Tag Archives: Game Design

Loose brainstorming session on PvP blended with PvE

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(if you cannot suffer my long posts just look the end, there’s a summary)

A discussion on EverQuest 2 PvP triggered some thoughts about impelementing a PvP model that would blend at best with a PvE game. Where one part isn’t detrimental to the other and with a goal to create a system that is fun, deep and still easily approachable for non-hardcore players.

Something that could be enjoyable for the majority of the players instead of a small niche.

The first part is about some general considerations I made, the second part is more about pulling ideas. This is just a five minutes brainstorming session, so don’t look for the details, polish or possible exploits. It’s just the scheme I would start to work on.

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Open field PvP, to work and remain fun when is paralleled with PvE just CANNOT have rewards attached to it. This is why WoW’s PvP was so much enriching before they ruined it with the honor system.

This doesn’t mean that I believe that PvP should have no rewards. But it should have PvP rewards (skills, powers or loot, it’s not so important) tied with PURPOSES, OBJECTIVES. And not the free ganking. I don’t want to reward gankers in any way.

The scheme should be like this:
– Open PvP without restriction outside the newbie areas (WoW’s distinction between “friendly” and “contested” is good, so I would retain it).
– No penalty for the victim. No xp debt, nor any other kind of penalty for who is killed. The small timesink is enough.
– No reward for the attacker. The PvP should retain a roleplay value. Meaning that the “free ganking” shouldn’t be punished nor rewarded. Attacking another character should be remain asn open choice and the game shouldn’t artificially push a decision on you.
– Special PvP goals (towns, towers, hot spots that the players can battle over) in BOTH dedicated areas and normal PvE areas.
– Points awarded EXCLUSIVELY by conquering and holding these “hotspots” and not for the direct kills.

This is the perfect model for a game where PvE and PvP have to coexist.

The PvP goals/hotspots would attract most of the PvP action, still blending uniformly with the non-instanced game world. This would bring to life the environment and the various zones, while still remaining accessible and fun for the new players.

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The next step is to figure out some ideas (and override some of those above) to give more consistency to the system. Adding a meaningful PvP scheme to an open PvE world isn’t easy for a number of reasons.

These ideas are based on games build with the same structure of WoW or EQ2. So there are two factions and they share a single PvE world where the players engage mostly in PvE activities. As I write in the first point above, I like the separation between “friendly” and “contested” zones, so this idea will be carried over.

The first point to figure out is about two aspects of the same problem. The first is that in a PvE world with an high number of zones you have to find ways to consolidate the PvP action only in a small number of “hotspots”, or the action would be too spreaded out and it would be too hard to find some quick PvP action without sitting in one place and hoping someone to pass through. This is the first goal.

The second problem is about the reward. If we don’t award points for a direct kill, but only for conquering a PvP objective, the risk is that the two factions will avoid each other to farm points passively. My original idea was in fact to add hotspots that could be conquered and then “held”. Pretty much as it happens in Arathi Basin (WoW) you gain points over time till you have that hotspot capped. As you can imagine this idea is already broken because the players in a huge world like the one in EQ2 or WoW, would just go to cap undefended hotspots to farm points while sitting idle. This is obviously not fun, nor an incentive for PvP (which assumes the players whacking each other, and not sitting). So this idea needs to be discarded.

At the same time, though, I still want to reward the players for PvP goals and objectives and not for the pure ganking. So I need a way to:
1- Have the whole game world enabled for PvP but still focusing the PvP action only in a few spots at any given time.
2- Reward the players for accomplishing objectives instead of ganking.
3- Reward the players for active battles and fights instead of encouraging the players to avoid each other to farm point passively.

To begin with, each “contested” zone can be actively conquered by one of the two player factions. The ownerships could influence an overall layer (like granting bonuses like DAoC’s relic system) but wouldn’t affect the PvP rules in that zones. So if a contested zone remains neural or is “capped” by the good or the evil faction, the rules don’t change and everyone can still initiate attacks at will.

The first design goal is that, at any given time, the majority of the contested zones should remain neutral (first point listed) and only 3-5 zones should instead be “flaming”, meaning that a battle is taking place in that zone (also flagged so in the map, so that the players can quickly see if where a battle is taking place). The consequence of this is that in all the contested zones that remain neutral (again the majority) the PvP is open but yelds no reward. This means that ganking in those zones is possible but it remains an open choice that the game doesn’t promote in any way. So the players are supposed to go questing with relative ease as it happened in WoW before the introduction of the Honor System.

The next step is to push the game in this direction. So how to prevent the players to go conquer all the map at the same time? Initially I was thinking about having NPCs defending these hotspots, making the players work hard to conquer one, but then I got a much simpler idea that can totally eliminate the need of NPCs.

PvP Hotspots

Each contested zone should have one and only one “hotspot”. These hotspots can vary depending on the zone. They can be a tower, a small camp, a village, a huge town, a fort and so on. They basically consist in an empty structure that should grant the defenders a tactical advantage and a flag to cap as in WoW’s battlegrounds. In WoW the zones usually have one village/camp for the Alliance and another for the Horde. In my idea these wouldn’t be affected by the PvP system. The “hotspots” are a completely different point on the map so that the battles won’t focus on those villages, disrupting the gameplay for those who only want to PvE and need access to the NPCs.

Each “hotspot” could have different “requirements”. For example you would need at least 10 players if you are going to “cap” a small outpost, while you would need more if you are going to “cap” a bigger hotspot. This would differentiate the PvP zones, so that some zones would be appropriate for smaller battles, while other adjusted for bigger ones. The requirement is simply based on the number of players in the proximity of the hotspots. So if you don’t have enough players with you, you just wouldn’t able to cap the hotspot. It’s a very simple mechanic.

If the requirements are met, the hotspot will begin to shine even at a long distance and a warning broadcasted to the whole zone. This means that the opposite faction will know that an hotspot is being capped. There’s also a timer before the players will be successfully conquer the hotspot and put *their guild flag* on it. Once the hotspot is conquered, it will start to reward PvP points over time to ALL the players within a radius from the hotspot. The more the time passes, the more points will be awarded and the “bounty” on that hotspot will rise.

In order to prevent the players to passively farm points, these rewards over time are still supposed to be minimal and not an optimized way to achieve a good amount of PvP points. So what’s the optimal pattern?

Hotspot radiuses

The idea is that, once an hotspot is capped, the PvP rules on that zone will be affected. It means that all the kills in the proximity of a capped hotspot will start to be worth PvP points. This radius is supposed to cover at least 2/3 of the whole zone. The more you are closer to the hotspot, the more points your kills are worth. This means that the players will be encouraged to focus their PvP activity as close as possible to the hotspot, creating again a “meeting point” and without disrupting the gameplay of those who don’t want to get involved (who also have the possibility to move to another zone where there isn’t an active PvP battle going on, see [1] above).

As there are requirements to cap an hotspot, there are requirements to hold it. For example, if the hotspot needs at least 15 players to be capped, it would require at least five players to remain there defending. If less than five players remain there the hotspot would return neutral on its own and ready to be capped again by another group.

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That’s pretty much the whole idea. I’m not sure I explained it clearly but it is rather simple and intuitive. I believe it would be fun and not even too hard to implement in a game structured like WoW or EQ2.

In short:

– The contested zones have one conquerable “hotspot” each. The players can organize and go cap one, putting their guild flag on it. The hotspots don’t have any NPCs defending them, just players. Once capped all the kills taking place in the proximity of the hotspot will start to be worth points. Enocuraging the PvP action to move away from the PvE hubs (villages, towns, camp spots), so without disrupting the gameplay of those who don’t want to bother.

This coordinated with what I wrote above. So no xp penalties, no looting, no incentives for the free kills whatsoever and completely open PvP in all the contested zones.

Tell me how this wouldn’t be so much more fun, involving and still accessible compared to all the other PvP implementation we’ve seen till today. Tell me why it wouldn’t work plugged in directly into WoW or EQ2, And tell me why it wouldn’t be better than their official rulesets built by experienced dev teams.

Tell me why.

EverQuest 2: Doubts about the upcoming PvP system

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I’m trying to like it but I really cannot digest it all that much.

EverQuest 2 progressively released more and more details about its upcoming (with the expansion) PvP ruleset and it seems to have met the consensus of the majority of the players. Not mine, though.

The full explanations can be found here (nothing new. This is at least one week old).

There are some design choices that I don’t see as interesting nor fun and I believe will turn into experiments gone wrong, in the same way pretty much everything they tried that wasn’t directly derived from WoW (see my “Patterns of EverQuest2” that were at the origin of the lenghty articles below).

Between the sympathizers there’s also Cosmik. So I’ll back up some of his comments at times.

The first note that I have to make, though, is that for the most part this PvP system is a carbon-copy of the (terrible) one used in WoW. Now we’ll have to see if the history repeats and if those few things that EQ2 is trying to do differently will reveal to be so bad that everything will be ultimately patched back to a proper WoW clone in all the tiniest details. The King of Game Design that SOE secretly seems to worship.

The guidelines are the same as WoW, as I already “ranted” about. There are two factions, one is evil, the other good, both share the same classes, there’s a distinction between honorable and dishonorable kills and if you farm enough points you can build up faction and have access to fat loot. Now let’s delve more into the details.

Communication and Interaction

All the first part explains how the comminication between the two factions is regulated. And it goes really in the detail explaining everything you CAN’T do. Even if it would have been so much simpler to explain what you CAN do. Which is: you are free to whack those in the other faction and use emotes. That’s all.

On this level the whole system is clearly copied from WoW till the minimum detail. There isn’t even a minimal difference whatsoever. Let’s hope that at least they didn’t copy even the exploits (like leet speak) that were only patched later in WoW. Maybe they went in lazy mode and just blocked directly the messages instead of adding filters, who knows. I also wonder if they’ll go with DAoC model and use only generic overhead names or they’ll go with WoW’s model and still display the full name on the enemy characters. Oh yes. Rhetorical question, I guess :)

There’s one trait I find extremely interesting, though. But I’ll come on this later. (see the P.S. at the end)

Combat Mechanics

The next part explains how the combat will behave differently from PvE to PvP. They have basically set them as two separate systems where one spell can be adjusted in PvP without affecting PvE, so making the balancing process less problematic and less prone to screw ups.

From the development side this is a solid practice and one that other games have already used in a way or another. It is good that EQ2 was planned from the ground up with this mindset, so I have nothing to criticize.

Instead from the player’s side this could be problematic. I’m wondering how they’ll keep the UI clean and still show how the skills and spells behave in the two different situations. I also believe that the variance will make the game feel less consistent and understandable. Which would require probably too much research to understand all the quirks and use your character at best. So it’s good from a game-y point of view, but less in an attempt to create a world with its own rules and consistency. I can understand the choice, though.

And now we arrive at the problems: Taunts and Hate Reduction.

Cosmik is glad, along with many other players positively surprised, to finally see aggro managment skills finally working in PvP. Yes, they’ll add more tactics into the fight but I really believe this is a bad decision that will make the combat terribly unfun.

The experience in DAoC already taught (to noone, since no game actually addressed this problem) how gameplay-disrupting skills make the combat frustrating. The frustration comes directly from the loss of control. A combat system (no matter if it’s twitch or turn-based) is fun the more you have an active control on it. If you can take decisions and affect how things are going. By definition an attack must imply a defence. Losing control of your character without any possibility to do anything else than stare at the screen feels like being kick-slapped around a room without the possibility to react. It zones you out. It feels passive.

I already examinated at depth (from my point of view) these mechanics and I believe that this sort of frustration is valuable in the game only if it can also find an “exit point”. A “vent valve”. But instead in these combat mechanics the “loss of control” is not a pattern of counterattack. It is instead a pattern of death. When you are losing control you are also going to die.

All these comments come from my direct experience and I know what frustrates me in a PvP combat and I perceive as “unfun”. What I hate the most in WoW’s combat mechanics, for example, is that I pass the majority of the time trying to fight against the controls and gameplay-disrupting situations. I’m constantly feared, Mind Controlled, slowed down or chain-stunned. These interruptions disrupt the gameplay. While I hate being feared, the most frustrating thing is that you also lose your target. Here you are fighting with the interface, which is the most annoying thing in a game: having to re-issue the same commands repeatedly.

This continue loss of control is not fun. It gets in the way of playing the game. So why creating two separate systems for PvP and PvE if this possibility isn’t used to support the fun in the game? Again it’s not a case that the most fun mechanics are those reactive (see again Mount and Blade) instead of those gameplay-disruptive. So I don’t see the innovative implementation of taunts and aggro management in PvP as something that will contribute in a positive way.

The same I could say for the “Control Spells”. This isn’t a new problem for the genre and I already explained what I think about it and how I’d try to solve it (same link as above). EQ2’s model isn’t anything new, regulated through immunity timers (as DAoC). In this case probably a better choice than the one used in WoW (through diminished returns). While the latter is more consistent, it is also less fun for the reasons listed above.

So I do not like how EQ2 is going to address this problem, but it’s also in line with what all the other games are doing.

About the behaviour of stealth I won’t comment much because it depends a lot on the implemention than general design. I just hope that they copy WoW, in this case, and not DAoC. Hiding the overhead names while stealthed. That’s pretty much all I ask. It would be also interesting to have a variable visibilty based on range or skill/level check instead of just a visible/invisible boolean status. Another detail that I find important is that WoW uses sounds to help you detect hidden targets (both friendly or not). That’s another very good idea.

Death System

This is crucial in every PvP implementation and the one that made WoW’s PvP so popular and successful. Here I agree with Cosmik. This choice to add an exp debt on a PvP death is plain bad. I just don’t see any good coming out of this. There is no advantage whatsoever and on top of this there’s even the incentive to grief by attacking a player when he is engaged in combat to make him suffer the full exp debt (and loss of money).

I also agree with Cosmik on the doubts on the honorable/dishonorable system. It is something that never worked in WoW. I don’t even think it’s possible to make it work without adding a further layer of complexity that wouldn’t add anything worthwhile to the game. Here the solution is rather simple and the one WoW implemented before kicking everything to hell whith the launch of the honor system. More feedback on this here.

Here SOE is trying to outsmart Blizzard by implementing a system that faied in WoW and was discared among the complaints of the players pointing at the page of the manual where it was described. I think this new solution will be also short-legged since it doesn’t really address the *origin* of the problem. No useful solution can be found if this part is examined superficially as it currently is.

Forcing the players to check the exact percents of health on a target before attacking to avoid to incur in a penalty is bad. Very, very bad. Broken design on multiple levels (even if the actual threshold to matter is the one at 20% with the latest revised mechanics). I also do not understand the “Kill List” used to address the problem of repeated kills. This is another system that failed in WoW and an occasion for EQ2 to do better, but its solution convinces me even less. This is another core mechanic of every PvP implementation. My suggested solutions and further thoughts are here (adding “bounty points” and incentives to survive instead of penalties).

There’s also a possibility that you drop some junk in a PvP death. I don’t think this idea will add anything worthwhile. Fluff. Instead dropping gold will be annoying and adds to the death penalty. Again a bad move.

I note that at the higher levels there isn’t any penalty or discouragement for ganking. This while the victim will still receive the exp debt and drop gold that will be looted by the happy ganker. The ganker is allowed to farm lower level players and loot their gold without any penalty.

At the lower levels, instead, ganking will be forbidden, since you won’t be able to initiate the combat with a character 8 levels below you. Cosmik commented about this and I agree with him. This pretty much erases all the qualities of an open PvP system. WoW outsmarted pretty much everyone on this aspect with the idea of “friendly” and “contested” zones. It wins hands down and the evidence of this will show.

All these points stacks up to form a death system that doesn’t look nowhere fun nor solid or even accessible. While encouraging the griefing and cheap ganking mechanics. Pretty much the opposite of the results it should try to achieve.

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No mentions about the PvP rewards and factional gains, so it’s hard to figure out the impact of this system. I only know that doing worse than WoW is pretty much impossible in this case (yeah, Honor System).

So, I expected to write a few terse notes and instead I got this. I have many gripes about the death system and the combat mechanics and I expect that this PvP ruleset won’t be popular. I wouldn’t be surprised if SOE pushes this back in the list of priorities after it is launched.

Pretty much the same destiny of EverQuest 1.

P.S.
At one point I wrote that there was an interesting trait but then I forgot to write about it. I don’t know if I’m correct but there’s a part where they hint there aren’t just two alignments possible, but three (good, evil, betraying). They don’t explain this part but it may have lots of potential. One of my ideas on the “dream mmorpg” (also tied to the “permeable barriers” concept) was about letting the players betray the original two hardcoded factions to create new ones, with the possibility also to switch from good to evil and vice versa. I’m curious to see what will happen in EQ2 from this perspective.

The iceberg

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What if everything we believed till today was false?

Any good solo class attracts tons of players in any game.

There are a few interesting discussions on the forums and even on TerraNova questioning the role of other players in a mmorpg.

The theme is rather complex and wide and I don’t want to try to analyze it now. But I believe there are some “emergent” traits in the discussion that I tried to bring up as well along these last weeks in EVERYTHING I wrote. From the navel-gazing theories during the Christmas (after Raph’s posts) to the concrete proposals that I added as the natural consequence of those reasonings. I believe it’s also something that every player can feel directly when playing a game.

I always considered one article Lum wrote (or the more recent version) as one basic principle and core value of this genre (and reused it many times) and here I’m not negating it, but I still consider these “doubts” as something that has some value. If understood correctly. In fact my worry about the discussion on TerraNova and on the other forums (where the discussion is continuously chunked and derailed, making it hard to delve) is that those “symtoms” aren’t interpreted correctly. Because that’s the whole point.

Personally I went through a transition and many of my ideas changed in the last year, in a concrete way. But at the same time the basic principles I had are still there, they are only seen in perspective.

This is why I don’t feel surprised if TerraNova reveals that the majority of the players spend the majority of their time playing alone or that “The average guild member collaborates (in quests, etc.) with only 11% of his/her guildmates for more than 10 minutes over the same month”, nor I believe that WoW is showing “exceptional” (meaning “unusual” here) trends. This is instead something I recognize and I believe is widespread, probably even beyond the conclusions on that site. In fact I believe that those conclusions are completely wrong.

Different games show different trends? Are you sure? Take a game like Eve-Online. It’s the exact opposite of WoW and its social fabric and corporations/guilds structure is what makes it truly unique. We could safely postulate that this game would show completely different trends overall, especially about the behavious in the guilds. But are we absolutely sure, again? I’m not. I believe that, from the perspective of this discussion and the conclusions and traits I consider relevant, they would be identic. In fact I believe that both would mirror a graph I already used. Yes, the association between hardcore/casuals and collaborative/solo is deliberate.

The “emergent” level of these games mirrors exactly the model of the “iceberg”. The part visible above the water is only a minimal part of the whole. There’s a HUGE, yet hidden, mass that we systematically forget and remove of any relevancy. We make assumptions on a superficial level that surely makes sense and is valid (like Lum’s article) but it isn’t so absolute and univocal as we assume.

In “game design” this blindness would be a Total Disaster (actually this is false (*), but I don’t want to make things too complicated). If we must strive to design “better” games, also in the commercial sense, we cannot just aim at the visible part of the iceberg. This is foul, inadmissible. It’s “Brad McQuaid”.

All these consideration, if we have some “intellectual honesty”, seem to contradict the theory that the value of these games is in the “community”. The community seems instead a backdrop at best. Just the fluff at the end of the journey to try to retain the subscriptions even when the game is clearly “over”. That “endgame” that, incidentally, most players (me included) seem to criticize.

So how we put all these pieces together? Is there a connection? Yes, I believe there is, I also believe that all these “revelations” aren’t contradictory with the basic principles they seem to negate (Lum again). That’s the interpretation that I find lacking on TerraNova or on the forums where this discussion is partially tackled. I believe that all these pieces go together and I don’t think the overall scheme is extremely complicated.

The answer is simple: we are at the beginning. They keywords are those that I keep reusing. Accessibility and permeable barriers. The new mass-market or new mmorpg players are starting a journey. Till today the accessibility barriers were immense and this type of audience was simply precluded. A mmorpg was “catass by definition”. We didn’t have “casual players” or, in this context, “audacious explorers”, because the design didn’t have any place for them. All these things are changing now and this genre is slowly learning from its mistakes. It is opening up in new directions, in particular thanks to WoW and all the work it did toward the accessibility.

So I don’t find surprising that the large majority of the players are still “learning the ropes”. Nor I’m surprised if even WoW still exhibits PLENTY of accessibility barriers despite all the work it did in that direction. Again, we are only at the beginning. We have only seen some timid attempts (and, still, they paid back hugely already).

I believe, coherently with all I wrote in the past, that the hidden part of the iceberg is what matters. But not in the sense that we have to consider it, yet trying to dissimulate this interest. I believe instead that we should work to make that side EMERGE. So not trying to simply “second” it. But understanding its needs and behaviours. Giving it legitimacy and revolutioning the design if the conclusions are asking that.

This is why in my practical ideas I recently focused on the “permeable barriers” (between the servers, the classes, the alignment and the play-styles) and why I used my tripartite design scheme as a “gateway”, where the players are encouraged to discover all the parts that the game has to offer in a natural, progressive way (I also wrote about this more specifically here). Without impositions or mandatory requirements. Without the design strongarming a specialization. And even without the players PRETENDING from the game what they learnt to expect from every other mmorpg they played.

Again all these ideas are only a few possible solutions that I imagined and that I consider valuable. There are surely more and better ones. What is important is about acknowledging all these core points and arrive at the correct conclusions. Those conclusions that I criticize, since I seem to have a point of view that doesn’t seem welcomed.

(*) False why: because, at a basic level, a designer doesn’t need to be omniscient to create a good game.

EverQuest 2 – The Longest Journey (Part 2)

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In the part 1 I traced a pattern that from my point of view summarizes “all things EQ2”. I believe it portrays perfectly the WHOLE situation, not just the small example I used.

Noone negates that EQ2 team is doing a whole lot for the game. They are trying HARD to do a good work and they surely did a whole lot more than Blizzard in the last year, there is no comparison. They also achieved a lot and this is apparent if you read the comments of the players. No other game that went through as many significant changes received the same amount of overall positive feedback. Today, without a doubt, EverQuest 2 is a better game.

But I still find curious how this game had to “jog” all over the place to arrive at the same conclusions of WoW (and reuse its concepts). For a whole year EQ2 kept running restlessly just to arrive near to the same spot where WoW was sitting already from a long time. WoW didn’t need to budge at all. As static as it is it didn’t need to go through all that work and experimentation because “it got things right” already from the very beginning.

It is so similar to the story of the ant and the grasshopper. WoW is the result of a long and focused work along five, if not more, years. It probably “consumed” Blizzard more than every other game. This while SOE preferred to not focus on anything and start a bunch of different projects, all lacking a solid direction. They pretended too much and felt untouchable. They cared more for the marketing value of the development than the actual passion about building something valuable. When the two games were released the difference was obvious and Blizzard was and still is rewarded. They did a so much better work and the result of that focus paid them back largely.

During this year the situation pretty much reverted. Blizzard continued with its trend. Starting to farm what they sowed, but definitely failing at creating new developments and ideas. They just reiterated more of the same to the point of even putting a strain on it. Most of the partially new ideas, imho, failed. From the PvE endgame raids, to the faction points farming, to the most horrid PvP system ever created. But the game was already so solid that it didn’t need anything else to impose itself on the market and trigger a recursive, growing (and now even self-feeding) success.

In the meantime EQ2 became a better game, it didn’t just crumble to pieces as I was expecting but instead it resisted and changed completely attitude. That work is now paying them back, I believe, but at the same time they still suffer and probably will continue to suffer some core differences.

The design in WoW is extremely polished. Here “polished” means simplified. Compared to EQ2 design which is instead more cluttered. The UI is a perfect example of this, but the same happens for every other element of the game, from the general design to the technical aspects and even the graphic. EQ2 feels a lot less consistent and polished. It is more a mess. Sometimes this mess is even mistaken for a “richness”. While WoW’s polish, sleekness and simplification is mistaken for absence of value.

The truth is that WoW has still a considerable advantage over its competitor(s) and it probably will retain it without much effort for the next few years.

This doesn’t mean that EQ2 cannot continue on its journey. If it was already viable, it will remain so now that it is a better game and seems to winback more and more players. Far from being a commercial success but it is surely the one in the better condition between those in SOE’s portfolio, as I already commented. We can even argue whether they should focus completely on it or not (I think yes, by the way. And from many years).

So WoW is already the perfect mmorpg that has found the best recipe for a game? It is truly the “one mmorpg to rule them all”?

Of course no, I do not think that WoW achieved the best design possible as I concluded at the end of the first part of this article. There are many parts of WoW design that could be improved and so many possibilities that WoW didn’t even care to explore.

The point is that I do not see EQ2 taking advantage of those possibilities either. Or even try to move past the boundaries traced by WoW. In fact, as written in the first part, EQ2 often stops right in the same place of WoW. It seems its natural, unavoidable destination. Without trying to move past it or find new directions. I have this image of EQ2 like someone driving a car and trying to surpass the other car next to it. It is so absolutely focused on what the rival is doing that his eyes are locked on the other car. To the point that it doesn’t look anymore forward and risks to crash right into a wall. EQ2 seems so completely focused on WoW that it seems to be blind at the possibilities that could be opened.

Its upcoming PvP system is a carbon-copy of the one used in WoW (l’ll come to the PvP but I hope to write just some terse comments about one particular aspect). The class system, as explained, is now as close as possible to the one used in WoW. The two games seem to progressively converge instead of defining their own unique space and quality. They are so completely focused on a tiny dot that noone sees how big is the space of the possibilities. Every element of the game seems to mimic this trend.

As an example I commented a thread on FoH’s forums that describes some changes about the aggro system. It was changed to be closer to WoW, once again. With the result that there are now “design leftovers” from the old system that make grey mobs aggro despite their color code would state the opposite. It’s like trying to mark a difference where there is none. The old system used was simply “bad design” to the point that it was largely exploited (low level players grouping with high level ones to get a “free pass” and avoid completely the aggro code – defined “passporting”), and the new one is close to the one used in WoW, yet different. Where that difference is now a design inconsistency then generates other problems.

But are we truly limited to JUST ONE pattern (and, incidentally, the one that WoW used for a long time)? Of course not!

There are so many possibilities for an “aggro mechanic”. In my comment on that thread I suggested to make the “grey con” mobs to run away from high level characters. I think it would be cool. Already innovative enough to define a small quality. But you can use this as an example for a whole new approach: try to make the aggro mechanics more and more realistic, varied and entertaining (and not strictly game-y).

For example we could mix both WoW and EQ2 mechanics. In WoW the aggro system consists in a variable range depending on the difference in levels. Mobs with a level higher than yours will aggro from further away, while mobs below your level will have a very small aggro radius. In EQ there’s no dynamic radius (maybe it’s based on the type of mob, but not factoring the levels) but the aggro varies depending solely on your level. So that grey con mobs won’t aggro even if you sit right on top of them.

Mixing them would be adding value and depth to the system. To begin with we could create a base system where every creature type is linked to a small group of “behavioral general patterns”. For example some creatures will never start an attack, or always run away from threat. We could implement different reactions depending on specific environments, light sources or night and day cycles. Where the predators could “aggro” and try to ambush the players during the night, or try to stay away if the player has a light source or is walking around in a group instead of alone. Some creatures could attack no matter of the conditions, because they are too stupid to figure a menace and so on. Already on this level the possibilities are endless and the gameplay more varied. It just depends on how much you want to “push the boundaries”.

On a simpler level you could start with a small number of basic groups defining the “type” of creature. One for those aggressive, one for those neutral, one for those friendly, for example. Then adding a simple level check that goes to match within the group that particular pattern that is appropriate for the situation. For example walking between creatures that should be aggressive but that are much below your level could make them run away from you, scared. Not just always aggroing, or ignoring you, or having just small or bigger aggro radiuses. Mixing instead these in more varied and realistic behaviours. A “green con”, but neutral, mob could try to ignore or avoid you but still bite you *once* and run away if you trigger an “annoy check” (for example by standing too close for an amount of time). While an aggressive mob could show a defensive behaviour only when the difference in levels is wider.

A system like this can be then even extended to the combat encounters themselves. Think for example to a pack of wolves that during the night starts to move closer to you and then circling you, with one or two wolves running in from opposite directions, biting and running back. Effectively “kiting” the player. This is what’s “cool”. The possibilities are ENDLESS. You can design a very simple and stylized method that just repeats a few rules (the basic groups types + the level check mechanic to pick the specific pattern) or go in depth and add as much “substance” as you want. It’s easily scalable to the complexity you desire to achieve.

All these ideas would make these mobs much more like “animals” or creatures, instead of just “bags of experience”. It’s a direction that I would love to see explored and that could mark a rather strong difference from WoW.

Yet it’s completely absurd. Impossible. Dave Rickey and Raph Koster love to talk about AI, but here we are BILLION years away from that. It would be already *unbelievable* to see these mobs follow some very simple, yet entertaining, behavioral patterns. But it’s already science fiction.

This was just an example to explain how these games offer so many possibilities if you only open a little your eyes to embrace what the genre truly offers, instead of just remaining trapped in the exact same model and rinse and repeat it endlessly without any enthusiasm.

In fact that’s what I believe the industry misses: the enthusiasm. The desire to discover new things. The sense of wonder. Feeling like a kid to discover the world a second time.

But aren’t games exactly this?

EverQuest 2 – The Longest Journey (Part 1)

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A few days ago the last, massive patch went live with some significant changes, in particular about the newbie experience. The classes don’t branch up as you level your character, but you can choose your specialization right away, trying to make each character more unique already from the start, while still fitting it in its archetypical role.

This change doesn’t seem too bad, in particular if coupled with a new character progression system that will be added to the game later this month, with the launch of the second expansion. Taken from an interview with the ubiquitous Scott “Gallenite” Hartsman:

GamerGod:
Can you give more detail on the new Achievement system? Will this be like the AA’s from EQLive?

Scott Hartsman:
Achievements are abilities that you earn, ideally during the course of normal gameplay – things you’re already doing. You’re not diverting from primary advancement in order to invest in Achievement.

Achievements really can’t be directly compared to Alternate Advancement from EQLive. Earning them, spending them, changing them, and the way they let people specialize their characters are all handled differently.

As you’re accomplishing things in the world you’re also earning Achievement Points. Doing particularly adventurous things for the first time (such as defeating specific foes or doing a certain quest) can gain you bonus Achievement Points as well.

Achievement Points can be spent in a tree of abilities that’s based on your class. Most abilities have multiple ranks. Some people might choose to specialize by spending their points to ensure they have all ranks of a small number of abilities. Other people may choose to spend their points more broadly to gain some amount of proficiency in as many as they can.

This system isn’t about providing a never-ending path of growth – there are a set number of Achievement points that any given character can have. If you don’t like what you’ve chosen or want to try something new, you can re-specialize your character to try out a different path entirely.

This system is about doing heroic, adventurous things in the world, taking your character’s knowledge from having done them, and investing it in further enhancing your character in ways that you choose.

This is one idea I really like and one I examined during some freeform brainstorming sessions. It’s like a linear, evolutionary path.

We start with the original mmorpgs where questing was a only side activity. The main source of experience and character progression was killing repeatedly the same monsters in a zone. This is the repetitive pattern that brought to all the critics about treadmills and grinds. The quests had a purpose in the advancement but they didn’t integrate well, or tried to replace, the camping. The second step is with World of Warcraft. It streamlined the whole questing system by making it the primary focus of the character progression. Making it more efficient and worthwhile than just camping a spot. This type of questing added variation in the game, directing the players around the zones, moving between the sub-areas, each with its own mood and story. The quests become “segments” that the players reorder to create their own “stories”. The repetition is hidden or dissimulated because the attention is focused on smaller, frequent goals that break up the monotony of longer and longer levels. After WoW we have another attempt with DDO (Turbine). Camping mobs is not anymore an option. This mechanic is completely removed and replaced by a mission system that rewards the player only on its completion. The repetition is (supposedly) removed since the experience (and so the progression) is driven directly by “content”. Till there is “stuff to do” the character can progress. This step was partially flawed in the implementation but was still an attempt to find new patterns to mitigate the boredom, giving the developers a more direct control on the “flow”. Then we have the last step that is also described in the quote above.

I went with this superficial excursus because it’s how I arrived to this idea myself. The purpose was to detach the progression completely from the quest system (or mission system) so that it could have been more powerful. You could award points not only for completing quests, but for every type of activity offered in the game. So removing the strict dependence (you complete the quest and gain one point) to create a system that covers a wider range of possibilities. You could gain points for the first time you kill a particular mob type (and only the first time), for killing a named mob, for completing selected quests, discover hidden areas in the map, discovering new resources, create crafting recipes, achieve PvP goals and so on. A system not tied to a particular sub-set of the game, but embracing the whole experience in all its parts, following the character from the beginning to end and encouraging the players to explore all the game has to offer. A diversification of activities.

This was a positive goal because I wanted to fight the tendence in other games to encourage (or enforce) the specialization. In SWG, for example, you were encouraged to specialize on a combat role or on a “roleplay” role (like the politician or the entertainers) or on the crafting. Something similar is happening in WoW, where they are trying hard to force the players to specialize on either PvP or PvE. The designers try to “force” the players into player-types. This is a trend that I always tried to fight. I never believed on the “player-types” and I always fought against games designed around this concept. I believe it’s detrimental and it doesn’t help the fun.

When I play a game I never feel the desire to specialize into one activity only and I dislike the games designed to force me in that direction. Instead I like to experiment and explore what the game has to offer in all its possibilities. I think that this approach makes the game more rich and helps to push back the boredom that comes as the consequence of repetition. It feels more like a virtual world where you can access different possibilities, making the game more complete and varied. This is why I always criticized SWG specialized gameplay. What the game has to offer should be linked by “AND” operators, instead of “OR” operators. Letting the players specialize into HOW they tackle an activity, but NOT by forcing them to choose only one.

All these ideas bring back to the progression system defined above. Since the game should encourage the diversity of the gameplay, there was the need to design a progression system that could be used in all these cases, uniformly. Hence the idea to detach the “experience points” from the quest system to create something more malleable where you could flag every kind of activity. Each new type of interaction added in the game should be implemented with an “hook” that you could use for the flag system so that the game was designed from the ground up with that idea in mind.

This is pretty much what suggests the idea of “Achievements” described in the quote, even if it misses my design reasonings and purposes. It’s not used to encourage the players to discover the qualities of “sandbox” game (that is founded on a variation of activities instead of a focus on combat), but instead to complement what EQ2 is.

Despite my ideas and goals diverge from those of this game, I still think this is a truly solid mechanic even for EQ2. With the removal of the branching classes system there was the need to add some specialization to the characters. In DAoC we have points to spend on specialization lines (directly as “skills”), in WoW we have the talent system that “bends” a class toward a more specialized role, by adding incentives and perks. In EQ2 (if I’m not wrong) this design role was implemented through the branching classes. You started the game with one of the basic archetypes (useful as an accessible learning mechanic for the new players and to keep the game balanced) and then progressively specialized your character by selecting sub-classes as you levelled up.

All these systems are never unambiguously good or wrong. The old system used by EQ2 achieved those goals but felt too generic for the first twenty levels or so. The new decision to remove the branching and let the players select their class right as they start the game solves the generic feeling, but probably reintroduces the other two problems: accessibility and balance. Actually the first is a special case because the original design didn’t achieve the intended goal and the new system was designed to reiterate on that problem. In fact what was intended to be an aid for the players in the old system (letting them choose just a general archetype so that they could make the more meaningful choices later on) revealed to be a problem (it was hard for the players to pick up an archetype so that they could “land” on a specific sub-class they liked later on. It was just too hard to figure out how a class would play in the longer term). So still forcing the “blind decision” that they were supposed to counter.

Now if you follow this line of thoughts and if my assumptions are correct you’ll probably arrive at my same conclusions. Imho this just BEGS to be transformed into a completely different system. It’s the same concept of “permeable barriers” that I repeated many times in the last months. It’s the natural, spontaneous drift of this type of system. The next step: the characters should just not be locked into a class. They shouldn’t be locked at level 1 as they shouldn’t be at level 70. This is how you directly remove the “blind decision” both at character creation and later on. Letting the player experiment, similarly to what already happens in FFXI or SWG (old style). The classes should become “permeable barriers” that, while defining a role, still allow the players to go back on that choice and experiment something else, retaining the character’s identity and social ties they already build, if they wish.

EQ2 didn’t arrive at this point and still sticks to the standard commonplaces of a class-based game. With the removal of the branching classes the game loses its specialization system and I believe that the new “Achievements” system to be introduced with the expansion was built with the purpose to fill that precise role. It should mirror more or less what the talent system represents in WoW. This is why I said that it complements the design of the game. It goes to fill that particular function that was lost with the recent changes. It re-adds the customization to the classes without creating the same design inconsistences of the AA points in EQ1 (nor trying to achieve the same goals since it’s not a “never-ending path of growth”):

GamerGod:
How extensive are Achievements going to be? Are they designed to cater to the power gamers that are wanting more, and are they trying to keep the game gear towards the casual player? The adding of AA points may make balancing the mobs so high that you have to have so many AA’s to be the right “level,” making the game geared more to power gamers.

Scott Hartsman:
You’re exactly right. That’s why we don’t think of Achievement as a system in the same way as EQ’s Alternate Advancement. They’re a fun new dimension for everyone’s character development, not the sole domain of the power gamer.

If we made a system that caused characters to grow infinitely, without changing their level, and characters advanced down it by spending time that was an addition to the time they had already spent leveling up, we’d end up in a situation where we had to make content for any given level progressively harder, until having tons of Achievements became a requirement of basic gameplay. Over time, the game would get progressively less approachable, which isn’t the direction we’re choosing to take EverQuest II.

This further confirms that the functional role of this system is identic to the talent system in WoW. The only element to differ is about how these specialization points are awarded. In WoW they are a byproduct of the levelling system (you gain one point for each level above the tenth), while EQ2 they’ll be linked to a flagging system that may be tied to specific quests or specific mobs, as explained above. Since the focus of the game is on the “killing” it makes sense to grant points in those cases.

I don’t criticize EQ2’s design. In fact I still find this idea solid and fitting the purpose and functional role.

I just find fun that, after this long journey and experimentation, they could only arrive at the conclusion that the system used by WoW is actually the best one ;)

Which leads me to the “Part 2” (that I’ll try to write later)

Stirring waters

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So I was going to comment Tigole’s “defence” on the forums and why I think it’s just PR fluff. But Lum chimed in. And when it happens things go in another direction and change perspective.

The point is that this time I completely disagree because he goes just with the demagoguery to explain that “what people want” is stupid. Okay, we already knew that.

Demagogy is built through commonplaces. Here are some:

You mean MMO players resent any development time and effort put into a playstyle they don’t personally engage in? O RLY?

False. Noone argues with the development till the game is felt as satisfying. Noone complained that Blizzard was developing raid content till the players began to crush against that wall to discover that the game continued in that direction. With or without them.

Noone cares much if there are (more) options available in the game. In fact most people would be glad. If I’m at level 10 and Blizzard announces they are working on a dungeon for level 50s, I’m happy. Because eventually I’ll get there. If Eve-Online devs decide to build superHUGE capital ships that I will never even remotely hope to fly, I’m happy. Because it creates the context of the world. It gives it scope.

People complain when they meet a signpost that BLATANTLY says: “Go that way”. They try and they find a wall they cannot pass. And they start to see their friends with better luck that manage to “get promoted” and join the “fun stuff”. Returning with sparkling loot and laughing at you while you kill your worms to grind the faction. Which is the only option you have left: Go in a corner and feel ashamed of your condition. Enjoy being oucast from that community that you slowly started to enjoy and integrate with through 60 levels. At that point some jump the fence to reach greener pastures, while some bite the dust and are left with the crumbs.

This is WoW’s endgame and this is what the players complain about. It’s not for the demagogic commonplace about “development time and effort put into a playstyle they don’t personally engage in”. It’s about those patterns becoming mandatory and inaccessible. The community moves onward while selecting who can go and who is left behind. And who could eventually join later and who is out for good.

Another commonplace:

You have a player base composed mostly of people for whom this is their first MMO, and definitely the first MMO they’ve reached the endgame in. They want more stuff. They want more stuff like they already played.

They absolutely do not want different stuff. They want stuff like they liked.

False again. The great majority of the players would appreciate some variation in the gameplay.

I’d gladly mix in my playtime some PvP, casual PvE and raid content. But this is EXACTLY what WoW is negating. Because Lum, as everyone else, you are missing the point. It’s again not the availability of options. It’s not about the variance.

It’s instead THE LACK OF THEM.

WoW’s endgame isn’t a scenario where many doors suddenly open to offer you a whole slew of options to choose from. IT’S THE EXACT CONTRARY. These doors shut in your face. Those door that become mandatory become also more and more SELECTIVE.

The game SHRINKS. Till the point that it is so tight that you cannot breath. Till the point where it chokes the fun. Till the point that people start to complain.

WoW’s raiding isn’t criticized because it’s another of the many options available. But because it is the only one and, in particular, because it’s the one THE GAME REWARDS THE MOST.

If the games offer feedback through rewards. If the games are patterns of learning and the feedback is used as a guide. Think about it. Where the game is pointing the players to? Where?

This is why the two player types are now two FACTIONS, one at war with the other. It’s just the consequence of a tension that the design of this game actively built up.

And that’s where some people get REALLY ANGRY. Because they have a lot invested into their characters, their friends and the connections between the two, and they REALLY. DO. NOT. LIKE. BEING. TOLD. NO.

And this is the final point. The players see their friends move on a level they cannot access and are cut out. This is the process of exclusion and this is the original nature of a mmorpg. A concept that goes beyond the “competitiveness”. Because it’s a broader system where the community builds the game and where the game world acquires depth and significance depending on other players.

Of course they are pissed off if they are lured in and if they can only stare when their friends move on and kiss them goodbye. They aren’t needed anymore. They are out.

This is the process of a culture. This is what a culture builds. This is the “mass market” and its effect on the people. The need to belong and be there. The need to share something and don’t feel different. The need to “succeed” in the same way they see their friends succeeding.

If you forbid this process, you build up a tension that sooner or later will explode. A tension that didn’t explode before only because mmorpgs have been considered “catass” by definition till today. From level 1 to whatever.

Like a broken record

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Bla. And then bla. Still archiving the same shit. Also read this to put things into perspective. Before all my other comments, actually.

Again I “use” Blizzard because I need antagonism to mark my ideas. Not because I’m “angry” at them.

—

mouselock:
Bump PvP, equalize PvP inherently, or build PvP items which are simply more effective against real players than they are against monsters.

Yes, add even more cockblocking and selectivity. As if the game hasn’t enough already.

The faction grinds aren’t for the players who want all the fun of a raid zone but by themselves. I have absolutely no clue how you’d go about designing that.

So raiding is now the only fun that can be had in a game?

I guess not. So, if fun can be had in the game through other means, why these other means couldn’t offer comparable rewards?

“The best route should also be the most fun route.”

Practical example: In AQ not only you get the uber loot, but now you get even new “tiers” of your skills. So the power creep increases two folds.

It would have been hard to add also two “means” to achieve those skills, one within those raids and another more easily accessible?

Some of them suck, some of them don’t. There’s good gear out there for me at various places with revered to exalted faction. Needless to say, I’m not grinding faction despite this. There’s also good gear out there in dungeons. I’d much rather do the dungeons. There’s also good gear out there in raids. I’d also much rather do the raids.

If this was true noone would complain.

The wrong part is that there isn’t “good” gear in the raid instances. There is *better* gear. A different concept. Raiding gear stacks up in tiers, it doesn’t offer a flat power growth.

In fact the possibility to choose your own patterns would be a very good idea. But you cannot. In fact most of those activities are selective as the first example here above I commented about the PvP. The game promotes specialization and your character is developed through this specialization that doesn’t open the possibilities of the game. It closes them if not what you specialize into.

—

What you’re bitching about is that there’s not good gear in an utterly fun quest chain that a solo player can get that rivals raid quality gear in some way. Guess what? That’s an awfully specific condition. But supposedly Blizz. will still be trying to take care of you in an upcoming patch with the second dungeon set of armor. They’re supposed to come from quest lines most (but not all) of which are accessible solo. If I may be so bold, I’m going to predict here (because I don’t have a blog) that you will find fault with this solution when it’s implemented and you know the details

Of course I’ll bitch. Because I don’t see how this is a concrete answer to the problem. It’s just another “sop” to buy time. As the rise to the level cap.

These aren’t answers. These are temporary workarounds. It’s obvious that they don’t “convince” me.

Of course I’ll also check out this content. And hopefully will find it interesting. I’d do the same even if they added a level 30 instance. And I’m sure many other players would do the same.

I always enjoyed the content in WoW from 1 to 60. I never looked about the exp bar and I actually dinged 60 before finishing most of the stuff I began. I couldn’t care less about the power creep.

After that things changed and I was forced to start to care about “what I was wearing” because from that point onward you can access content and join other players only if you are “this tall”. And my way of play the game HAD to change. The alternative was cancelling (see Angie’s post up here on this page).

But here we were talking about the increasing gap between the “have” and “not have”. If with the new raid zone the skills and armors of the leet guys will skyrocket, I suspect that these upcoming Tier 0.5 will be laughable at best.

Or would involve another endless factional grind.

I’d be happy, instead, if they worked to level the power differential instead of increasing it exponentially. And if they worked to add some more satisfying progression that isn’t exclusively centered on that power growth.

Which are the same points I’ve written about in the last months:
1- Try to bring the players together instead of apart
2- Explore other possibilities that these games have to offer beside the endless power growth

Which also doesn’t mean that I would revolution WoW and make a completely different game. But only that I would try to improve on its qualities instead of making it progressively more alienating.

Again, I do not think the alienation and selection is what made this game successful. In fact I believe it’s what granted Blizzard the possibility to wipe the floor with EQ.

*grumbles*

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No comment.

From Raph:
The paradigm in these so-called “sandbox games” is the same as it is for the MMORPG: a space in which there are multiple activities. Now, some of these activities may be games (levelling up, completing a time challenge); some may not be (chat systems); some may seem more important than others, or have more development time associated with them… In fact, we frequently see that they even have a “magic circle” insulating them from.

What we shouldn’t do is confuse the act of moving from one activity to another within the virtual space as being equivalent to playing a game. That’s why I try, when I have the luxury of being pedantic, to call most modern games “interactive entertainment experiences.”

It is reductionist for even game-centric MMORPGs to be considered to be merely games; even the most game-centric of them embeds some experiences that are not games, and of course, more can always be added. We tend to call a virtual world a game world when all the reward mechanisms are tied together into one game of advancement; that isn’t even the only way to make a game, much less the only way to make a virtual world.

Of course, the fact that MMORPGs aren’t intrinsically games doesn’t at all mean that if you choose to embed a game, you can pay it any less attention, or regard it as somehow less important. Arguably, we have regularly done games a disservice when putting them into MMORPGs, by failing to make the gameplay good enough and instead relying on the virtual world’s nature to prop up the gameplay. A good test for an embedded game in a virtual world would be to play it without the virtual world itself; if it’s fun enough that way, then we’re doing the game justice.

I believe that regarding virtual worlds this way opens up the door for a very different outlook on how to design them; the spread of possible worlds becomes much wider. If we let go of the notion that virtual worlds are games, not only will we get better virtual worlds: I believe we will get better game worlds too.

From Tess:
I have a rogue, on WoW, and she has been quite cheerfully running about, collecting Ancestral Coins for the Lunar Festival. Only, being me, and loving diving into dangerous places as much as I do, I’ve been sneaking around, trying to get some of the most difficult ones. (And being only level 42, many are excessively difficult.)

Little Railee has been shimmying along cliff faces, running through enemy cities with her hair on fire, chased by giants, knocked off of mountains by evil albino hippogryphs, and pinned against walls by packs of slavering hyenas. She showed a higher level druid how to best sneak past a group of monstrously higher level nagas, and then teamed up to fight the two that attacked, when they reached their goal. She rescued lowbies who were blithely charging into dire peril, and skated across a frozen lake full of murderous ghosts.

All-in-all, it’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had in one of these games. Yet, it’s not collecting coins that makes it fun. Honestly, I hate playing most collect-the-coin type platform games. They bore me to tears. In an MMO, however, this otherwise mundane coin collecting activity can become almost epic. You’re not just collecting coins. You’re journeying across perilous terrain into almost certain doom, with nothing to protect you but your flimsy armor, and the optimistic belief that you can find some clever trick to get you to your goal at the end of the road — assuming you make it to the end of the road. You may even make some friends and enemies along the way. The sheer openness, complexity, and richness of presentation provides a compelling array of possibilities that has more in common with reality than it has with most traditional games.

About the accessibility barriers and the two player “types”

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Still the same line of thoughts. But here I archive my comments on the forums (mostly from here). Tomorrow I’ll archive the comments of other players because there’s a lot of interesting stuff.

I already wrote my conclusions here, before the discussion even started. The future of this genre will be for those who can provide concrete answers to these problems.

—

Rywill:
(about the distinction between “casuals” and “hardcore”)
This dev is, as nearly as I can tell, exactly right: WoW has essentially two sorts of players.

Wrong. WoW CREATES those two sorts of player. That’s a huge difference.

The content defines how you play, not the other way around.

– If the “content” requires eight hours of continuous gameplay, only those players who can afford that will find that content accessible.
– If the “content” requires you to have 200+ fire resist to hope to win an encounter, only those players who have access to it will be allowed in.

There aren’t gaps between the players if not those that Blizzard GENERATED.

Want another example?

How many people here would be interested in 40 person raid content if they could get the same spoils in a much smaller group that would likely contain a higher proportion of agreeable personailities? There’s probably somebody, but then there’s apparently people who get off on having their genitals tortured with woodworking tools too.

So the reason to have the greater rewards for the biggest raids is because, guess what? Without those rewards noone would bother raiding. How funny.

Where are these “types of players” that love so much raiding to the point of doing it even if the mobs dropped jack shit?

—
The “wrong” part with raiding is not because it’s wrong to have big PvE encounters in a game. But it’s when these raids become mandatory to compete and be part of a guild. The need to “catch up” or be left out from the game. Getting excluded. The social outcast.

The game “continues” in that direction, but at some point you crash against a wall that is not “permeable” for too many players. Those casual players that made this game so successful.

I’ve seen the MAJORITY of the guilds on my server collapse and get cannibalized by bigger guilds because that’s where the artificial appeal of the game is and what it demands, whether you like it or not. Or you adapt to this situation and are able to satisfy those requirements of time commitment and able to join the catass guilds, or you are out and are left watching. Those players will be encouraged to leave a guild if you cannot offer them access to the same uber stuff and remain in the game.

I’m sure that the great majority of the players would like better to stay in their smaller groups and guilds and play with their friends. To find that type of game “viable” instead of ridiculed by the insane, exponential power creep that sets differences of “second citizenship”.

I really don’t know why it’s unreasonable to reward raids in other, different ways instead of through just highly unbalanced power differential that consequently becomes YET ANOTHER accessibility barrier to the content.

The problem IS NOT because there’s this type of content available. Noone would complain about this.

The problem IS when this content becomes selective and mandatory.

One (selective) destroys the guilds and an healthy social fabric, the other (mandatory) destroys the balance and the natural competitiveness of a MMO.

—

Damien Neil:
So cancel your account, build a bridge, and get over it. Or keep playing and admit that no matter how much you complain, Blizzard has their claws into you well and good.

If I didn’t care I wouldn’t write about it.

If I write about it it’s because things could be better and I have a passion for this genre as a whole. So its problems are what interests me and what I care writing about.

It’s what will drive things forward, so it’s what MATTERS discussing.

As simple as that.

—

oinkfs:
Guilds get destroyed and gobbled up in every online community I’ve ever been in. I don’t see how that speaks for a maligned system.

Because here we have something specific and the design of the game directly affecting these guilds. *Actively* affecting this.

Most of the uber guilds are tightly locked. Even if you eventually have the time availability to join these raids you would still find rather hard to join one of these guilds.

It’s again because the content shapes the guilds. If you can support a 40-man raid, all the players ABOVE or BELOW that threshold are left out. If you don’t keep up with the “pace” of your guild you’ll get excluded because your gear won’t be able to compete with the gear of those who were able to be in 100% of the raids instead of 25%. So there’s the greed for loot. The NEED for loot.

Because if you don’t catch up and start winning the rolls (or pile up DKP or whatever catass point system is your guild using), you’ll get excluded again. Other lucky or with more time available players will get better loot than you and will replace you in those raids.

There’s a continue process of selection and exclusion. And this is BECAUSE of the design of the game.

I don’t think you did an adequate job rebutting Rywill’s conclusions, either Hrose. Like Dannimal said, FFXI doesn’t sound so different from WoW. I’ve heard that they have plenty of mind numbing raid content as well.

I never said that FFXI is a better game or that doesn’t have that type of raid content.

I just brought an example about PLENTY OF CONTENT (two whole expansions) that focuses of interesting, supposedly fun, consequent missions and *whole zones* that aren’t there to make you insanely stronger.

You do them because they are fun, challenging and because there’s a sense of progression coming from the storyline. You DON’T DO THEM because they hand out exponentially more powerful loot.

The point is: raid content can be challenging, fun and interesting WITHOUT this power creep huge unbalance. And WITHOUT creating this huge gap between the two “types” of players.

Again it’s the game that encourages this alienation of the community in two distinct groups.

—

Menzo:
Blizzard Guy Exec: Congratulations, team, you now have over 5.5 million paying subscribers worldwide. WoW is, by far, the most successful US-launched (and perhaps worldwide) MMO by a huge margin! And subscriptions aren’t going anywhere but up by our numbers – you’ve managed to grow the genre and the industry by creating what may be (arguably) the most important PC game ever made. What are you going to do now?

Blizzard Designer: Let’s throw our whole game design out the window and change everything! Forget this “high end” content crap, what people OBVIOUSLY want is low-end content. Forget the fact that they’re rewarding us hand over fist based on our design that puts hard-won loot at a premium.

Yes, because we all know how those 5.5 millions are there because of the raid content.

I believe that the success of the game is IN SPITE of the raid content and generally awful endgame content. Not thanks to it.

—
What about handing out good loot as the result of FUN content?

Because till today the alternative to raiding has been about grinding stuff to death.

But you can reverse the question: why the hell we *cannot* have the best loot from content that is accessible and challenging for everyone? What are the reasons preventing this to happen?

Because there must be reasons, right?

—

mouselock:
Oddly, the game already does this for me. So whose definition of “fun” do we use, then? (or, fuck, whose definition of “good”? There’s plenty of “good” loot available in places other than MC and ZG, y’know.)

“Good” as “comparable”.

The “fun” is easily defined by content. If removing the carrot from the raids would make the players STOP to raid completely (despite this content was available) would mean that “raiding” is unfun. As simple as that.

“Fun” means that you do something because you enjoy doing it. Not because it is mandatory to be somewhere else. It’s again the example of the “journey” compared to the “destination”. Which is the same shit we are repeating from 10 years. So I don’t think I need to explain the basics all over again.

The point is. Raid content can be FUN. I have fun doing it to an extent. Arguably the catass guilds get loot WHILE having fun.

The point is that this doesn’t translates to the casual players. Instead of giving them fun, playable content, they just slap in a pointless faction grind: “kill this worm one million of times”.

As I wrote other times on this forum the problem isn’t that there aren’t alternate advancement paths, but that these paths suck. They are terrible. One player enduring one of these factional grind would need his brain examined. Not rewarded.

Challenging for everyone and accessible to everyone. Accessibility and challenge are, in fact, conjugate variables. The more challenging something is, by definition, the harder it is to do.

No. Because once again “challenging” =! requiring better gear.

Gear in WoW is yet another barrier between the players and the content.

Which is exactly the fundamental point that generated all this discussion.