Hosting video-game servers is a hobby of mine. I’ve always enjoyed configuring new and fresh experiences for players and friends to enjoy in their spare time.
I’m fascinated by the complexity of our networking infrastructure and inspired by the possibilities that game servers have to offer.
Why do players love online gaming?
A video-game server connects people together in an extraordinary way. Social media and web forums connect people through multimedia text and imagery. Conversely, a virtual world has endless potential for a deeper type of interaction. In their experiences, players are forming memories and engaging in a nonlinear, personal narrative.
Whether you’d consider gaming to be an escape from reality or just an alternative one, people approach gaming for all sorts of different reasons. Some players love the rush of PVP (Player versus Player) action, where they fight one another. Other players love PVE (Player versus Environment) where they team up with friends and face the threats presented by the game-world.
Society Reflected
These virtual worlds oftentimes mimic society. Players will trick and deceive one another, others will form together and team up. Players form “clans” similar to tribes that are reflective of our own hierarchal systems.
DayZ is a virtual, anarchic world. Despite the lawlessness of this post-apocalyptic survival game, players naturally band together in groups. This is reflective of a human’s natural desire for tribalism and forming social networks for mutual benefit.
On my server, I want to encourage this organic, self-organized, open-ended approach to the gameplay. However, I find that many servers have long lists of rules. While these rules can be helpful, they also can impede on the core gameplay. The rules tend to disable players from pursuing their own personal pathway within the game.
My philosophy is to keep the gameplay as open-ended as possible and to foster the intrinsic motivations of the players on my server, rather than to squash and suppresses it.
That’s all for now.
I just wanted to write these thoughts down somewhere. If you happen to own a copy of DayZ. Check out my server.
