A Chat with Richard Bartle

I ’sat down’ in Achaea today with Dr. Richard Bartle, the inventor of MUDs/MMOs, whom I created a character for called, appropriately, Progenitor. Dr. Bartle and I have known each other casually for years, and he was kind enough to serve on the advisory board for The Sapience Group, a failed online community consulting company I co-founded in 2000. Along with Damion Schubert, I also served as technical editor on Dr. Bartle’s seminal book, “Designing Virtual Worlds” in 2003.

The interview/chat touches on a number of different topics, from the idea of a 3D web to voice chat in worlds to differences between text and graphical worlds. Enjoy!

You say, “Welcome, Richard, and thanks for giving me this interview.”

You say, “First off, let me ask: I’ve heard the accusation leveled that the only reason you worked on text MUDs is because you couldn’t get to level 60 in World of Warcraft. Is there any truth to this horrible rumor?”

You scream, “ADMIT IT, YOU HAVE RAID ENVY SIR!”

Progenitor says, “Yes. if I could have worked on graphical muds, I would have done, but back then graphics were not an option.”

Progenitor says, “Besides, I have 2 level 60s on WoW.”

You say, “I have in fact seen the screenshots!”

You say, “I applaud your tenacity.”

You say, “I am level 11.”

Progenitor says, “I don’t have raid envy; raids are not my cup of tea.”

You say, “Care to elaborate?”

Progenitor says, “Level 11 is high enough to get the gist of WoW if you’re a designer.”

You nod your head at Progenitor.

Progenitor says, “I don’t thrill to the prospect of raids.”

Progenitor says, “I don’t even like the general concept.”

Progenitor says, “And since I play on US servers at times when no-one is around, I’m happy to say I don’t get to go on many.”

You say, “Why don’t you like the general concept? Is it coordinating with so many other people or something else?”

Progenitor says, “It’s not the co-ordination, it’s the fact that that’s all there is.”

Progenitor says, “If you wind up doing nothing but raiding, you really aren’t going anywhere.”

You say, “But where else is there to go once you’re level 60 in WoW?”

Progenitor says, “Well nowhere, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be somewhere.”

You say, “I see what you mean.”

Progenitor says, “I don’t want to come over as a critic of WoW here, there are some very sweet things in it.”

Progenitor says, “The endgame is satisfying to many people, but I’d rather they had an honourable retirement option available.”

You say, “Could you give me a hypothetical example of what you mean?”

Progenitor says, “OK, well at the moment the top level is 60. I’d like for it to keep accumulating points until you got enough for level 61.”

Progenitor says, “At that point, it would ask you if you wanted to retire with honour. if you said yes, you’d go on the high score list and that would be that, you could come back to chat and stuff but no more achievement-oriented play.”

Progenitor says, “If you said no, you’d carry on as you were.”

You say, “Interesting idea. Have you seen it implemented anywhere?”

Progenitor says, “That would be one way to do it. it’s just a means to allow players to stay indefinitely without feeling the frustration of continual raid.”

Progenitor says, “Not like that, no, but the early MUDs had something similar. even dikus had relevelling.”

Progenitor says, “Although I’m not a fan of relevelling either.”

You say, “Relevelling/remorting is a continuation of gameplay though.”

You say, “Not a retirement option.”

You say, “Do you think people actually WOULD come back and chat much once they retired?”

Progenitor says, “I know, that’s why I’m not a fan, but at least it recognises that there’s an end - it just won’t hand over the ‘you have won’ acknowledgement.”

Progenitor says, “They did with MUD1.”

You say, “It’d be interesting to allow those who have formally retired to come back and chat without paying a subscription fee.”

Progenitor says, “No, you’d make them keep the subscription fee.”

You say, “Hmm. you think people would pay the $15/month to just hang around and chat? Especially when most of their fellow players would likely be oriented on the ‘game’?”

Progenitor says, “Many do, they work on lower-level characters instead of raiding or whatever.”

Progenitor says, “It’s just that eventually they’re going to drift off if their main character is stuck in a rut.”

You say, “What do you think of the idea of allowing the honorable retirement and then scoring players based on how long it took them to get there.”

You say, “Both in terms of how much playing time and how much real time.”

Progenitor says, “I don’t think much of that. People would feel they had to compete to finish as quickly as possible.”

Progenitor says, “The point is that they are acknowledge to have completed it, not that they did it super-fast.”

You say, “Alright, next question:.”

You say, “In 2002, in your Dawn of Time columns on Skotos, you wrote about a system to give mobiles goals in such a way as to create emergent quest possibilities for players.”

You say, “Has anyone ever implemented that as far as you know?”

Progenitor says, “Not as far as I know, although I’ve come across people trying to patent similar ideas for their virtual worlds.”

Progenitor says, “Rather against the spirit of things I thought, but there you go.”

You mutter discontentedly.

You say, “I’m pretty pro-intellectual property rights, but patents are out of hand.”

You say, “Next question relates to the idea in those columns.”

Progenitor says, “Software patents are not a force for good, we don’t have them in Europe.”

You say, “Given that the mass market (ie WoW and Runescape) go almost exactly the opposite way from what you describe (rigid, very simplistic quests), do you see any chance for an increased emphasis on non-combat AI in mainstream MUDs/MMOs in the near future?”

Progenitor says, “I see chance, but not very high.”

Progenitor says, “The thing is, the developers at the moment are following basically 3 approaches.”

Progenitor says, “1) they’re copying WoW.”

Progenitor says, “2) they’re saying they’re not copying WoW but they’re so stuck in the paradigm that they’re copying it anyway.”

Progenitor says, “3) they’re doing something wildly different and hoping for a niche success.”

You say, “Not a pretty picture you paint!”

Progenitor says, “The future lies with 3), but it’s so expensive at the moment to create these games that there’s a danger most of them won’t break even.”

Progenitor says, “I have a better view of the medium term, when the tools become available to create virtual worlds much more easily.”

You say, “But isn’t the problem always the art?”

Progenitor says, “And the art assets reach enough of a critical mass that if you want a model of a 1625 pistol you can find one.”

You say, “But it’s not just finding a model of a 1625 pistol.”

Progenitor says, “There is a problem with the art, yes, especially in getting it to look coherent.”

You say, “It’s finding a model of a 1625 pistol done to the specifications your project needs, in the art style it needs.”

You nod your head at Progenitor.

You say, “That is a toughie.”

Progenitor says, “But if people are creating games just for fun, they won’t care. look at amateur web sites and you’ll see clip art from all over.”

You say, “Sure, I’d agree with that.”

Progenitor says, “If we have clip models as well as clip art, we might get somewhere.”

Progenitor says, “There’ll still be room for the huge virtual worlds, and the professional ones of any size will generally be better.”

Progenitor says, “But we may get some genuinely new ideas, which I find very exciting a possibility.”

You say, “Do you see any virtual worlds today that are doing anything genuinely new?”

Progenitor says, “Then again, being pessimistic, we may find that the concept is diluted so much that 20 years from now people think what we’d now call chatlines are virtual worlds, and wonder why they were ever considered compelling.”

Progenitor says, “Of current virtual worlds, my favourite is EVE in terms of its design.”

Progenitor says, “Present company excepted of course.”

You chuckle long and heartily.

You say, “Eve is pretty interesting, I agree. It seems, at its heart, the most world-y of the graphical worlds.”

Progenitor says, “I like the way it’s engineered, and I like the way it holds true to its philosophy and makes no concessions to anything for convenience.”

Progenitor says, “Yes, and the worldier the better.”

You clap your hands together merrily.

You say, “Agreed!”

Progenitor says, “The thing about being worldly is that if you have a rich enough world then you automatically get a gamey worlds too, if you don’t stand in the way of it.”

Progenitor says, “So paradoxically, if you want a virtual world that’s a good game, you should aim to make it first and foremost a good world.”

You say, “Would you say WoW is first and foremost a good world?”

Progenitor says, “Not first and foremost, no, it’s designed as a game. the world is fairly shallow as worlds go, although it has quite a lot of breadth. it lacks depth though.”

Progenitor says, “Sorry I dropped capitals there, got a tell from someone…”

You say, “What’s your feeling on the idea of a 3d web? Are we heading towards a single, unified, navigable 3d environment ala Snow Crash’s Metaverse?”

Progenitor says, “I don’t want a 3D web if I can’t go into it, but I do want a 3D web if I can go into it (in the sense that I can go into a virtual world).”

Progenitor says, “As for whether it’ll be as in Snow Crash, I sincerely hope not. I don’t want anything that monolithic.”

You say, “So you’d be looking for something more along the lines of connected but independently run 3d web/world-spaces rather than a single one?”

Progenitor says, “A flexible enough protocol should allow people to hook virtual worlds to a 3D web, but it would be purgatory if they were all part of the same world.”

You say, “If they’re all part of the same world, how is it not monolithic like Snow Crash’s metaverse?”

Progenitor says, “You could implement WoW in SL if you wanted, but if you wrote it for SL first you’d be bound by SL’s conventions and you wouldn’t get WoW.”

Progenitor says, “If everything is integrated like that, there’s not so much room for experiment.”

You say, “Do you use Second Life?”

Progenitor says, “Imagine if Achaea were connected even to the other Iron Realms worlds via some portal, so they were all the same metaverse … wouldn’t that diminish them?”

You say, “Actually, to be honest, I think our players would -love- that.”

Progenitor says, “I don’t use SL, no, althoigh I’ve looked at it.”

You say, “It’d also be a rather unique selling point.”

Progenitor says, “Your players would maybe love it, but would your next game be like your existing ones if you knew it was linked to them? wouldn’t the fact it was part of the same world influence what you did in it, in design terms?”

You say, “Well, it’s a difficult question to answer because I have a hard time imagining how it could work in any meaningful way unless characters are set up in ways that allow for equivalency.”

You say, “And that’s too restrictive.”

You say, “So I guess I’ve just answered your question.”

You say, “Yeah, it’d be very restraining.”

Progenitor says, “The Snow Crash version is like that, yes. Any ‘real’ system wouldn’t be that restricted though.”

Progenitor says, “If there were some common client, then I suppose you could make each player decide whether they wanted to display the model that the other players wanted you to see or your own version.”

Progenitor says, “So even if someone had a blue fishy thing as their avatar, when they entered your LotR world you’d see them as an orc (although they’d see themselves as a blue fishy thing).”

You say, “Wouldn’t a common client enforce its own conventions and restraints?”

Progenitor says, “It would, yes, of course, although a well-designed one could allow for some customisability.”

Progenitor says, “After all, telnet works for Achaea and MUD2 and every other text game without making us all have the same characters in them.”

You say, “That’s true, but it’s also extremely restrictive.”

You say, “For instance, we’re not going to be doing graphics over telnet any time soon.”

Progenitor says, “Some client packages might allow for a certain degree of interoperability between like-minded virtual worlds.”

You say, “Aside from ascii graphics of course.”

Progenitor says, “Correct, but as a subset of what’s possible it works well.”

Progenitor says, “We may see some of the Wii games have transportable characters, they seem to think that’s a good selling point.”

You ponder the situation.

You say, “I can’t decide if that’s a selling point for me or not.”

You say, “I suppose it would depend on how its implemented.”

Progenitor says, “I suspect it depends on the game, and whether the character.”

You say, “I like keeping a common identity, at least, ala Xbox Live.”

You say, “A meta-identity I suppose.”

Progenitor says, “Whether the characters are characters, with substance, or just avatars with a look.”

You say, “Ahh, I see what you mean.”

You say, “So what’s your opinion on the future of text MUDs?”

You say, “Do they have one? I, of course, am biased. ”

Progenitor says, “Setting up a game so you’re shooting your teachers instead of regular monsters is going to amuse some people.”

Progenitor says, “The future of text MUDs is there, in that they have a future.”

Progenitor says, “Because if they’re still around now, they’ll still be around in future.”

Progenitor says, “Their main problem is getting newbies.”

You say, “Tell me about it!”

You say, “What we find is that we can get a lot of new people coming to our site.”

You say, “And they click ‘play now’”

You say, “Which brings up our pretty Nexus client.”

Progenitor says, “If you can get someone to play one for an hour, you’ve got them indefinitely.”

You say, “But as soon as character creation, which has pretty art, etc is finished and they’re dropped into a text environment.”

You say, “We lose most of them.”

You say, “That hour is tough.”

Progenitor says, “Yes, and there’s no way round it.”

Progenitor says, “They come with preconceptions, and you need them to be able to break through those.”

You say, “No, there’s really not. The interface is simply unfamiliar to most people.”

Progenitor says, “They’ll want VoIP next.”

You say, “Actually, that is another of my questions.”

You say, “What’s your personal opinion on tying voice communication to worlds?”

Progenitor says, “It depends on the virtual world.”

Progenitor says, “In general, though, I don’t think it’s advanced enough yet.”

You say, “What’s the minimum ‘feature set’ for voice communication that’s required to get there?”

Progenitor says, “I’d have no issue with it if it all went through the central server.”

You say, “Oh?”

Progenitor says, “And the voice you heard was auto-generated to be in keeping with your character.”

Progenitor says, “Well what I’d like is for me to be able to say something and for it to be converted into phonemes.”

You say, “Right. It’s a breaking of the magic circle thing?”

Progenitor says, “Or for me just to type it, if I’m in a house where people can hear me speak.”

Progenitor says, “And then for the phonemes to be reproduced either as words in an elven accent or as text.”

Progenitor says, “Or whatever.”

Progenitor says, “So you can’t tell I’m English, let alone that I’m not really an elf.”

You say, “I don’t know much about the state of the art regarding that right now, but wouldn’t inflection be pretty tough to get right from typed input?”

Progenitor says, “It’s not quite the magic circle, no, it’s an immersion thing.”

You say, “I’d love to talk like a stereotypical gruff dwarf.”

You say, “I can see the appeal.”

Progenitor says, “It would be hard to get right; you only have to listen to voice mails reporting text messages to see where we are at the moment.”

You say, “Right. Not very far.”

You say, “Too bad. That sounds like great fun.”

Progenitor says, “Once we have that, which may be some time away, we can have sound that’s in keeping with the virtual world instead of bringing in Reality.”

You say, “Speaking of that, do you see getting other senses besides sight and sound involved as critical to the development of virtual worlds at all?”

Progenitor says, “Yes, but people are jumping the gun. now if I play any of my female WoW characters, it breaks the illusion (even though people know I’m a guy in RL).”

You say, “So you don’t like using voice chat now then.”

Progenitor says, “Well all the senses are involved in textual worlds.”

You say, “Hmm. Really?”

Progenitor says, “I don’t like using voice chat because if I were using it right now you’d have heard me talking to my daughter who just came in and asked me some questions.”

Progenitor says, “Yes, in textual worlds I can smell things, hear things, feel warmth, see magnificent vistas…”

Progenitor says, “So can anyone who releases their imagination.”

You say, “Couldn’t the same be said for a graphical world?”

Progenitor says, “In graphical worlds, you have to rely on someone else’s interpetation.”

You say, “Might not your mind add the missing senses to the graphical world picture as well though?”

You say, “For instance, standing on a beach in WoW and imagining the smell of the sea?”

Progenitor says, “It might if they were suggested through the graphics, but they’re not.”

You say, “The sea lapping at your feet isn’t suggestive of the smell of the sea?”

Progenitor says, “Have you looked at the sea in WoW? It doesn’t lap at all, it’s basically a plane.”

You say, “Ok, fair enough, it doesn’t really lap. It kind of gives the impression of lapping.”

You say, “Let’s say the graphics were better.”

You say, “And the sea DID lap.”

Progenitor says, “If you go to the sea in WoW and think ‘I can imagine the smell of the sea’ then yes, you can do that.”

You say, “I know I can’t.”

Progenitor says, “In a textual world, you don’t have to think it, because you’re told the sea is salty and fresh.”

Progenitor says, “It’s part of the description, you don’t have to decide to do it yourself.”

You say, “Right.”

You say, “I wonder, anything to be gained in just sending sensory messages to players in a graphical world?”

Progenitor says, “A skillful author can get all those things in place and deliver a compelling experience.”

You say, “Like, you’re standing on the beach, and WoW tells you, “The salty sea air tingles in your nostrils.”"

Progenitor says, “Well they’d have to read the messages.”

Progenitor says, “Which means taking their eyes off the scene, or putting the text on the scene.”

You say, “Which takes them away from the immersion of the picture.”

You say, “Right.”

Progenitor says, “Yes. once people got used to the convention it could work, but you’d have to make sure you didn’t lose any of them while they got used to it.”

You say, “Ok, well, I’ve taken up a lot of your time, so I’ll just ask one more question.”

You say, “But first, let me just put on my pimp hat.”

You are now wearing a wide-brimmed hat with purple zebra stripes.

Progenitor says, “Hey, red felt, I like it.”

You say, “Your book, Designing Virtual Worlds, is a fantastic tome on virtual world design. It is a crime that it has not been read by more people.”

You say, “What do you think should be done to those who have not read it?”

Progenitor says, “Not having read it is punishment enough.”

You say, “You’re right. Poor bastards.”

Progenitor says, “Seriously though, if people want to read it it’s getting quite hard to obtain a copy.”

You say, “Really?”

You say, “Amazon doesn’t have it?”

Progenitor says, “They haven’t been printing new ones, and Amazon is patchy.”

Progenitor says, “Which is normally not so bad but if a class of 50 want one…”

You say, “Hrm, that is really unfortunate. That book needs to stay in print.”

Progenitor says, “I intend to write a follow-up sometime, maybe that will fare better.”

You say, “Oh? What will the follow-up cover?”

Progenitor says, “Of course, you could write one yourself.”

Progenitor says, “The reason I haven’t started the follow-up is because I’d build it around my upcoming degree scheme, Online Games.”

Progenitor says, “And I don’t know for sure what’ll be in that yet.”

You say, “That sounds fantastic. Would that be the first of its kind?”

Progenitor says, “As far as I know.”

Progenitor says, “Starts in 2007, for undergraduates.”

You say, “Very neat.”

You say, “Is it a full degree?”

You say, “Or a course within a degree?”

Progenitor says, “I really must decide what graphical engine to use … yes, full degree.”

Progenitor says, “People will come away with a BSc Online GAmes.”

Progenitor says, “Er Games.”

You say, “Will your Online Games degree include design-side stuff or all technical?”

Progenitor says, “It’ll be more design than technical, I expect, on account of how it takes a couple of years to get students up to speed for programming.”

You say, “True, true.”

Progenitor says, “I’m hoping my students will get placements, but there’s a problem with its being in the UK.”

You say, “Yeah, I can see where that’s an issue.”

Progenitor says, “Because we don’t have any big virtual world developers here.”

You say, “Jagex.”

You say, “But that’s about it.”

Progenitor says, “Although I’m hoping the stuidents will be able to create theior own worlds.”

Progenitor says, “Actually one of my students last year went to work for Jagex.”

You say, “Cool! Goddam Jagex and their enormous success.”

You say, “They make me quite envious. What they’ve done is great.

Progenitor says, “There are some proper companies working on virtual worlds.”

Progenitor says, “Just not as many as in the USA, and they don’t want designers.”

You give a pained sigh.

You say, “That’s annoying. If there’s any kind of ‘game’ that needs a strong designer, it’s a virtual world.”

Progenitor says, “As always, people seem to think that designing a virtual world is nothing different to designing a RTS, so why would they need a specialist?”

Progenitor gives a pained sigh.

You say, “Did you read Rob Pardo’s talk at AGC?”

You say, “Erm, read a transcript of it.”

Progenitor says, “I did, yes.”

You say, “I was pretty impressed by his talk.”

You say, “He really knows what he made.”

You say, “Which is a big compliment in virtual worlds.”

Progenitor says, “I was too. I’d figured out most of what he said from looking at WoW, I was glad to find that I wasn’t deceiving myself.”

Progenitor says, “It’s very classy, I really like the way it works in places.”

Progenitor says, “Your RMT model is much better than theirs[Runescape’s], ie. there isn’t any farming.”

You say, “And I have to go deal with that.”

You say, “Thank you SO much though for this!”

Progenitor says, “Jagex have teams of people who spend their days closing down RMT operations.”

Progenitor says, “My pleasure”.”

Progenitor says, “I figure you could have interviewed yourself and got the same answers, mind you!”

You say, “I will definitely take that as a compliment.”

Progenitor says, “No, it doesn’t feel like we’ve been chatting for 90 minutes at all.”

Progenitor says, “Nice to talk to you - and I was serious about writing your own book, by the way.”

You say, “Really?”

Progenitor says, “I’ll be one of your technical readers, heh.”

You say, “Ooh, if I ever write a book, I’m taking you up on that.”

Progenitor says, “So long as it’s not on gynaecology or something.”