School Of Life

Technical Appendix

The Newbie Flow

Imagine that your virtual world is a bucket, and players are water. There are holes
in the bucket through which the water escapes. If you don’t add water regularly,
eventually it will all leak away. There may be a pool at the very bottom that isn’t
high enough to reach the lowest hole—that’s you and your die-hard players.
Eventually, even this will evaporate away, though.1

One of the most important considerations that must be made when designing a virtual
world is its source of new users (known as ‘newbies’). Without a constant source of
incoming users, the population of a virtual world will eventually diminish to the point at
which the world can no longer maintain itself.

We envision SOL’s constant source of newbies as deriving from its source of revenue—
the self-help products and services that it is designed to promote. Agreements with key
partners with self-help products to sell will promote SOL on their packaging and
merchandising. In this way, a potential customer who is not completely sure whether to
buy the product or not can be enticed to experience a free ‘session’ or ‘educational
experience’ in which they will learn more about the product in question.

The advantage for a publisher or merchant of self-help products is two-fold: driving a

potential customer to SOL not only increases the likelihood of them purchasing the
product, but also increases the likelihood of them purchasing other related products.

Once a user has signed into SOL (or ‘arrived on campus’) they will find themselves in
their dorm. Their initial journey from the dorm to the classroom will enlighten them as to
the other possible adventures and informative experiences that SOL has to offer. Whether
the user stays to participate more deeply in the SOL experience or solely for the purpose
of learning more about the product that drove them there, SOL will have benefited by
their presence.

Of course, the more we manage to engage the user in the SOL experience the better, for
this in turn increases the likelihood of attending more classes and, ultimately, purchasing
more self-help goods and services. This means that careful attention must be paid in
designing the initial journey from dorm to classroom. It must hint at the adventure within
the walls of SOL and make users want to know more.

Circles (Player Ascension)

1
Bartle, Richard A. “Designing Virtual Worlds.” New Riders Publishing. Berkeley, California, 2004.
 Circles is the name given by then Ultima Online player Hedron to his 1998
description of how players advance through different states of maturity…Hedron’s
vision is of virtual world players organized as concentric circles. They begin in the
outer circles, and advance in their experience and attitudes through the inner
circles; the analogy is ultimately the mandala of Buddhism, which adherents can
use to symbolize conditions of spirituality….2

Hedron’s description of player progression in virtual worlds is one of many—throughout

the history of virtual worlds, many players have observed the same thing, which all of
these descriptions attempt to explain: the longer a player stays within a virtual world, the
more involved he becomes with it. At first, the player plays a passive role, in which he
becomes accustomed to the mechanics of the world. Once the player attains a fully
developed understanding of this world, he becomes an active player—a player whose in-
depth understanding of the world allows him to influence it in a greater way.

This Player Ascension, as Richard Bartle describes it, is vital to maintain a healthy
community. “People should be encouraged to move along the path in order to develop a
vibrant, thriving community.”3

In The School of Life, we see player ascension in a player’s progressions from Student,
to Roommate, to Teaching Assistant, to Professor. Just as the majority of the players of
all virtual worlds are less experienced than the smaller population who have climbed the
ranks, the majority of SOL players will be students, while a steadily smaller and smaller
portion will consist of more advanced players—the roommates, the teaching assistants,
and the professors.

We intend to encourage Player Ascension by providing each type of player with

increasingly advanced powers and abilities. There is a difference, however, between our
virtual world and others that have come before us: while more advanced players of other
worlds receive increased abilities as they ascend through the game’s implicit hierarchy,
these abilities seldom have a direct impact on the world itself—increased abilities usually
come in the form of greater stamina or strength for in-game combat and such. SOL
intends to put the world’s inner-mechanics in the hands of its players. We believe that
putting these tools in the hands of the players—thereby putting our world in the hands of
our players--will ultimately lead to a community that is as ‘vibrant and thriving’ as Mr.
Bartle envisions.

In-Game Features

Special Capabilities of Teaching Assistants and Professors

The Role of Conflict

2
Ibid, p. 150.
3
Ibid, p. 149.
Throughout time, conflict has played a crucial role in narrative entertainment. All
narratives hold an audience’s attention because they revolve around problems—problems
that force a character to react in ways that transform that character and those around him.

Interactive media allows the audience to be that character—essentially putting them in

positions that force them to action. Up until now, however, the vast majority of
interactive media experiences have used action—and therefore violence—as the main
source of conflict. But we all know that there are other ways of creating conflict. After
all, narrative artists have been doing it since the beginning of human history.

We believe it is possible to create fresh, new conflict in virtual worlds for the purpose of
audience engagement. This can be accomplished by giving other, more experienced users
the power to control various parts of the experience. This is akin to inviting an audience
member onto a stage and allowing them to participate with the actors—the only
difference is that the audience actually feels like they are a part of the story, and the
actors themselves are not fully aware of the overall story they belong to.

This is the first part of our enhanced Player Ascension—we allow advanced users to play
a variety of parts in the stories of less-experienced users. The effect is two-fold: the
advanced player feels more ingratiated in the experiences of his less-advanced counter-
parts, and the beginning users slowly realize that if they stay on in SOL, they too can play
a variety of different roles in the stories of newer players.

To better understand the process by which this can be accomplished, we have described
below the specific tools and abilities that more advanced users will have at their disposal
—all for the introduction of conflict in the School Of Life.

Mission Based Tools

Avatar and Non-Player Character Control

In order to direct a student in SOL to a specific place or important event, teaching

assistants and professors will possess the ability to possess a student while he or she is
asleep. This may happen in one of two ways: the student may either be offline or
currently in the dream world.

Either way, there will never be a situation in which a student suddenly loses control of his
own avatar and finds himself moving or acting under someone else’s control. Rather, we
envision these special moments coming to the student’s awareness in the form of a dream
or vision. As a student enters or exits the dream world, a dream experience (as described
on page XX) will relate these unknown movements and clue him or her into an item of
importance. The dream may include a journey to another part of campus in which another
user is waiting with a message, or the observation of an important scene that requires the
student’s assistance.
Teaching assistants and professors will also have the ability to control NPCs (Non Player
Characters) for the purpose of acting out important events for the sake of students on
specific missions or the overall story of the cycle. Teaching assistants and professors
could either take control of the NPCs in real time (ie controlling the NPC while a students
was interacting with them) or in a predetermined manner which would be triggered by the
arrival or actions of a specific student.

For instance, if the teaching assistants and professors agree that a specific student would
most benefit from a mission based on key wisdom relating to temptation, they might first
use a dream (as described above) to guide that student towards a person or place in SOL.
Once the student arrived at the location, a cast of NPCs would play out a scene requiring
the student’s participation. The student’s success or failure would be indicated by one or
more specific actions that the student must complete in order to succeed.

The Role of Machinima in SOL

Ever since video games became advanced enough to allow users to record their own
movements, gamers have been using these recorded features to create artistic pieces
which the mass market has entitled Machinima. Clearly, the impact of the tools described
above, combined with every player’s ability to record, store, and play back events in the
game, results in a widespread ability amongst SOL users to create and employ various
Machinima pieces throughout their SOL experience.

While there have been many outlets for expression of Machinima pieces, there has been
no real use for it other than artistic expression. However, we see The School Of Life as a
place where machinima will actually play a vital role in supporting the overall story and
individual experiences of its users. In SOL, we see Machinima as the means by which
advanced users (teaching assistants and professors) will play the roles of a wide variety of
characters, ultimately supporting an entire spectrum of individual narratives—and over-
arching narratives that effect each player—that will move each cycle forward.

Cyclical Modification Tools

SOL’s timeline is cyclical. After the world and its players progress through the world for
a specific period of time, the world reverts to its original state and its players have the
ability to re-experience SOL in an entirely new way. The only progress is made in terms
of player ascension: each time a cycle completes itself, a player who is deemed worthy of
ascension is raised to the next level, and has the opportunity to play the upcoming cycle
as a more advanced player.

But this is not the only thing that occurs between cycles. Our design of SOL includes a
predetermined length of time between each cycle, wherein the teaching assistants and
professors have a number of special abilities that ultimately set the stage for the
upcoming cycle:

Linking Player Histories

 Each time a cycle ends, select moments from each player’s histories are stored in
the Akashic records. Determining which players have access to which ‘past
experience’ is an important exercise. Over the course of the next cycle, SOL
players will refer to their ‘past lives’ in the Akashic records for guidance during
the current cycle.

Cyclical Narrative
Each cycle will include its own story—a large, expansive narrative that will
ultimately call every player to action and affect every corner of the SOL
environment. The exact nature of the cyclical narrative will be determined once
we develop a better understanding of just what each narrative will need to
provide. Nevertheless, there are a variety of intriguing possibilities that should be
noted:

For instance, we may wish to include one or more large, major in-game events
(such as the flooding of the water surrounding the island in SOL’s dream world,
or the explosion of one of its buildings).

Implying Significance in Objects and Persons

Throughout the SOL experience, it will be important to make students aware of certain
areas, objects, and characters on the campus and within the dream world. To do this,
professors and teaching assistants will be able to make anything in the environment glow
or radiate with light in order to attract the attention of a passing student. Teaching
assistants and professors will also have the ability to choose exactly who sees this
glowing—it may be specifically for one person, a group of people, or the entire
population.

Affecting the Karmic Meter