This is a continuation of Part 1. Have you read it? And the comments too? Good. Now let's get on with it…
In Nth Society, your character is born, grows up, grows old, and dies. So your character starts out as a baby and you'll need a parent. Your parent is another player who has agreed to take care of you and raise you. Of course, being a baby isn't much fun because there's very little you can do. So childhood will go by very quickly in the game. I believe the exact length from birth to adulthood has yet to be decided. Maybe a few days? There will need to be a balance of you not having to wait too long while also giving enough time to allow your parent to perform their duties to raise you. What exactly those duties as a parent are, I think is another topic for discussion.
In the story, I say "my spawns". If I were a parent in the game, I'd feel weird about calling other players as "my children" so I just decided to call them spawns. And anyway, if you die and want to play again then you'll need to respawn. In the game, they might be called your children or something else but let's just use the term "spawn" for now.
"Most of my spawns have stayed… "
I imagine that new spawns will be itching to grow up and leave home to explore the game world. Some may eventually come back while others might decide to just keep exploring or join a different group. Of course, there will also be those who decide to just stay and help build their community.
"…and we’ve also taken in quite many refugees from the North."
In a free world, there are no laws other than the natural laws of nature. So people can and will do whatever they want. Some will be peaceful while others will be aggressive. Like minded people will band together. You'll have peaceful communities, aggressive conquerors, and everything in between. With the above line in the story, I try to hint at this idea. Peaceful players may not want to be in an area with a lot of violence and aggression so they flee to go elsewhere. It will be interesting to see as a new game world develops what kinds of communities will form.
"Most of the large communities have fallen. Many have fled Southward, as you know. Others have banded together in smaller gangs. The strong prey on the weak. It’s lawless chaos."
I've played online strategy games in the past and it's always the same. Some players just want to grow and build in peace while others (like me) want grow and build much faster through conquest. The strongest players are the ones who attack early in the game and increase their power and territory quickly. After awhile, only the strong fighters are left in the middle while the peaceful ones are pushed to the periphery. We still get to them eventually though. 😈
In the story, I try to suggest that the game starts in the North by mentioning large communities. And because of what I've experienced in previous online games, I would think that in the North, where there's the heaviest concentration of players, is where conquest and fight for territory will begin. The more peacful players will then flee and seek out quieter places to live.
But who knows? It's tough to predict until we learn all about the game's mechanics and maybe try it out.
"Everyone’s been great and we share everything: the work, the resources, the property."
In a free society that doesn't yet have any arbitrary rules (i.e. laws), established economic system (e.g. money), or social hierarchy, I imagine that everyone contributes and does their fair share for the benefit of the group. What I'm interested to see though is at what point does the community become so large that this ideal system is no longer sustainable. Maybe we'll find out.
"He roams the land, never staying in one place for too long. Nomes usually join groups and communities for short periods of time, observing the people, their customs, interactions, and social structure."
In a game that would simulate a free society, this is how I'd want to play the game. I would move around and see how others are playing the game. I'd try to join them and gain first hand experience.
After this point in the story, I realized that I was running out of words (600 words max) and decided to wrap it up. I just tried to give some kind of conclusion and maybe a hint of more to come. As for the game itself, I believe Nth Society offers a lot of interesting things to think about. Maybe I'll share more of my thoughts on it in future posts.
I really enjoyed this and your level of creativity. Great work! I have to go check out part 1 now for sure :P
I think you'd be a great fit in our new gaming curation community, and posts like this would be an excellent fit for our curation digest posts that are starting up shortly.
Thanks for the read!
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Thanks! I'll try to write more. I'll also keep an eye out for the curation posts.
What a great piece.
It is an unabashedly realistic view of human nature as applied to a simulated world. If it is a good model, the implications for NAP would be devastating.
The primary variable I suspect is missing is stake. Imagine the simulated world included a variable that determined the stake of players. A zero would equate to no stake - no consequences at all - no cost, shit talk, pk, stalk all you want because it is free. If the variable were set to 100, however, players would play strapped into a guillotine which triggered the moment their in game character died. ..no one would play, so a life's worth of incentive would have to be offered - say 10 million dollars.
In game theory that is called the payoff matrix. I think the real world has the stake setting pegged at 100 - or at least 90. I think it is perhaps the single most important variable in determining the viability of things like the NAP.
I could be wrong, that is one of the things Nth Society is going to try to study.
you have a talent for writing . keep it up
Thanks! I'm still relatively new to writing so your words are very encouraging.