I think there’s a fine line between setting the stage for emergent gameplay and controlling the parameters to inhibit emergent gameplay. Using the most successful MMO as an example, Blizzard has chosen largely the route of limiting it. In defense of that, Blizzard is a company that caters to the lowest common denominator, which means if any form of gameplay is considered an exploit that will create a sense of unfairness amongst the critical mass, they would rather take action against it.

I am, however, interested to see another game taking the other approach, to create an environment that creates emergent gameplay experiences. As such, I do see that approach in Rift, when it comes to customized souls within classes. I think there’s definitely a large group of gamers who loves to tinker and get the most out of their builds, and i am glad to see Rift taking this approach. I’m not in beta but i can see lots of emergent gameplay opportunities for Rift.

That said, thank you for such insightful articles. I only discovered your blog today and I have spent like half a day reading through your past articles. Very insightful stuff for an inquisitive gamer like me.

A few years back I became somewhat enamored with the study of emergence, and read a few books on the subject. I then went on to tinker around in SecondLife with some of my own emergent systems and created some astonishing yet simple visual displays; weird blobs which seemed to be alive and reproduce like bacteria. I was also working on a bizarre mapping system that used emergence instead of direct AI to “map out” the surrounding sims. But, I wonder if intentionally building emergent systems can be done without severely compounding the issue of degenerate gameplay? It seems that no matter how complex the system, when you have thousands of players working together they become a sort of superbrain, which puts a little ol’ dev team to shame. In addition, players in their quest to optimize their own gains, will always discriminate against builds, classes, or specs they feel are “inferior” whether that is true or not.

In any game which the player is supposed to spend hundreds or thousands of hours over the course of its life, emergent gameplay is the only way to stay entertained. I think that is why the dark side of emergent gameplay is so prominent in MMOs, and why some companies fear it and overreact. They invariably cut into desirable, emergent gameplay.

There’s one place where they specifically encourage emergent (degenerate?) gameplay: There’s a one on one battle between your character, and a AI controlled version of your character with HIGHER stats. You have to find a way to outsmart the AI, and much of that ends up coming from ability selection - choosing a limited number of abilities that you can use in some sort of efficient / degenerate way, to defeat the AI.

Then there’s the first “skill” nerf, a Monk targetable AE DOT ability, that stacked, and did not hit the target. Once players realized how powerful it was, the single dominating (degenerate) strategy was to create a team with either 7 or 8 players with the Monk class (as primary or secondary) with the attribute for this skill as high as it could be. Have everyone cast this ability on one team member, and have him charge the enemy lines, resulting in nearly instant death for anyone he got close to. This was resolved, as I recall, by making the ability not stack.

I think these are nice examples of how Guild Wars was successful along the lines of the original post. Lots of freedom and flexibility, and when a degenerate case did occur, they dealt with it in a way that did not impact anything else in the game.

MMOs often try to provide interesting options, but the players follow their instincts to the most efficient way to level-up/get-the-loot, and (I’ve always imagined) dash the dreams of the devs. The old “Holy Trinity” of classes in EQ1 was only mildly mitigated in EQ2 where - in the end - only the tankiest of the tank classes was considered acceptable for challenging tanking situations. These views are often fallacious, and many other personnel choices would do fine, but players get stuck in their perceptions and lose their capacity for imagination.

Then it follows (or at least it seems to from a player perspective), that devs look at what the players are doing with their world, and start creating new content to be sure to provide challenges to the min/maxers. That, in turn, creates more min/maxers because the new content is too hard if you don’t follow the optimal path.

FFXI had a really awesome dual-class system, but it quickly became worthless when only certain combinations were allowed to join groups. Anything out of the ordinary was set for scorn.

Though “classes” are only one aspect of the overall problems (ignoring the fun content of Zone X because the content in Zone Y foolishly gives a tinkling-trifle more exp is another good example), I think a lot of MMO problems could be fixed with a classless system - one where you can’t instantly judge someone by typing “/who Larry” and using “Larry [42] Cleric” as your sole basis for whether or not to send the group invite.

One of the clear examples of companies playing the control game is Blizzard. I remember guilds that were banned for splitting a pull that was never intended to be split using only the skills given to them in game. I remember guilds being banned for pulling bosses through an instance without aggroing trash using game mechanics. Blizzard has always been heavy handed in their approach and it’s really a turn off.

Why would you punish people the first time they do something that way? Sure it’s temporary, but still… Creative use of game mechanics shouldn’t be something devs fear, IMO.