The Heart Of The Game (A VRMMO Creation Quest)

Vote for THREE (3) of these titles. Yes you may vote for your own, in fact I expect you to. The one with the most total votes is what we'll go with.

[ ] Return Time...
[ ] Neverwhere
[ ] Truth World
[ ] Lone World
[ ] Cerulean Moon
[ ] Streams Of Power
[ ] Novarra
[ ] The Old Market

Remember, the number of the voting shall be THREE! Four shalt thou not vote, neither vote thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three!


For the second day in a row the lean, spiky-haired programmer and the long-haired, artist/mystic found themselves huddled like conspirators over Octa's deck of tarot cards. The dining table had also gained the addition of thing shaped like a crescent moon that Octahedral had referred to as an 'essential oil diffuser'. It had been gradually perfuming the area with some herby smell Octahedral considered lucky while they considered the many title suggestions and finally agreed on a favorite.

Despite the odd scent and his continued disbelief that some kind of magic or collective human subconscious was going to speak to them through a deck of cards, KrispyKode looked more content with this state of affairs than yesterday. "I have to admit, asking everyone your mystical questions" he made a 'casting a spell' hand gesture, "netted us a pretty cool name. I still don't really understand why we are keeping it a big secret though. I really wanted to tell ParkourKitty last night; when I'm excited about something new I always tell her about it. And you keep looking at CaffeineBean like he's a spy."

CaffeineBean, all 2 meters of him, was currently stretched out on one leg of the room's L-shaped couch. He had his arm over his eyes and his shoulder-length wavy hair spilled over the couch arm he was using as a pillow. He was completely ignoring the other two while listening to an audioplay. Audioplays were quite popular these days, because voice-acting could be recorded by individuals in the comfort of their homes with standard gaming equipment, and then the pieces could be assembled with a few hours of work and a standard music editing program. Ambitious writers or voice-actors (which CaffieneBean was) liked producing audioplays not just for the medium itself, but because as a soundtrack it could be used to convince 3D artists to make movie footage to go with the audio, resulting in a full-fledged movie.

Octahedral puffed out her cheeks in frustration, then released the air and looked sheepish. "Well, I suppose we didn't really need to keep it a secret, but I really am afraid of being the one who drags the whole group into a project that doesn't go well and makes everyone disappointed. It's just such a big project. So I'm really hoping my cards will reassure me that this is actually a good idea. And then we can go knock on Porcelain's door and see if she's willing to tear herself away from whatever How To she's writing this week to listen to our reasoning about why we think she should be be leader."

KrispyKode gave Octahedral an encouraging slap on the shoulder. "Well then, consult your cards! We got the powerful name you wanted… you like it too, right? Do you need anything else before you can do your thing with the cards?"

Octahedral was surprised this was even a question. "Oh, I definitely like the name! It's a powerful title, just hearing it would make me want to find out more about the game. And no, I don't need anything else. So I guess… here I go!" Octahedral retrieved her tarot cards from their deck box, then held the deck framed between her hands, right in front of her face. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, trying to let the familiar fragrance guide her into a meditative state of mind. With ritual intonation she spoke quietly to the cards. She described their desire to improve the world by creating a new game that could answer the heartfelt wishes of thousands, even millions of people. Then she acknowledged that this was a truly formidable goal, and asked for guidance; were they meant to invest all their effort into this great work, or was the idea offensively overambitious, or perhaps inappropriate for the current state of human existence? Finally she shuffled the cards, and laid the first one down.

"Ten of Cups… well, if that's not an ambitious vision of an MMO I don't know what would be." She frowned at the card consideringly.

"Is it Over-ambitious?" It looked like a pretty happy card to him, with 10 shiny cups kind of floating in a lush outdoor environment with grass, trees, flowers, and a bright blue sky. Altogether the scene looked like a really nice day at the nature park, aside from the magical floaty treasure cups. Each cup seemed to have some different kind of treasure or other thing you wanted to obtain: one dripped pearls and gold chains, one had apples and turkey drumsticks and a wheel of cheese, one had a heart (the romantic kind, not the anatomical organ) cushioned in a bouquet of roses... Could this somehow mean doom in Tarot-code???

Krispy was surprised at the spike of worry he felt at the possibility that Octahedral was about to say nope and try to cancel the whole project. It hadn't occurred to him that Octahedral might use her cards to talk herself out of this MMO-creation idea entirely. She was clearly intimidated by the scale of the project. But… hadn't she been the one to talk him into it? Thinking back on it, actually he wasn't sure who had talked who into what. But he was really excited about the idea now, darnit! He couldn't let Octa just give up on his behalf, especially without even trying.

"Well, no… not specifically over-ambitious. The Ten of Cups represents satisfaction, satiation, success, and security… it's a mnemonic for remembering the meaning of that card actually: SSSS. In plain English that means having all possible varieties of good things, as least as far as emotions and inspirations are concerned, because those are what cups symbolize."

"So, it represents an amazingly good MMO?"

"At worst the card could be read as decadence, but in the context of an MMO it hardly seems like a problem if we somehow manage to give our players an overabundance of everything they want." Octahedral shrugged uncertainty.

Krispy laughed - of course gamers wanted decadence to be the ultimate reward of all their questing and leveling up. "Well, duh… I don't think it's actually possible to give gamers an overabundance of everything they want, but it actually seems like a really good goal of the 'Aim high, even if you miss you'll be further up than where you started' type. Seems like an appropriate philosophy for our project's design phase."

"I suppose it is appropriate. I just wish it would have been the six or the three of cups, something with a similar positive meaning but less extreme… well no, nope, I shouldn't be ungrateful. It might have been the Ace of Cups, which could have implied we had a ridiculously big, vague dream without a solid plan. Or it might have been something ambiguous, like the Hanged Man which could imply struggles and trials to gain wisdom but not say anything about the project's ultimate success. Or it might have been The World, which would probably represent all the gamers out there who want a new game, but wouldn't tell us whether our project would give them what they want. Or-"

Octa seemed to be just babbling out of anxiousness, so even though interrupting her was rude Krispy thought she would be happier if he cold shove her onward to the next useful topic. "So, it's a good card with a pretty clear meaning. I think it's a vote of confidence for the name we chose, and I think it implies that the wishes we collected from everyone can add up to a great game, yeah? I think we should declare this card-drawing a success and move on. So, do you need to use more cards, or…?"

Octahedral expression had gone from anxious to annoyed. She stuck her tongue out at him. "Well of course we need to use more cards, Mr. Impatient-pants. We had more questions, right?" Lifting the cards to her mouth again, she asked them, "Is Porcelain the right person to lead this project to a successful conclusion with minimal strife along the way?" Then she gave the deck another shuffle and laid the new card to the right of the first one. This card showed a blue gowned woman with a wise look on her face, seated on a throne made out of a giant seashell. She held a flower in one hand and a cup-like sea-snail shell in the other. She was crowned with some abstract mix of a crescent moon and sun rays, . At her feet was a pool of glass smooth water where an ibis or some similar water bird was standing, looking very serene, and under the water a line of sea turtles also glided by peacefully.

"Queen of Cups!" Octahedral laughed, looking much more pleased by this card. "That is undeniably Porcelain - radiating calmness, dispensing wisdom, and nurturing art or productiveness, depending on how you want to read the lotus blossom." Krispy was relieved to see Octa looking less likely to bail on the whole project. "Well, those are exactly the traits we thought would make her a good leader, so that's a ringing endorsement as far as I'm concerned. It's even a good sign that she's the queen of the same suit as the signifier - that's the technical term for the first card because it represents our project."

"Porcelain is the 'Queen of Cups', huh… Heh, remind me to tell CaffeineBean that from now on he has to ask Porcelain for permission every time he wants a cup of coffee."

Octahedral snort-laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand in mild embarrassment. "Yeah no I think that rule would go over like a rock. Not only would Caff be offended at the idea that our mugs belong to anyone other than him, it would annoy the crap out of Porcelain to have him interrupting her all the time." Octa took a big breath and huffed it out. "Okay, last card, last question." Another shuffle, cards held in the ritual question-asking position. "Is there any prerequisite, ingredient, or condition we should carefully make sure we have when starting this project?" She laid this card to the left of the first, and immediately looked alarmed. "Oh that's not good, that's not a good card at all. But what the heck does it mean as an ingredient, condition, or prerequisite???"

Concerned (and somewhat irritated, because he has just decided he had no reason to worry and allowed himself to relax) KrispyKode peered at the card to try to figure out what was so dire about it. The bottom third of the card was the foreground, which showed several dirty people in ragged clothes digging into sun-baked barren ground. They were digging up a huge golden ball though, wasn't finding treasure good? In the upper two thirds of the card four other golden spheres, which the group presumably had dug up previously, were in various stages of being transported by ox-cart up a mountain path to a gorgeous castle. The castle was decorated richly with jewels, and its gate was guarded by muscular golden knights twice the size of the… peasants? Probably not slaves, they didn't seem to have chains or collars of anything indicating slavery. One cart-driver on the path up the mountain was gazing with amazement or longing at the castle. The top-most sphere had been delivered to the castle, and the driver of this cart seemed to be being paid with... A plate of porridge? "Uh, so, what is this card? What's its general meaning, if you don't know what it means as a ingredient or whatever?"

Octahedral frowned at the card even more intently. "This is the Five of Pentacles. It means Poverty or Insufficiency. See, these laborers are doing hard work while underfed, their clothes are poor quality, and their environment is depressing and uncomfortable. Can you think of any way that poverty is useful or required for beginning an MMO project? I really hope it's not saying that we should pretend we are wage slaves and only feed ourselves if we get our daily gamedev work done. That's not happening."

Krispy mad a razzing noise at that absurd idea, then dismissed it in favor of thinking about the last time he has been poor in a game-related context. "What about when starting the game?"

Octahedral's forehead scrunched up in confusion. "That's… what I said?"

"No, not when starting to design the game, when starting to play the game. With that first card, you were talking about players having an overabundance of everything they want. Probably like the people in this castle. But that not supposed to happen until you've played for years. One of the most enjoyable things about starting a new game is that you are usually this orphan dressed in rags and armed with a stick," he brandished an imaginary stick-sword, "and all the NPCs turn up their noses at you or demand you prove yourself to them doing scutwork before they'll even give you a slightly better chore. It's so motivating to see a high level player on an impressive mount go by and imagine which mount you will get when you get higher level..."

"Oh! I guess a lot of single-player RPGs still start like that, don't they, and some of the older MMORPGs did? In StratusStrife I think the designers tried to eliminate that in favor of getting players shooting at each other as soon as possible. And in EarthCraft You have to make everything for yourself, there aren't any NPCs to run errands for; it's not really an RPG. Huh, interesting interpretation. More broadly than literal poverty, it does seem important that we think about the situation we will drop our players into when they enter the game world. That situation, especially if it's kind of a problem or predicament, is one of the things players will want to start playing the game to experience, and it should fire up players' emotions and make them feel motivations."

"Yeah, I think that's definitely something we need to keep in mind when deciding the bare bones of what the game will be about; the game world has to present the players with motivating problems and challenges, not just at the beginning but all the way along. So, like, villains for the players to fight against, NPCs that need help, factions they could feel proud to work their way up the ranks within, and even things like stunt achievements - Parkour loves those. Maybe even minigames if there are high score prizes or ranking prizes to make you want to beat the game or the other players."

"Or, the design of the game's economics would probably be in there as an interpretation of necessary insufficiency too, though I'm dubious about the ethics of actually including a currency system in the game. But, that's a detail we shouldn't worry about until much later. Anyway, good thinking! I was worried there for a minute. Alright, I think I'm finally ready for us to pitch this concept to Porcelain. I feel a bit silly now - it probably felt to you like I was dragging my feet, and the result was just that we're going to do the same thing now that we could have done this morning, as soon as we picked a title."

KrispyKode pursed his mouth and tried to picture how things would have gone differently if Octa had just decided to be confident from the beginning. "No… actually I don't think that would have worked as well. The fact that we've been talking to each other about this project will mean we are more prepared to talk to Porcelain about it. And the idea of a motivating lack or problem for the players should make a good brainstorming prompt once we get everyone together to start doing some actual design. You might think of me as someone who likes speed and efficiency, because I do like those. But you might not realize that before I do a speed-coding session, or drive a race in game, I often need to take some time to be slow and thorough instead, making sure I have a clear plan and am prepared."

Octahedral laughed - "I think the way you prefer to prepare for a race is by making sure your car is armed with missiles. And a parachute. And a button that converts it into a speedboat. But thank you for indulging me, and I'm glad you weren't too bored."

When they told Porcelain they wanted to make an MMO, her first response was a skeptical, "You and what army want to make this enormous game?"

Krispy served his own sarcasm right back, "Well, General Porcelain, I think that will ultimately be up to you, though we recommend Parkour as your drill sergeant."

Porcelain narrowed her eyes in her 'tell me no bullsit and I'll kick you no asses' look. "What do you mean, 'General'?"

Octa, looking a bit alarmed, stepped in between the two. "Porcelain, we think you have all the skills necessary to be an amazing leader of a game-making project, if you're just willing to give us the benefit of the doubt that we can actually make a game like this come to life. Between the six people living in this apartment we have almost all the skills needed to create a game: StarSeeker has several years of experience doing game design as a hobby and studying player psychology, Krispy and I have both successfully created different types of mods, Caffeine has experience with all kinds of script-writing, voice-acting, and movie-making stuff, ParkourTiger can rig and animate anything from a tank to a ninja, and you have mad organizational skills, patience with fools like us, experience analyzing games to make walkthroughs, and you set up that Public Benefit campaign for Star's roleplaying manual. Yes, MMOs require a ridiculously large array of skills to make, but we have a ridiculous number of game-related skills in our little family-of-choice here. It should be completely possible to fill in the rest with existing content-packs or enthusiastic volunteers." Octahedral nodded firmly, like there was no way Porcelain could possibly refute that argument.

Porcelain looked a bit pained, and turned back to Krispy. "You're really determined to do this? Even though this task is something like a hundred times larger than that mod you found so difficult to make? And you don't think Star would be a more logical choice of project leader, being the game designer and all?"

KrispyKode's expression held a mixture of sympathy and amusement. "StarSeeker will in fact be in charge of the design of the game; we're going to give him your wish that you wrote for us yesterday along with everyone else's, and he'll do his usual thing of coming up with some proposals and surveying us on whether we like them. What we need you to do as our Great Leader is run the team like a manager. Which Star wouldn't have the time to do on top of his designwork, and also would be terrible at. That's why he needed your help with the Public Benefits campaign to begin with. Now, would it really be a tragic waste of your time to spend it organizing your friends in their attempt to make something great for the world's whole population of bored MMO players?"

Porcelain actually looked embarrassed when she heard it put this way. "Well, no… working together with everyone at an epic creative goal does sound kind of fun, and spending time with you guys isn't a waste of my time even if no game actually got made…"

"The cards had surprisingly positive things to say about our chances of success." Octahedral put in brightly. "And even if the project fell apart, we could publicly release all the progress we had made and someone else might want to build on it."

"It would be a learning experience for everyone too!" Krispy imitated Octa's chirpy tone, to more comical effect.

"Alright, alright! Did you and the others have some plan as to what our first step on this long road should be?"

"Er, well," Octahedral blushed a bit, but gamely forged onward. "Our first step is to tell the others we're going to be making an MMO!"

Porcelain's jaw dropped open in disbelief. "You came here to browbeat me into running this project 'for everyone', and you didn't even tell them yet…?" She facepalmed. Not bothering to remove her hand, she mumbled through it, "Of course you did." Straightening up, she finally stepped into the role of commander. "Actually, what I think you should do is go see StarSeeker right now and give him a copy of these 'wishes' - message me a copy too. StarSeeker is the one who will have to 'take his turn first' to produce some options for us to refine, and then possibly put up for a Private Works For Public Benefit campaign; I assume we'll need the credits to requisition some higher-end hardware to get started with the real development. So, go warn StarSeeker so he can have something ready for this evening after dinner. That's when we'll call a household meeting, pitch the concept to the others, and see whether they are enthusiastic about it or inclined to rebel. Meanwhile, I'll try to read up on the process of making an MMO. Now get out of my workroom."

"See, you're great at this already - giving Star some time to prepare is definitely a good idea." Octa laughed. Ok, we're going!" She grabbed KrispyKode by the arm and started towing him out.

"Good luck with your research, Great Leader!" Krispy tossed a salute at Porcelain and allowed himself to be towed away to find Star.




The tarot part felt really long to me, did it feel too long to you guys? Also, I would have liked to have a second vote here, but I could not fit the set-up for it without the update getting excessively long. Next update's vote should finally be about an actual aspect of the game's concept/content.