Star Wars Galaxies NGE partially fixed

If you go look at the SWG category on this site you’ll see that I wrote a whole lot about the NGE (the last radical redesign of the game).

My opinion basically was that I wouldn’t have personally gone in that direction and dump the RPG-style of the combat in favor of something completely different. But I would still have moved away from that absurd and stupid kind of inconsistent, unimmersive “puzzle combat” with three bars and special shoots, to instead integrate more realistic elements that could make sense in a ranged combat. Like arcs of fire, covers, barrage fire and things like that. Patterns that make sense and are coherent with the setting, maybe even with a focus on formations and other tactical decisions (some elements taken out of “Jagged Alliance” could have helped).

I criticized strongly the way SOE brought over these changes, but at the same time I said that going toward a model of “twitch” combat whould have forced them to make it more consistent and move away from the retarded puzzle game. It’s not that “aiming with the mouse” is “more fun”. It’s just that it is more consistent with the mechanics of “ranged combat”. So more intuitive. So more fun because it speaks to you in a known tongue instead of through an arcane and abstract puzzle system that worked properly only in Raph’s mind.

Problem is that the execution, when you do a twitch game in particular, is king, and the execution of SWG:NGE was AWFUL. For example it was rather frustrating to manage aggro since a creature you were attacking could pass near a neutral one and you could finish easily to pull both. In particular with the jerky movements and animations that the game has (and a problem shared by all SOE games). You really cannot hope to do “twitch” if the controls aren’t perfectly smooth and if you don’t do a great work on the movement and animations.

With the last patch the devs finally managed to partially fix this system by improving its usability. There are detailed notes explaining how the new targeting system works. The complete patch notes are also available.

If you read their explanation you may think that the system is still rather intricate and complicated, but I think I can do a better work and explain how it works in short (guesswork, though. I don’t play the game from years).

With the “old” NGE system you basically had to target with your mouse as in a FPS and then shoot with the left mouse button, or use silly specials with the right, while switching them through an hotbar. This lead to the issues I explanied above since the game has no collision detection and the execution was really bad.

With the new system they introduce some sort of “safe lock”, so that you don’t shoot at things you don’t want to. Basically you have still to target with the mouse and then press “X” to acquire it and lock it. Let’s say that you are walking around and decide to shoot at something. With this new system first you target with the mouse (mouseover), then you press “X” to acquire it (the brakets around the target will change) and then you start to shoot with the mouse button. It’s not a “full” weapon lock because you still need to “aim” while you shoot, so if you turn in the other direction you will shoot at the air.

Basically the “lock” is just there so that or you damage it if you aim well, or you miss. Without risking to hit things you didn’t want to. Then with the “Z” key you can also cycle between the targets around you, classic style. But, again, when you fire you still have to aim.

My opinion is that these tweaks will help to make the original system usable. And it definitely wasn’t before. So it’s an improvement.

Darniaq is still convinced that collision detection is coming, while I’m still skeptical about this. Sure thing is that without it this system will continue to be crippled. Quoting the patch notes:

– Kneeling and Prone positions may be used in combat by using either an ability button (the buttons can be found in your command browser by pressing “;”) or the slash commands (/kneel, /prone)

What’s the sense and purpose of this without collision detection? It’s when I can take cover behind an object that kneeling can make sense. Right now you can shoot (and get shot) right through solid objects, so why I should need to kneel? To be a better target?

Plus they seriously need to bind those actions to default keys, not the quickbar or slash commands. At least if they want to incorporate those actions consistently in the combat mechanics (as they should when collision detection will arrive, if it will arrive). Giving more relevance to the environment (like ducts that you have to crawl through, indoor) is the way to go.

There are other fixes that were long due, like making creatures attack at slower speed and slow down melee movement. Things looked ridiculous before. We’ll see if the implementation is good this time and if the combat “looks and feels” decent. On the paper the changes are good.

Then there’s a last thing that drew my attention:

Weapon Retrofit: Combat damage inflicted by all weapons in the game will be based primarily on the weapon’s stats, rather than the character’s level.

I wonder who the hell approved the design document where it was written that the character level affected the damage of a laser pistol. This was utterly retarded. I guess that the weapons still have level requirements on their own, so the system is basically the same. But at least it is more coherent.

Darniaq also mentions a veteran reward that allows you to insta travel by calling a shuttle anywhere in the world. I wonder if you just click on an icon and select the destination from a menu before being insta-ported, or if you really do see a shuttle coming and landing that you can board with your group. Because if it’s the first case then it’s superbly lame. If it’s the second it’s the coolest thing ever.

I suspect it’s the first…

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Diablo 3 announced, sort of

When you see these kinds of news the first question is: “What’s the source?”

The source isn’t available but it should be still reliable. It comes from a presentation given by Vivendi to Wall Street, so something intended for the financial analysts. Source is F13 who had someone there, I think. I quote:

“All Blizzard franchises will become MMOGs.”

They claim they have a model now to develop an MMOG in 3 years for $50 million. WoW cost 50 million euros and took 4 1/2 years.

It is not an official announce since it’s more like in the form of “hype” to feed that type of audience with speculations. But I still consider this a reliable plan they have and that they WILL pursue now. Here Blizzard doesn’t exist anymore. My guess is that Vivendi is taking over. It’s not Blizzard deciding what to do next or even organizing the workflow. This is Vivendi seeing an insane stream of money coming in and going all “OMG, MONEY HATS FOR ALL!”. Then they rush in Blizzard’s offices with a grin, “SEE WHAT WE DID? NOW WE ARE MMOGs.”

Vivendi is not only taking over at the level of decision making. They are really stepping in Blizzard’s offices and taking over at every level. Before Blizzard was just an anomaly. This studio is so strong, as I pointed out in the past, because they ARRIVED to the success after a LONG process and hard work. It’s something handcrafted, done by people passionate about their work and slowly improving. “Vivendi taking over” is instead part of that other process who made so many important devs FLEE from Blizzard. Because they saw what was going on and that Blizzard was losing its role and slowly becoming just a “puppet”. The premises that made all that possible were changing. Those who saw that, left. With WoW’s HUGE success this process was accelerated considerably and I consider this presentation as the ultimate consequence: Blizzard’s autonomy is being killed.

Before WoW Vivendi didn’t have a particular attention for Blizzard, like every other division they have under them. Blizzard was successful, but only one cog in a huge machine. After WoW everything completely changed. While Blizzard probably had still a certain amount of autonomy, after the huge success of the game they weren’t anymore “invisible” to the Vivendi guys at the high levels. And this accelerated the process. You see, when you work for someone and do a good work, it’s all ok, you receive some praises and everything continues along the same lines. But when you start to do something absolutely *amazing* then you can be sure that they won’t leave you alone. They’ll come into your office, start asking questions, and yes, starting telling you what to do next so that TOGETHER you’ll conquer the world. Because they made you. And you are their property and merit.

People don’t leave you alone doing your work if they see that everything you touch becomes gold. Blizzard is the new “King Mida”. They make money hats. And now they totally have the attention of Vivendi. And they won’t leave them alone anymore, they won’t let them do their work. Instead they WILL take over, they WILL pretend to control and pilot them.

So this is what I see: it will need a few years before this process is complete. But Vivendi is going to take over, and this sort of “invasion” will have the consequence of ruining completely and slowly erasing all the “worth” that Blizzard slowly built along the years and with their hard work. They are guilty of having drawn too much attention on them, and now they are being swept away. It happens when you overdo, when you shine too much to continue doing what you do without things changing around you.

Diablo and Starcraft MMOs weren’t announced by Blizzard. They were announced by Vivendi. Blizzard is no more.

Those games will be made. Whether Blizzard wants or not. They aren’t no long masters in their own house. And in the next few years we’ll see a bleeding fracture between Blizzard and Vivendi management, trying to preserve control.

Right now Blizzard has barely the resources to support WoW. They don’t even have two separate teams to work on the live servers and the expansion.

Whatever will happen, things won’t be anymore the same.

From Blizzard’s rep:

I believe this was a misquote. We haven’t announced any specific development plans beyond the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, and we don’t have any intentions to focus on only one genre or platform with our future games.

We’ll see if it “was a misquote”, or if it’s just that Blizzard hasn’t anymore the freedom to decide what to do next.

Let’s see who makes the biggest voice.

Server travel, again

I don’t know why when I write on a forum I’m able to explain an idea in just a few lines, when instead I have to write something here I write and I write and it never ends.

So there’s this thread on Grimwell that presents a rather old problem that I examined too many times to remember. Nothing new, but it works as a short summary of my points.

Geldon: I’ve found that MMORPGs are generally better when I’ve got a lot more players to group up with. Lately I’ve taken to trying to identify the most populated server and starting a character there – and it’s paid off quite hansomely. Comparing servers on Dungeons and Dragons Stormreach, I’ve found it’s the difference between waiting five minutes to get a group to not being able to find one at all.

What bugs me is this: Why shouldn’t I be able to access the entire player population?

Darniaq: Technical limitations are linked to costs too. Uni-servers require a very different financial evaluation model many are not accustomed to.

Grimwell: Tech limits and costs can only account for so much of the equation. Another part is ‘developer vision’ and the perks/limits thereof. Some developers are not pleased with the current implementations of Uni-Servers and have (likely) convinced themselves that it can’t be done (for X reasons).

Global servers aren’t really an “useful” possibility, but there are many other better solutions that can maximize the benefits and still use current technology without pushing the boundaries too much.

The problem is to allow the “permeable barriers”: the possibility to have a flexible system that lets the players travel between servers, switch classes and roles, factions and so on.

For example the “betrayal quest” in EQ2 is an example of “permeable barrier” since it allows you to switch faction if you want.

Traveling between servers would be another implementation of permeable barriers.

My idea was rather simple: let’s retain the server structure we have now, but let’s also work on a system that can transfer characters from a server to another. Then we transform this process from an OOC one (where you go to a page and ask the transfer as in WoW) to an IC one. Where your character steps into a portal and that portal is part of the fabric of the game.

On top of that we add a system of automatic rules so that the portals switch from “green” to “yellow” to “red”, regulating actively both the population and PvP factional unbalances.

For example, let’s say the server is flagged “red”. It would mean that you can move out of it, but not in. Let’s say you are in the red servers but you want to join your friends. Well, you cannot ask them to join because the server is closed. But you can always move out and join them.

So, again, the “barrier” is permeable in the sense it still defines a space, but without trapping you inside.

-1 Wisdom

…I think I survived.

I had to visit the dentist to get one of my wisdom teeth pulled out. I have all four of the fuckers, but at least the other three seem healthy enough to stay there without problems. This one instead it’s about three years that loses pieces even if it never gave me pain. So it was about time that I had to take the decision to have it out before it decided to go bitchy.

Problem is that I have some problems with anxiety in general and things like this one can easily put a bad strain on me. I lived the last weeks in apprehension, with many worries, in particular after the nightmare stories from Lum and Dundee about a year ago :) On the other side I’m a rather rational guy, so I usually try to fight the anxiety that way, and it really doesn’t work. I mean, *rationally* I’m okay. I’m not scared or anything. Sometimes I feel like there’s someone else in me that I cannot understand and who does *everything possible* to give me more troubles. While rationally I may be able to control my silly worries, the “emotional side” gives me all sort of knee jerk reactions. It’s so damn awful because it’s an irrational way my body reacts and I cannot do anything about it. Like sudden, very bad sensations, totally unexcused. I cannot control these and even if I’m “rationally” relaxed and determined to not give my anxiety too much importance, the body still decides to react his own way, and I can just stare like if I’m watching someone else. Leaving me the desire to punch this other guy right in the face, and start giving orders, “This body isn’t big enough for both.”

It’s so fucking irritarting, even more because it makes no sense. I really HATE the way my body gives me all sort of problems ADDED on top of something I need to do and that I’m worried about. For someone rational like I am this is totally unacceptable. I would need my body to follow *exactly* my orders so that everything can go in the best way possible. “Rise the left hand” and I rise the left hand, “don’t panic” and I don’t panic. Instead it’s exactly the opposite and the actual problem that I have to face becomes a much smaller issue that those problems rising from anxiety itself. It’s a goodamn, totally irrational and unexcused vicious circle that irritates me to no end. Why the fuck my body needs to be my biggest threat? And how’s this tolerable?

As I said I know no ways to fight all that effectively, so I just wait. I learnt to understand and expect these sort of rections so I know what is going to happen and if I don’t feel well I can just wait the situation to pass. I can just try to ignore all that, even if it’s not really possible. It’s an added burden that I could totally do without, but my body has another opinion and I still haven’t found a way to part ways, heh. So even this time I knew that despite the tension and the worries I just had to go through it and suffer it. And trying to control my thoughts rationally to ignore as much as possible the way I feel.

The whole thing about the tooth went smooth. Much better than I expected. I felt no pain at all and after the first moments I was also quite relaxed (at least as much relaxed as I could hope to be). I kept my eyes shut and my mouth open the whole time and I didn’t even notice when my tooth came out. I was worried that it could shatter since it was already crumbling on its own, instead it came out all at once and rather easily. I was expecting much more violence. I was somewhat relieved and glad to not have to suffer complications and such (if you are anxious you are overly worried about things going wrong, you know). So at the end all the worries were again unjustified and what I did felt really like a minor thing to not even consider. The dentist (a she) told me to lay down still for a minute and then go sit in the other room. I was feeling good enough, I thought it was everything okay. Relieved.

So I go sit in the other room but one minute later I’m on the doorway again, “Uhm… I’m not feeling good.” All at the sudden another knee jerk reaction, something I never felt before. I was sitting, glad that I went through the whole thing the best I could hope. I wasn’t expecting anything else. Instead all at the sudden I felt a very bad sensation in my stomach and then spreading to the chest and rising to the head. And I could only go, “What the hell. What the fuck is happening to me *now*?” See, this is the kind of total separation between the rational side and the emotinal side. I was feeling okay, relaxed finally. And then all at the sudden that very bad physical sensation, totally unjustified and that I just didn’t have an idea from where it came from and why. The dentist told me then to lay down again and stay there some more. She explained me that it’s the sensation you have when you are going to “faint” and she told me it’s not so rare. It happens when you go through something you feel emotionally troublesome and intense, no matter how you are convinced of the contrary or try to minimize (as I was trying to do) and then you relax all at once. Sugar in the blood goes down and the system reacts with a “shutdown”.

I finished to be much more scared about what happened to me afterwards than the extraction of the tooth. Since I’m an anxious type I knew what to expect and the way I feel “bad”. I don’t think this trip to the dentist was more troublesome than other episodes but I’ve never been on the point to “faint” before. It was something new, that I wasn’t expecting and pushing further that limit and lack of control over my body. I didn’t like this at all.

So next time I have to go to the dentist I will be as scared as I was today. With the difference that I will be scared *of myself* and my irrational reactions, instead of the dentist. I cannot trust me in any way. Now explain me how the hell this can make sense and how I can tolerate it.

God sucks as a designer. He really does suck.

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Endou Kenji – Bob Lennon (20th Century Boys)

If you don’t have a clue, “20th Century Boys” is one of the very best mangas produced in Japan. Coincidentally, even a huge success over there (author is Naoki Urasawa). If I don’t survive today, this is my last post :)

This is a real song made by a fictional character. One of the best characters ever.

ENDOU KENJI – LOST KENJI TAPES – BOB LENNON

Hi ga kurete doko kara ka curry no nioi ga shiteru
Dore dake aruitara ie ni tadori tsukeru ka na
Boku no o-ki ni iri no nikuya no croquette wa
Itsumo doori no aji ga mattete kureru ka na

Chikyuu no ue ni yoru ga kuru
Boku wa ima ieji wo isogu

Rainen no koto wo iu to oni ga warau tte iu nara
Waraitai dake warawasetokeba ii
Boku wa iitsuzukeru yo gonen saki juunen saki no koto wo
Gojuunen go mo kimi to koushite iru darou to

Chikyuu no ue ni yoru ga kuru
Boku wa ima ieji wo isogu

Ame ga futte mo
Arashi ga kite mo
Yari ga furou to mo
Minna ie ni kaerou jama sasenai
Dare ni mo tomeru kenri wa nai

Chikyuu no ue ni yoru ga kuru
Boku wa ima ieji wo isogu
Sekaijuu ni yoru ga kuru
Sekaijuu ga ieji wo isogu
Sonna mainichi ga kimi no mawari de
Zutto zutto tsuzukimasu you ni

Approximate english translation (I have the correct italian version which is rather different):

The sun goes down, and I can smell
curry cookin’, somewhere.
How long will we have to walk
before we get home?
Will the croquettes from my favorite shop
still taste the same,
waiting for me?

Night comes down upon the earth,
and I’m hurryin’ home.

They say
the ogres will be laughing next year.
And I say
let ’em laugh all they like.
I’ll keep talkin’ about
five or ten years in the future.
And fifty years later, If I’m still with you.

Night comes down upon the earth,
and I’m hurryin’ home.

Well the rain may fall
and the storms may come
And the spears may fall.
Let’s all go home.
They can’t stop us.
Nobody has the right to stop us

Night comes down upon the earth,
and I’m hurryin’ home.
Night around the world,
the entire world is hurrying home.
And I pray that these days will
continue for you,
forever and ever.

Warhammer won’t top DAoC when it was at its peak

This time the silly claims about the european market are coming from an official press release (that I lost in my “notes” file when it appeared a few days ago and recalled when it was quoted on F13) and the textual words of Mark Jacobs (that I keep for posterity mocks as I always do):

“The initial partnership between Mythic and GOA resulted in Dark Age of Camelot being the number one MMORPG in Europe for many years,” said Mark Jacobs, CEO and President of Mythic Entertainment. “With WAR our goal is nothing less than to take Europe by storm and regain that leadership position in the European market.”

It looks like talking big about the european market is the new trend.

The actual news is that Mythic is again in partnership with GOA to manage Warhammer in Europe. I’m not going to comment this as I always played DAoC on the american servers, so I cannot judge their work, but I’ll say that it’s a very bad decision on all fronts to keep the US and EU servers separated and inaccessible to the same account, and I’m not glad at all to see this pattern repeated. This time I’m not going on with that crusade, though.

Other vague “news” are about the release planned for “fall 07” and the contemporary release, but we knew about these already.

I don’t really think they will regain “leadership position”. WoW has now nearly 1.5M subscribers in Europe alone. For the first time the european market is getting bigger than the US. DAoC, when Mythic considered itself “number one” in Europe, topped in EU at around 150k or so. Come on, it’s not even on the same scale.

Let’s make some predictions about the numbers Warhammer will get in EU and US. Let’s see who will get closer. My idea is that the reasonable goal that Mythic should take nearly as an imperative (meaning that it won’t be a “success” and that they should start dancing if they reach it, but that the devs should work *hard* to reach it) is the 250-280k EU+US that DAoC had at its peak. Anything less would be a delusion (in particular with the silly claims above) and I don’t think that the game will move too far away from that number (meaning that I don’t expect them going far above either).

I have this theory that sequels, or semi-sequels like this one, are never able even to top the original title when it was at its peak. I always criticized “sequels” in the mmorpg genre and I think they are a total waste of money when much better *commercial* results could be obtained by truly supporting the main title (meaning giving it more and more resources, instead of less and less), like CCP is doing with Eve (which grows constantly despite being three years old and recently reached more than 100 developers involved full time with it), instead of eroding progressively the resources from the game to migrate them somewhere else and then see an obvious decline as the direct result.

So my idea is: Warhammer won’t top DAoC when it was at its peak. They could go slightly above or slightly below depending on the quality of what they are doing (and I think some ideas are promising if they don’t cripple them with the usual bad execution), but that’s what I’d take as a reasonable goal. That’s what I’d tell my devs if I was Mark Jacobs. Go for that. That’s our goal.

“Regain that leadership position in the European market” is laughable. PR or not they should have never said something like that.

Maybe after launch, if they hit that 250k mark, then they could start to work *hard* to solidify and INCREASE their market share (you know, the mythical positive trends that seem a chimera for a mmorpg). Like the hard work EQ2 is doing despite being a retarded sequel. But then there’s always this stupid risk that the resources will be moved on yet another stupid new project, instead of supporting the development to make the first title more solid. And just watch it passively declining and fade into oblivion (also because it HAS to be killed, as the interest and hype MUST be shifted to fed the “new”).

Which was DAoC’s own destiny with that foolish “Imperator” project first, and Warhammer now.

A note to Mythic, test servers

One of the minor but constant problems in DAoC is that the test server has always had extremely low population, which doesn’t help Mythic to test the patches thoroughly. In the years they tried many times to encourage the players to play there and there were guys like Uriel who transformed this problem in some sort of personal crusade. But the results are rather poor and Pendragon is still not so useful as it should and could.

A while ago Mythic decided to encourage the players through special events, prizes and by hinting that they were going to listen feedback only from those who actively tested the changes before venting off. I think I participated to one of the first events, a few months before the launch of “New Frontiers”. I don’t remember exactly how it worked or what we were supposed to “test”, but it was in the form of a simple PvP siege to a keep with one realm defending and two trying to get in. It was kind of fun. DAoC’s “real” PvP is always plagued by specialized groups and arranged 8vs8 encounters or the alternative of *extremely long* downtimes while you sit at a keep waiting for leaders to decide what to do next. Having a “directed” experience with a set goal and all players focusing on it was fun, with no downtimes or dicking around.

Then the server crashed. But, again, it was some of the best fun I had in the game. And it crashed because we were a lot of players involved in a rather massive fight. Things that don’t happen often anymore, sadly.

Recently I’ve seen Mythic promoting every kind of awkward events, like “naked races”, and I really wonder what they are trying to test like that.

The problem of the “test server” and convincing people to play there is a general one afflicting every game. And it’s for this reason that it’s kind of interesting to see WoW’s test servers with the exact opposite problem. Queques going constantly above 5k. More than five thousands of players *waiting* to test, with another 3500 stuffed in. Plus all those who tried to get in but didn’t bother to persist.

Of course this is partly due to the scale of things. WoW has like more than 200k of contemporary users, while DAoC is today around 11k. But this isn’t the only reason. Months ago the patches were more interesting (like the addition of the Battlegrounds) but the test servers were relatively empty.

When things changed? When Blizzard started not only to allow server transfers (Mythic does this too), but when they also added premade characters at max level and even fully equipped, epics included. The test servers became suddenly “true” test environments. People started to flock there to test new talents builds and classes that they didn’t bother to level up, even raid content to be prepared when the patches will arrive on the live servers.

Now let’s see things nowadays. Mythic is going to add a new Battleground (Cathal Valley), with a 45 – 49 level range. Well, I’m interested in this. It’s Emain. The layout of the zone should be exactly as Emain in the “old frontier”. It should be a relatively small zone where the PvP could be quite intense instead of excessively slow as it is now on the “New Frontiers”. So I’d gladly test this, without the need for “events” or other oddities to motivate me. But I cannot. You are a fool if you think that I’m going to create a new character to level up to 45 and equip it just to test a BG. I cannot transfer my characters there either because they are at level 50. I cannot de-level to get in the BG, which is capped at 49.

The point is: are the players “not testing” because they don’t want to, or just because the testing environment offered is simply not appropriate?

Blizzard learnt this. They give you premade characters ready for the use and people liked this because they could finally “test”. For their own interest and the game. So I wonder. Why it isn’t reasonable to ask for a test environment where I can make characters and set their level manually, test skills, get all kind of equimpement from a “dispenser” without the need to farm for money, infinite respecs and all the rest?

If one game like WoW, where the character progress and discovery is the WHOLE game, doesn’t worry about spoiling the fun by offering premade characters, then I wonder why DAoC couldn’t do that and more. With a game where the fun is actually *crippled* by the mindless progression that the “Catacombs” expansion managed to stupidify beyond belief.

I’d be glad if I had the possibility to level up manually a character to 49, outfit it with decent equipment, spec it properly and running a few minutes later right in the new BG to have some fun. And maybe respec or try another class if I want to.

But there’s more to this. Developing such a system now would mean eating a significant amount of programming resources to a game whose support is being slowly eroded. Is this worth doing just to support a test server?

Not at all. Or maybe it is.

When the new Battleground will be patched on the live servers, I won’t be able to play there again. I wish I could, but the same problem on the test server applies here. I’m not going to endure to level another character and equip it up to level 45 and above just to step in the new Battleground. The grind is unsustainable even if leveling is absurdly fast nowadays. But it’s just excessively dumb and I don’t have access to dedicate powelevellers like the 90% of those who still play the game. I won’t bother even if I would have an interest to play.

And here’s the “revolutionary” idea, that could also excuse the work I suggested above on the test server: what about allowing the characters to “de-level” temporarily and access all the Battlegrounds in the game, from the first to the last, instead of getting locked in the current one only?

The implications of this simple idea shouldn’t be underestimated and the result could justify the use of those scarce resurces that the game still has. It is something similar to what I suggested for Warhammer and I think it’s something worth experimenting since it could have a strong, positive impact on both games.

I think it’s time to dare for DAoC. Which doesn’t mean about risking to ruin even what is left, but about pushing it closer to its real potential. This idea is just about giving the players a choice they don’t have currently. A change of rules that could be simpler and cheaper to implement but with a stronger impact since it’s about changing and streamlining structures more than adding tons of new content. Improving the accessibility for new and veteran players more than alienating those few who are left. I think the game needs an impulse, a push. And I think this idea could be a very good start.

I’ll return on this to explain better.

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Four smaller things that WoW did best

Yesterday I was taking some notes about minor details and design bits in WoW and here’s a list with smaller things, often not noticed, that this game does FAR better than every other mmorpg in the market. I think the Blizzard’s care and unmatched execution can become particularly evident from these smaller details, that are often more than details.

Great terrain textures. Blizzard’s art direction has been praised many times, but in this case it’s the particular of the ground textures that I noticed and that I think is a demonstration of a wonderful work. No other game has beautifully painted textures as WoW (to compare with the dullness and variable quality in EQ2). It’s one particular piece taken out of all the graphic in the game that isn’t easily attainable. The one that better demonstrate the talent of Blizzard’s artists. You could criticize the cartoonish style of the art direction or take graphic bits from other games to demonstrate that something better is possible. But the ground textures are absolute, unmatched masterpieces with all the other games widely outperformed.

WoW ground texture gallery

I think the ground textures represent the very best part of WoW’s art. This becomes particularly evident when you compare the game with other games that can rival with it when it comes to render impressive environments, like Guild Wars, whose ground textures try to imitate WoW’s style but still failing to match the art quality. People may find silly that I point out a detail like this one, but the ground textures have an extremely important role on the graphic impact. Often in these games the ground textures are just repeated patterns that give a strong sense of dullness. In WoW the environments are immersive not only because of how they are modeled and varied, but also because the dull effect given by the “tiles” is removed for the most part.

The beauty of these textures is then not also due to the work of the artists, but also to the way the graphic engine was engineered. High-res textures on the terrain and long clipping planes are often enough to cripple the framerate in games with expansive outdoor locations. In WoW the textures on the terrain retain a decent resolution, the clip plane is amazing and the performance is still great. From this perspective you cannot desire more. These textures also take advantage of a pretty “shader” effect (I think it’s a specular mapping) that makes the texture “highlight” under the sun at a certain angle. Even here Blizzard’s choice is a very good and solid one. This effect is used consistently on all the textures for the terrain in the whole game, it’s doesn’t cripple the framerate at all compared to other shader effects that you can see in other games and it is also really well used to add detail and realism. So they always keep an eye to the performance of the engine, while only selecting those “fluff” effects that really contribute to the graphic impact, to then reuse them consistently.

Even when it comes to the design of the graphic engine all the smaller details are examined carefully and then added to the game only when they are truly excused and relevant. And not just thrown into the mix casually and without much though. Which corresponds to the overall philosophy used by Blizzard: toying with less elements, less “crowdedness”, less noise. But with a much higher quality standard to pass before something makes through to the game.

A game-y approach. Instead of adding complexity and delving in it, WoW took the mmorpg genre and put it under a magnifying glass to carefully examine it, simplifying as much as possible, radicalizing some elements, removing the bad-habits and the superfluous, and continuing to polish while striving for “perfection”. A model of a game where nothing is unjustified or experimental.

A detail of the graphic engine as the one I described is just a confirmation of the recipe used.

I’m also worried about “The Burning Crusade”. I fear that those artists that did those masterful pieces of art could be between those who left Blizzard to join one of the companies that recently spawned. So let’s hope that I’m wrong and that the talent is still strongly in Blizzard’s grip. Those arstists are priceless. Whoever they are.

No artificial linked encounters. In EQ2 the designers, following a similar mindset used for Vanguard, decided to “expose” more and more the “wires”. While in other games like DAoC you can never easily tell those mobs that are “social” (so that aggro you by bringing along other mobs) and those who are independent, in EQ2 instead you can target the mob you are going to pull and the interface tells you directly if there are other mobs linked or if your target is detached and can be pulled safely alone. Actually in DAoC the “social” reaction of the mobs was often, in fact, a reaction. If you pulled solo you could get just one mob, while if you were grouped you could get more than one. In both EQ2 and WoW the pulling mechanics aren’t “reactive” in the sense that they vary depending on how many players are in the pulling group (in WoW the level of the characters affects aggro radiuses, though), but it’s here that WoW differs from EQ2 and that I think it is far superior from a design point of view.

In EQ2 it’s the interface that tells you which mobs are linked and it’s the designer to place these encounters by hand and decide those that are linked and those that are “solo”. So the mechanic is completely “external” to the game (see my OOC-design critics). You just “read” it through the interface and react accordingly. This was a major gripe for the players, in particular coming from the EverQuest Classic, since pulling and learning the encounters in that game was a puzze-game in itself, that was purged in EQ2.

WoW differs from that approach even if it keeps things extremely simple. There isn’t any “social” flag system that defines which mobs are linked and which mobs aren’t. I don’t know if there are special cases, but from what I observed the mobs simply react to a fixed radius throughout the game. If the mob you are pulling is at a close distance from another, then those mobs will run to you together. Out of that radius it will be a single pull.

The interesting design approach here is that the model is consistent throughout the whole game. Without cases that disrupt or contradict the experience. The players slowly grasp the rule because this rule is a constant, so it can be “grokked” by the players (using a term Raph used on his book to define the mastery of a pattern) even if they haven’t fully realized it consciously. It is a consistent in-game behaviour because these mobs don’t react to scripts defined by a designer, but on a somewhat “physical”/immersive element that is familiar to every player: distance. Already in the first ten levels of your character, while trying to make through a cave without aggroing the whole place, you start learning the “safe” distance between the mobs so that you can pull safely without getting more than one. And then you continue to re-apply and re-experience this rule till you have fully mastered it. Till it becomes “instinctive”. So that it’s actually about removing the filter of the interface to move closer to a “visceral” pattern.

The result of this is that “mastery”. The possibility to learn to track down mobs and pull them at the right time. Which is a so much better design choice then the one used in DAoC, where these mobs behave accordingly to rules that are hidden to the players (leading to frustration and a not-consistent game), and the one used in EQ2, where the wires are blatantly exposed.

Terrain inclination and physical barriers. Here DAoC is another example of how-not-to-do-it and WoW a good example about how to make it work, also directly linked to the previous point. In the “New Frontier” overhaul to the PvP zones, DAoC’s designers decided to add tactical elements and a better role of the terrain in the mechanics by creating zones that could not be passed and one-way barriers (cliffs, valleys etc..). The idea is not a bad one, but the implementation, as it not rarely happens in DAoC, was awful. The reason of the failure of this mechanic was that these barriers were arbitrary.

Those barriers were placed by hand by the zone designers following their own tactical reasonings that could have been good or wrong, but the problem was that they became “invisible walls” that the players could not figure out consistently. You just couldn’t guess where you could expect a “wall” and where you could instead manage to move through. As you can imagine this can be truly frustrating and the players ranted constantly about it for that reason. The “feature” was also even more crippled by another bad implementation. These invisible walls not only prevented you to pass, but they also made your character stop moving completely, so that you had to turn in the other direction and then move again, removing the possibility to “slide” against the wall to find an “opening”.

This was an engine limitation in DAoC (I could be wrong, though). The game didn’t allow to create one-way physical barriers. Or you had a zone border (so a two-way block) or you could run even up a cliff at full speed (actually much faster since speed was only horizontal and didn’t factor the verticality).

Often WoW is mistaken on this aspect. Some players think that it’s the texture that gives cues about where you can go and where you cannot, but the texture is not an active part of the mechanic, nor the one that is really utilized by the players. It’s the engine of the game that automatically determines the places where you can go from the places where you cannot, depending on the inclination of the terrain. It is then the world editor that the designers use to also pick the appropriate textures.

Even here the mechanic, as for the one ruling the behaviour of the aggroing mobs, is consistent. The behaviour is a constant that the players can slowly grasp and then reuse naturally. At a glance I can tell you where my character is probably able to walk and where I expect to “slide back”. I can guess where there are the passages and where I could try to “push”. This because while playing the game I’ve learnt to parse the concept of terrain inclination and it is now a spontaneous guess that can happen without me actively trying to have coscience of it. Like for the “distance” concept used to figure out which mobs I’m going to aggro with a pull, the “inclination” is another physical, consistent and familiar element that all players can grasp and reuse.

It is consistent because both the “inclination” and “distance” are elements coming from *within* the game and not out of it (like a script or a flag). And “game-y” at the same time because instead of striving for a simluation, they decided to simplify and reduce the pattern to just one, easy to grasp, element that is a constant used then for all the encounters. So they picked ONE element out of hundreds possible (game-y), while choosing it *within* the game world (intuitive for the players and coordinated with the “immersion” in the virtual world).

There isn’t even the need for visual cues that tell you where you cannot go because the textures change from zone to zone, while it’s the terrain inclination to be the constant. So the element that is always reused and that can be grokked more naturally and then applied effectively.

Even here game design is carried over to the game engine to support features and behave consistently. And it’s again another great demonstration of Blizzard’s flawless execution.

No mindless fetch quests. What? No fetch quests? WoW is filled with fetch quests, why I say it has none?

Because it is true. In the sense that there are no quests whose only purpose is to make you waste time by walking from point A to point B. This mindset is simply missing from the game. There aren’t unexcused quests as a pretence of making you waste time with unfun bits of the gameplay (to an extent). It would be stupid to add a quest whose only purpose is to make you walk just to waste time and, in fact, WoW usually avoids this.

There are instead PLENTY of mmorpgs out there who use the fetch quest exclusively as a time waster. A good example is again DAoC, where the latest two expansions had a vast amount of mini-quests (tasks) whose only purpose was to be a time waster (see also my comments here).

In WoW, instead, there are no deliberate and exposed “time wasters”. At least if you don’t consider the whole game as one. To explain better, WoW uses “fetch quests” but with a precise function within the game. Never unexcused (see the constant?). These fetch quests are instead tools used actively by the game designers to direct the players. So their purpose is not only alien to the “time waster” idea, but also quite important in the dynamics of the game.

These fetch quests are often used to conclude cycles and make your character travel to new zones where its adventure will continue. They highlight a path and lead the player by hand. So it’s not just about completing a boring task that the quest asked you, but about building “narrative bridges” (or “rails”), used to connect the various locations and stories in the game and avoid the player to feel lost and clueless or move out of where he is supposed to be.

The quests aren’t just a method to deliver content in this game, but also as a learning process to let the players slowly discover the possibilities the game has to offer. And that “learning mechanics” becomes then on its own the very best form of gameplay that the game has to offer (and with an awful replayability since you can only learn stuff once).

And it’s another great example of how even the most stupid form of quest in WoW retains a strong role and function that works so well that is often not even noticed.

A well-oiled game. A masterful engine.

Funny Zonk post

From his own MMO bloggage (because Slashdot wasn’t enough).

Firstly he quotes Blizzard’s rep on the increasing gap and accessibility barriers between casuals and hardcore:

Those with orange texted items are still unique and beautiful snowflakes. As the game evolves, the current “to-die-for” items will be yesterday’s news. Everyone will be chasing the “next-big-thing”, and so on and so forth.

Then he comments:

Which, to a degree, I get. Just the same, my hopeful words from the last post (My hope is that the folks at Blizzard are aware of this and are taking steps to address this issue.) seem even more naive now. Blizzard is well aware of the issue; they just have no intention of doing anything about it.

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