Tag Archives: Dream mmorpg

Advanced aggro routines

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The recent ideas about the “dream mmorpg” (here below) were, as I wrote, mostly a provocation. I know that a game like that wouldn’t be possible right now for technical issues, but I wasn’t trying to portray something doable. I was instead pointing out an “aspiration”. I portrayed a destination, an ideal.

Those ideas came from a thread on FoH’s forums where again the issue of UI-intensive gameplay was brought up. It ties back with what I said about the healer problem and the valuable effort to move “past the interface”. Which is also what Tobold wrote in that article I linked.

I was trying to imagine and portray combat mechanics that could look realistic and feel more immersive. Evocate a particular “feel”. To do this the interface needs to go and the next step is about the “heresy” of removing healing classes. No health bars, so no possibility to toy with those bar, watching them jumping up and down. Aspiring to create classes that are all directly involved in the fight, in a realistic war. Not a puzzle game with different shapes and colors.

This is also what Raph’s laments suggest me (not only of course). Not completely different games, but the rediscovery of THIS genre and what it COULD suggest and evocate. The recovery of that immersiveness that seems completely lost and forgotten. Because there’s still endless potential in THIS genre without the need to invent dancing games and other batshit crazy social simulations. That’s not what I would like to see. That’s not where I expect and would like to see the innovation.

I don’t want the innovation “elsewhere”. I want it here. In the things I already love.

The point was:
– Is the interface needed as an aid for the players or to comply to some technical limitations?

As an answer to that question I tried to imagine a scenario free from those technical limitations. The fact that those ideas weren’t much practical and realistic doesn’t mean that there isn’t the possibility to already start to move in that direction. There are many possible ways to “translate” the majority of those rules into something realistically possible with the current technology and then move from there. What is important is to set a goal, to which we can aspire. An ideal to follow and to strive for. That was the purpose. That’s why I called it a “destination”. We aren’t there yet. Far from it. But that’s the direction where we should start moving to.

That said, Darniaq is ranting on his site about another recurring topic of this genre that again represents a barrier to the immersion and realism. It’s part of those consolidated stereotypes that seem impossible to eradicate: the respawns.

These are my ideas on the “respawns” and their implications. Ideas that in this case ARE possible with the technology currently available. Trying to demonstrating that we don’t need brand new *genres* to innovate, there’s still plenty to do here. These worlds have still a huge potential that the current, superficial implementations are making us forget.

“Design” here doesn’t mean anymore the “invention” of something brand new, never seen before (and it rarely means this, almost never). Design here becomes just a rediscovery of what is already there. Trying to scratch beyond the superficial level to have a glimpse of the abyss below.

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Advanced “aggro” routines

I believe that with an intelligent use of scripting and a regulation of the spawn points the great majority of the issues could easily go. So I don’t find this a limit of the technology.

Think for example about the skeletons. It wouldn’t be so hard to make them “emerge” from the ground realistically.

But I believe you are only looking at the lesser problem and not at the whole picture: aggro routines. Think for example to the example above. Yes, it would be cool to see those skeletons rising realistically from the terrain, with one hand coming out all at the sudden, then the arm, the shoulders and all the rest. But think if the hand comes out all at the sudden and GRABS YOUR FOOT.

What hasn’t been done and that would be TRULY immersive is a realistic behaviour of the aggro routines. We are used to see monster just standing still or waiting to be “pulled”. We are worried for the immersion if they “respawn”, but the immersion pretends a lot more than that.

My idea is not about the players ambushing the monster. My idea is about the monsters ambushing the players. The rule is: if you can see them, they can see you. How’s that? And not only. Some of my ideas are about the mobs noticing the players and start reacting BEFORE the players are aware of them, like the case of the skeleton grabbing all at the sudden your foot, or creatures lurking in the dark and preparing their attack before you are even aware of their presence.

Think about “Aliens”, if you are going to fight in their hive you aren’t going to have the headstart.

Realistic behaviors. It would mean a COMPLETELY different way to play. If you go fight near an orc camp and aren’t working actively to lurk away them one by one, they can call for help and bring on you the whole camp. If you fight on sight, they see you and charge. You would REALLY have to sneak around the place and be on your toes.

In general, I’d like to see a game where the players become preys and not exclusively hunters. And where the exploration and the adventure is enriched by a different approach that puts a value where now there’s just nothing.

The “dream mmorpg”

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This is mostly a provocation after the few details that emerged from Mythic’s Warhammer.

Warhammer is a SETTING. And it can be rendered in many different *styles*. We have PLENTY of examples of Warhammer in the cartoonish look, as we have about the much more “violent” and realistic look.

The point is NOT about who invented a cartoonish look before. The point is:
1- People would appreciate MUCH more a game looking realistic and that is completely different from WoW, exactly to DISTANCE Warhammer from it instead of looking like a bleached copy. This is what would MAKE SENSE even from a commercial point of view.
2- Mythic doesn’t handle this style well. It’s a lost battle fighting Blizzard right in their house.

That said, Tobold has a great piece pointing out some huge problems and limitations in all the current combat systems, without exceptions. I completely agree. I always liked ideas that try to go toward more realism and a more immersive experience. Remember those ideas he wrote while reading the wishes I’m going to add next.

If a MMORPG combat doesn’t *look* real, chances are that it isn’t much fun in the first place.

The “dream mmorpg”

Think to a PvP game only for now.

Erase completely the possibity to “target”. No targeting. No UI whatsoever. Nothing at all.

Add collision detection. Create a system with a “tactical combat”, without the frenetical button-mashing but where you swing your weapon directly and hit what is in front of you. Ranged weapons that behave like in reality, with realistic arcs and no “target-lock”, with the shields only protecting what’s directly behind them and letting exposed the other parts of the body. Add spell effects with a similar target system, where you aim for a location and then throw a fireball that continues to fly till it doesn’t hit something and then “explodes”, shaking the ground and dealing area damage to all the enemies near the impact, setting them on fire.

Forbid completely the possibility to target an opponent and receive informations about it through the UI. You can just see your hitpoints and your mana, the number of arrows and the possibility to quickly access your spellbook and inventory, but nothing else. You cannot see the effects on your enemies (if not graphically, like the effect of a DoT spell active or an arrow stuck on their bodies) as you cannot see them on your friends.

No healing classes or abilities if not bandages and medications that can be applied ONLY out of combat and that require time to start their effect.

Add spellcaster classes with spells that affect the spatial environment: like the possibility to create protective force fields, allowing those within to be protected from ranged attacks to an extent, or the possibilty to drop “walls of fire” that damage those crossing them, or freeze a zone of grass that will make people running on it slip and tumble around (bwahahah! This would be amazing), fireballs exploding and flinging people around on fire, magical walls of stone rising and preventing the players to pass and that need to be circumvent or demolished through “blunt” attacks or counterspells.

Healers? Who the hell needs them.

Give them the possibility to set people on FIRE, and then give them the possibility to invoke clouds and rain around the player to extinguish that fire.

Think about HUGE ogre characters, three times as big as a normal player but much, much slower. Give them wheeled carts and transform them into “music” classes playing huge, tribal drums (with real sounds coming out of them, that will be heard from miles away on the battlefield) triggering temporary bursts of positive effects like speed boosts or haste effects during a charge. And then let those ogres “wield” those drums with two hands and use them directly to smash other players in melee. With extremely slow attacks but SWEEPING whatever happens to be in a 60 degree arc in front of them, hurling people in the air if they happen to get hit.

Add charging horses, mounted, armored combat boars, war machines, ridable flying dragons. The possibility to break a dam and flood a whole area for defense. Quick, smallish goblin and slow, bigger orcs with blunt, rudimental weapons. Elf races that “dance” on the battlefield, hard to get hit, with quick, sharp attacks chained together and teaming up with other players for special attacks, but extremely vulnerable to a charge or an attack that smashes and pins them down. And what about the proficency with ranged weapons (rate of fire and precision) since we have a sistem absolutely perfect to support these racial traits?

Ritual spells chained by one of more spellcaster that, if not broken or countered, would trigger fearsome effects, like meteor swarms or opening chasms in the ground, devouring those who get caught within. The possibility to call storms and thunders.

Create completely different styles of combat for each race and class, with a completely different feel and impact, different rates of attack, movement speed, types of weapons, different mechanics. Add situational, external elements to the character like the war machines, transports, mounts. Sieges on castles with realistic ladders on the walls that can be pushed out to make the players fall on the ground, boiling oils melting those who pass below between the screams, crumbling walls that crush those nearby.

I said “PvP only” because that’s where these concepts work better. But what about replacing the loss of the health bars and icons with the creature behaving differently depending on the damage received and its health and morale?

How’s that? Would it be… “fun”?

Music-geography

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I was listening to the marvellous soundrack of “Zatoichi” (another movie by Takeshi Kitano) composed by Keiichi Suzuki, and it suggested me idea. The dream mmorpg would have him as a composer.

A basic theme for each different zone. This theme is supposed to be quiet and moody, with periods of silence and subtle sounds, quiet melodies just hinted that accompany the players around. They would become the fabric of the atmosphere in the same way the geographic layout of a zone defines its space.

Then each zone would be divided into sub-zones, little spots and environments. These should become “discoveries”. As the environment can bring to marvelous eyesights, the music should also be included in the discovery and exploration. So in particular defined spots and sub-zones the basic theme will come to life and new melodies will spring, enriching the mood and underlining special moments.

Special situations as the combat will also plug in the same system where again each zone would have its theme that shapeshifts and accelerates during these situations, becoming more coral and engaging.

The journey around the world shouldn’t be just about the discovery of physical objects, but also of these particular sounds.

Fancy, random ideas

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I’m not a player, I’m a dreamer. This is why the immersion is so much important for me. I don’t play games, I dream along them and about what they could become. What they suggest me, as they tickle my interest.

These are just some truly fanciful and extreme ideas that EverQuest 2 suggested me. They are just rough possibilities that could be then adjusted in different directions. Some parts of them may still be interesting, though. And wouldn’t be too hard to add to the game.

Guild Houses and real cities
I already started to comment about guild houses, this idea is just to continue along those lines. Instead of just limiting the houses to functional doors on a private instance, each door should be leading to one and only one place, possibly with the layout matching the exterior of the building. This would mean that the houses available in a city would be finite in number, adding the element of scarcity in the system. I don’t see this as something bad, it would be much more consistent and it would create both a true sense of ownership and “presence” in the city, not just a functional, private portal.

The next step is opening new villages and outposts to create more different opportunities. There should be a variegate offer of many different types of houses, scaling from shabby cubicles to bigger and exotic mansions, till the bigger castles that should become permanent landmarks as the floating tower in Freeport. Something with a concrete impact. Then injecting gameplay into the system. Just scaling the renting costs to differentiate these places wouldn’t be much fun. Owning the biggest castle would become just an insane grind that I don’t think the game should reward. Plus there’s the need to keep the system alive with a constant turnover, preventing some guilds to lock their houses forever. So this is the idea:

Two big castles for each faction, donated directly by Antonia and Lucan. These castles will be a reward of merit, a symbolic status to promote the best guilds. The assignment will depend on a semestral official tourney where the best guilds will compete between each other. The best two will get access to the castle and the right to participate to the next tourney at the end of the six months.

These guild “hubs” should become the “fulcrum”, of the game, not its outskirts, as it happened in both Ultima Online and SWG where the players lived OUTSIDE the towns instead of WITHIN them. Then giving these places special uses that would be advantageous for both the guild owning the place and all the other players. For example access to special porters to cut travel time between the continents, or special quests and crafting tools only available there. The guild hosting these services will have to pay maintenance costs that should move parallel to the activities they do already, like obtaning magic stones from particular raid encounters to feed the power of these teleporters, while the other player would have to pay for the service, but moving the money paid from the NPCs directly to the guild vault. The idea is to give the guilds winning the tourneys not only the reward and a special status among all other players, but also responsibilities and duties toward them. Creating a relationship and a collaboration. Creating more a sense of community.

There are many more possibilities worth exploring but they should all following this line: from a side giving relevance and visibility to the guild, creating a truly unique status and gameplay from them, from the other taking advantage of the special role the guild has in the game to also create gameplay for ALL the other players. This is something I already hinted, the aim to create a type of “status unbalance” that would feel TRULY unique, but that, at the same time, is able to involve, affect and create a gameplay space even for all the other players. Creating a relationships between the two parts and not a total detachment and the resulting “envy” that comes because some players have access to a part of the game that is precluded to many others.

This is how I was planning to “solve the paradox” that Brad McQuaid explained in that quote I linked. Not a division between casual and hardcore players as two separate groups that deserve different types of content and that must remain separate so that the hardcore can enjoy their e-peen over the (excluded) mass. But different and definite “status achievements” that are visible but become the real fabric of the game. Making the two parts interact instead of isolate. Adding benefits for BOTH sides.

Dolmens, talking “stoneheads”
I got this idea because I felt the need for more directions since the maps aren’t really useful right now and I still cannot figure out how the zones are connected and the overall geography. The inspiration also comes from “Labyrinth”, the movie with the talking door that asks who passes by to resolve a riddle. These dolmens would be magical stones, shaped as big, magical faces stuck in the terrain with only the possibility to turn. Big more or less as half an ogre, with the face fully animated and as much expressive as possible. There should be one of these for each zone and they should serve two basic purposes:
1- Provide some lore for the zone.
2- Give directions.

Then adding many more fun habits that would make them as something truly unique. Not only they should all have different voices, but also different personalities with an attention to the humor. For example there should be running jokes on the fact they cannot move. They should be really upset by the fact that they are stuck there and complain all the time with everyone. They could notice and mock a player fighting with a monster nearby, taunting him or inciting him! It would be tons of fun. They could go like: “I’m booored.” Or “Uhm.. Could you scratch my nose? Pleeese?” Or “Sniff.. sniff.. You smell. Move away!” when a player moves too close to the face or starting to get completely nut if someone goes to sit right on their head. Adding more and more situational interactions.

Think if a player is fighting nearby and dings a level. The dolmen would go: “Whohooooo! Grats! What you are now? Five?” with true voices, maybe yelling from far away, for everyone to listen. Things like this really freak out the players. Noone expects a pile of rock to start talking to them or congratulate them for a level. It would really add a whole new level of entertainment to the game. Another of those “whoa!” moments, totally unexpected that you will remember for a long, long time and that would always remind you the game as something special and unique.

Then they could offer a long series of quests that should be all undepended from the level of the character. This mean that they should never depend on combat but on other gameplay elements like going to recuperate objects, obtain special recipes, go on long journeys and so on. To add again a depth to the interaction beyond combat and levels. The reward could be a mix of functional and “toy” purposes. The functional one could be the possibility for the dolmen to cast a special, unique buff on the player if the player is able to give the correct answer to a riddle, while the “toy rewards” could instead vary and would be there only for the amusement. For example the player could point the dolmen another player passing by and the dolmen could “spit” a small rock toward it, executing a high parabola and then landing precisely on top of the player’s head (if he didn’t move), doing very little damage but triggering that “what the hell?!” reaction. And then the dolmen would go “SCORE!”, yelling at its target and then laughing :)

The focus should be really about providing each dolmen its own unique personality and then add a good number of situational reactions that the players could try to discover just for the fun value. Some dolmens could whistle for example if a female elf passes by. Keeping a balance between making them an active and entertaining part of the environment still without becoming too annoying and repetitive. They should be able to notice the level of the player, a “ding”, if he is fighting or not, gender and race and the distance from the stone. These elements should be already enough to spring many different fun situations. Then the players would still be able to interact directly with them through the dialogue system. Asking them directions around the world or getting some informations about the lore of the zones.

Flying carpets
Just a quick note: A better animation from the flying carpets. They look really faked right now. They just translate horizontally without any semblance of realism and when they don’t move they still are too rigid, like if flying on a table more than a carpet. It wouldn’t be too hard making them more believable. An animation that makes them float up and down and ondulate more, both when idle and moving, could do wonders.

Five Northmen have grouped together

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Unicorn McGriddle is a genius. This is taken from a thread on Q23 where this guy explains the idea of my “permeable class system” on which my dream mmorpg is based and that I tried to explain at length here.

It explains how I plan to solve some problems of accessibility of the game, and reduce as much as possible the “healer problem”, or, from a broader point of view, the negative, disrupting dependence on other players.

This is also tied to the ideas that originated that thread and that I mirrored here.

This is also probably the best thing you’ll read on this blog this year. It demonstrates that (some of) my ideas are solid. They just need to be shaped up by someone else who could “translate” my ravings into something decipherable. And somewhat succinctly. And not in a awfully boring way.

—
Welcome to Overexplanation Theatre
by Unicorn McGriddle

I think part of the confusion here is an erroneous conflation of the Mage class with the Mage role. Here’s how I’m following HRose’s “fixed classes/flexible roles” concept, illustrated with a simple example paradigm for a hypothetical game:

Roles:
Tanks absorb damage. They engage opponents and prevent them from attacking weaker party members.
Rogues deal melee damage. They are fragile and must fight on the front lines, but dish out the heaviest hits in the game.
Archers deal ranged damage to single targets. They are fragile, but do good damage and get to stay out of the way of combat unless something breaks through the tanks and rogues.
Mages deal ranged damage to multiple targets. They are fragile, but can fight from the rear and are vital for facing large groups of enemies.
Healers deal very little damage, but exist primarily to heal party members. Though weak, they can do their jobs without getting into direct combat most of the time.

Classes:
The Northman: Northmen are savages, barbarians, and bandits. They disdain magic and heavy armor.
The Teeker: Teekers practice telekinesis, creating physical force with the power of their minds.
The Ghost: Ghosts are the partially corporeal spirits of the dead.
The Siren: Sirens are sinister, thin-limbed creatures that look almost human. Their strength is unnatural and their appetite for souls is alarming.
The Experiment: Experiments were created through reckless bio-engineering. They are disgusting but effective.

In a typical MMO, one would expect each class to correspond to a role or compromise between roles. Here, however, each role is an option open to each class…

—
Five Northmen have grouped together. In order to fight their way through the dangerous Lair of the Yoni Ghouls (suggested for levels 25-30), they will need to specialize, each in a different role. They stop by a Northman outpost and grab some new weapons.

Stf-u decides to be the tank, so he gets a spear and a large hide shield. He’ll wade into the thick of things and goad enemies to attack him, keeping them at bay with his long reach and portable cover.

4me2poopon is a bit more daring. He’ll be the rogue. He takes up his instrument of valor, the twohanded axe. He can do some very serious damage with it, but he can expect to be hurt seriously in return. He’ll probably die the most often, assuming Stf-u knows what he’s doing and the Yoni Ghouls don’t break through and start enveloping back-row party members in their treacherous folds.

Beecock, the party leader, will be an archer, picking out key enemies and skewering them with his javelins. Aside from being pretty damaging, a javelin through the body is debilitating, reducing movement and attack speed.

URbraneONdrugz prefers the mage lifestyle. He stocks up on light throwing axes. He’ll chuck them into crowds in large quantities.

GW_Bush, last but not least, will be the healer. He’ll slap bandages on whoever needs them, do some hasty stitching if necessary, and if somebody actually dies, give them a bit of rough chest-pumping and mouth-to-mouth.

Now let’s see what another party is doing inside the Yoni Ghouls’ Lair. These guys are Teekers. The Teeker effects are pretty flashy, since the developers decided telekinesis should be visible and colorful and glowing. It looks cool in screenshots.

Biatch-Noggin, whose name is rumored to have been inspired by advertising agency Chiat-Day, is wearing his Control Circlet as usual. With this thing on, he can have three ghouls at once flailing helplessly as he suspends them in midair.

Farm4gold isn’t really a gold farmer, just a daring young Teek rogue. A Flux Spike allows him to make devastating short-range telekinetic attacks. He is fighting a desperate fight against the ghouls that the tank has not immobilized.

Fuck_tha_EULA is on archer duty, using a Narrow Modulator to focus his will over long distances. The Yoni Ghouls in Biatch-Noggin’s clutches bleed from their orifices as he hammers them like fucking piñatas.

Shitnrotate, our intrepid mage, has a Network Projector. He evens the odds by lashing Farm4gold’s opponents with meshes of glowing force. This weakens and disorients them, and Farm can take them down with a few hits while minimizing the damage to himself with a little fancy footwork and luck.

GW_Bush_SR takes the healer role, using his Ether Controller to protect wounded areas for the time it takes to shunt some lifeforce into them. Even as we watch, he throws the horns or something like them, and a bulky, glowing brace appears on Farm4gold’s wounded arm. After a moment, the wound heals and the brace dissolves. In game terms, armor is temporarily raised, then that buff goes away and the hitpoints come back.

Still struggling through the newb areas are five young Ghosts. They are currently in the Bounce Palace of Fluffy Squirrels (suggested for levels 5-10).

“Fucking cover me,” grumbles TiteBunz in a Teamspeak baritone as his big-titted but diaphonous tank trembles and dissolves into a loose fog for the third time.

“I’m trying,” says AnalExplorer, letting loose with his risky soul-sucking attack. If he pulls it off, he’ll be powerfully healed. If he fails, their foe will have a free shot at him.

“I think we’re gonna wipe,” says Prez_GWBush gloomily as she suffuses TiteBunz with a golden fog of reviving energy. Bunz recommences his/her attack, trying to draw the enemy into a frigid ghostly embrace that will slow and weaken it.

But the Pet Squirrel fights back. It manages a crit on Anal after his attack fails, and he too quivers and dissipates. Bush curses the cooldown timer on her rez.

ONoez, the mage, is of little use here. “I should have hit the rogue shrine,” he says mournfully, and nobody disagrees with him, although technically the game lore calls it a Shrine of Soultheft.

TEH-Hannitizer, the archer, is their last hope. He breathes a silent, fervent prayer, and gambles on Terror Curse, which at his level has only a ten percent success chance on Pet Squirrels.

It bounces. ONoez throws himself in front of the ravening Pet Squirrel to buy the rest more time as TiteBunz drops again, hissing “Shit!” into his microphone. Bush rezzes the Explorer, and Hannitizer tries another Terror Curse. This time it sticks, and the squirrel flees in panic.

AnalExplorer burns an all-too-rare Rosicrucian Resurrection Stone to bring TiteBunz back, and together the party runs for it. Once out of combat, they begin the trek back to the Ghost Shrines so that ONoez can change classes to something more useful. You only fight enemies one at a time in the Bounce Palace anyway. Hannitizer says they ought to go back to the Sewer Warehouse Caverns and grind more Limp Rats. The rest of the party agrees to consider it.

Meanwhile, a party of Sirens is fighting Acorn Bandits in the Fields of Lingam (suggested for levels 10-15). Most people agree that this is where the game really starts to get fun.

YeOldeTymeRP is keeping the bandits occupied as a tank. His spindly avatar would seem lost inside its massive suit of armor if it didn’t move so fluidly. He strikes the bandits around him with his armored fists, for he neither has nor needs a weapon. Their Arrowhead Clubs bounce harmlessly off his platemail. They’ll make fine loot later — most vendors will buy Arrowhead Clubs for 60 to 70 dorito yen.

FukkFakk is operating as a rogue, and there is a certain beauty in watching him shred Acorn Bandits with his razor-edged gauntlets. Unlike OldeTyme, he wears fairly light armor, and a few solid hits on him have him screaming for a medic.

EQsux raises his dartgun to his lips and pegs another bandit, whose eye erupts in a spurt of blood as he clutches it helplessly. Then the curare kicks in.

ALLurBASErBELONG2US, winner of a serverwide annoying name competition, dances through the bandits scattering poisoned caltrops like popcorn. Siren mages don’t attack at range — instead, they must weave through combat like rogues do.

GDubyaBush, the healer, must also be within touch range to work her magic (figuratively speaking). As we watch, she darts close to FukkFakk and licks his wounds lasciviously. They close up. Those wacky Sirens!

Lastly, here’s a bunch of guys who were in the beta — members of ForgotMyCondoms. One of the more powerful guilds, ForgotMyCondoms has gotten several server firsts in their time, such as being the first to complete the Grasping the Lingam’s Secrets quest. These are their mains, Experiments created back when Experiments were stupidly overpowered (post-1.1 but pre-1.3). Let’s take a listen to their Ventrilo chatter as they plumb the depths of Yoni Crater (suggested for levels 90-95).

“What are these things?” says Tikkelmypikkel, activating Fleshroots (which anchors him in one place, but gives him tentacles with which to bind and constrict monsters). “They look familiar,” he adds, as several are caught in his web of pulsing meat.

“They’re reskinned Limp Rats,” guesses ChoggleTime, his avatar’s throat bulging as he vomits a Toxic Bloodgush on one of them. “Remember in the beta, when all the Yoni monsters were rats? I bet these are just placeholders.”

“So lame,” jeers 80087355, using Longarm to send one spiny limb stretching out past Tikkel and Choggle to hit the rat. He impales it, but another rat attacks his arm and he withdraws it in pain. “Oh, so fucking gay! I can’t believe they made Longarm vulnerable to retaliation. Experiment archers SUCK now. I’m totally going to cancel my subscription when this month is up.” He will, of course, do no such thing.

GDubyaPrezBush, who is rumored to have a large number of alts on this server, steps up and heals him without comment, slapping a raw, veiny appendage slobbering with moisture over his damaged arm.

ePeen, their mage, barfs out a cloud of Serial Killer Spores and the remaining rats perish. “This area’s lame, guys. It’s not even finished yet. Let’s go back to the Hysterical Chamber.”

“No, dude,” says 8008, “this may be lame, but think how awesome it’s going to be when we finish it first.”

Ahem. So to recap, this system means that while class has an impact on some nuances of your capabilities, and a major stylistic importance, it never excludes you from a group. Anybody can take the archer role or the healer role or whatever, depending on what’s missing. No more LFG need priest, where are all the priests, oh god why didn’t anybody in the guild think to play a priest. It’s just LFG need five people of roughly similar levels and we can work it out from there.

These particular examples of classes are basically like races — albeit more influential, especially in terms of art and animation. But HRose’s “flexible classes” — even the ones in this example — are perfectly compatible with a more typical race system. Just read it through again and pretend that half of them are elves and have +1 to gay.

An handy solution for every problem (three, condensed months of discussions)

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I come from a five hours, incessant discussion with a friend about game design and mmorpgs. It was so absolutely useful to talk with someone in my own language. I could elaborate so quickly so many concept and I was able to summarize most of the work in the last three months. All at once.

This discussion was so absolutely useful for me because I was able to make a better synthesis of all I read, thought and wrote along these months. Too often I analyze a problem taken out of the general context, delving in the detail but losing the correct reference. Sometimes I forget how things are interconnected and how each solution to a problem must be coordinated and not contradictory with another one. As I often repeated, I always design starting from problems. I isolate some fundamental problems in the mmorpgs (socialization, pvp balance, narrative, emergent play, healer classes and so on), identify all the traits and then try to derive my own solutions. So all these ideas start from crucial points and I always try to suggest alternatives that I believe are valid and worthwhile. This is design for me. I have a problem and try to figure out effective solutions. Minimizing the side-effects (or “deficiencies” as Raph calls them, see the end of the article).

Recently we touched so many fundamental points. About the limits and accessibility problems of a sandbox, about the linearity and staticity of a narrative, about the unexcused, negative transition from the levels being a way to progress in the story (classic pen&paper RPG) to the story being a way to progress through the levels (classic DikuMUD progression). We have lost the story. Some also said that we lost the possibility to affect and change the world, like branching quests that open up different possibilities.

I wrote my own opinion about all these points and suggested many solutions. But it’s always hard to make a synthesis of all that. It’s hard to have a “one size fits all” answer that is truly satisfactory without those “deficiencies”. I wrote that some of the problems, goals and solutions are antithetic. You cannot find a solution for everything because one will be opposed to the other. I gave up here. I’m not good enough to think something that works so smoothly. A story, to be a very good story, needs identity and authorship. Control. It has a start and an end. It’s more or less linear, even if you can segment it and let the player follow a personal order. But all the pieces would still be there.

At the basic level: a good story has an awful replayability.

After you have spoiled it, part of the fun of the exploration and discovery will go away. Yes, we could chase the myth of of the branching possibilities. So that you can repeat a story and find out different possibilities. But this makes the development time increase exponentially and these games have budgets, and these budgets depend on time. This would also not remove the artificiality of a falsely persistent world where you can go back and repeat something to see it going in a different way. It’s a paradox, a false solution.

Mixing together the needs of a strong narrative, an accessible, deep sandbox and a satisfying character progression (along with an healthy socialization and community cohesion) IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE. They have antithetic requirements. The narrative needs a start an an end, it needs deep characters, stories and myths. And it needs to be accessible without mandatory grouping, without other players asking you to skip reading the text because you are wasting time. Without these other players IMPOSING STANDARDS on how you experience the content. I fucking hate this. I want to play the fucking game at my own pace, in my own way, screwing up the way I like, in the order I like and without hearing a fucking annoying noob getting in my way, getting me killed, criticizing what I’m doing or spoiling me the whole thing.

I FUCKING HATE OTHER PLAYERS IN MMORPGs.

What’s this? Me going nut? No. These are the requirements of a GOOD narrative. When I read a book I immerse myself into it. The world outside STOPS TO EXIST. Noone can dictate me how to read, what to read. It’s all about me and the book. I isolate myself hermetically from the outside and the same happens when I’m enjoying an old RPG. It’s about me and the world. My exploration, my experience. The Full Immersion. This type of narrative CANNOT require mandatory grouping. It CANNOT require you to play five hours straight, all at once. It CANNOT require you to plan your life around a game. It CANNOT require you to catass to victory. I want a game that is accessible: 1- When I fucking have the time to play 2- Right away without making me dependent on other players. Without forcing me to adapt to other players. I want my own game. At my pace. For my enjoyment. I am the measure of my game and I fucking DON’T CARE if someone out there is advancing way faster than me. I don’t want the competition here. I want the story and me in the story. I want to zone out of that crap. Fuck the socialization, other players suck. I have enough of depending on them, their time, their pace and their classes.

This is not me going nut (again), this is what other players out there are demanding. The first things everyone wants to know about a new mmorpg, every kind of mmorpg, is if it’s possible to solo or not. Peoples are SICK of depending on other people, of impassable barriers that make content inaccessible. Of mandatory 40-man raids lasting 5+ hours as the only way to progress. Peoples are SICK of that sort of design. Peoples have enough of adapting their life to a game. Peoples are sick (literally) when their houses smell of cat ass. People want games with a value, not excuses to chase carrots-on-a-stick. People want interesting stories, deep characters. An immersive world that simulates different elements and isn’t just combat, combat and more combat. People want broader worlds, good stories, a deeper interactivity. Something that is truly valuable as an experience and not some “fill in” grind because the developers are at loss.

How can you put together all these pieces together? I have no solution. It’s impossible to build a game about other players when these other players are its first problem. You want “x” and “y”, together. But where “x” is the contrary of “y”. Where one breaks the other. I want a mmorpg where I’m not dependent on other players, but then aren’t mmorpgs just about other players? What the hell, go playing a fucking single player then.

Yes, you can try to mingle all these aspects together, trying to discover the games of the future that will do everything right, all at once. You can call this “rich world simulations”. Imho, you are just entering a tunnel that you’ll never exit and risk to break more than you can fix. Maybe it’s possible, but it’s not viable right now. Not even worthwhile. The best solutions are always the simpler ones. Those that make you wonder why you didn’t get the idea before, after someone else had it. Intuitions.

I don’t have intuitions here as I don’t have one solution for every problem. But I can try to do my best with what I have available. My principle from the start has been about reposition each element we have in these games where it is more appropriate. Where it is most valuable and can be used as a resource, instead of a source of problems. So I don’t have one perfect solution, but I have it as collection of parts to place every problem where it belongs, making the game work better and, hopefully, making the players enjoy the game at the best of its possibilities.

My “dream game” is built of three different layers. I’ve tried to simplify and abstract as much as possible here to close all the points I’ve risen above. Offering my own solution:

– The Sandbox
The PvP world. Here is “the world in the hand of the players”. A large war map with regions, cities and smaller outposts, with two hardcoded factions (Chaos and Law) at war, with a third (Balance) set as a “pad” between the two (superficially: dedicated crafters, traders and mercenaries). Making temporary alliances with one or the other, keeping the commerce alive and maintaining a delicate equilibre (Chaos needs some resources that only Law can produce and vice versa. The “Balance” is the only way to trade those resources between the two). This is the “satisfying repetable content”, a character progression with a flat levelling curve, where you can unblock different ranks and roles but where one isn’t directly more powerful than the other. Where you aren’t acquiring directly better versions of the same skill, but where you open up different possibilities of interactions in the war. Making the gameplay more varied, with squadrons, different units and different goals for each. Bringing variety and dynamism in the war. All the world is in the hands of the players, all the world can be conquered and managed by the players. There’s an emergence of RTS game, collecting resources, keeping supply lines between the regions, patrols and so on. It’s a system, a world simulated in all its part. It’s the immersion in a “world at war” and where each element has a specific purpose. Nothing is linear here and it’s all about the stories and situations that the players create. Emergent gameplay. Dynamic situations. It’s like the RvR in Dark Age of Camelot. The power differential between each player is minimal to keep the balance. Veteran players play along with young ones, in the same battles. All the goals are shared, you fight for the realm, not to grow your e-peen. PvP is socialization, here you are together with other players. Coordinated with them. Everything has the goal of bringing the players together. And not apart. All the economy and trade happen solely on this level. RMT is technically not possible, I’m sorry (no, I’m not).

– The Narrative
The narrative is a linear path. It must have a start and an end. This is where the quests exist, where you’ll experience interesting stories and discover interesting characters. This is the level of the immersion. You travel in the multiverse, between different planes of (ir)reality. The scenario can shapeshift. You live the story. All the quest and stories are completely detached from a functional power progression. The gameplay focuses on the story itself. Your character isn’t the purpose. You chase the story. You explore. Every advancement you make is about the story, opening up possibilities that cannot be opened in another way. You move through this progression while you live along the NPCs. Your goals are goals that are set by the story, your power is secondary and never directly connected. To move between these regions and the various planes (hubs) you’ll need to progress through this story. Exactly like a single player RPG. There is no “grind” because good stories aren’t excuses to give you experience points. This progress is still *mandatory*. You cannot skip it if you want to access new zones and progress in the story.

In order to fulfill all those points the content must follow two rules:

1- I must be able to experience this part of the game at my own pace. When I find some time to log in. Whether I have 10 minutes, 1 hour or 5 hours available. The game must be always ready and accessible to make me have fun for the time I have available. Free of time constraints imposed by the game.

2- This content MUST BE SOLOABLE FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END. I should NEVER depend on other players, or their classes, or their impositions. I must be freed from the competition with other players so that I can play the game at my own pace, the way I choose. Free to immerse myself. Grouping should be *never* mandatory but it will remain optional. I can still go adventuring with another friend, till a maximum of four players in the group. A duo should be the norm. The instances will be balanced on the fly to adapt themselves to the number of players.

This type of approach also opens the possibilities to PvE expansions. Again, the progress through the story has nothing to do with you achieving more power and loot. There’s no “carrot” to chase. No artificial excuse. You can enjoy your progress through the story or avoid it. So what? I would still LOVE to play a game if the story is interesting and I’m enjoying exploring it. No, I don’t need “carrots-on-a-stick” to motivate me. If I’m having fun that’s enough to keep me involved and immersed in the game world. At the same time this new content remains optional for every players and will never be mandatory to compete.

– The Communal PvE
Each plane/hub will have a set of stories and adventures that require larger groups of players to complete. These can go from a 5-man dungeon to epic raids. To unlock all the content on this layer, you still have to progress through the story (“the narrative”) so that you have access to all the different planes. All the content on this layer is optional. You can have competitive dungeons, survival arenas and every kind of different mode. Here you depend on other players, have to build balanced groups and have to organize to succeed. The loot dropping in these instances is not directly more powerful than what you’ll get from the “narrative”, but you’ll get special, rarer items (they look different, have fancier effects, open up secret plots and stories, but will never offer more power). These communal PvE instances are also the only way to summon powerful “artifacts” into the PvP world.

These artifacts make a player near to a demi-god. One player wielding one or more artifacts can fight alone and win against multiple opponents and will be really, really hard to take down without an organized effort from the opposite side. These demi-gods are supposed to become the focus of the PvP in a similar way to how the “heroes” were used in Warcraft 3. They are special and unique. They artifacts aren’t usable in PvE, they lose all their properties if they are brought in a PvE instance. In order to keep them on your character, you need to “feed” them by killing the players on the opposite factions and have a role in the conquest, participating actively in the PvP. Exposing yourself. If you are hiding you won’t be able to fulfill the “feed” requirements and you’ll lose the artifact. When you have an artifact with you your character will change its appearance and you’ll be recognizable in the battlefield. Even graphically you’ll transform into a demi-god. The other faction will also know that one of the artifacts was summoned and will be able to “divinate” your position in the map. They can track you down. you will be hunted. If you die in a PvP battle, your artifact will be dropped on the ground and one of the players in the opposite faction can loot it and use it, acquiring the powers that were yours. The artifacts are also limited in number. Each type of artifact can have only a fixed (and really small) nuber of “copies” active in a PvP world. The most powerful artifacts are unique and one and only one copy can exist in the PvP world at once. If an artifact is unique, the instance where it can be summoned will be sealed till the artifact remains in the PvP world. There isn’t a time limit to the persistence of an artifact in the PvP world, just its “feeding” and “active” requirements. If the feeding requirement aren’t met, or if the player with the artifact has been logged out for too long, not meeting the active requirements, the artifact is reset to the original PvE instance that will remain sealed for a set amount of time depending on the type of the artifact.

This is also how I expect to create interesting patterns in PvP. These demi-gods players will remain truly *rare* and not mandatory to play the game because the number of artifacts that can exist in the world is strictly limited. Only very few players will be active, using them. This makes them exceptions. The demi-gods are supposed to create gameplay for everyone. They become targets. They are recognizeable in the battlefield and will make the war feel more “epic”. They will become “hotspots” themselves, leaders of armies to siege other regions. A demi-god can be a strong advantage in a battle in the exact same way it happens in Warcraft 3. At the same time, these powers are transitory. Once you are fighting (and you are required to) you are also vulnerable and if you cannot survive a battle you’ll lose your powers and someone in the opposite faction will inherit them, overthrowing the previous situation. During a battle there isn’t a limit to how many times the artifact can switch from a faction to the other, till the “feed” requirements are met. Again, these tools are PvP tools and are meaningful only when actively used. The artifact loses all its properties outside the PvP world, becoming just a dead envelop till it is brought back to the PvP. Finally, a demi-god cannot use any fast travel option (teleports and such) while in the PvP world.

—
This idea of a game has no levels and is based on percent skills. The power curve remains flat but the character advancements is deep and is inherited by other statistics, like plane affinity, magic items progression and so on. The skills increase with the use, whether you are progressing in the narrative, or participating in the PvP. Both patterns are viable and balanced to be equally desirable. As I explained, the progress in the story is detached from functional XP rewards. Most of the game content (both PvP and PvE) is already accessible right out of the box. The aim is to bring the players together instead of building artificial barriers between them.

(character advancement as a result rather than motivation)

From Raph:

The challenge at the end of the article stands, which is to come up with a systems that does satisfy all the things you want. What would it play like? How would it feel? If it has deficiencies (it will), are they easily remedied?

Herbalism, Alchemy and serviceable earth golems

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I feel like a kid again. Having idea suggested by the games I play, with the desire to elaborate them, making them more involving, deep, significant and even more absorbing than how they are already.

This is what I define “realism” and “immersion”. This is what the current mmorpgs have lost and how I plan to renew those qualities.

HERBALISM

The first idea about herbalism and alchemy comes straight from Morrowind and one of the custom plugins. So interesting that it makes you wish more. The game does already a wonderful game making you hunting ingredients. I simply LOVE the exploration and the fact that you know already where to go search the ingredients you need. They usually grow near the big trees and I’d love to see a game where all these ingredients grow in places that make sense, coordinated with the weather and climate. This is already a step forward.

– Planning ahead a more complex and deep system that regulates the respawn and growth of the plants. It should factor the location (on trees, near the water, on the mud and so on, with the spawn points placed by hand), zone of the world, weather, moon cycles and season. The plants won’t just respawn, but they will start to grow slowly and pass between various stages. Each plant will have its own specific growth cycle. Some could grow faster than others (also depending on the variables listed) or have less “stages” to pass. Each stage would affect both the type and quantity of the ingredients (like sub-types of plants with their own specific stats and values).

This is the first step, creating a small, consistent ecosystem around these plants that can be picked up (as opposed to static object in the world that cannot be used by the players). I simply love how this works in MW, so we are far, far away from the “radar” of WoW, where the “professions” become just another level-up mechanic without any depth. Fuck those radars, fuck traveling at random around the map while you stare the minimap. Here you go exploring. The true exploration and research that doesn’t depend on artificial rules, but YOUR KNOWLEDGE. You’ll learn yourself where particular plants grow, you’ll learn where to search them, you’ll learn how to identify them. The gameplay is VISUAL. You search for the plants with your eyes, exploring the world. Not with a fucking radar.

– The plants will have to be identified with the eye. No artificial mechanics will be used, like radars. There will be books and trainers in the world. But these books and trainers will only teach you in the exact same way they would teach you in the real world. Just explaining where you may find some herbs, explaining their properties, explaining where they grow and how, the different growing stages, rarity and so on. With a low “alchemy” skill the player won’t be able to know the properties of an herb (appearing as a “?”) and in a few cases (explained below) not even the name of the herb.

In MW you can raise your Alchemy skill by eating the ingredients. The system is rather unrealistic because the plants have an effect on you only if you have an high skill, while the effects just won’t work if you have a low skill. What I would do is again to delve in this mechanic, adjust its realism and make it more complex.

– A player with a low “herbalism” skill won’t know the name of the herb, nor its properties. Most of the herbs will have to be treated in alchemic processes to have an effect, so they would become fully active only with an high “Alchemy” skill and after the proper treatment. Still, the player can eat the plants he takes right away. In this case, if the player has a low “herbalism” skill, there’s an high risk that the plant will poison him or have different kinds of negative effects (vision blur, slow down, penalty to stats, disease and so on). Most of the plants that have “positive” effects will have them active only after a treatment. Without this treatment they’ll have an high percent possibility of just triggering the side effects if eaten. So there will be a mechanic with an input of the natural properties of the plant, mixed with various possible side effects that would trigger in this case. Some healing plants will maintain their basic positive effect. So the system is regulated by the type of plant more than general rules. Accordingly to the realism.

Finally the mechanics about the gathering process. How the “herbalism” skill actually works and other possible solutions to make the gameplay more interesting. Even here I tried to delve some more in what is already there.

– When you find a plant, you can try to gather ingredients from it. The herbalism skill will affect the time you need to gather all the ingredients in the plant, the success rate, the amount of ingredients you receive from this process, and the quality of the ingredients. With a low skill you will probably just damage the plant and get no ingredients. Every plant has its own difficulty and, depending on your skill, the ingredients will also have different quality (from 1 to 5, nothing too complex). Aften being harvested, the plant will disappear and will regrow following the rules above.

– The “herbalism” skill will raise with the use. Each plant will have a “target share” on the herbalism skill. For example the basic mushroom could have a “target share” of 1-5. This means that the herbalism skill will potentially only raise if it is between 1-5%. If the player has already an higher skill, gathering that plant won’t make the herbalism skill raise. Each plant will also define precisely how much the “herbalism” skill can raise. The more the plant is hard to gather, the less it will make the herbalism skill raise. This means that the skill will progressively become harder to raise as you reach higher %. The “skill up” will happen both if the gathering process was successful and if it failed, with a tinier growth in the latter case.

More in detail, I created a system to define better the successful rate of the gathering. This leaves out the calculations about the quality (for the ingredients) and the time the gathering requires to complete (depending on the plant and skill). It’s strictly about the success:

The success of the gathering process depends on two variables: herbalism skill (percent based) and difficulty of the plant. In order for the player to have the possibility to gather something without just destroying the plant, the difficulty value of the plant must be within 10 units from the value of the herbalism skill. So, for example, having a 85% in herbalism would allow you to gather from plants with a difficulty of 95 or below. The raw formula is:

[10 – (difficulty of the plant – herbalism skill)] * 10

The resulting value will be the percent of sucess on a 100 dice roll. On top of this there’s another check that simulates if the players is able to preserve the ingredients in his inventory after he collected them. From 1 to 10 in herbalism skill, the player has a 50% rate of destroying the ingredients even after a successful gathering. Then this penalty goes down by 1 for every new unit point in the herbalism skill, till the penalty will decrease to zero when the players reaches 60% in herbalism.

Practical example:
The player has 3.50% in herbalism (yes, low) and is trying to gather from a plant with a difficulty of 10. Now we take the difficulty (10) subtract the skill (3.50) and we get 6.50. Now we take the fixed offset value (10) and subtract 6.50. The result is 3.50. We multiply this for 10 and we get 35.0 which is the rate of success (35%). The game rolls a 100 dice and if the result is below 35 the gathering is successful. Finally, we apply a last check to see if the player can successfully store the ingredients in the inventory that in this case is 50% (skill below 10%). If this check is also passed, the player will see the ingredients in his inventory or some messages detailing what happened.

– The “inventory check” I just explained will have to be repeated if the player trades the ingredients with another player. In this case the check will be done by the player that is receiving the ingredient and will be independent from the player who is giving them. This means that you can safely trade herbs to a player with an high skill, while it’s risky for a player with an high skill to trade herbs to a player with a low skill. There will be craftable special herablism “bags” that override this check, making the trade secure.

These mechanics appear as too complicated because I explained in detail the calculations, but in the practical day-to-day use it becomes rather simple. You just compare the difficulty value of the plant (visible only if you learn it from reading books or receiving training from NPCs) to your herbalism skill and, if they are within 10 units one from the other, you can try to gather the plant. If the difficulty of the plant is “9” points above your skill, it basically means you have only a 10% of possibility to successfully get ingredients from it. In the case you gather from a plant much higher than your skill, the plant is destroyed and you get nothing. The number of ingredients you gather from a single plant depends on the type of the plant, with the possibility to multiply the result by two or three if your herbalism skill is much higher than the difficulty of the plant (I won’t detail these mechanics here, but they are sraightforward). The rate increase of the herbalism skill (both on success and, much less, on failure, but in this latter case only if the skill is already within 10 units from the plant’s difficulty) depends on the type of the plant, but it’s an independent value from its difficulty. And finally there will be diminished returns on the growth, so that obtaining higher values near 100% will become progressively harder (and slower). Accordingly one basic principle of the ruleset:

– Suceeding at a poorly-known skill is hard, but you learn a lot when you succeed. An expert in a skill usually suceeds at it. Since he or she already knows most of what there is to know about it, the expert improves at a slower rate than a novice.

Since the whole system is percent based there won’t be an exponential, mandatory power growth as in other games. The game is supposed to work as a “system” where each part has a specific, irreplaceable function. No mudflation and no exponential power increases. No big power differential between a player with an high skill and one with medium values.

– About the informations on the UI. Only a timer showing how much time passed from when the ingredient was harvested will be displayed right away and without conditions. The name and difficulty of a plant will be shown only if the character knows the plant. This is possible only reading books or receiving training from NPCs about the specific plant. Other informations like the quality of the ingredients, their basic effects, expiry date (explained below) and detailed informations about the plant (how it grows, where it grows and so on) will only be displayed if the player has an high enough herbalism skill. In the case the skill is too low the unknown fields will be shown as “?”.

– Some ingredients, guess what?, will grow on trees. So the plant you gather is like just a part of a bigger plant. In this case all the rules above still apply, but, obviously, only the fruit or flower will disappear, instead of the whole plant/tree. The trees will usually have seasonal cycles, so the fruits will grow only in a precise moment during the year. Not always.

– The game also uses a realistic inventory system that I’ll explain elsewhere (factoring weight, types of bags, locations and so on). Specifically for the herbalism purposes, the ingredients gathered will have “expiry dates”. So an ingredient gathered will remain in the inventory of the player for a set amount of time before losing its effects (with the possibility to gain negative effects over time due to decay). The duration of the conservation depends on three elements: type of the plant, quality of the ingredient (as explained above, going from 1 to a maximum of 5) and type of inventory. In this last case there will be specific craftable containers that are built with the purpose of storing ingredients, so prolonging their conservation over time.

– Finally, the herbalists will be able to plant seeds in pots so that they can grow and even create and mix new types of plants and practice herbalism and alchemy in their own houses. The seeds can be used in specific, craftable pots, or specialized “gardens”. This is a whole new system stacking up that I won’t detail here but that adds a whole new layer of complexity and depth (and FUN) to this system to make it even more satisfactory and involving.

– All the possible applications of herbalism and alchemy are designed as consumables.

—
That was rather long, phew. I didn’t expect to write so much and I even left out some aspects of the idea. The other one is about “searviceable, walking earth golems” that I was planning to describe just from the player perspective. While the herbalism was designed from the developers perspective. Even here I believe that there are so many “fun” points. Even if the idea sounds so silly.

SERVICEABLE WALKING EARTH GOLEMS (mounts)

The character is wearking a dark cloak, standing in a open area without anything special, some trees, some grass. He drops his staff on the ground and stands up again, he extends his arm forward, parallel to the ground, the palms turned toward the ground. He stays in that position for a few seconds, then he starts to quiver. He bends the head down, the body starts to radiate a brownish aura that grows in intensity. From the eyes and mouth of the character some dense vapor starts to flow, evaporating upwards. Then, quickly, two sharp rays of light burst out of the ground, piercing through the character hands. He closes the hands in fists and begins to struggle with the rays, resembling to laces, as trying to eradicate them from the ground, out of sheer strength. This process make the ground slit open, one big hand made of stone coming out of it, with the palm open. The hand ‘grabs’ the terrain, another hand comes out. The ground starts to vibrate and finally the head and body of the creature come out, then one foot, till the creature can stand up, in a cloud of dust, in front of the player, at least two times bigger than him.

After this summoning process is complete the laces of light between the hands of the player and the earth golem will vanish and the golem remains under the control of its evocator. The earth golem, as instructed, will pick up the character and put him on his shoulder, sitting. At this point the player starts to control directly the golem while his character is “comfily” sitting on that shoulder.

This is how the evocators will use earth golems to travel at a faster speed around the world :)

Back to the roots

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(first part)

Its not a problem of quests, its a problem of the fundamental game mechanics that enforce the quest-types.

For example, mobs in WoW do not eat. They do not sleep. They don’t go to a job. They don’t talk. They don’t move to a different zone. They just stand around, walk around a bit for exercise, they attack a PC if he gets too close, die, and respawn a few minutes later.

WHOA… its shocking that complex quests can’t be built around the pathetic limitations of mob behavior!

The only (current) solution given the mundane and static world of todays VSOGs is quests that are about WoW players. But the problem, again, is gameplay limitation. What do WoW players want? Items, gold, experience, socialization. WoW players actually want much more, but WoW only gives them so much.

That’s a quote from a very old post on Q23, from Brian Koontz. I wasn’t expecting to use it but I found it on a text file just a minute ago and it may fit. This will be a follow-up to my summarized analysis about quest mechanics. This time focusing on the solutions and the answers to those questions that concluded the previous article.

Here is where I left:

In the quest I brought as an example above the text seems to get in the way of the game, not part of it. Again, you are rewarded if you read it (well-written text) but it’s still felt as an intrusion. Something that doesn’t seem to belong there. An ‘extra’ text (once again) that in that case is getting a tad too much “inflated”.

Now the point is, Mythic seems to have some good writers, and then some wonderful artists. These are precious *resources* and they seem good. Isn’t there a better way to use them? Would it be possible to move the text there (without changing it) to a different context to make it more meaningful and with a more appropriate “presentation”? Is there a way to valorize that text?

I don’t mean changing the font and making it more readable. I mean transforming it in a *subject* (and value) of the game instead of just an ‘extra’ that most of the players would (and will) rather skip (the outcome is the same, your “duty” is to click till the end till you “ding” the reward. Nothing could go wrong).

The “solutions” to these problems will be the subject of another article. But I’ll anticipate that these ideas I have will be about recovering that functional purpose that made the text in those old games I quoted so relevant and… fun.

The goals here are about:
1- Transform passive, ‘extra’ text as *subject* of the gameplay and not as just an inflated backdrop that the players would rather skip so they can go back at “playing the game”

2- Recover the interest and fun in “reading”, bringing back that special flavor from the old RPGs that seems now lost for good

3- Detach the “functional” purpose of the questing from being just an artificial excuse to add some bland variation to grindy treadmills and level-up mechanics

4- Reward those players that read and ‘explore’ actively the game this way

As I always say what is important is to set the goals. Once the goals are set we can consider the possible solutions, which could work or not. What is fundamental is to have a reference that is valid. Those four points are the reference I used to come up with my ideas.

Now there not much to invent. I always considered ‘game design’ as not something where the rabid creativity is terribly useful and I also don’t feel so talented when it comes to the pure creativity. What I consider more useful is the capability to observe, understand how things work, bring them back to the essential and figure out new, better ways to use what’s available. It’s about rediscovering and adjusting. Shaping things more than inventing them out of thin air. Working and researching more than being a genius doing everything perfect at the first try.

In this case the second point defines what I want to bring back. This isn’t abstract theory, this is about concrete ideas. What’s written in the first goal may appear as fancy but it already happened in those classic RPGs, like the Ultima series, System Shock and even Bioware games, like Baldur’s Gate or Torment. These were wonderful stories where the gameplay was more about the dialogues than combat. And that ‘text’ wasn’t felt as an intrusive extra. It was the spice of the game, what made it *fun*.

So what’s the difference between those games and the quests in the current mmorpgs? To my eyes it’s rather evident. In WoW the essential part of a quest is its objective. Similarly in DAoC you click through lenghty, optional text that is there as context. While you’ll have what’s actually relevant for the gameplay in your “journal”. In both these games the quest has two, nearly autonomous parts: the context, which is optional, and the objective, which is required. Autonomous because you can easily do without the first part (and the game somewhat pushes you that way) and because the two, nearly always, have nothing to share when it comes to the gameplay.

Basically, the optional text gives a context to the quest but serves no practical purpose. In nearly all the cases you can do without it if the quest objectives aren’t poorly written.

The first two goals I wrote up there can be joined together, the same it is possible with the last two. I believe that reading in the old RPGs had a special flavor and was “fun” because it was, in fact, the *subject* of the gameplay (first goal) and not an inflated backdrop. So one goal flows naturally in the second. The point here is that in those old games you didn’t have any “aid” to streamline your gameplay. See these three examples:

– In System Shock you start basically stuck in a room. You cannot move out of it till you don’t find a log file and read it to find the key-code that will allow you to open the door. The same log file will tell you what is supposed to be your next step, but from that point onward the game loses the linearity and will become just a complex, hostile environment where you follow “bread crumbs” of informations. The first environment is that small so that you can get used to the mechanics of the game. You have to read the log files to understand your situation and place in the game. Learn the environment where you are put, collecting and putting together parts of the story till you are able to figure out the overall scheme. This game has its greatest quality in the freedom it leaves to the player. It isn’t directly linear and all the game is fragmented in those little pieces that you progressively bring together. It’s one of the most immersive games ever.

– In Ultima 8 you start on a isle and there’s basically no interface helping you. No quest journal to speak of. You are basically trapped in the first small town till you don’t figure out who to speak with and where to go next. You won’t have a waypoint on a map, you won’t see big exclamation marks hovering NPCs heads, telling you that a quest is available. You’ll have to figure out all that by yourself. By speaking with people, exploring the place, asking the right questions, progressively learning about the world around you. Two seconds in the game you’ll meed Devon, a fisherman. If you ask the right questions he will tell you a lot of the place where you are. If you ask the wrong questions those informations are lost and you’ll have to gather them from other sources. Devon will still give you two basic hints: go see what’s happening on the dock (an execution) and go speak with Bentic, a librarian that you can find in the eastern part of the town. Again you have to figure out these basic informations from the dialogues, since the game doesn’t point you artificially in those directions.

– In Ultima 7 you gate directly into Trinsic. Even here you are stuck in the town and cannot leave it till you don’t accept to investigate a crime and obtain the permission to leave. Even here you have to explore the game world, talk to the people inhabiting it, learning about their stories, figuring out their relationships and finally playing a role in how things develop. There isn’t one defined path shining brightly and when you finally solve the first “quest” and are able to leave Trinsic you aren’t rewarded with a “ding” and some experience points. Your character basically remains the same throughout the whole game at the exclusion of some story items you’ll have to acquire.

All these three examples are WONDERFUL VIRTUAL WORLDS. They still are better than anything we have online right now. There’s no other game with the same depth and immersive experience. To deliver all that these games have characters that “live” in those worlds. They aren’t functional buttons you press to get a quest or buy stuff. Are those characters to give life to the world. You start with no knowledge and you move your first steps talking to those NPCs so that you can slowly learn about the game world, slowly becoming part of it, taking an active role. But that world and those stories existed before you stepped in. You are an explorer. You wander around, find places, get to know those NPCs. Live with them.

Ding! Grats? There’s none. Noone cares about skills or stats. In the Ultima series the combat and the micromanagment of your character are close to NULL. Still they are wonderful games. Some of the best (if not the best) ever created. Still today.

It should be clear that the difference is that the text was used in those games as part of the *exploration*. It wasn’t an optional backdrop. Without going around, exploring, asking questions to the various NPCs, taking notes and learning the history and culture of that world, you wouldn’t be able to do ANYTHING in the game. There wasn’t a total focus on the combat, or kill ten foozles, or gain ‘x’ levels. It was about the world, the stories, living an immersive experience in as many aspects as possible. In Ultima 7 the NPCs had schedules and it felt already so incredible watching the guards patrolling and turning off the lights in Britain at night. It was pure atmosphere in a self-consistent virtual world.

Two are the patterns that I isolated in those old games and that we completely lost today:

– The first (first and second goal) is that the text was an active part of that research I explained. You had to figure out the objectives by yourself, dialoguing with the NPCs and progressively acquiring the informations you were looking for (this is gameplay). Engaging the logic of the game world (and your own). The dialogues were just that: dialogues. They didn’t need to be anything else.

– The second pattern is about the *function* of the quests:

In my idea (that mimics that magic that made me love so much those early games and that the modern ones have lost) a quest is a mean for the story. A quest can be a way to get access to a different zone, discover a new spell, convince an NPC to do something for you, and so on. If an NPC asks you to obtains some reagents (kill10rats) it’s because once you have accomplished that simple quest, something will happen after. And then something else. You wouldn’t chase strictly your character progress. You would chase a story and discover, step after step, a world. A world with its own depth and identity before you put your foot in it. Learning from it and not inflicting ‘punishment’ on everything that budges. If you don’t deliver those reagents that were requested, or if you don’t find an alternate way to pass that point, you wouldn’t be able to continue with the (your) story. Because the story is the *function*, not the pretext.

This means that there could be “kill10rats” quests. But they would be part of a world and a story that goes on, cohesively. And not a redundant action without a purpose.

In those old games questing was a mean for the story. Acquiring more power, if it was possible, was to move the story onward (Raph described exactly the same things on his analysis of the D&D, here). Not the opposite. The narrative was the purpose of the game, not an intrusive ‘extra’ getting in the way of mob-bashing. The purpose was the story, the world, your active role in that world. Learning it, discovering it. You were discovering something BESIDE you. Not your e-peen growing indefinitely. You cannot tell me that a growing e-peen is more satisfactory than the immersive experience of those virtual worlds. Because, if this is true, it’s YOU to be broken beyond repair, not these games.

Everything I’m writing here closely resembles to what I was shouting during Wish beta. There are two faces of the medal similar to what I said defining the dichotomies of instancing. It’s in the PvP that the world should be focused on the PLAYERS. Make them the pivot of the game. Giving them control, letting them cooperate. And then there’s the PvE, with its antithetic needs. Where the focus should be on the *world* itself. Offering stories, learning its culture, exploring it. If this world doesn’t “breath” on its own, if it doesn’t has secrets to discover, if it doesn’t frighten, well, it wouldn’t have any value. It wouldn’t offer anything worthwhile.

The PvP is about a game where the players make experience of each other and relate to each other. It’s the social layer. The players are brought together, the collective effort. Something bigger is being built. It’s the starting point for emergent content.

The PvE is about a game where the players make experience of the world and what it has to offer. Where you narrate a story to them and to that story they will belong. It’s the journey toward something you do not expect, the exploration. It’s about the surprise, the discovery, the fear. This is the roleplay where you impersonate the character and live a story with him.

I want real dialogues and “living” NPCs as it happened in the Ultima series. Where you don’t skip the quest text to get a strict summary of the objectives, but where, instead, you have to RESEARCH and EXPLORE. Talk with different NPCs, taking notes, figuring out the stories. Where you can ask about different topics and not just click, click, click and click again till you reached the end of a one-way text and finally got the quest. Where these NPCs are interconnected and where the dialogues are more rich. So that the world comes to life as something cohesive and not a bunch of quests glued together without any tie between one or the other if not a vague reference. A world where EVERY item is interconnected.

Dialogues that aren’t simply functional to get or finish a quest, or flagged clearly that way. The NPCs would tell things to you, recommend who to speak to, where to search what you are looking for, give informations about the world where you live, explain how to open that portal. But without strictly functional quests that trigger at some point. Without the game recognizing between “this is the text for a quest” and “this is extra text”. Without a “you got a quest!”. Without functional mechanics “you gained 300xp!”.

If you are trapped in a dungeon, your duty would be to escape alive. Not to get experience points because you killed the monsters. If you are working to open a portal to another world your duty would be to research and collect the items and knowledge you need to do open it, and not other unexcused rewards. If you are researching a new spell, your duty would be about studying it, learn where you can acquire it, train it. But not magically “dinging” and the spell appearing in your hotbar because you “gained a level”.

Then, maybe, reading will regain its function instead of remaining “optional” extra text without a purpose.

Concretely? Here is the plan:

BACK TO THE ROOTS, a list of “no more”

– No more advancement through quests, all the player’s skills should increase through a natural use and new skills and powers should be learned through realistic means such as: discovery, exploration, training etc… Everything happening “in” the game, meaning not directly directly spawned by a non-immersive element, like the UI itself, a “ding. grats!” or another abstract game mechanic.

– Quests or “journeys” (a “journey” is a chain of quests) to learn new spells, acquire new powers, discover other zones, find your way through the world, learn about it.

– No more logbooks or journals, no objectives, no exclamation marks hovering NPC heads, no coordinates or waypoints. No abstract mechanics such as “quest levels” to deliver content.

– Dialogues with NPCs made through branching trees and multiple choices. No more one-way text. No optional, “filler” text.

– Different NPCs all talking and offering more informations about the same quest paths. No more isolated quests and unconnected, oblivious NPCs. No NPCs standing one next to the other and knowing nothing about each other.

– No more NPCs sitting in one place and waiting to be clicked-on like cheese dispenser. Every NPC should have and follow a simple schedule. The NPCs should go sleep at their homes during the night and their existence in the world should be always “motivated”. No more just a “service” for the player or for a strictly artificial purpose. The NPCs should be there for their own life and motivations, not just for you. You are there to learn about them, discover their world, not just to use everything as your own tool. The world is the pivot, not you.

– The PvE areas and instances should have no maps (possibly with the exclusion of in-game drawings manipulable by the character). No more radars, or on-screen compass. If you have a compass or a map, it’s an item in the game, used by your character.

– More quests should have the purpose to grant access to new areas and develop the story. So questing should be mandatory to progress in PvE. All the areas and the instances should exist with the only purpose of enacting stories and immerse the player.

Problems to sort out:
– NPCs sleeping when you need them
– Replayability

Sketches for a magic system

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Quick notes from some brainstorming I did while too lazy to get up from bed. Those are the best. Not really “design” ideas, just practical implementations.

*Bring back precasting, beyotch!*

The spells will be broken in two “moments”:
– the actual casting time
– a “ready” time

During the casting time the spell is being prepared and the caster should remain still. The movement doesn’t break the casting as in other games, but it doubles the casting time and halves the ready time (this “malus” will be clearly shown graphically if active). This “ready time” represents how long the caster can keep a spell, already prepared, ready to be used. Only some of the spells can be readied. The ready times are supposed to be generally short and also available for healing spells.

The spells may have different “stages”. These work on a basic level as power ups. For example there could be a fireball with three “ranks” where each rank represents the increasing power. In order to cast the higher rank fireball, the caster will need firstly to cast the first rank, then cast the second and, finally, the third. Then the fireball will be ready at its maximum power, ready to be casted on a target (depending on the “ready time”. If not casted in time, only a small part of mana used will be returned to the caster). In some advanced magic schools (and relative specialization paths) these “ranks” can also used to “bundle” different types of spells into one (so mixing different effects). And in the most advanced version of this system (tied to the battle system) different casters will be able to work on the same magic “flow”, creating collaborative spells (“rituals”) that may affect a whole area and an army of men.

Since I’ve already explained that I want immersion and I don’t want to see the screen cluttered with buttons and multiple quickbars, the game is supposed to be playable with a joypad. So that the controls are smooth and don’t become a nightmare. I chase the simplicity and the ease of use so that the combat can be more naturally fun and lively, opposed to clunky and confused. The control scheme is definitely not satisfying enough, but this is what I decided for now:

directional keys (left and right): switch targets
directional keys (up and down): switch between enemies or friends for target selection
L1-R1: cycle spells (on a row) under the same magic school/type (for selection)
L2: switch schools (columns)
R2: macro button, it activates/deactivates a custom made row of spells
cross button: starts casting the spell, if tapped again before the casting time ends, the following “rank” is activated (the spell icon shows a “2” in a corner). This only for spells that have different “ranks” available
circle button: cancels the spell that is being casted or that was readied. It can also be used to reset a “rank” back to the previous stage
square button: releases the spell on the target. Instant spells and spells that cannot be readied, don’t need the square button to be released
triangle button: switches in/out of combat. When out of combat the other three keys will be used for other standard actions (jumping for example)

(the players are supposed to only change the order of the spells in a school, the macro button works instead as a quick custom hotbar)