Comments on: Politics MMORPG

By: MMO Politics « Tish Tosh Tesh

MMO Politics « Tish Tosh Tesh — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:28:25 +0000

[...] Gordon’s Politics MMORPG [...]

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:00:53 +0000

Diplomacy isn’t about war, no, it’s about preventing war. Politics is a different thing entirely. It’s like the difference between a statesman and a politician. One seeks to serve the people and promote peace and prosperity, the other seeks power.

By: Usiel

Usiel — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:45:49 +0000

Usually I agree with you a lot, but Politics is not about War. War starts were diplomacy failed. Besides War is a foreign affair and there are far more political fields than diplomacy. War also won’t help in fields like ecological policy.

When I hop over to Gordons Island for negotiations and we fail to find an agreement, we are not going to invade each other, as we did 70 Years ago. Politics means keeping your interests through compromise and negotiations.

That’s pretty hard to illustrate attractively in a game, which reduces political components in a game to Military Alliances and economical simulations.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:54:31 +0000

I like the grand idea of being able to deal with global politics and micro, local politics at the same time in the same game and that could be entirely possible in a MMO that had thousands of players. Just like in real life, some politicians (players) might be in a leading party for their country and have to deal with foreign affairs and massive decision making whilst others might be just trying to climb the political ladder and gain power or influence the locals for their vote.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:48:32 +0000

EVE definitely has politics but, as far as I know, it’s mainly confined to inter-player relations rather than through game mechanics.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:47:04 +0000

I just a toddler when that came out

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:46:33 +0000

“And write the laws to have the entire government collapse when I die, because civil war is the greatest legacy a man can have.”

ROFL!

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:45:59 +0000

I loved the diplomacy system in VG. When I played the game it was still very underdeveloped by I really admire the creators for trying to do something different.

The problem with politics in a fantasy MMO is that most fantasy games are based on medieval backgrounds and politics back then tended to be more a case of class-ruled fascist monarchies especially before the Magna Carta

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:40:36 +0000

Sounds good Now we just need to decide on a country to set it in. I think Japanese politics would be interesting actually.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:28:41 +0000

I can’t remember where I heard it or the exact quote, but I think this is relevant:

“Politicians and football players are alike; they play a game of violent land acquisition”

Here speaking of American Football rather than the relatively tame “real” Football we call Soccer, of course. (The fans, though… not tame.)

Still, though Usiel seems to be joking a bit, politics is, at some level, a wargame. It’s violence via poisoned lips, command and conquer on a sociological board that occasionally comes to blows. Such is always the nature of individuals seeking power and competing with others with the same impulse, including the desire to control people who want freedom. Learning how to manipulate the populace is high political gaming.

So, yeah, a political MMO would be an interesting animal. I’m not sure if it’s best to go Brian’s way and try to parallel reality or go the Sid Meier way and go more abstract and caricature history. There’s educational potential there, but also propaganda hooks, and that is always touchy.

Cities XL experimented with SimCity-ish play online… it’s not exactly political, but there are certainly political overtones in city building. There was a Monopoly Online game a while back where players would claim real live streets via the interface’s interaction with Google Maps, and play out their capitalistic empire building impulses. (Not that capitalism is exactly the same as politics, but it would be foolish to think they are independent.)

Perhaps it might be asked: What part of politics did you want to make into a game? The bitter partisan fighting? The empire building? The diplomacy? The fight between egomaniacs who want office and power and the demands of the people?

There’s plenty there to design around, even in MMO terms. It wouldn’t be a standard DIKU game, but that’s not a bad thing.