2016年10月20日 星期四

Jim Brown's level design workshop: The illusion of choice By Katherine Cross __ Jim Brown's 關卡設計營 : 選擇的錯覺(待議假象)


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Jim Brown's level design workshop: The illusion of choice By Katherine Cross
Jim Brown's 關卡設計營 : 選擇的錯覺

Jim Brown's level design workshop: The illusion of choice

Tuesday afternoon saw a fascinating GDC talk led byJim Brown of Epic Games about how to create games that provide players with an “illusion of choice.”
星期四下午,我聽了一場引人入勝的GDC演講,主講人是Epic Games的Jim Brown,主題:如何在遊戲中,提供玩家一個"選擇的錯覺"。
This is a paramount concern because of how easily players can be overwhelmed by choices in a game, despite our never ending demands for choice in games. “Choice,” indeed, is a top-shelf buzzword for back-of-the-box blurbs for any number of games. It’s not just for RPGs anymore, either. A whole host of games now tout “choice” as synecdoche for realism.
這是最先要關注的,因為玩家很容易在遊戲中被許多選擇弄混淆,儘管在遊戲裡,我們永無止盡要求作選擇。選擇。"選擇",的確,在任何遊戲背面的宣傳裡,它是一個頂尖的流行詞。現在不只在RPG裡,所有主機遊戲現在為了更加真實,都提倡"選擇"如同提喻(英文會用wheel代替car,中文借喻會用銀盤代替月亮)。
Bringing a behavioral science perspective to his lecture, Brown made an argument for making choice illusory while preserving player autonomy. He drew a key distinction between player agency, which he defined as our capacity to choose, and player autonomy which he defined as our capacity to make informed decisions. In the case of the latter, he argued that autonomy was more about providing executive endorsement of the paths we had committed to.

他的課程帶入行為科學的角度,在保持玩家的自主上,Brown對製造選擇假象提出一個辯論,他加以區別玩家機制(指:玩家的能夠有意識的和遊戲世界互動)與玩家自主的不同。前者,他認為以我們能力做選擇,後者,以我們的能力做出明智的決定,他認為自主權比較像是關於更多提供我們允許通行的背書。
The sunk cost fallacy, Brown argued, was easily exploited to compel players to follow paths laid out by developers. If players could be moved to invest a bit in a quest chain or the consequences of a given decision, they would continue down that path. “There is a huge sunk cost to creating a character and getting them to max level,” he said of MMOs.

沉默成本的誤解,Brown解釋,很容易被開發者利用,迫使玩家跟著路徑規劃行走。如果玩家可以迫使投注多一點任務支線或選擇的結果,他們會繼續在遊玩路途上。他認為線上遊戲”有巨大的沈默成本是在創造角色並使他們升到最高等級”。
But if this sounds manipulative, the core of his argument seemed to be something many players could appreciate. He put up a famous graphic comparing a seemingly complex Doom level to a purportedly more linear level from a generic 2010 game where a corridor was punctuated by cutscenes.

不過這聽起來像是操縱人心,他討論的核心似乎也是許多玩家會重視的,他放上一張著名的圖,比較毀滅戰士1的複雜關卡與來自2010年一款普通遊戲的線型關卡,走道部分是會演出過場動畫。
The Doom level from the 90s, despite its apparent complexity on the blueprint map he showed, was entirely linear. But its blind alleys, keycard collection, and shortcuts gave the player autonomy: the ability to feel as if they are endorsing a path they had committed to voluntarily, even if they were being funneled in a direction that had long ago been decided up on by the level designer.

來自90年代的毀滅戰士1關卡,儘管它的藍圖看來複雜,不過都還是線性。但是它的死胡同,晶片卡收集和捷徑都給予玩家自主 : 這項能力感覺像是他們選擇喜歡的路線,自願通行,就算他們已經迷失方向一陣子。但這一切是關卡設計師早就設計好的路線。
After all, popular multiplayer maps leave very little choice to the player and yet players love them, despite having only two to three possible paths to pursue across the length of the map, he argued.

他說,畢竟,受歡迎的多人連線地圖,就很少給玩家選擇,但玩家就是愛,除了只有2-3條可能的路線是為了追求地圖長度。
He pushed back against popular advertising techniques that influence players and instead preserved their autonomy and enabled them to make meaning of the choices they were making. Crucial to this perspective is the idea that even if--as with the Thieves’ Guild quests in Oblivion--everyone’s technical path through the quest is the same, they are given the emotional tools to layer their own interpretations and meanings atop that experience. Brown is not advocating the callous manipulation of players, then, but a way to simulate the infinite choice of the real world without overwhelming the player.

他反對受歡迎的廣告技術,它影響玩家,反而保護他們的自主權,也讓他們有意識的選擇。這關鍵點在,這個想法即使,在上古卷軸4:盜賊工會--每一個人的技能線,透過任務都是一樣的,給玩家情緒工具去堆疊他們自我的詮釋和經驗,Brown不主張生硬的操控玩家,而是用一種模擬真實世界的無限選擇,無需衝擊到玩家。

One bit of the talk I found particularly interesting was Brown’s argument that tropes in games were the result of familiarity being psychologically pleasing to us. This, he argued, induced developers to resort to the timeworn cliches of, say, RPG levels set in city sewers, or parts of FPS levels taking place in air-conditioning ducts. 

有一段話,我特別覺得有趣,Brown的觀點認為,在遊戲裡的情節是熟悉心理如何娛樂我們的結果。這觀點,導致開發者會採取老梗的方式,他說,RPG關卡設在城市下水道,或大多FPS的關卡發生在空調管道中。
The converse of this was that players subconsciously both expect and like such things.

相反的是,玩家潛意識地期待和喜歡這些關卡。
According to Brown, this familiarity has another side-effect as well: it compels players to make choices that comport with the expectations set by the trope. He pointed to Bioshock’s infamous choice between killing or saving The Little Sisters and gestured at statistics that showed the overwhelming majority of players saved them on their first playthrough. This, he argued, was because saving children was our comfortable and familiar way of dealing with the presence of little kids in such an otherwise terrifying environment. Intentionally or not, Bioshock’s developers created a highly winnowed choice that players could feel autonomously emotionally invested in.

根據Brown的論述,這種熟悉感也有一個副作用 : 它迫使玩家從情節所期望的表現,做出選擇。他指出生化奇兵的惡名選擇,殺掉或拯救小妹妹,然後看了一下統計數字,顯示絕大多數玩家會存下他們第一次玩到這的紀錄。這件事,他認為,因為拯救孩子是能接受的而且在這可怕的環境中,已熟悉與孩子相處的方式。不管有心或無意,生化奇兵的開發者創造出高度精選的選擇,玩家會感到自主情感的投入。
Familiarity, then, can be seen as a shortcut to investment on the part of the player.

熟悉感,再來,可以被視為一項投資在玩家上的捷徑。
While I can’t say that I’m entirely sold on all of these ideas, they provide stark insight into how modern developers are thinking about choice, and why what’s going on beneath the hood of any given game is likely more complex--from both a technological and psychological standpoint--than many players might be giving their developers credit for.

我不能說我已完全說完所有想法,它們提供無可避免的選擇,給現在開發者如何思考選擇,以及為什麼在特定遊戲部落底下越來越複雜--來自技術和心理的角度--超越許多玩家給予開發者的好評。