Player-Defined Organizations
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=csystems&message.id=26237
2004/06/11
Introduction
Most MMOGs these days offer some form of long-duration and many-person groups. Whether they're called guilds or clans or corps or player associations, most MMOGs now offer some in-game tools offered to support these in-game community institutions.
However, something few MMOGs offer is to allow players themselves to define the forms of these institutions and -- more importantly -- the functional rules by which members advance within them. Instead, player associations are generally free-form and loosely defined aggregations of players, with all power to control the existence of the association held by one player. Players can simply say, "OK, you're the duke, she's a countess, and we're all knights," but basically you're just hoping everyone goes along with this kind of roleplaying because that's the only way it can currently be done.
This works, but I wonder if it's not missing some useful opportunities to make these associations a more active part of gameplay. What if these roles could be defined by players for their organizations? Even better, what if they could also define the rules by which players shift into and out of organizational roles to fit the organization's goals for gameplay?
"Player Organizations" is my name for this more general version of the player association concept. Here's how it could work.
Concept of Operation
Any player would be able to use a template to create a table of organization. You'd be able to specify the number of levels, the number of people allowed at each level (the "span"), and the names of individual levels (and possibly even groups of levels). Then you'd pick (from a predefined list of rules and triggers) the advancement criteria for going up to the next level.
For example, one person might create a T.O. on a military model: one Field Marshal [Army] who gives orders to two Generals [Brigade], each of whom gives orders to two Colonels [Regiment], each of whom gives orders to four Captains [Company], each of whom gives orders to two Lieutenants [Platoon], each of whom gives orders to four Sergeants [Squad], each of whom gives orders to eight Soldiers. That would give you an organization capable of holding 1207 people -- more than enough for most purposes, I'd think. If you needed more (and if you're the Field Marshal), you could always change the organizational definition to extend the span at one or more levels.
Rules of Advancement
In addition to the names of the ranks, the designer of a Player Organization would also be able to determine the rules for advancement. These would be selected from a predefined list of rule types supplied by the developers to avoid questions of subjectivity, as well as to reduce roleplaying requirements. (Although anyone who wanted to handle rank advancement purely through roleplaying could do so -- advancement rules should be optional.)
Moving up a rank in a military organization might be based on:
The system itself would monitor "counting" or "trigger" rules to determine for each member of the organization (to whom those rules apply) whether the target has been met. Other rules would require organization members of the appropriate level and role to decide whether the terms of those rules have been met. The combination of these rules would allow the members of organizations to effectively control advancement within the organization. This would solve one of the problems with current "guild" systems, which is that the one person at the top of the group has all the power and responsibility for controlling position within the group. A Player Organization system would allow this power to be devolved into the organization. Players would not be required to do so; they could duplicate the existing guild approach if they chose, but at least they'd be able to create more egalitarian organizations if they wished to do so.
Organizational Diversity
Military organizations are an obvious application of the Player Organization system, but the beauty of the system is that it can be used to create any kind of organization.
Another person might want to form a crafting guild, and would set up her organization based on Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master levels with appropriate advancement rules. Yet another person might form an Entertainer's Union with his own set of levels, titles, and advancement rules; another person might form an organization like a modern business with a CEO, board of directors, VPs, Directors, Managers; and so on. The Player Organization system could accommodate all these and more.
Here's an example of how a player organization interested in crafting and selling products might be designed:
|
SUPPLY |
PRODUCTION |
SALES |
CORPORATE |
|
CTO |
President |
CFO |
Chairman |
|
VP for R&D |
Director |
Regional VP |
Board Member |
|
Resource Mgr. |
Project Manager |
Sales Manager |
Investor |
|
Supplier |
Crafter |
Account Rep. |
Shareholder |
(Naturally, at the top of the heap there'd have to be a CEO.)
So if you were interested in sales, you'd start off as an Account Representative talking to other players about the products available from your organization, and picking up any in-game skills that might be useful to that end. If your sales figures were good enough, then when a Sales Manager position opened up you might be considered for that position, at which point you'd get some kind of nice perks in addition to the new title. In return, you'd wind up spending more of your time helping to manage the activities of several Account Reps, and you'd be responsible for their sales to your Regional VP, who in turn oversees all sales in two or three areas and reports to the CFO of the entire organization.
Again, you could have similar hierarchies for any kind of player organization: military, commercial, entertainment, whatever.
It would be helpful to have a way to display these titles/roles within the game. This public recognition would help encourage players to use and participate in the organization-designing system. The system as I've described it would also allow you to have objective rules for moving up in the hierarchy, which is always better than "well, maybe I'll promote you... if I feel like it."
(Actually, one of the tricky bits of my idea is the mechanism for providing rules and perks for promotion. I think it would be possible to pre-define some specific kinds of promotion rules -- number of kills of enemy type X, for example, or Y accumulated experience points in skill Z -- that the organization's designer could associate with a rank/title. But this part of the system would need to be hashed out in more detail.)
Just for giggles, here's another kind of organization you could have:
ROYALTY
|
TITLE |
# |
REQUIREMENTS |
|
King |
1 |
5000 royal faction, male avatar |
|
Queen |
1 |
5000 royal faction, female avatar |
|
Prince |
2 |
4000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by King or Queen |
|
Princess |
2 |
4000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by King or Queen |
|
Duke |
4 |
3000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by King or Queen |
|
Duchess |
4 |
3000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by King or Queen |
|
Count |
8 |
2000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Countess |
8 |
2000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Baron |
12 |
1000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Baroness |
12 |
1000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Knight |
24 |
600 royal faction, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Squire |
40 |
250 royal faction, acceptance by any higher rank |
|
Page |
60 |
acceptance by any higher rank |
Note 1: The # denotes how many of each rank can exist at any one time, and is another kind of requirement.
Note 2: Acceptance by a higher rank is only required if at least one person holds the indicated rank. If no one does, then acceptance is automatic.
2005/04/04
Criminal player organizations... now that's a veeeeeery interesting idea.
Those of us who didn't join one of the two available sides in the GCW have been clamoring for the developers to provide an equally full-featured criminal faction that players can take. But who needs to wait on the developers to create a specific criminal organization when, if they provided a generalized organization-creating system, we could build our own?
Let�s imagine for a moment that there was a good MMORPG based on Star Wars. With a generic player organization building tool, you could create "Jabba's Tail," a group whose members were dedicated to helping expand the criminal empire of that vile gangster, Jabba the Hutt.
Members of a criminal organization would be able to rise in one of two branches: Muscle and Graft. Their minimum requirements might look something like this:
MUSCLE
|
Rank |
Requirements |
|
Eliminator |
3500 Jabba faction, Master elite combat profession, acceptance by Boss |
|
Enforcer |
2000 Jabba faction, Novice elite combat profession |
|
Thug |
1000 Jabba faction, Novice elite combat profession |
|
Brute |
500 Jabba faction |
GRAFT
|
Rank |
Requirements |
|
Operator |
3500 Jabba faction, Master Smuggler/Bounty Hunter, acceptance by Boss |
|
Racketeer |
2000 Jabba faction, Novice Smuggler/Bounty Hunter |
|
Fence |
1000 Jabba faction, Novice Smuggler/Bounty Hunter |
|
Chiseler |
500 Jabba faction |
These requirements are constant -- you have to maintain all the requirements for a rank to keep that rank. For example, if an Enforcer dropped below 2000 Jabba faction, his rank would revert to Thug. If another Enforcer dropped all her skillboxes for Novice elite combat professions, her rank would be reduced to Brute.
In addition to these eight ranks, there'd be two others: Gangster, which is your starting rank within the organization and which has no requirements (other than applying to join), and Boss, which has the following minimum requirements:
And just to make things interesting, let's have two additional rules: 1) Anyone at the rank of Racketeer, Operator, Enforcer, Eliminator, or Boss can -- like Jedi -- be the target of a bounty. 2) Any Boss who dies as the result of a bounty loses so much face with Jabba that he or she is immediately penalized 1000 points of Jabba faction. This automatically drops him or her to the rank of Operator or Eliminator, whichever is appropriate (or provides a choice if both ranks are possible). The moment this happens, whichever Operator or Eliminator has the largest personal fortune (and at least 4500 Jabba faction) is elevated to Boss.
Now, notice something interesting here. Let's say you and I are both members of Jabba's Tail. I'm an Eliminator with 5000 points of Jabba faction, and you're the Boss. Furthermore, let's say I've made a lot of money. What's to stop me from spending some of that money to put a bounty on you, such that when a BH nails you and you drop below 4500 points of Jabba faction, my wealth enables me to become the next Boss?
Can you imagine the paranoia and gang mentality that the members of such a group would have? Every Boss would have to surround himself with trusted lieutenants... but what Boss would be able to trust all his lieutenants?
Heh-heh-heh....
It�s important to note that although this example of an underworld player organization is specific to the Star Wars universe, the basic model could be applied to any NPC faction in any MMORPG. If you retain the rank structure and just change the NPC faction type required to any criminal NPC faction, then this system becomes the model for any "criminal organization."
As a final sweetener, there's one more improvement I'd like to suggest for the entire player organization idea: Allow player factions to work just like NPC factions in terms of earning or losing faction points. If you do something to hurt another player faction, the game automatically deducts points from you related to that player faction; if you help one of them, you gain points with their faction, and so on.
As a corollary to this, it would be fun to have consequences for improving or worsening your standing with another player faction. Perhaps if you drop below -3000 with a player faction, any member of that faction can place a bounty on you. Conversely, if you rise above 3000 with a player faction, you gain a badge: "Friend of [player faction name]" or some or mark of recognition. (You don't want to provide financial or loot perks, since then you'd just have people forming one-person organizations and raising their faction with each other just to gain special perks for each other.)
Under these rules, the lifespan of a member of a criminal organization would probably be short... but very interesting.