Tag Archives: Dream mmorpg

Genesis: the world, to the players

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I was looking at Vanguard’s concept art and it made me think about other ideas in my dream mmorpg completely unrelated. The idea of the game world finally truly in the hands of the players.

What should this mean? You can follow what made me think again at that idea. You can go admire some of the concept art for Vanguard, the environments in this case.

People say it’s cool, but at the end that’s just a backdrop. Even WoW has some places that make you feel the sense of wonder, but it’s still just a passive frame. Think about the capital cities for example. You just go there to get quests, take the gryphon, repair, buy/sell. At the end you aren’t really there because that place is owned by passive NPCs.

The world, to the players

So the idea: whould you want to own one of those places? That’s the point. I want to give that kind of awe inspiring, fantasy world to the players themselves. Not to passive NPCs. Those luscious palaces should be owned by the players. They should live there. Their homes.

What we have instead? Well, Ultima Online gives you bigger or smaller houses that you can completely customize, EQ2 gives you instanced room that you can fill with garbage, DAoC gives you a few house models that you can buy on a pre-defined, generic land. I mean, the players get the crumbs, the NPCs instead get gorgeous palaces, castles, temples and so on. How’s this fair?

I want that kind of immersive and yet incredible world that you can see from the concept art in some games. But then I want to take those zones and tell the players: here, this is all yours. That’s the idea.

What we have instead? We have instanced PvP spaces, where you can fight around an handful of same-looking keeps. Without context, without “feel”. Just four walls and a flag in the middle. How’s this fair?

So let’s overthrow this status. Let’s be subversive. We take the best artists and world builders and we make them create the most luscious, fascinating and awe inspiring world. Something that can totally make your jaw drop. But when it’s time to populate it with mindless NPCs, we invert the trend and, as God with the Eden, we put there the players and say them: this is all yours.

That’s the idea. The world, to the players. It’s theirs. They do with it what they want.

The context: the war and full PvP

Then we need to give them something to do. It’s a game, afterall. So we say: this world is PvP. Fight for your domains.

And it’s here that you learn that the world is persistent. There’s is no “castle in a pocket”, no private rooms. You see that palace and you want it for you? Ok, go take it for yourself. Fight for it. Your house isn’t a safe place because there’s war in this world and nothing you have is secure here. You have to protect your domains, you have to find allies, you have to coordinate.

There are two factions at war (with a third not directly involved in the war), you pick your side, with the possibility to betray it, if that’s your choice (permeable barriers). You can then switch sides or even establish your own faction, and fight your own war against everyone else.

The conquest system

The world is big. Too dispersive for PvP? No, because we take inspiration from wargames and use a simple conquest system: you can only conquer adiacent regions to your domain. You can then lay sieges and annex regions to expand your domain. The PvP should be easy to locate and reach because it should focus on a “battlefront”, the border between one faction and the other. Always visible on a map.

You can then penetrate in enemy lands, if you want. But you cannot siege inner locations that way. To reach those places you’ll have to escape patrolling guards and move past roadblocks. If the guards find you then everyone will know where you are. While you cannot siege and conquer regions outside the battlefront, you can “pillage”. The pillage is a possibility, but it has also a purpose. During a pillage you can damage enemy structures and steal or destroy their resource.

Full loot and economic system

This world is full loot. But wait. You cannot kill other players and steal their hard earned magic weapons and armors. The idea is instead that you can loot or destroy the resources that are used at the higher level of the community. The economy of the conquest system. The game is based on a similar model of an RTS. You’ll have to gather resources such as stone, wood, iron and gold. Build farms to produce food, horses and so on to include a degree of complexity and virtual world.

The RTS: NPC bots for the boring duties

But then it’s not your character to have to be in charge of those boring duties, because we value “fun” in games and we don’t want any downtime. So we wait a moment and think what we left out of this game. We left out the NPCs. And that’s the idea. We take those NPCs and we use them to perform the boring tasks. We tell them to mine the gold, to go cut wood, to produce food. All this while you, as the player, can leave them work and go fight for your realm.

A completely BOTTED farm system. The paradise of goldsellers and farmers? We’ll see (two paragraph below).

You will want to create groups of guards, patrols, spies to defend your territories while you aren’t watching, or plan the best strategy for an offence. But those guards need the food, they need the weapons, they need armors, horses, carts to transport your goods and so on. That’s the RTS level. You don’t smelt iron to produce weapons to be used by players. Because the players have spiffy magic items bound to them and they would cry aloud if they’d lose them. Instead you smelt that iron because your guards need to be outfitted. You need to breed horses for them to patrol better your territories, you need to give them food so that they don’t get ill and will fight strongly.

RMT out of the door

That’s the purpose of the “pillage”. To destroy those resources, damage buildings, weaken your enemy, kill or kidnap those guards to use them as slaves in your own mines. The world is full PvP, and full loot. Say hello to goldsellers and farmers, this is your game. But to be preys instead of predators. The iron you produce doesn’t log out safely with you. There’s no untouchable vault. Your enemies can pillage your city, set it on fire and destroy all you have produced. They can decide to break in your depots and instead of setting them on fire, take what they find for themselves. But their pockets cannot hold tons of wood, gold or iron. So they would need to bring there their caravans to take those resources and move them into their territories. But those caravans only move on roads and are slow and are easy to spot.

Those farmers who want to use the game for real money profit won’t be banned. But they will have to play along the rules of the game. And they will have to protect what they gathered and they will have to take the risk of losing *everything* after a well executed pillage by the enemy. Say hello to all those lone farmers who aren’t even capable of coordinating together. This is no solo game. You cannot conquer the world and manage your territories alone.

And those are some basic features of the “dream mmorpg”, described exactly as they were originally thought, in that order.

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I was also thinking about brainstorming sessions. The way game companies work on the inside is kind of inscrutable for me, so I don’t know if they do already brainstorming sessions. The idea is that you gather all developers around a table. If the group is too big you can divide it into smaller groups but everyone should participate, not just designers. So maybe one day you take designers + programmers, the day after designers + artists and so on. During a brainstorming session everyone is at the same level and has the same right to speak. There’s one coordinator and a blackboard. Each of these sessions shouldn’t last much more than 30 minutes and the only purpose is to gather all kind of crazy ideas. You provide a theme, like “PvP and massive battles” for example, then everyone can raise his hand and start with an idea, while the coordinator lists all the ideas coming up on the blackboard.

The “rules” are quite simple, the ideas proposed shouldn’t stay within limits such as time constraints, budget, technical possibilities and so on. You just say whatever passes in your mind and that you think could be cool, without analyzing at all. The purpose of a brainstorming session isn’t about planning the development. Not all the ideas will be used. Their purpose is just to suggest someone else another idea, a source of inspiration. You go with the flow without stopping with your reason to analyze and judge the idea itself. Only after the brainstorming session the ideas will be pruned, analyzed and then, maybe, slowly enter the production.

Game concept for Space Opera

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Inspired by the Nautilus in Verne’s “20000 Leagues under the Sea”.

Since I’m downloading X3 I started to think about what I would really like to play in this genre (which is another I have a passion for). The result is entirely, purely single-player load of fun. As I would design it. For a change no ambitious world-like sandbox-y plans. Just frenetic shooter, focused on a few elements that I think should be at the core of this type of fun.

– “Comet Ramming” (see description below)
– Swarms of enemies
– Grab & use loot/weaponry from enemy ships you blow up
– Squad-based combat
– PC and NPC character development
– Insane flying speed

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– “Diablo in space” means that I want to carry over the basic mechanic I described here. Instead of having prolonged 1 vs 1 dogfighting, the idea is to set the player against SWARMS of enemy ships all at once. Totally outnumbered. Then you give the player’s ship much more resistence, faster speed and overall mobility. This with the goal to focus on the movement and perception and use of the space. The 3D space is your environment, total freedom, with both speed and maneuverability to make the movement the real core gameplay. Maneuvering around enemy squadrons, huge motherships or stations and so on.

– Think to a 2D sidescroller shooter. The idea is to port those crowded situations to a space sim and 3D environment. I want total chaos and superheroism.

– Think about Macross/Robotech (another source of inspiration). This is again the model to aim for. Massive battles with the players against an insane number of enemies. Missions divided into different stages and objectives one after the other. In open space, around stations or against bigger motherships. Rescue missions, patrols, escort or timed attacks. All kind of possible variations, but with multiple events triggering during the course of the same mission to overturn it in unexpected ways. So with a variation of gameplay without interruptions in between (but with checkpoint-stages, so progress is not lost. saving the game only possible at these checkpoints).

– Story. The story is functional to the combat. The overall setting borrows one standard theme of the space opera: the exodus. The player commands a big mothership through the space, leading his people toward a possible “salvation” or tranquility, also offering a strategical side to the game. The goal is to bring the mothership and people inside till the end of the journey. Along the way the player has a degree of freedom about where to move, to get resources and develop (enable) new weapons, systems and ships. The path is still linear, though. The exodus represents the course of the game itself, so with a definite conclusion but story-wise the game will end with a sad revelation: when you’ll reach what you chased along the whole game you’ll discover that it’s not what you hoped, so your people will have to continue the “endless journey”. No “happy end”, your destiny is to continue to fight and hope. The mothership represent just a context, while the whole combat action game will be about the player flying with small fighters.

– Squad based. Think to Jagged Alliance 2. On the mothership you will be able to meet a number of NPCs, with their specific story, personality, statistics and skills. 8-14 of these. Each will enable side-stories and mini-quests that you can discover through the course of the game. Like a RPG layer that happens between the space battles, with the possibility for the player to decide how much to indulge in it. The objective is about creating a squad of 4 other NPCs, so you have to select between those 14. The higher number will provide the game some interesting replayability. When a NPC is hired not only it will fight along with you (squad-based combat) but you’ll also have control over their “character development”, select their ships and load out, improve their piloting skills, add tactics commands and so on. Some traits and tendencies will be fixed to that specific character though (for differentiation and gameplay variations, like picking different NPCs in your party in Baldur’s Gate).

– The player will fight in a small, insanely fast ship. There will be five classes of ships with three ship types each to open different strategic possibilities. Hitpoints, shields, types of wepons that can be used and so on (both ships and weapons need to be slowly unblocked along the course of the game). The game will have a RPG side where you have to develop certain skills. These skills aren’t the same of NPC skills, but they are used so to unblock the use of specific weapons and systems. Your 5-man squad fights alongside with you, they have an higher number of skills to manage since they are AI-driven, so with the possibility to have skills that deal with fire precision, for example (and yes, Comet Ramming should be a skill).

– Einhander Too Cool idea to not be taken. Each ship you fly will have a turret, or better, a mechanical “arm”. The mechanical arm is used to get “loot” from the enemy ships you blow up. The arm moves by itself so you only need to just pass close to the loot you want to grab and the arm will take it for you. So instead of developing new weapons you can steal them directly from your enemies and then research on the mothership to “enhance” them. The loot is about weapons, ammo and energy “potions”.

– Some of the loot you steal from enemy ships cannot be used right away, you may need to research and develop the skills for that type. Once you have met the requirements you can then steal and use the loot “on-the-fly”, literally. The arm can use only one weapon at once. It can drop the current weapon to grab another, but it doesn’t use an inventory where you can store and pick the weapons you want. If you need another weapon type you’ll have to identify and blow up an enemy ship that carries it (realistic loot! as Titan Quest). So you’ll have to make your choices.

– During combat the goal is to provide to the player an OVERFLOW of possible targets and a pure laser tempest to dodge. Impression of velocity, speed. Massive stations and motherships to be used as reference to not make feel speed relative (it happens when you don’t have references in open space). The slower movement of the enemy ships will also help to “feel” that speed.

– Powerful collision system. This is a key feature of the game. Ramming should be one of the best attack patterns available. *CLANG!* Strong metallic impact sound, with different sound types for every different ship you impact with. The sound is supposed to be “visceral” and give a particularly satisfying feel to the ramming attacks. It must feel violent. After the impact with a much bigger ship your own could get slung in space, spinning like crazy, strong perception of impact, loud sound, screen shaking. With even the possibility to get stuck into the bigger ship and needing a few seconds to manage to refloat (think about aiming for a space station, going full speed against it, powering the afterburners and then impact, making a small hole into it and having to use reverse engines to get unstuck from its structure while a swarm of fighters is shooting at you).

– Afterburners. Slow recharge time (50 seconds or so, due to the already crazy default speed of the player’s ship). When activated they multiply the speed to an insane level. The afterburner lasts only 5-10 seconds or so (or even less if the player releases the key). When activated the sound should be like an “hiss”, with the ship wailing and shaking. With the afterburners active the player cannot move the ship and just fly in a straight line. Mostly used as the Ultimate Ramming Device, or to move quickly away from a too hot fight. To enhance the “feel” the afterburners should trigger a graphic effect with the ship “getting on fire” (suspension of disbelief! Now!) and leaving a glowing trail in space visible from a long distance. This is Comet ramming!

– “Carom” types of collision. Think about ramming an enemy fighter at full speed and send it flinging against another enemy ship to destroy it as well, or flying right through an enemy squadron to blow up an entire row and create an hole into it. Pure destructive power. The player may completely lose control of his ship after an impact with a bigger ship (see the description two points above) but the gameplay and “main feature” of the game requires that his ship is nearly immune to collision damage, while enemy ships are highly vulnerable to it.

– Complex damage models. For example smaller ships could start to become incontrollable, or shake, lose precision as they shoot, collide with other ships and so on. The motherships and stations should be covered by destructible parts (turrets, junctions, systems and so on). The fun is about blowing things up. Lots of things.

– Fast-access turret/arm fire. The mechanical arm with the “dynamic loot” can be used in manual mode. Mouse button 2 works like a fast switch. Click the button once and you go instantly to the “turret view”, click again and you go back to cockpit view. Once you are in arm-mode you have mouselook on the turret. Press mouse button 1 and you fire/use the turret. The turret moves as fast as your mouse do, with just a *slight* lag (shown through the viewfinder). Otherwise the arm fires in auto mode with whatever it has available.

– The “arm” can carry weapons but also other types of items. For example you could replace the turret with a directional shield. The mechanics are the same so you can click mouse button 2 and quickly direct the shield exactly in the position you want. For example moving it to cover your back while you have enemies on your tail. If you manually control the shield it will stay in the position you set, so it won’t go back to auto mode.

– 1st mouse button when not in “turret view” will fire the front mounted weapon (that cannot be moved).

– Alternate fire (lock-on seek missles, straight missles etc..) available through keys or 3rd, 4rth mouse buttons.

– DRILL MODE. Since the two buttons of the mouse are taken (left for front weapon, right for the turret/arm toggle) the “barrel roll” will be available through a key toggle. As you press it the ship will start to spin already at a good speed, then it will continue to progressively accelerate the spinning speed till you press the key again to deactivate it. As it is deactivated the ship will come to an abrupt stop, with a slight adjustment oscillation. This mode makes a “combo” with the Comet mode. When both are active (first you start spinning like a drill, then use the afterburners) the ramming damage is hugely increased. Instead of doing damage on collision, the “drill mode” PUNCHES HOLES through everything. This means that your ship won’t be bounced wildly on a impact like in a standard Comet mode, but it will go straight through whatever it finds, only losing acceleration depending on the density of the stuff it impacts with. Obviously this also makes aiming quite hard when you start spinning wildly.

– Sounds. I don’t care about realism but I want the player to feel inside a small and super fast ship. It must feel dangerous and visceral. The sounds can help a lot to give that impression. For example by making the ship *wail* when performing sharp turns, it must scream, make you feel the vibrations as if it would come apart any moment, feel sounds from laser beams passing so close to the ship, explosions all around and shaking the ship, etc..

– Constant radio chatter for immersion and mood. Coming from mothership (announcing events, like the arrive of new enemy swarms or change of objectives during a mission, scan mission stages) and, mostly, from your group, with each member describing what they are doing (converting AI actions into speech) and outcomes (“enemy squadron 1 destroyed”, “shield down”, “need assistance” and so on).

– 3D cockpit that moves slightly on the screen with the movement of your ship, vibrates on fast speed.

– Fancy graphic effects. If the technology is able to support it: motion blur. (again the focus of the game is the visceral perception of speed and impact through collisions).

– Title of the game: “Comet”. Simple, short, appropriate (again about “comet ramming” as a the Coolest™ feature). Epic enough, “celestial”. You could add an “h” at the end for “flavor” (or for other undisclosed reasons).

The concept of “Comet” comes from the idea that accelerating and ramming things can offer spectacular gameplay and an unique type of visceral fun. Add to the mix the possibility to steal weapons from enemy ships (as a wink to Diablo), swarms of enemies to fight at once, and the squad-based combat with some interesting character development… and you can see what was my goal.

I Wished

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This is an article I wrote in italian during the December 2004 that was supposed to appear in the most popular paper magazine about games here in Italy (also the one that spolied the WoW’s expansion before the official Blizzcon, if you remember).

It was a preview of “Wish”, the game developed by Mutable Realms and Dave Rickey. It was supposed to appear in the issue of February but it never did. Just a few days after the New Year’s Day (if I remember correctly) Dave Rickey was kicked out of the position of lead designer (to never be replaced) and the game took a really bad turn. One year later it was definitely canceled.

The article never appeared because all I wrote was wiped from the game along with Dave.

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Another MMORPG is coming into an already overcrowded market and people wonder, as always, if it is worth it.

This time Mutable Realms, developer of the game, has a modest team and resources, but looking solid. The path they chose (the lead designer Dave Rickey in particular) is about going in a different direction from all the other consolidated patterns that every mmorpg seem to repeat, to try to bet on original, well thought ideas, instead of trying to go directly against the genre behemoths and rinse and repeat with yet another pointless, boring clone.

It’s not simple to summarize in a few words the differences between this project compared to others, however two are the main points.

The first is about the character progression. The second is about the structure of the world and the dynamic relationship between its parts.

Concerning the first, the progression of the skills will be “linear”. Every character, newbie or veteran, will have from the first minute in the game the possibility to group with other players and have a small, positive role. Without the need to spend hours to reach an “appropriate level” in order to be able to join his friends. Moreover, the focus of the player won’t be on a infinite, obsessive level growth, but will be instead shifted directly on the game mechanics. If you are going to kill a goblin it won’t be to see a skill going from 1.5 to 1.6, but because that action has a meaning within the context of the game. A context where it’s the player to decide his own objectives and where the game world reacts appropriately and actively to those actions (quests in particular).

In short: an idea closer to that ideal of a “virtual world”, on which the very first mmorpgs moved steps and that now seems completely forgotten.

All this leads to the second point. There’s a lot of ambition behind these ideas on which the game will be developed. The final result and concrete value will depend strongly on the execution, but the premises, one year before the planned launch date, are very good. Beside the fact that these ideas will bring a “wind of change” in a genre that has so much potential but that seems now swamped on the same redundant ideas and styles of game.

To explain better concretely, Wish will be developed around a concept, a pivot, around which the whole game will revolve. This pivot is called “House vs House”. To those experienced with DAoC this concept could be easier to grasp.

The idea is about creating a world with villages and outposts spread around. The players will begin the game in one of these villages and will find outside an hostile world. The travels from one village to the other won’t be risk free. These players will have the possibility to form guilds, more or less big, that in this game will be called “Houses”. Once this step is done, they will have the possibility to move out of the starting village and try to go clear and conquer one of those villages under the control of the monsters to claim it for themselves. When an “house” gains control of a village, the village becomes their property and they can then establish a NPC guard system and taxes (beside the usual services such as vendors, blacksmiths etc…)

Essentially both the PvE (Players vs Environment, aka players vs computer controlled monsters) and the PvP (Players vs Players), will be completely immersed in the same game world pivoting around these villages/forts.

The monsters not only will overrun the villages not controlled and defended by the players/houses, but they could move out on their own to attack one of the players’ outposts, becoming an “active” element of the game and not just standing still under a tree waiting for a player to pass by to kill them.

Obviously the “rival Houses” will be able to declare a war on each other and then poke each other with sharp sticks everywhere in the game world. This will still leave the “neutral” players relatively safe, but still subject to the conquest system and the taxes, since thew world around will see a continue evolution.

The goal is to make converge all the positive and “fun” aspects of PvP coming from games like DAoC (of which Dave Rickey was an opinionated designer) to make them converge and then “signify” in a world that reacts actively to the players and just doesn’t remain in a state of staticity and neutrality.

Gated content + Permeable barriers

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Again on the concepts of “gated content” and “permeable barriers”.

In the second part I tried to explain that the idea of “gated content” didn’t negate the possibility to have stories, but instead enhanced it. But that’s just one inherited application of the model. Originally the idea wasn’t about “parallel worlds”, each with its own rules, progression and story, but about general patterns. Like “solo” play, PvP, groups and raids.

So not only the different parallel worlds are accessible because “contemporary” (with the player “gated” from one to the other), but the general patterns on which they are based are also “contemporary”. The player has a choice about which *type* of content he wants to experience. The rule is: experience the type of content you prefer without your character being penalized.

This is why I started to describe this model by analyzing the “endgame”. There’s no need for an “endgame” when finally all the different gameplay patterns that the game has to offer are always open. There’s no “before” and “after”. There are no obligatory passages. There are no barriers between the players that prevent them to group and enjoy the game together.

This possibility not only offers an open choice to the players without penalizing the characters they play, but it also leads to a game where the players will be much more inclined to take advantage of the different types of content the game offers. When you can easily “switch” between the different gameplay models, then you are also much more inclined to experiement with all the game has to offer.

Which is the real original goal behind those ideas: start with a familiar single player style of experience that a vast public can grasp and recognize with, and then “branch up” the game, progressively, slowly opening and disclosing all the different patterns and possibilities the game has to offer. Like the PvP sandbox. One part is used to “gate” the players to another without scaring them. Without crippling these possibilities with huge accessibility barriers or high prices of admittance.

Mass market, to me, means the possibility to absorb that public by making the game as accessible as possible. Without slapping them in the face with an insane amount of “noise”. The idea of “gated content” and parallel worlds is about the possibility to layer different complexity levels, one on top of the other, so that you can slowly convince the player to experiment and learn with all the various possibilities offered.

Which is why “gated content” and “permeable barriers” are strictly tied together and have similar purposes. Educate, “lead” the players through the complexity of a virtual world.

From another perspective: you cannot hope to have a commercially successful PvP game without a PvE side that slowly convinces the players to look over to the other part. The goal is to make that transition as smooth as possible, still without forcing the players, but instead *encouraging* them to switch freely between the parts. Following their own preference.

My idea is: if switching between the gameplay patterns is simple and without penalizations, then the players will be naturally inclined to “cross the lines” (the permeable barriers) and see what’s on the other side. And then consider where they want to be, making their own choice.

World traveler: “gated content”

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I return again on the fancy term “gated content” to focus more on some concepts that were misunderstood.

It’s already frustrating not being able to convince the few who care to read what I write. Even more frustrating when I discover that not only I didn’t convince anyone, but that what I wrote was also completely misunderstood and that I’m being criticized for things that I didn’t even thought. In particular because I put a lot of effort trying to explain what I mean in the most clear and direct way. Receiving critics is always good, it’s less good when what I write is misrepresented. There’s no worse failure for me than that.

In these two articles I associated the definition of “gated content” to the “endgame” and the “world traveler” concepts. To understand things better you could also use this reference (tripartite model).

1- There is no “endgame” in this model because the idea of “gated content” erases a “before” and “after” in the flow of the game. What your character does and the different gameplay patterns he can have access to are defined by a personal choice. Your own preference. Not impositions. Not obligatory passages.

One of the steps to reach that goal is about removing “level mechanics” in favor of a skill system. The purpose here, as it is widely known, is to reduce the power differential, but, in particular, to remove the bad habit of using levels to decide the content that you can access and the content that is out of reach. With a skill based system there may be still a significant power differential between a newbie and a veteran, but it is at least possible for people to group together without the game mechanics getting in the way, crippling the experience you gain, limiting the loot you can use and not allowing you to be in certain places. The gap is narrower and more natural. The game doesn’t put artificial barriers between you and your friends. This is the part that should be more familiar of the idea.

The other part involves the content in the game. “Gated content” means that there are “contemporary” realities. The “world traveler”, aka the player, can switch between these realities following his own preference. While in other games you move from solo to groups and to raids, in my idea I separate the direct ties and make all those “contemporary”. As your character is created you can decide, for example, to solo, to group, to PvP or to raid. Do only one of them, do only those you care about or all together. It’s your choice. The game doesn’t force on you a pattern, nor it cripples your character because you didn’t do a specific thing.

2- I’ve been accused of being willingly to remove the story component from mmorpgs and since this cannot be more FAR from the reality, here some precisations in that direction.
Quoting myself again:

I NEVER wrote that the stories should be removed. This cannot be more false since it’s NOT what I think.

The point is that a mmorpg shouldn’t be about just ONE story with a start and an end, because simply that’s not what a mmorpg should do.

Story elements CAN and SHOULD be integrated in that “world traveler” model, aka the “gated content“.

EACH WORLD, or sub-world can have its story. The character IS YOU. You don’t need other characters to experience more stories, and those stories in those worlds CAN and SHOULD “end”. But not the game and not your character.

Each “gated” world, each reality, correspond to a different story that you can live. A different character that you can become.

The “game”, as the overall structure that supports and contains all these worlds/realities, never ends. The NeverEnding Story. The real ideal behind these games. It’s over only when there aren’t anymore ideas, when there aren’t anymore players who want to hear and be part of fantastic stories.

Instead the stories you can experience within each of these worlds WILL and SHOULD end. They can be linear and represent finite story lines. Maybe where to return one day when something new happens that destabilizes the temporary calm you achieved in a previous mission. When the designers of the game decide to move that particular story onward. You step in the gate and become once again that hero in that world. Like when you went back to Britannia with each new chapter of Ultima.

In WoW you cannot go in the Deadmines or Gnomeragon with a level 10 character. When the flying isle of Naxxaraxxwhatthefuck will be released with the next patch you won’t be able to see it and play there if you aren’t already part of a selected group.

Imho it make sense when your devs puts months of work to release a new zone to let it being experienced by as many players as possible. Instead of cockblocking it behind severe accessibility barriers.

With the model I’m describing you can. There are no barriers separating you from your friends. Everything in the game is offered. And it’s you to determine your experience by making your choice. You could just PvP, just soloing, just raid if it’s what appeals you. But it’s your own choice and all the other possibilities would be always open to you in the case you decide to try something else.

The “gated content” is a model used to actualize the possibility of contemporary realities.

The player “travels between worlds”. A world traveler.

You can travel to a world and become a knight, travel to another and become an adventurer, and then a merchant, an hunter, a member of a revolutionary movement that is trying to overthrow a regime, a partisan, a diplomat, a crusader, a paladin, a jester, a doctor, an exiled, a “stranger in a strange land”, a demon from another world, a spy, a noble, a soldier taking part on a large siege, a thief, a treasure hunter, an explorer, an archeologist, a wayfarer, a beggar, a mage in search of knowledge, a sailor, a pirate, a revered king, a fugitive, an outcast. A predator or the prey.

A level 50 character or a level 1. All these things at once.

No, you don’t “shapeshifts”. But the dwellers of these worlds can see and treat you in many different ways. They can have many different points of view and offer many different perspectives. In some worlds your powers don’t work, and in others they are much stronger.

These realities preserve their linearity if it’s needed. In the case of the world where you are part of the revolutionary movement maybe you cannot just start the revolution as you put your foot in that world. You’ll have to first organize things and all the rest that the story is setting for you. They can then be independent from each other or intertwined. For example you could need a special key to reach some place that can only be obtained from another dimension.

Such is the multiverse.

But the most important element is that there are no “you need to be this tall to enter” accessibility barriers.

If you want an even simpler definition think about a game as an aggregator of multiple, possible stories. That is my sandbox ideal. The early Ultima RPGs had already a beginning and an end, but in between they aggregated many different stories, characters and situations that you could discover, learn about and interact.

The defenitive solution to the endgame: “gated content”

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There are a few concepts in here that I consider particularly important and that have been recurring in what I write. The beginning of the reasoning was an article about the future of the “endgame” over at Nerfbat and it became a good occasion to explain better two terms that I created and that I keep reusing. They are two general design principles that come as a result of my observations and I consider them important because they are more like philosophies that effect radically the way a game can be designed, even if on the surface they are easy to grasp.

These are the two terms and a general definiton for both, then I’ll go more in detail about the second:

– “permeable barriers”. While the concept is rather broad and extended to the theme of the “accessibility”, my definition follows the idea of “lines drawn on the ground”. These lines define and regulate a space, but at the same time the player has the possibility to cross them. So they don’t transform into “cages”. Concretely the idea of permeable barriers offers a single character the possibility to change class, use different skill-sets, switch faction, travel between servers, develop special affinities and proficences and so on. All these “states” define what a character is and can do (think to a class), but they are never completely permanent and definitive and they can be reverted. The “betrayal” quest in EQ2, is a concrete example of the application of the concept of “permeable barrier”.

– “gated content”. This is specifically about the “content” of the game. In particular it refers to the *types* of content, so, implicitly, the variety that the game offers. It’s an idea particularly suitable for a sandbox game, but not only. Each “gate” corresponds to a different pattern available. It is woth noticing that a “gate” here is a conceptual idea, not an actual gate in the game that leads to different sub-games. The main idea of “gated content” here refers to the coexistence of these patterns and the possibility of the player to choose what he *prefers*. One type of content doesn’t exclude or preclude another. Not only each type of content available isn’t forced on the player (you are at “x” level and have to do “x”), but it also always exists and remains accessible, valid and pertinent throughout the life cycle of that character. Without getting replaced. Instead of passing from casual content to hardcore raids as two distinct and exclusive moments, all these content types coexist as parallel lines. (btw, even here there’s a drift of the term, since I also use it for the accessibility when I use a type of content as a “door” on a different type. Not only to switch content types then, but also to integrate them.)

The first point is that the whole idea of “endgame” is silly. A division between two different games, the “main” one and the “endgame” has no reason to exist.

The very first question should be about which one is better and more appealing. In some cases (DAoC) the endgame is where the fun is, you have to endure the treadmill so that you can finally reach it. In other games (WoW) the “main” game is much more appealing, while the endgame is a complete change of pace that not many players enjoy (but tend to endure).

Why this division?

We basically have two ways to play the game. The only motivation to this distiction is that it adds “variety”. Okay. Then, if this distinction is about adding variety, a much better design choice would be about INCORPORATING that variety in the same model. So that you aren’t bound to a “before” and “after”, but instead the two patterns cohexist and you can switch them based on your preference.

The original model here is the sandbox. Or the idea that says that adding variety to a virtual world is a winning choice. The one that accomplishes more the “mission” of these kind of games and enhances the fun. The variety always adds to the fun when the players are NOT ENFORCED into a one-way, obligatory path.

So the idea to have different patterns available in the same game is not a good one. It is an *essential* one. But an essential one that needs to be presented to the players on the same level. And not separated in two moment. The “before” and “after”. Univocal and selective.

The “main game” in WoW, the one that is responsible to its success thanks to its accessibility and polish, is all focused on “progress”. Not just in character power, don’t let the appearance fool you. But also and in particular in “escalation“. This is something that WoW does MUCH better than EQ2, for example. Meaning the way it leads you around the zones and then progressively adding more and more elements, with the world really starting small and then branching up. Sense of wonder. It’s a sense of progression that follows the whole game and that really involves much more than the character. It involves the world outside and the way the game, step by step, adds elements to the puzzle. Brush strokes that progressively realize an impressive painting. This hooks the players better than everything else because the game not only gives you the correct amount of short-term goals, but also long term expectations and revelations.

There’s a problem in this model, though. It gets spoiled. The first time you go through it is really the best experience you’ve ever had, but once it is spoiled, the sense of wonder and perfect progression don’t work anymore. You can create alts, explore the starting zones you haven’t seen yet, but it’s never like the first time through. After three-four alts it even starts to get annoying. Blizzard is planning for new races and starting zones in the expansion but just adding those won’t work. It’s the model of the game that gets spoiled and you know already what type of progression and what kind of content you are going to see. “Reskinning” this experience won’t do the trick because the experienced player has already generalized all that type of content (kill ten rats, get ten pelts, these are generalizations). He knows already how things work, he knows already that type of “escalation”.

The game doesn’t impress anymore, it loses its original, strong emotional impact.

The strength of WoW, and the reason why it will continue to be successful, is that for the brand new players this type of perfect progression is retained at no loss. You could have started to play when the game was released or start to play now and you aren’t going to miss anything. The game is so carefully balanced that it will be preserved perfectly, while other mmorpgs age horribly and become nearly impossible for a brand new player to get into. Impassable barriers that isolate the “before” and “after” of the community. Which leads to a stagnation and the consequent slow drift into oblivion. It’s not just about the “retention” of the subscriptions. It is rumored that WoW has a rather bad retention but one year and half later and it still sells more than 50k boxes each month just in NA. Without new players a mmorpg doesn’t go anywhere and old mmorpgs don’t lose those new players because they look old. But because the accessibility of the game fell to pieces as a consequence of bad design choices and models.

Often the “good” endgame is about the PvP. The majority of the ideas on Nerfbat, in particular those that I consider valid, are about PvP. It’s not a case. “Stalling” is a good mechanic for PvP. Similarly to how the convergence is much more appropriate than divergence in PvP. If every couple of weeks there’s an alien invasion on the world that completely destabilizes the PvP scenario, the players would be pissed off. Because the best mechanic for a PvP environment is a “stall”. A fixed situation where then the players can manipulate some elements and play their game. But something under their control, not something impromptu or surprising. The “endgame” works in PvP because it is a stalling situation. Finally no other elements come to disrupt the conditions and the players “converge” in a similar situation. PvP needs this sort of “space” to exist. A set situation that reunites the players instead of dispersing them.

What’s the endgame in WoW? Well, you cannot gain anymore levels so what is left to do is improve your gear. As a design model it doesn’t seem really motivated, it is a silly idea. So why we arrived to it? The biggest game out there cannot be founded on something completely unmotivated, it would be crazy.Well, we arrived to that model not as a design choice, but as a productive one. A “progression” game is like football. You move horizontally, as a front. You cannot move backwards, it would be an heresy (see how hated are exp losses on a death). You are doomed to go on. At some point the game ends because the developers could add only so much content, it’s always a finite space (and randomly generated content is also still finited) so, eventually, you arrive at the end. And what then? What am I chasing? The “endgame” here isn’t a “necessity” of game design. It’s just a necessity of the production. An excuse so that, despite the game is over, the players could feel motivated to continue to play and pay. “Raiding” is in this case the perfect choice to bind that request with a type of content that is structurally redundant and vain.

Think to the “main game” as a bait. Once they “fished” you they can throw you in a bucket of water and keep you there for a long while. Raiding is that “bucket of water”.

The absurdity that I often underlined is that this model that is supposed to “preserve” content, since it’s the most precious and scarce resource in the game, does exactly the opposite. It *erodes* content and removes it from the game since it’s heavily based on the mudflation. Instead of valorizing ALL that the game has to offer, this kind of model just keeps devaluing and replacing constantly. As a continue, counterproductive reaction that finishes just to put a strain these worlds till they collapse.

So is this really the best model to use? Or maybe it is just a spontaneous drift and negative “maturation” (sophistication) of a genre that has lost track of its true principles and drive?

Let’s imagine a different scenario and let’s say that the content team has finished a small zone with all its quests, dungeons and overall story arc that unifies the various parts. A month later the zone is patched in the game but this time ALL the players can enter and experience it. The player who just bought the game and has been playing for a week as the veteran player who has kept an account for two years. And hopefully they’ll even play side by side.

This doesn’t mean that the sense of progression should be completely lost since all the content is always accessible. See for example these ideas. My idea is more like a collection of story lines. These can be totally independent or connected. But, while separated, they would retain their own linearity. In a game like WoW this already happens. There are story lines and themed quests, think for example to an instance and all the quests that are linked to it to form a story. Where that model doesn’t really work is in the fact that those stories (even a bit too limited in potential) are limited by level. If you skip a part, going back wolud be rather silly. So my idea is about freeing these storylines so that the content never gets obsolete and remains always interesting for the same character. With no distictions between the “endgame” and the rest.

And yes, at the end there could be those ideas vaguely outlined on Nerfbat. But not as a “BAM! endgame”. Not as a sudden event that completely changes the game you are playing. But as an evolution from the current model to one that contemplates all these possibilities right from the start. My idea of “gated content“.

The idea of the player (and character) as a “traveler of worlds”. Who passes smoothly (the idea of “permeable barriers”) thorugh different types of content (PvP, group, single player, raid etc..) depending on his personal preference more than external imposition.

I imagine the design concept of the “gated content” visually like a number of portals that can be opened and that lead the character exactly to that type of gameplay he is looking for. A number of “opened doors”. Possibilities available. The character is an “enabler” but the lack of a level system keeps the choice always “flat” and valid instead of higly selective. The “traveler of worlds” is the idea of a character that isn’t strictly defined, but a roleplay point of view. Ideally that character could enter a portal and become a level 1 guy. Or enter another portal and become a level 50. Or enter another again and become a merchant. The same from the point of view of the content. Dungeons runs, epic raids, PvP territorial conquest, tournaments, storylines. These elements should work like portals that should never be dependent on a obligatory, imposed choice. The game shouldn’t cage you into one pattern or one role. It’s the player who decides what he wants to experience.

In a sandbox all the options should be available and valorized. And not as in SWG where the game was trying to lock you in one role to preclude all the rest the game had to offer.

These realities should coexist as possibilities.

There are four main points that should be at the center and that I continue to repeat:

– Accessibility
– Immersion
– Gated content
– Permeable barriers

What’s the concrete consequence of all this? How concretely changes the game? For example the raid content wouldn’t be anymore the obligatory “endgame”, nor the only option you have past a certain point. The raid content would be just one *type* of content always available and always valid (and if you want to know concretely my idea of raid content, motivations, execution and reward, look here). Along with all the other types of content/patterns that the game has to offer.

Fewer points

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Fewer points of interest continuing the thoughts here below. With some redundancy.

– The characters are created on a server selected by the system. This coincides to a familiar “single-player gateway”. First few steps learning the basics of the game.

– Server travel is possible under certain rules to keep the population and factional balance between the servers even.

– The PvE is instanced and divided into two types. The first type is “small worlds”. Mmorpg-like instances hosting hundreds of players and working as social hubs. The second type is “adventures”. Private instances opened by the players for small groups up to raids.

– The PvP is sharded and persistent, as most of the current mmorpgs are structured through different “home” servers. Every character is always bound to one and just one home PvP shard. There are portals in all the PvP shards leading to the PvE “small worlds”. From there the players can go back to a different PvP shard if they want so. Shard travel would require the player to re-bind.

– Guilds are also bound to a shard, as are the characters. A guild can be moved to a different shard, but it will get dispossessed of territories conquered, shard-based resources and other forms of progress.

The idea of these points is to define the scope of the plan. The server travel system is there to regulate the population and faction balance on the PvP servers, while the PvE servers are simply instanced on necessity. Bringing together the need of persistence for PvP with a massive PvE world that can still remain balanced.

The barriers between the players are still there, for example in the form of PvP shards. This creates smaller, manageable communities. At the same time these barriers are kept permeable, so that the players can move past them. Join friends through the PvE instances or rebind to different PvP shards.

While moving between PvP shards is possible, the system is also planned to encourage the players to settle in their home shard to reach a stability. This is why the guilds are also bound and they cannot conquer territories and participate to PvP on multiple shards. The goal is to create server-specific realities, economies and social connections. So that the PvP isn’t felt impersonal and dispersive.

Technical bits about the “automated NPCs”

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This is a follow-up to my idea to use NPCs as a “work force” to do the boring chores for the players whenever they don’t want to bother. Again, please notice that there is a CHOICE. I *want* the sandbox. I want the focus on multiple activities beside combat. I want these to MATTER and be interesting and hopefully FUN. But I still want the players to have a choice and the possibility to unload what THEY consider a boring duty on a automated process.

I know that the idea is technically hard to implement, because I cannot just blink and have a complex system of AI and world pathing automatically implemented. So I know it wasn’t realistic. But to arrive to it I had built a project that worked on top of what I considered feasible, using the same functionalities that I can find in other games, just mingled together to obtain the result I desired.

I didn’t add these technical details because the post was already too long on its own. So here some details not about the design theory behind, but about the implementation itself.

The user-programming of the NPC schedules isn’t complex at all and works as a “connect-the-dots” game. You have a screen with the detailed map of a zone, you select one of the NPCs under your control and then start “plotting” the schedule on the map. The dots/waypoints aren’t put there by the players. All the waypoints and actions available for selection are HARDCODED. Each zone will have all the possible dots, junctions and actions “greyed-out” and available for selection. You can recombine these elements the way you like, connect the waypoints the way you like (if you see they can be possibly connected) and select the actions that are available in that point. But all these possible dots, junctions and actions are set by the developers as the map is created.

A basic, readable scripted language made of “chunks” that the players can recombine by interacting with it through a braindead interface.

Interface:
Left mouse button – Selects and “connects-the-dots”, adding waypoints and linking them together
Right mouse button – Opens a contextual menu for each waypoint, listing all the possible actions/logics for the NPC on that point

All the schedule-programming of the NPC is supposed to work through the mouse. As you connect these dots and select the actions, you’ll see the NPC schedule as a scripted language in a window below the map. You can use the mouse interface to plot everything on the map as you can just type the commands yourself if you so choose. With the possibility to save these “programs” and reuse them as “quick templates” for other NPCs.

The language could then include “advanced” functions like waiting times, time checks and other simple logic operators with basic “if..then” conditions and loops. If some players need them but still have difficulties using them, there are still the message boards where I’m sure you would find plenty of templates to reuse.

And please notice that this would form a strategic, embedded game that could be already terribly fun and addicting on its own.

If this idea is STILL too complex, well… Let’s just stop to complain about innovation and settle with what we have available right now.

Sandboxes and “moisture farmers” simulations are DAMN boring

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Haemish:
Not to mention the fact that sandbox games often become very time-intensive games, by the very nature of being a world instead of easily digestible chunks of entertainment. Most people just don’t have the time to devote, or don’t want to spend the time to devote to a game like that. That’s why I claim sandbox and PVP-heavy world games will always be niche products.

As has been said a billion times over in a billion galaxies far far away, Star Wars fans didn’t want to a moisture farmer, they wanted to be a Stormtrooper going PEW PEW with blasters, or they wanted to a Jedi with a ZEOW ZEOW or a starpilot with a VOOM VOOM. All that other shit was fine (or would have been if not wrapped in a shitburger bun of bugginess), but it wasn’t mass market and never will be.

That quote summarizes effectively the common complains against “sandbox” games. This isn’t intended as another attack to Raph, but just a digression on some ideas I have about these sandboxes that seem to have the innate flaw of being filled with boring activities that no one wants to deal with or has time to.

All those complaints are true. We can take a semi-successful game like Eve-Online, the best sandbox and PvP game out there at the moment, and the very first complaint we’ll hear is that it is boring. In fact it HAS boring activities. Grinding missions is boring, travel is boring, hauling stuff and trade is boring, mining is boring. And so on. All these are boring activities that we suffer in this game because there’s something in the background that starts to “emerge”. The control of territories, the tensions between the alliances and all the other forms of emergent gameplay that make this game unique compared to more directed and caged games where the players have very little control over what they can do and the direction that the game can take. It’s like saying that the qualities of a sandbox come with a price.

It seems as if, to achieve the latter (the emergence), you are obliged to make the game boring and force the players to invest incredible amounts of time in their “simulated life”. So we get comments like, “I already have a job, I don’t need another”.

Okay. If you ask Raph about these problems he will say that the “embedded mini-games” that are part of a sandbox should be all equally fun. Crafting, harvesting resources, dancing… All these activities shouldn’t be sidelines, but fun games on their own. Equally significant possibilities that need to be reiterated and polished till they are all fun and entertaining.

My idea on these problems is instead rather simple and straightforward and something I already explained here and there writing about my “dream mmorpg”. If you go see the tripartite model on which this ideal game is based, you’d notice that the first level is dedicated to the sandbox, the PvP/conquest game where the players fight each other, conquer and manage territories. There isn’t just the combat, but the full simulation of a world, in as many “realistic” aspects as possible. The war is just the context that motivates the rest. Alike to Eve-Online there are also a bunch of boring activities included with the package. As an example there is no “mail” system. Objects (some of them) cannot be teleported around at will. The conquest game relies on a resources system that is used to pay the upkeep costs if you want to maintain the control over a zone and manage it, and they exist persistently in the game-world. To gather and use these resources you’d have to harvest and collect them and then haul them to different zones, opening up the level of the commerce since not all the resources should be uniformly available everywhere.

This description is similar to what happens in Eve-Online. To conquer territories and build player-controlled stations the players need to engage in a bunch of boring and semi-boring activities that can go from mining asteroids, haul the mineral and goods around the universe, patrol zones, escort important cargos and so on. Again, the whole game is in the hands of the players, so are the players to manage and use every element at their will. They could try to avoid what they don’t find entertaining, but it’s just not possible if you want to participate in the game since all those parts have a strong role to play in the greater context and cannot be easily dismissed and forgotten.

My idea revolves around the role of NPCs. These NPCs would serve two purpose in a player-driven world:
1- Provide a minimal level of defense to the territories when the players aren’t around
2- Automate the boring activities

If there’s something boring in the game but that still needs to be done to make the game “work”, why not pass the burden on the NPCs and automate the process while the players can engage in something more fun? Crafting, gathering resources, patrol zones, transport goods etc… All these activities could be easily “offloaded” on the NPCs. The players could still do everything by themselves. They could still organize a convoy to transport some resources to a different zone, go patrol a territory on their own. But only if they choose so. It’s not obligatory. You can either do it yourself, or offload tasks you deem boring to an NPC.

Conquering and “managing” a territory would mean being able to spawn NPCs. Like in a RTS where you create “peons” units and send them to mine gold or cut down trees for the wood.

The paradigm is capsized: not anymore the players are working for the NPCs, but are the NPCs to work for the player. The kings in this world won’t be static NPCs sitting in the throne room, but the players who lead the armies and control the territories. The players becoming the pivot of the game.

So you would have the possibility and the duty to spawn NPC units by using the resources available, equip them, keep them well fed (as long maintenance is required) and give them simple tasks they will perform. Same to what happens in a RTS.

Of course there’s always a risk. Let’s take an example scenario:
You need to transport a batch of important goods from a region to another. These goods are heavy and you calculate that you’ll need about three wagons to be able to transfer them all at once. The region where they need to be delivered is distant but the route to it looks relatively safe. Now you have a choice. The wagons are very slow and they only move on roads. You can decide to escort the caravan personally, maybe with the help of some of your friends to be able to fight back if the caravan is spotted by a group of enemy players that is camping a bridge or a crossroad. Or you could just assign a number of “NPC guards” to the caravan and hope that they will be sufficient to safely escort it to destination. During this travel three “odds” could happen, the first is that the caravan is attacked by a roaming group of creatures, the second is that it is attacked by enemy players and the third is that a cart breaks and needs to be repaired (so a time loss).

Studying the route you see that only the last possibility is actually risky so you decide to send the convoy on its own and then go meet it later to escort it only for the last part. While plotting the route you’ll get precise approximation about when the convoy will reach a specific point. Let’s say that you want to meet the convoy before it reaches the last bridge, that you believe may be camped by enemy players. The travel till that point is estimated to last three hours. Tomorrow you’ll be online at 10PM and you should be able to organize a group with your guild to escort personally the convoy, so you schedule the convoy to start at 8PM, thinking that you’ll be able to reach it at the meeting point with your group around 11PM or before.

There’s still the risk. The convoy could be assaulted by a group of enemy players infiltrated in your territory or get slowed down by problems (the carts breaking and requiring time to repair) or attacked by roaming creatures. This last possibility is the less worrying since you know the territory and know how many guards you need to assign to the caravan for it to be safe. But to reduce the risks you could always ask a friend to go meet the convoy at a point to check if everything is okay, if it is on time and if the guards are still all alive. If they aren’t your friend could spawn some more to reassign them. Or maybe stop the convoy at the nearby village or re-plot the route because a battle started not far away, on the road that the convoy is supposed to follow.

Once a convoy (or any other NPC under your direct control) is out of sight, you don’t receive anymore information from it, if not after a one-hour delay. If some of them die you’ll only know an hour later. Plus, you don’t have detailed information about their positions, to find them you would need to use another system that will be pricey, so not always convenient. This opens up to the possibilities of the enemy players.

Enemy players can attack convoys for many reasons, they can damage the carts and slow down the convoy, or even steal the goods and capture your NPCs (which will swap faction after a set amount of time after being captured). Plus they can behead the dead NPCs and impale their heads to leave “landmarks” in the location of the battle. As a sign and dare to the enemy realm, a sort of gruesome “we were here”. Why this? Because while you can know if an NPC dies through the UI, you still cannot know how it died or where. If the convoy is attacked by creatures it is possible that the cart is sitting there with most of the goods intact, so recoverable. It makes a sense for the players to try to find out what happened and for the enemy players the choice to “clean” the area to not leave any trace or decide leave a sign of their passage as a challenge.

This was just an example but it works to explain how different elements can add to the gameplay. The possibility to take the NPCs as prisoners instead of killing them, impale their heads, destroy the convoy completely or steal the goods (only in the case they also have something to transport them, of course, being slowed down themselves too). These aren’t just combat mechanics, but a richer context that creates a “world” under the full control of the players. With the possibility to automate (at a risk) all the tasks that are felt too boring or repetitive. The game doesn’t force anymore the players toward something they don’t like. We have the NPCs and it make sense to leave the boring work to them.

Then you can even continue to add depth, like adding an experience system even for the NPCs that survive their task, so that they “level up”, gain perks and so on… They would become like secondary characters, with their generated name (that the player could manually override, of course) and rank, maybe developing situational skills and competencies (think to the specialization system of the units used in Civ 4).

The real purpose of this idea is to kill the “grind”. You schedule the NPCs to do their work and continue to play what you consider fun while automating what you consider boring. Hey, there may be even players that like to harvest, craft, patrol and escort instead of going to fight the battles. And they would have the possibility to do so without using NPCs, and with the advantage of being able to perform those activities with an increased efficiency. The system gives you just a choice. The choice to choose that part of the gameplay you find interesting, focusing on it completely or do a bit of everything in the measure you choose. Without FORCING obligatory chores on you.

In Eve-Online all these ideas could easily fit. You could have the possibility to set up NPCs miners, equip them and give them simple schedules so that they could go mining for you while you are involved into something you consider more fun or even while offline. The same for transporting commodities to another part of the galaxy. Giving the side to the risk that the convoys could be attacked by enemy corporations.

Automating tasks doesn’t mean that these tasks happen out of the game, of course. This idea wouldn’t work on an instanced game space or one exclusively PvE where everything is protected and predictable. But it becomes valuable on a full, persistent world. Where the automated NPCs are “real” entities that perform the tasks in the same way a player would, while remaining vulnerable.

The perfect “sandbox”.

There isn’t anymore the need to struggle to make boring activities fun even when they obviously cannot become so, no matter how hard you try. A level of realism is needed so that the game has a decent scope, or we would have just a big, superficial arcade that isn’t going to make anything interesting (no dynamism, no emergent gameplay, no choices. Just the same treadmill and linear direction). So we are back at the original quote up there. These sandboxes aren’t doomed to have boring, unavoidable parts. We don’t even need to transform every little chore that is needed to support the emergent level into something fun. Because there’s always the possibility to automate those activities that the players don’t want to deal with.

Requiring two obligatory premises that already exist in EvE and in my original idea:
1) The world must be persistent
2) The world must support full PvP

This is the sandbox: the players as the center of the world, with the NPCs at their service.

(follow-up)