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Game Governance 1

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Game Governance 1

A story in pictures.

taetaehoho.eth (🥟,🥟) 🦇🔊
May 20, 2022
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Game Governance 1

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If you haven’t yet, check out the summary of this series:

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taetaehoho (🥟,🥟) @0xtaetaehoho
Player governance is going to be a core part of web3 games. But why is governance good - and if so what are the structures / best practices to adopt that’ve worked in the past? h/t @StingRayL0
1:42 PM ∙ May 9, 2022
30Likes9Retweets

Ultima

Ultima III: Exodus (PC/DOS) 1983, Origin Systems - YouTube
A genre-defining fantasy RPG game. Direct antecedent to UO and first-gen MMORPGs. One thing that people critiqued about the game was the demonic imagery and gameplay that involved killing and looting lol.

"When anybody writes to you about your game, it's usually one paragraph of 'Hey, I really liked your game, really enjoyed it... but...' And then the rest of the letter, which could be anywhere from one paragraph to ten pages, is their personal diatribe of what was wrong in the game and what they would do to fix it. " - Richard Garriott

A Morality System in Ultima 4

“It was the fan mail that set Garriott on a path toward reimagining what a computer role-playing game (C.R.P.G.) could do.” - New Yorker. 

The letter writers explained, according to Garriott, that “the easiest way to gain power was not to play as a good guy.”

He was despondent. “I inadvertently made games that drove the players to act dishonorably, as this was the path of least resistance.” What if, he wondered, there were a game in which your moral choices had consequences?

He wanted the next installment of Ultima to reward honor and courage, and to penalize players for casual depravity… “This was the art I was compelled to make,” he said.

Eight Virtues | Editable Codex | Fandom
In response to the fanmail, Garriott created the first-ever morality system in a game. To become virtuous is the ultimate purpose of Ultima 4.
Do you kill the bull that is scaring the child but that you later find out is actually owned by the village? An example of a moral dilemma in Ultima 4.

The Next Generation

Ultimate Doom on Steam
Doom defined and popularized the FPS, introduced 3D graphics, and made enormous advances in engineering
Quake III's or Fast InvSqrt() or 0x5F3759DF Algorithm | by whoisslimshady |  Medium
Some magic by John Carmack
Doom was distributed as Shareware on BBS/Usenet. Shareware is free but limited in access. Windrar is a good example. If you wanted to play the rest of the game you had to buy the CD.
Once you bought the game, patches would be sent via mail.

What’s Usenet?

Usenet was a p2p network discussion system that predated the internet. Most users were college students and office workers. Some of the most popular forums were those discussing games - strategies, cheats, and distributing shareware. (Reddit post here). Note Romero is one of the founders of id creators of Doom.

Doom

"Microsoft's employees worshipped the game, not only for its addictive qualities but for its enviable technical feats." Alex St. John has equated the game with a "religious phenomenon" at the Microsoft campus. (Masters of Doom, page 197)

Already the year Doom was released there were multiple Usenet groups dedicated solely to the discussion of Doom.
A FAQ on Usenet by community member Hank Leukart. Also Jay Wilbur of Epic. Id software was using Usenet as a forum to distribute and communicate with its players. Early examples of community management.
David Taylor of Id asks the community to test and email him feedback on the new audio update. It was likely one of the first times when anyone, anywhere could try out early access versions of the game and be a play-tester.
.plan files by Carmack where he updated the community on what he worked on every day - accessible via finger protocol.

You can play Ultima 4 for free here.

Caveat

I decided to go with pictures because there wasn’t anything particularly meaningful to share. Just wanted to show cool stuff I found. Hopefully, you enjoyed it.

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