character they want to play? EverQuest Next seems to be moving in the right direction, though. Hopefully, others will follow.
posted by markkraft at 8:03 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


No. Everyone's reactions are valid, but not everyone's critiques are valuable. Critiques along the lines of "well, it sucked balls, I didn't like it" are useless. Well-thought-out critiques are valuable: "X made me feel such-and-such a way, which I didn't like and detracted from the experience, because it seems like you're trying to do Y, but instead you end up doing Z because of this and that reason"

You realize you just repeated exactly what he wrote, right?
posted by empath at 8:04 PM on October 20, 2013 [3 favorites]


The huge untapped customer base game companies were positioning themselves for didn't want to play "Dodge the griefer." They wanted games in the mold of EQ and WOW

Except for the ones that wanted Eve.
posted by empath at 8:05 PM on October 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


(i.e. Idiot gamers wanted to play the same simple game.)

WoW delivered more fun to more people without requiring fun units to be delivered at the cost of subtracting fun from others. I guess if "simple" means more fun for more players...bring it on?
posted by Drinky Die at 8:06 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Be sure to also read Richard Bartle's reply in the comments -- he also takes issue with "Everyone who dislikes your work is right" and some other points.
posted by rifflesby at 8:07 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


Except for the ones that wanted Eve.

A much smaller number of people than want WoW, yeah. But, the difference here goes to my initial point. Raph wasn't trying to make Eve. The Ultima brand was not the Eve brand. PvP isn't really griefing in Eve, it's the game. It sustains and nourishes the Eve player base, by intentional design, rather than driving it away unintentionally like happened with UO.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:11 PM on October 20, 2013


You realize you just repeated exactly what he wrote, right?

My point was that:

"Everyone who dislikes your work and gives you a good critique of why exactly they disliked it is incredibly valuable and helpful"

is different from

"Everyone who dislikes your work is right."
posted by suedehead at 8:15 PM on October 20, 2013


If people made music the way that most companies design MMORPGs, then every song would sound like autotuned Phil Collins with a danceable hip-hop beat.

For many, the happy median of user experience is a pretty boring, unoriginal place to be, that takes choice, identity, and individual achievement away from those who crave it most.

Virtual worlds that don't empower people with creativity and a massively individual identity waste two of the most compelling potential aspects for the game... and, as Second Life has shown, empowering creativity and identity isn't just addictive, it's also very, very profitable.
posted by markkraft at 8:29 PM on October 20, 2013 [2 favorites]


I think 'everyone is right' is intended as a throat punch to the part of your head that goes NO, BUT... whenever you get a criticism. Because even if the audience got it completely, objectively, demonstrably wrong when reading or seeing or playing your work, it was still their reaction. And that's your responsibility as a creator.

I did a crit on a (ggn) 100,000 word novel manuscript for a friend, recently. It was competent prose, but I really didn't like it and was dreading telling them that.

Then I realised that my reaction was itself useful information that the author needed to have, and started drilling down into why I was bouncing off it so badly so I could give her constructive feedback as well.
posted by Sebmojo at 8:30 PM on October 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


There's probably a more nuanced discussion to be had on player feedback in MMO's. If, however, you're openly hostile to large segments of your playerbase Everquest, you're probably doing something wrong.
posted by underflow at 9:24 PM on October 20, 2013


The only explanation for Raph Koster's career is that he is a case study sponsored by Harvard School of Business in what not to do. I'm openly enraged he's still around and that anyone would even consider taking advice from this man.

Screw him and the horse he rode in on. He's not as bad as he used to be but he's singlehandedly run at least three MMORPGS straight into the ground by making stupid decisions then refusing to consider the fact he might be wrong. An industry joke used to be that World of Warcraft was succcessful only because he wasn't involved.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 12:36 AM on October 21, 2013


There's an important and fine line between "everyone is right" and "everyone has the right to feel whatever they feel."

Also, I think the most important mention in the article is: "And really, this post is as much for myself as it is for anyone else. Because we all need reminding."

It seems that the bullet points are more his personal goals of "perfection" based on his experiences, than anything that is achievable by all people at all times, especially if one is emotionally invested.
posted by Debaser626 at 8:34 AM on October 21, 2013


I come at this from I guess an outside point of view in that I am not a gamer nor do I even know who this cat, Raph Koster is. I don't know in practice how he is with his own advice, but there is a lot of good ideas about taking criticism in a good spirit and trying to learn from it. I am not so sure about the "good work may not have an audience" thing as justification for saying everyone else is wrong and you are right though.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:22 AM on October 21, 2013


Raph is a very smart man who isn't afraid to do things and has that amazing ability to sound like he really knows what he's talking about, at least to most people (like execs who want to hire a new senior design manager, or VCs, etc. People who really don't know, but trust his assurance.) Raph is great, but I don't like his games very much. That said, he's articulate, and he doesn't hesitate to just jump in and do stuff. Plus, he is a genuinely good person.
posted by emmet at 12:06 PM on October 21, 2013


Be sure to also read Richard Bartle's reply in the comments -- he also takes issue with "Everyone who dislikes your work is right" and some other points.

Now Richard Bartle is someone to pay attention to when the talk comes to multi-user virtual gaming environments, even when he says things like "I'd take over World of Warcraft and I'd close it.". In his pithiest responses to Koster's essay, he absolutely pwns him. (Do kids today still say "pwn"?)
>Everyone who dislikes your work is right.
Yes, but your work isn’t for everyone.The ones who should be liking it but who aren’t are the ones you need to worry about.

>Nothing’s perfect.
Corollary: this means everything can be improved.

>Someone asked for feedback will always find something wrong.
Corollary: if you look at your own work, you’ll always find something wrong with it.

>You are not your work.
True, but your work is you.
The difference between Bartle and Koster, though both are unarguably veteran game designers, is that the former is also a teacher (University of Essex) and the latter is, well, a conference speaker. Koster's positioned himself within the MMO industry in much the same way Cory Doctorow has with Web 2.0 - nice work if you can get it.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:24 PM on October 21, 2013 [1 favorite]


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