Talk:Emergent gameplay

Theories

I am adding a new headline on theories in emergent gameplay proposed by a game designer and a game theorist.

Simulation

Emergent gameplay appears when there is good game simulation according to Peter Molyneux, creator of Populous and other games. Simulated worlds allow players to play around the world and should respond realistically to player’s action. This is what made SimCity and The Sims compelling to people and that messing around with the city’s inhabitants in Grand Theft Auto was half the fun.

The following is an example of emergent gameplay Molyneux gave with his game, Fable:

He says he watched a 15-year old playtester chat up a woman in town who happened to be the mayor's daughter. He brought her gifts and flowers, talked to her all the time, started hugging and kissing her... and eventually they married and moved in together. Molyneux says he was delighted that a player was exploring this part of the game. Then the playtester talked to the Mayor and asked him to follow him. He took the mayor out to the woods, got him behind a tree ... and killed him! "Why did you do that!?" Molyneux asked. "I figured the mayor was rich, and he'd give all his money to his only daughter," answered the tester. Of course, now the daughter had lots of money, but didn't want to share any of it. So the playtester killed her, too. (Then he moved into the mayor's house!)

Molyneux also claims that emergence (or emergent gameplay) is where game development is headed in the future.

Rules and Emergence

Emergent gameplay comes out from rules of a game. The rules of a game sets up potential actions, actions that are meaningful inside the game, but meaningless outside, as claim by video game theorist, Jesper Juul. Hence, when rules and objects in a game are combined, there are possibilities for emergent gameplay. When a game is designed with many connections between different objects and rules, the likelihood that players will find unpredicted rule combinations increases. Juul, Jesper (2005). Half-Real. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 54–82. ISBN 0-262-10110-6.

References

Cat and Mouse

Where is the source for the other sections? Stuff like this is rarely to never going to be "officially" documented anywhere. AbstractClass 17:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact I don't see a single source in the entire article? Why was my contribution singled out? AbstractClass 17:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Sources can be found for many of them. That has to be done. Some have their own articles. It's just that your entry seemed to read very much like someone had just added some method of play they and their friends came up with.--Drat (Talk) 14:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I didn't come up with it, and in fact I didn't much like it. But it was very popular and was played all the time and is a perfect example of what this article is discussing. BTW, how do you indent?AbstractClass 15:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, your going to be another (PROFANITY DELETED) on Wikipedia I see. Well I'm going to delete the unsourced sections and will prepare to indulge in an Orgy of deleted unsourced material across wikipedia. You (PROFANITY DELETED) (PROFANITY DELTED). AbstractClass 15:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Charming.--Drat (Talk) 14:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Emergence in games

This text from Emergence in games which could be merged in somewhere. Marasmusine 14:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Emergence is the principal that several items with simple behaviour can produce complex behaviour by following a set pattern of instructions.

This is the idea that several small things acting together can act as more than the sum of their parts.

In games, this principle applies if something needs to follow something else, this could be easily achieved by adding that condition, it would then appear that the two items were intelligent, whereas they are just following instructions.

One application of emergence is to model flocking, which shows how birds and other animals travel together in groups.

--paolor (talk) 07:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC) I completely agree, this should be merged in as an alternative definition at the beginning of the article. In my experience, emerging gameplay (complex behaviors that emerge from the interaction of simple game mechanisms) can be either expected or unexpected by the game designer. Is there consensus on this?

missed the concept?

I always thought of emergent gameplay as arising from the AI doing things unexpected or creating an unexpected effect, more like in http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/labels/Game%20Moments.html

I though this had it's own article; emergent behaviour, but it just redirects to emergence. I've added a section to this article; add references at will! Marasmusine 09:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Combos

So, a combo, as defined in Combo (video games), would not be an example of emergent gameplay, even considering that it was something the game designers did not specifically intend? Just checking because I'd rather have a discussion about it, instead of re-adding it just to have it deleted again. --nothingxs 01:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It's emergent gameplay if it has been described as such in a reliable source; we don't do original research. Marašmusïne_Talk 08:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It is an example of emergent gameplay. I don't know about it being described as such in a reliable source, but it essentially was an unintended feature that actually made the game what it is today by changing the dynamics of how the games were played. I have added a reference this time! --nothingxs 02:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Since the 1UP reference cites the Street Fighter 2 glitch as the origin of what we call 'combos' (a gameplay element after all) I think we can allow that. Marašmusïne_Talk 08:21, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Surfing

Surfing actually originated in the original Counter Strike, before CS:S even came out, I remember surfing for hours at a time in Counter Strike, then being somewhat saddened by the amount of time it took for surfing to come to CS:S. 98.148.220.150 (talk) 01:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Hacking

Related? I know they're not the same thing, etc etc.  Aar  ►  06:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you elaborate? What kind of hacking and what is being hacked?--Drat (Talk) 06:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

As Drat suggests, "hacking" is a bit of a loaded term. In the narrow sense of hacking as in compromising computer security, not directly, but the notions of subversion are there (but that's a loose connection). In the broader informal senses of exploiting (non-security) glitches and doing low-level programming work, yes. See the Glitch or quirk-based strategies section. Low-level programming work has been used in developing speedruns (especially tool-assisted) and in developing machinima (movies made with 3D video games as the animation engine). — TKD::{talk} 06:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Leveraging

Sorry to come over all fussy here. I'm a linguistic dinosaur who has real trouble with the verb form 'to leverage'. I've never known why 'to lever' stopped working for this purpose. But I recognise that it's used and I'm not about to start removing words from Wikipedia to suit my preferences. But the article includes the following statement:

"Emergent play usually involves leveraging one or more of these components."

The word 'leveraging' in this statement was linked to Leverage (disambiguation). I don't think this really helps because it links to a number of different possible meanings and applications of the term, and none of them refer to game mechanics (at least as far as I can see). I've taken the link out for the moment because I believe it's likely to confuse more than it helps. Could someone who better understands the usage of 'leverage' in this context please decide on a specific article to link the word to? - Laterensis (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The whole statement appeared to be WP:OR anyway. Marasmusine (talk) 11:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Emergent narrative

The Left 4 Dead reference is fluffy. Enemy and spawning AI is not storytelling. Under a 'dramatics and pacing' definition, even Pong qualifies -- "...and then, it came at me!"

I submit you need a persistent world and a player community for a story to emerge in any meaningful sense. The concept is embodied in, e.g., Dungeons & Dragons. The article would benefit from such a reference.

I removed this section from Nonlinear gameplay, as it was copied there in its entirety. Era139 (talk) 01:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Deus Ex reference

The Deus Ex reference in this article does not provide any evidence of intentional emergent gameplay. They game is fairly linear, and offers the player a lot of choices when it comes to how problems are solved, but all of those choices were carefully crafted by the developer. The ability to walk up walls on mines is a bug in the game, and is most assuredly an example of unintentional emergence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.153.129.39 (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Command & Conquer

Sandbags within the first game were broken because the computer players did not know how to destroy them. The single player missions were skewed by this knowledge where the objective particular to that mission was second preference until a player could successfully block and stop the computer controlled player. Once this was achieved (even to a partial blockage) then one could play the mission normally to achieve the objective. Until Red Alert 1 was released, Command & Conquer was a game where the 'Sandbag Blockage' objective was always first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.80.179 (talk) 11:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

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