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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the eat-me dept.

ArsTechnica has a very interesting video (with transcript) that features Richard Garriot, co-creator of Ultima Online, discussing the virtual ecology of the game and how it went pear shaped as soon as the game was released.

When creating Ultima Online, Richard Garriott had grand dreams. He and Starr Long planned on implementing a virtual ecology into their massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It was an ambitious system, one that would have cows that graze and predators that eat herbivores. However, once the game went live a small problem had arisen...

Source: http://video.arstechnica.com/watch/war-stories-ultima-online-the-virtual-ecology [Ed-Requires ecmascript]


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:32PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:32PM (#614742)

    it was just a giant block of text, like if they only provided it because they spent too much money recording the video and getting the ad network set up for the videos to care at all about people that prefer to not annoy their coworkers and consume video bandwidth at work

    that site is going to go out of business if conde naste keeps thinking that IT people behave like regular kardashian watchers

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:21PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:21PM (#614753) Journal

      And the transcript window is an abomination. Down with video!

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:11PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:11PM (#614836) Journal

      I had to copy-paste the whole thing into another window just to read it too because they decided to fuck up the scroll bars on the transcript window...the video refused to load too, but I was actually happy about that particular issue...

    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:46PM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:46PM (#614881) Journal

      It is made for tablets
      Format is fine on an ipad, but I did have to change my user agent back to "ipad"

      Everything Conde Nast does "online" is made for tablets.

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:28PM (#614917)

      Lucky ars isn't full of IT people then. It's all tech illiterate hipsters and shills.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by stretch611 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:19PM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:19PM (#614752)

    ... So no video and no transcript... and ARS is looking to lose more people like me...

    But the reason for the post...

    Does the article only mention Ultima Online???

    I ask because in computer years, Ultima Online is ancient news with Richard Garriot. After he left EA, (after selling Origin to them a long time ago), He started Shroud of the Avatar [shroudoftheavatar.com]. My assumption is that if it does not mention Shroud of the Avatar, it will be more of a fluff piece for EA. (which wouldn't surprise me.)

    Richard Garriot no longer has rights to the name Ultima, which is why it was renamed, but this is the spiritual successor. Tracy Hickman, the man that invented the Dragonlance campaign for TSR/Wizards as well as many sci-fi-Fantasy books (including, but not just a bunch of DragonLance books) is also involved in the project.

    It is a MMO, but you have to buy the software, then can play for free... but there is a cash shop, which has the same outrageous prices as most MMOs. Their real money grab is housing... with prices that if you have to ask, don't bother.

    Technically, as I said, it is a MMO, but... you can play solo mode locally... or you can play with just a small group of friends online... or you can play full MMO online. That way you can play while avoiding the caustic environment that most MMOs degrade into. However, the characters and items in local mode can not be used online in an attempt to avoid hacks.

    I've have considered buying it... it does support Linux... But I do not know anyone who plays it, and the $40 asking price is a bit of faith without knowing how much grinding is required and only a 52% rating on steam.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:26PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @06:26PM (#614823)

    I clicked through and saw the video and it was, while a little slow to develop, mildly entertaining - if predictable.

    Incase you're too paranoid to consume the content but still interested in the message, it's this:

    Players kill everything.

    No amount of "rebalancing" or "incentivizing" could change the behavior of Ultima players - when they encountered a living herbivore or predator, they would kill it - which made it impossible to establish a balanced ecosystem.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:39PM (#614848)

    My youth was not wasted on this enterprise. I had more fun in that game then just about anything else in life, though it may not be as rewarding as some other things (fatherhood mainly), it has given me more enjoyment than I can put into words. Too bad there is not enough nostalgia to bring it back to the moment in time where it was the best game out there. You can still play it of course, but it it's current state it is a poor substitute for what was essentially a social distopia, where might ruled.

  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:49PM (1 child)

    by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @07:49PM (#614850) Homepage Journal

    Firstly, I agree with everyone else about the crappy interface for the transcript.

    Their ecology system sounds cool. It sounds like they needed a larger gaming world so that the players became more sparsely distributed compared to the herbivores but I guess the servers of the time just weren't up to that. How about if they created badass shepherd / ranger characters that fervently defended the herbivores, easily taking out any average level player foolish enough to attack their flock? That way the players themselves would become part of the ecosystem.

    Another option might be make it so the herbivores can run much faster than the players, though I can see with a high enough population density they would just run into the sword of another player, so how about they can run up mountainous slopes that the players can't get up?

    Failing all that I suppose a bodge might be to have herbivores created locally that aren't seen by other players so only the current player can attack them but that would be a bit weird.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:29AM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:29AM (#614961)

      I, too, think they could have rebalanced with a few tweaks - like maybe an evolutionary thing: animals are afraid of players to varying degrees, initially a random distribution, but later generations would inherit that (and other) characteristics from their parents. Another trait for stealth/camouflage, and of course size/strength.
      If players run around slaying the little friendly bears, sooner or later all that will remain are the big badass bears.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:32PM (#614863)

    00:00
    Through the 20 years that we were creating Ultimas,
    00:04
    we were simulating the Dungeons & Dragons social
    00:08
    experience that we would have at home on the weekends.
    00:11
    And so we were motivated, and were constantly looking
    00:14
    for how and when we would make
    00:16
    what we originally called Multima.
    00:19
    (war drums)
    00:24
    I'm Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online,
    00:27
    and we spent three years creating a masterpiece feature
    00:30
    that the players destroyed the moment the game went live.
    00:34
    (war drums)
    00:43
    (phonograph plays)
    00:46
    The year is 1995.
    00:49
    We are building what became Ultima Online in earnest.
    00:53
    The best PCs you could get generally were running a
    00:56
    Pentium, maybe had, you know 10 megabytes of memory inside,
    01:00
    and it was also right when the very first ever 3D graphics
    01:04
    cards were being shipped, but a very primitive version
    01:06
    compared to what we have today.
    01:08
    Starr Long and I knew that this was the moment to strike,
    01:11
    because we knew that we were moving from expensive
    01:16
    rare dial up to ubiquitous,
    01:19
    direct connection to the internet.
    01:22
    Fairly quickly there were a few things we realized we
    01:25
    needed in the game and a few things we thought would
    01:29
    really help the game.
    01:30
    For example, I think correctly, early on we determined
    01:33
    that in the long run our small team, we assumed, and hoped,
    01:38
    would be too small to continue to create content nearly
    01:42
    as fast as the players would be able to consume it.
    01:46
    Since we knew we would eventually lose that footrace,
    01:49
    we decided to try to build some automated systems
    01:52
    to help fill in that gap.
    01:54
    And one of those that we created was what we called
    01:57
    the Virtual Ecology.
    02:02
    The map itself, the terrain and the vegetation on the
    02:05
    terrain, would actually grow and create food for one
    02:11
    set of creatures in the game which I'll rightly call
    02:12
    the herbivores, so the deer and rabbits would roam the
    02:16
    countryside and they would multiply to a degree
    02:20
    that would come into balance with the rate of vegetation
    02:22
    that was produced in any general area.
    02:24
    So you'd find more deer and rabbits in the forest and
    02:27
    the grasslands and fewer in the mountain and the deserts.
    02:29
    And we would spawn the carnivores up in the mountains or
    02:31
    farther away at more remote places.
    02:33
    And they would wander around looking for meat to eat,
    02:35
    which generally would be the herbivores.
    02:38
    And if they emptied out the population of sheep and rabbits,
    02:40
    they wouldn't have anything to eat, and so they couldn't
    02:41
    reproduce, and so therefore they would
    02:43
    come into a natural balance also.
    02:44
    When a herbivore found a piece of vegetation,
    02:48
    i.e. a tall piece of grass, they would consume it.
    02:52
    And it would become a short piece of grass.
    02:53
    And in fact, that was one of the beauties to watch,
    02:55
    is to watch, you know, the rabbit just going around
    02:57
    mowing the grass, or the goats and the deer running
    03:00
    around slowly mowing the grass.
    03:01
    And then running out in one area and then identifying
    03:03
    in some distant area another place to go graze.
    03:05
    Just like real animals do.
    03:08
    The real trick was how to make sure that that balance
    03:11
    then how did that interact with carnivores who could
    03:13
    wipe them out, but then wouldn't care for the grass,
    03:16
    so the grass would all become, you know, herbaceous again.
    03:20
    And conversely, you know, players could kill either
    03:24
    the herbivores, which we thought in our mind's eye,
    03:28
    they wouldn't do very much, because there wasn't much
    03:30
    value in those herbivores, and instead we assumed
    03:33
    that they would tend to fight the carnivores, not only
    03:36
    because the carnivores would be attacking them, but
    03:38
    also we had created quests to
    03:40
    where the pelts of the carnivores were worth more.
    03:44
    And so we assumed that that was sort of the leap frog
    03:47
    target that everyone would take on.
    03:49
    The same way we rationally were playing the game,
    03:52
    we thought.
    03:53
    Frankly, the service didn't work.
    03:56
    At oh so many levels.
    03:58
    (war drums)
    04:01
    What we discovered the moment the game went live was
    04:05
    that players ran over the world like a swarm of ants
    04:10
    that consumed every living thing as fast as it was
    04:15
    possible to spawn it.
    04:17
    They killed every creature, so as soon as a deer, or a
    04:20
    rabbit, or a wolf showed up on the map, the nearest person
    04:24
    to it killed it, skinned it, took its meat
    04:27
    and took its hide instantaneously.
    04:30
    And the fact that the wolf was worth more than the deer
    04:33
    or the rabbit was irrelevant, just the fact that it was
    04:36
    fun to kill would have been enough for them to eradicate
    04:40
    all life, all living things on the surface.
    04:43
    And we spent the next few months trying to figure a
    04:47
    solution out by either decreasing the value of the deer
    04:49
    or the rabbits or increasing the spawn rates to try to
    04:52
    make them be so plentiful
    04:54
    the players couldn't kill them all.
    04:55
    We actually could not keep up with the rate that the players
    05:01
    would massacre anything and everything that moved.
    05:04
    (war drums)
    05:09
    So we actually changed the fiction of the game and
    05:12
    introduced a hack going back to Ultima I, where in Ultima I
    05:18
    the way you defeated the Dark Wizard Mondain was by
    05:21
    destroying the Gem of Immortality, and you broke it
    05:24
    into shards and so we decided that that moment also
    05:28
    splintered the world into copies in these shards,
    05:32
    and that was the fiction for shards, which are now used
    05:35
    by other MMOs and even database operators around the globe
    05:39
    who don't have anything to do with gaming, and have no
    05:40
    idea where the word shards came from.
    05:42
    So we knew we'd go past 100,000 players, however we really
    05:45
    had no idea that it would quickly ramp to a million.
    05:48
    It was also obvious immediately that we had this problem
    05:51
    with a virtual ecology.
    05:53
    Because this proverbial swarm of ants was unstoppable,
    05:58
    we had thinned the population in certain areas,
    06:01
    but we couldn't do that on the main map.
    06:04
    The main map needed everyone to be present.
    06:07
    After months of attempting to rebalance, or reenvision
    06:14
    this virtual ecology, sadly in the end, we literally
    06:19
    just ripped all the code out of the game.
    06:23
    And the saddest part of all of this is that outside
    06:26
    of people hearing the story directly like I'm telling
    06:28
    you right now, none of the players
    06:31
    ever even knew it was there.
    06:33
    (war drums)
    06:37
    The lesson of the virtual ecology was to us that
    06:42
    testing the game in house is an entirely inadequate test in
    06:48
    contrast to the reality of being in the hands of players.
    06:52
    Not only are players going to face the experience
    06:55
    differently, they will think about it differently than
    06:58
    we do in house, but also by sheer numbers, they will
    07:01
    crush or test things in a very different way.
    07:04
    In a virtual world where you give the players swords and
    07:08
    weapons to commit mass murder, I think that a virtual
    07:12
    ecology is going to be, going to prove to be very difficult.
    07:16
    But I look forward to some young whipper snapper proving
    07:18
    me wrong.

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