Tag Archives: Game Design

WoW: discussing PvP

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First i want to say that hands down WoW is an absolutly incredible game, in both pve and the potential for pvp. Every class is fast paced and fun to play, yet very unique. While the pve aspect of this game is just about perfect (if you limit instaces to 5 people only but thats a whole other thread in itself heh) the pvp area has a few issues i think that need to be addressed and if they are i’m sure it will be some of the best pvp offered in a mmorpg.

I agree, both on the summary and on the need to cap the “upper” limit of the instances. I’d also cap the difference of levels within a group when entering an instance. If there are more than ten levels between the highest level and the lowest, the group should not be able to enter the instance.

I agree also on your considerations about hiding classes and levels to replace them with a “consideration system”. Three colors are enough to use in the honor system and they’ll help a lot not only to enhance the gameplay (as you explain), but the system will also be easier to “get” and manage.

So I only foresee good consequences by doing this and I hope Blizzard will move toward this direction. Even if I consider the honor system still weak and in the need of a good structure:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/267

Now I’ll start to disagree:

As it stands now, yes a battle ends, when one group has to release to the graveyard, but in my opinion it is far too quick to get back into battle with the same players. In some situations players can be back and fighting the same exact battle within less than a minute. This really gives almost 0 risk to engaging in combat, becuase who cares if you loose, you’ll be back in 30 seconds to try again.

Firstly, the battle is meaningless because it is. Yes. There’s no real purpose and it won’t work if you give again a risk/reward because it will still be a pointless battle. The point is to work on a *meaning*, not to work on an excuse.

The second point is that the system you described is, at least, *fun*. If you knock down who looses a battle who will be your PvP target? It’s obvious that in WoW you’ll most likely meet always the same group in an hour, in a specific zone and around your level. If you erase this group from the game with who are you going to play?

If we add a downtime to who looses, the game will become damn boring and still pointless. Who looses an encounter will have to face the downtime (and it’s not fun at all). Who wins will have to wait because the PvP is over. No more possibility to play till the group is back. Unfun for both.

The “incentive”, about which you write, shouldn’t be “excused” by a penalty. But it should involve a *purpose*. Give the players and groups objectives to achieve, give them reasons to fight for. *This* will make the combat meaningful because there will be a structure that tells you what you should achieve and why.

If the reward is about the rejoice for the winning group because they made the other group face a downtime, well, the game is really weak.

A better idea, spawning from your graveyard solution, could be about building a very simple CTF (Capture The Flag) system. I agree that both Horde and Alliance should respawn at their own graveyard (no corpse run if you die in PvP, just a respawn at your graveyard). But we also build a system so that EVERY contested zone has “generic” graveyards that can be “conquered” and flagged. Once the Horde (for example) own the graweyard, they’ll be able to respawn there, while the Alliance will only able to respawn at their nearest “owned” graveyard (which can be in a zone nearby).

In this way we start to offer something to fight for and with a purpose.

What happens if a group fighting some mobs are attacked by opposing faction players, and some get killed by a final blow of a npc mob, and others by players – the group gets split up, can be frustrating.

Simple. You consider from where the higher damage came. If the mobs did 51% of more damage the player will suffer a PvE death. If it’s less it will be a PvP death.

What a nerf is

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Posting on World of Warcraft boards.

—
So, this is supposed to be just a small suggestion but I’ll add some general comments to explain why I’m asking for something different.

I consider the last patch tweaks as a huge nerf. You don’t usually see me ranting about class skills because I like to discuss the design from a more general level but this time there’s an exception. A “nerf”, as I intend the term, isn’t when the game and the skills are tweaked for balance. A nerf, a real nerf, is when a change wipes out a part of the game (that may or not be unbalanced) resulting in a different way to play that is felt as less fun than the previous one.

I dislike the current changes to the “Charge” ability not because before I could kill more monsters. That’s not the point. I dislike the changes because the charge was fun to use and it helped a lot to play in different situations. It was a nice “tool” that could be used creatively in many situations (I used it to flee, for example). And it was crucial because it offered a wonderful way to face the casters, trying to minimize the impact of the distance and offering warriors a chance to play even during situations that don’t fit with the class (like when two big groups are fighting at a range and warriors can just sit and watch). I understand that the changes were done because the ability was too powerful but the solution took away a good chunk of fun.

So the point is that Blizzard nerfed the most fun skill that my character had. Not powerful. Fun. I’m not asking back the power, I want back just the fun.

As I said the “Charge” was the only creative skill because the rest of the game is more or less about pressing keys along a “fixed” optimal algorithm. The “game” becomes just about pressing keys in the right order when the skills are available with little to no involvement. This means that as the time goes on, the game looses more and more the little tactical depth it had before and it’s becoming just another boring keypressing.

The point is that you can add 100 different styles, but if I’m forced to use them in a fixed order from 1 to 100, you could as well just remove the other 99 because the game doesn’t change at all. Right now the new “Charge” is exactly that: a one-time style that you can use when starting a fight. That’s all, its relevance from a strategical point of view is zero now. The skill was nerfed right into its most important part, the creative and varied use in different situations to become an “opening style” with a fixed use.

So what I ask is what I would have done if I was in charge at Blizzard:
Instead of nerfing the “fun” of the skill, I would have nerfed its power.

But despite all the words wasted by devs on PR stuff about developing the classes to have them all fun and balanced at the same time, the result was completely different:
They noticed a skill too powerful and they nerfed it to a no-use.

So, my conclusion is really simple. Instead of removing the usability of the skill (which makes it fun), I’d nerf its power. The power is that the skill builds your rage and stun the target, the fun is that you can use it when you want. This is how it worked.

This is how it should work to continue to be fun without being powerful:
Since the fun relies on the skill being “always” usable, this should remain unchanged. Instead we affect the power. The skill has three effects, it builds the rage, stuns the target and works as a fast teleport to reach the target.

Of these three effects I’d simply remorve (completely) the stun component. So we’ll basically have a skill always usable that builds the rage and allows you to get closer to enemies.

This way the skill isn’t anymore unbalanced and it keeps all the basic parts that made it fun.

But I’m wasting words as always. The developers of mmorpg, for some unknown reason, seem just able to ruin their games progressively.

Planning the “Honor System” (new version)

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Updated.

I’m roleplaying as a designer again. This is my “Honor System” for WoW.

This is a rough plan of how I would try to design the whole “honor system”. It tries to address all the problematic issues that the players are bringing up but still mantaining a focus: to be fun.

So far, these are the issues:
1- Prevent to assign penalties if the attack is a mistake
2- Allow an high level character to defend itself if attacked by a low level opponent without incurring in a penalty
3- Not reward a zerg of players killing a poor guy wandering alone, even if on the same level
4- Avoid to penalize support classes and incentivate the players to group
5- Make a dishonorable action have a greater impact if done by a player high on the honorable ranks

I’m not a mathematician so I’ll try to explain how the general system should be built.

The first part is about how we assign the points and when. In this system I won’t address external goals like accomplishing a mission. I’ll just include player-killing. So, the honor points should be assigned when an enemy DIES. This is the first step. Attacking someone doesn’t imply a gain or loss of honor. The honor changes only if the enemy actually dies. So we solve the (1) point.

The second step is to determine if the honor we are going to change after a kill will be a penalty or a reward. My idea is to simply determine this part by “tagging” the enemy. It means that who starts the attack is responsible for it. If an high level player starts an attack to a low level player it will incur in a penalty when he kills it. Instead if it’s the lower level player to start the attack, the high level player will be able to defend himself without incurring in a penalty (neither a reward since the low level player isn’t worth much). Following this idea we solve the (2) point.

The second point also leads directly to the third. This point is only partially solvable and my first plan isn’t playable as I expected. Basically two players level 55 attacking a single enemy level 55 won’t receive a penalty because the system would never be playable and fun. Still, the reward will be scaled and splitted (so not as high as if the fight was more “fair”). Nothing can work better than this and on the other side we have a positive effect: players will be encouraged to play in groups for a better protection. So the (3) point is only partially solved, the “balance check” will be done by comparing the “average” level of a party with the target to determine if the result is a reward or a penalty. But the number of players won’t directly affect this check. To prevent “zerging” the reward should be “scaled” between all the groups that took an active role when damaging the target. This means that the reward will still be very low when “zerging”. Best design scenario possible, I think.

For the fourth point we delve more into the math. Support classes won’t kill directly the opponents. This means that if the honor is assigned “per kill” these classes will be penalized. It’s not all. Because we should also push the players to play together. Casters will more likely die first considering their weakness. If we reward only who is alive we’ll finish again to penalize these classes. How to prevent all this and reward the group? The idea is to reward group survival. If a group survives an encounter (51% alive) it will gain a bonus multiplier (with a diminished return softcapped at 2.5). The more a group survives the more the bonus builds up (and the same group will be worth more if killed). If the group flees from a PvP battlefield OR is defeated (only if 50% or more of it dies) the bonus is lost and resets to zero. This means that the reward (or penalty) will be equally distributed for all the group. Both to those alive and those who died. On the same time the reward will depend on the “group performance” as a whole and NOT tailored and measured for each participant. This solves the (4) point.

The last point is about how we calculate the penalty. Not only the “honor points” should behave in a similar way to a normal exp table. But the final result should be adjusted a last time before being assigned. This last modification depends on the level of honor of the player. This means that as a player climbs up in the honor ladder, the honor points should slow down, progressively. Accumulating more honor should become harder as you go up. At the same time a dishonorable action should have the opposite impact. It should increase as the honor increases. So, while the reward should be achieved as an inverse proportion, the penalty should work as a direct proportion. This solves the (5) point.

Ahh. I’m tired. I wrote and read too much on this and other forums for a lot, a lot of hours. I hope it will be somewhat useful. Really hope.

—
I wrote down an algorithm to explain the plan I posted above:

1- A battle begins.

2- The server registers which *group* does the first attack and “flags” that group as “attacker” and the other as “defender”. Every other group joining the same battle executes this point again to be flagged properly.

3- The fight takes place. The server registers who damages who, based on the groups and not on the single character. Also registering the total damage (in %) for *each group*.

4- Someone dies. The server considers each group that damaged the target and starts the following procedure for each:

a- A “balance check” is done by calculating the average level of the two groups (attackers and defenders).

b- The two average levels of the two sides are compared to measure the “fairness” of the combat. Determining if there will be a reward or a penalty.

c- The reward/penalty status is once again modified by checking if the winning group is flagged as “attacker” or “defender”.

d- The amount of “honor points” (to add or detract) will be calculated based on the “value” of the target and the % of damage dealt by the group to this target. then split equally between every member of the winning group.

e- For each player the amount of honor is adjusted again by considering the rank (as described at the (5) point of the plan I posted above).

– |a to e| Are repeated for each group who damaged the target.

This is the whole algorithm. The only part that it is missing is the modifier that I desribed at the (4) point of my plan that I let out to not make things too complex.

Planning the “Honor System” (old version)

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I’m roleplayng as a designer again. This is my “Honor System” for WoW. Perhaps they’ll steal this too:

This is a rough plan of how I would try to design the whole “honor system”. It tries to address all the problematic issues that the players are bringing up but still mantaining a focus: to be fun.

So far, these are the issues:
1- Prevent to assign penalties if the attack is a mistake
2- Allow an high level character to defend itself if attacked by a low level opponent without incurring in a penalty
3- Not reward a zerg of players killing a poor guy wandering alone, even if on the same level
4- Avoid to penalize support classes and incentivate the players to group
5- Make a dishonorable action have a greater impact if done by a player high on the honorable ranks

I’m not a mathematician so I’ll try to explain how the general system should be built.

The first part is about how we assign the points and when. In this system I won’t address external goals like accomplishing a mission. I’ll just include player-killing. So, the honor points should be assigned when an enemy DIES. This is the first step. Attacking someone doesn’t imply a gain or loss of honor. The honor changes only if the enemy actually dies. So we solve the (1) point.

The second step is to determine if the honor we are going to change after a kill will be a penalty or a reward. My idea is to simply determine this part by “tagging” the enemy. It means that who starts the attack is responsible for it. If an high level player starts an attack to a low level player it will incur in a penalty when he kills it. Instead if it’s the lower level player to start the attack, the high level player will be able to defend himself without incurring in a penalty (neither a reward since the low level player isn’t worth much). Following this idea we solve the (2) point.

The second point also leads directly to the third. The level confrontation between two opposite groups is GLOBAL. It means that the server will calculate the global level of the whole group. So more players in the same group will make the global level to rise. Two level 55 will make a group with a value of 110. If now these two guys attack a SINGLE player level 55 the system will calculate the encounter as: 110 versus 55. And it means that the two guys will receive a penalty if they’ll kill the enemy playing alone. More and more players grouped together ganking a guy alone will recieve a greater penalty. This will solve the (3) point.

For the fourth point we delve more into the math. Support classes won’t kill directly the opponents. This means that if the honor is assigned “per kill” these classes will be penalized. It’s not all. Because we should also push the players to play together. Casters will more likely die first considering their weakness. If we reward only who is alive we’ll finish again to penalize these classes. How to prevent all this and reward the group? The idea is to reward group survival. If a group survives an encounter (51% alive) it will gain a bonus multiplier (with a diminished return softcapped at 2.5). The more a group survives the more the bonus builds up (and the same group will be worth more if killed). If the group flees from a PvP battlefield OR is defeated (only if 50% or more of it dies) the bonus is lost and resets to zero. This means that the reward (or penalty) will be equally distributed for all the group. Both to those alive and those who died. On the same time the reward will depend on the “group performance” as a whole and NOT tailored and measured for each participant. This solves the (4) point.

The last point is about how we calculate the penalty. Not only the “honor points” should behave in a similar way to a normal exp table. But the final result should be adjusted a last time before being assigned. This last modification depends on the level of honor of the player. This means that as a player climbs up in the honor ladder, the honor points should slow down, progressively. Accumulating more honor should become harder as you go up. At the same time a dishonorable action should have the opposite impact. It should increase as the honor increases. So, while the reward should be achieved as an inverse proportion, the penalty should work as a direct proportion. This solves the (5) point.

Ahh. I’m tired. I wrote and read too much on this and other forums for a lot, a lot of hours. I hope it will be somewhat useful. Really hope.

EDIT: I’m not completely convinced about the third point. The math involved should be tweaked so that group play is still incentivated without being a problem. So that part should be reworked.

Death System: Two ideas for WoW

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Two design ideas I posted on the official forum:

These are two simple ideas to make the death system more interesting and more relevant without going against the fun or making the game more frustrating.

PvE – The idea here is to incentivate the survival without penalize for a death. My idea is about implementing a bonus. While you gain experience this bonus goes slowly up, till a cap of 10% or 20%. It means that you can gain and mantain a bonus of 10% to all the experience you gain. The problem is that if you die the bonus goes to zero. The purpose is to reward a player that survives with a small bonus, compared to an imprudent player that keeps dying. The bonus won’t make a big difference so it won’t frustrate a player if a death happen. At the same time it offers a good incentive to not just die mindlessly.

PvP – A corpse run in PvP can be boring and frustrating. The death system could push a player to not “dare” in PvP because you could happen in a place too hard to reach without keeping dying again and again. This is basically unfun. My solution is simply to allow to respawn at the cemetery without taking the experience penalty ONLY if you died in PvP. At the same time this system will incentivate the PvP when (if?) killing enemies will produce experience points.

[Dream mmorpg] Server structure

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So. I made a strange diagram showing how the whole world is built. More than the real server structure it shows the interaction between the instances from the design/player point of view.

As you can see there are three rows:
1- Worlds or shards
2- Planes
3- Adventures

The first row is about various “cloned” shards. A common concept for mmorpgs. This is where the main action will take place. Both PvP and basic PvE happen here. Each shard will be exactly identical but you still have to remember that the world is built to be dynamical and under the control of PvP. So cities will be conquered by factions and there will be a concrete conquest system with land management and ownerships.

Under specific situations and requirements, the players will be able to open portals. These portals allow the players of a shard to move to a “plane”. In this case each plane is unique (not cloned or instanced). Each will have a specific “mood” and a name. Planes are conceived as large zones but still way smaller than a world/shard. They are major hubs where particular activities can be done. The permanence on one of the planes affects the character permanently, developing abilities and weaknesses. When a portal is open it works in both directions. This means that from a world you can transit to a plane and from a plane you can go back. This isn’t all. In fact the main innovation is that from a plane you can go back to a shard/world different from yours. This means that your character is able to travel between the shards thanks to portals and planes. There are many rules about portals, travel, permanence and so on, I’ll explain the specifics elsewhere.

From a plane, then, you can also choose to start an “adventure” (instanced PvE). Each plane gives access to its specific adventures. Each adventure is an instanced session right at the beginning and can involve from one player (single-player type game) to 50+ large raids. Even here the adventures can be accessed by opening portals under specific rules. If you die or fail during an adventure there could be a “cool off” timer that could go from a few hours to a few weeks. So you can only try once and you could need to wait the timer to go before you are able to try again.

—

This is basically how all the game is built. All the content works inside that structure. Obviously the creativity is in how the content itself is built. For example the adventures will be different from how they are being used till now. Offering varied and fun gameplay.

Just two ideas I had are about time-related intances:
– The first type is tailored for a small group (even single player or duo). You have a dungeon and a time limit to respect. You need to reach the end before the time is over and it’s basically a race. The dungeon will be structured with “rooms” that will allow you to move to another section only after you have killed the monsters.
– The second type is an arena. You are in and your goal is to survive as much as possible. Just that.

These two examples are about a form of “trials” which must be passed to achieve various goals in the game. The idea is also to build a “ladder” of players with the most awsome performances.
(I loved the training session in the first X-Wing and the trials are a similar idea. With an extremely fun and tense gameplay. Even in this case some time will pass before you can try again a “failed” trial).

[Stress Test] A collection of complaints

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I’ve posted this on the Beta forums. I wonder why I bothered:

I’m following various boards that are frequented by jaded mmorpg veterans and even boards where I can discuss with players less experienced.

Till now the Stress Test is a success. The server was supposed to explode, instead everything seems quite smooth and, so far, beyond the level of many games at release. This made the players complain about smaller issues, like the customization of the characters, the interface, the camping of spawn points and so on.

I tried to gather a list of the complaints to examine them and see what could be the possible solutions.

– Problem: Players complain about the lack of customization, in particular after we all got spoiled by games like SWG, CoH and even EQ2. WoW feels like a 1st generation mmorpg where everyone looks the same and where you are forced to choose one of the few combinations that the devs prepared.

– Solution: The discussion got deeper and I think we started to agree that the customization doesn’t mean that much when just after a few levels your body will be completely covered by the armor. So we concluded that the possibility to customize and look differently with the use of equipment is way more important for this game. The fact that all the players will directly min/max the equipment will mean that if an objects is powerful everyone will use it. So the solution is about working on the “aspect” of the equipment even more that its power. Having the same stats on something, but a different aspect, could help to offer a graphical customization without having to loose “power”. On the other side Blizzard could work to, at least, add the height for a model. DAoC has three choices: small, medium, tall. I think the same system can be implemented in WoW without ruining the racial differences. It was stated before that there could be problems with animations but what I ask is a simple “rescale” of the model. So you rescale everything, animations and equipment included. It shouldn’t be hard to implement and won’t affect the performance. On the other level we’ll have a possibility of customization that will matter above the equipment.

– Problem: Crowded newbie zones. Considering that the servers held the stress, this became the biggest problem. As too many players join the game, various bottlenecks are created, ruining the experience for everyone.

– Solution: I don’t think that making the newbie zone large will help. We must remember that this is a situation that will only last a few days and a mmorpg, instead, has a value on the long distance, along the years. Blizzard could as well completely ignore this issue and let the players suffer this problem for the first days. But at the same time we all know that it’s *crucial* the impression you get of the game right at the start. So. My opinion is that nothing should be done aside working perhaps on the respawn rules. A good idea should be about tweaking them by looking constantly at the number of player in the zone. Another good idea could be about adding a “cool off” effect to a spawning mob, so that it won’t aggro a player before 15-20 seconds have passed (like spawning the mob in a shaded form and make it 100% solid after the cool off timer is over). This will avoid the problem of mobs popping over players but it’s also a cheap trick that may broken even more the suspension of disbelief. Another, even better, solution could be to instance the newbie zones. This could happen in the very few occasions when the place gets *too* crowded. So you put an “emergency” limit to these newbie zones and create another instance when things go beyond that limit. In this way we erase overcrowding during the first days without messing and triggering other problems (like making newbie zones too dispersive when the number of players will decrease).

Dealing with instances is dangerous, though. The problem is deeper and I’ve wrote about this back in May:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/162

– Problem: Players complain about default options and general interface issues. For example it’s *not acceptable* that an user must edit a config file to play in windowed mode or to set the Hertz of the monitor. Other questionable choices are about not showing NPCs names by default and the drag and drop occurring to equip an object (peoples complain about the inventory being separated from the character sheet).

– Solution: If the game is going to be released soon it’s time to focus even on the polish. You need to figure out what’s the best for the default options. EQ players complain that the inventory doesn’t come up if you press “i”. This isn’t a big issue but you need to go throughout all the options and define what’s better for a default mode that is easy to manage for a new user. In particular NPC names MUST be on by default. It’s important that everything you need should be enabled so that the user, with the experience, can choose something else. Not acceptable is when you cannot access the options from the interface. This needs to go *completely*. We must be allowed to choose the windowed mode, the refresh of the monitor and other more “hard-core” issues by the options menu. Perhaps in an “advanced” tab. But noone should be forced to mess with a config file. It’s actually ridiculous that you just put up a page for the screenshots explaining to the players how they can use the console to type a command and remove the “onscreen names” (I’m referring to the screenshot page). These options MUST be in the game and keymapped. About the issue of “drag and drop” equipment: clicking to equip isn’t possible because of the “risk” to sell stuff while fiddling with a vendor. My suggest solution is to create a “drop area” near where the bags are so that we drag and drop there, and not throughout the screen. This worked back in Beta 2 when it was possible to drag an item to an empty bag slot to equip it. Another important feature that vanished without a reason.

– Problem: Players love the “discovery exp” when you discover a new place on the map.

– Solution: Well, this isn’t a problem. but we know that it’s a broken system later on, because the experience you gain remains ridiculous. So I suggest Blizzard to look into this. Players love this feature so you need to make it a bit more valuable. Balancing the experience so that it will still matter even at high levels.

– Problem: The Rest System is incomprehensible.

– Solution: This is an issue. You cannot expect players to read complex patch notes to figure out a mechanic. If the Rest System is supposed to remain in the game it must be polished so that the players will understand how it works easily. They should be able to check how much they have rested and the exact effect that the rest will have in “x” hours. This should become easy to understand with the use of the interface. Right now I don’t know if the system is bugged or not but it’s absolutely impossible to understand its behaviour.

– Problem: The game needs a more social environment. Players complain about the lack of depth aside mob-bashing.

– Solution: This is a complex issue that I’ll partially dodge here. My solution is about giving more depth to the cities without forcing downtimes into the players. We need fun and interesting activities to pass time in a city. A lot, a lot of potential lies here. So please step down from EverQuest’s model for a moment and start to develop something that will offer this. Different activities not directly involved with achieving more power (treadmills). Different development paths, different aims. I’m not asking for a completely new game but just for something that will give the game some depth aside the treadmill. I have too many ideas about this. Just use some creativity and detach on this aspect the game from the mmorpg model.

—

Now I want to add a few words on the “general impression”. The impression of the players varies a lot. There are some who love the game but I think that in general everyone is pleased but absolutely not surprised or particularly excited. Many have already branded the game as EQ 1.5. A lot is about the expectations. My personal expectations are set *extremely low* after years of experience in the genre and in fact I love WoW. I love the setting and I love how it plays. But one thing is sure: this is far from being a “dream mmorpg”. It feels like a single player game and, as you see, as we introduce the “massive” aspect everyone starts to fight because there’s competition for a spawn point.

After a bit all this feels faked, pointless and boring. WoW is really, really polished but not different from a single player game with basically no purpose and depth that tries hard to roleplay as a “mmorpg”. Because this is what I criticize in the game from months: a single player/cooperative game roleplaing as a mmorpg.

What this Stress Test teaches is about the genre as a whole. This time we are not at Star Wars Galaxies launch, dealing with server and client crashing and broken design and bugs everywhere. This game isn’t about broken promises. WoW delivers what it is expected to deliver:

Yes, it’s a polished EQ type game. That is the aim, that is what they are delivering.

Or as someone else defines it: “It’s a nifty world as a background for a specific narrow type of gameplay”.

So peoples are pleased and at the same time already bored because things have improved without really changing. Something that is shared with other games. For example this is what Loral wrotes on Mobhunter, one of the most places discussing EverQuest:

Omens of War brings us over a dozen new zones, half of them instanced. It expands the physical worlds of Norrath even further. I wonder if SOE might best spend their time working on new expansions that take Everquest into directions other than new zones to explore. Everquest is certainly wide, it is the largest physical game I’ve ever played, but it isn’t very deep. The vast majority of content builds around combat against bosses. The numbers increase but the gameplay is generally the same. New lines of progression need to be developed.

I really think that it’s still possible to push on the experimentation without loosing the touch with the mass market. Actually I think that this genre still isn’t mass market BECAUSE there’s little to no improvement.

One of the directions that WoW should explore is about creating systems and dynamics. In particular when it comes to PvP. Systems make the game lively, with a purpose. This without throwing continuously at the players “more of the same”. Rising the level cap to excuse the process.

I think that veteran players are bored of this but I’m also sure that new players are full of dreams that will shatter when they’ll touch what this genre really delivers:
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/swgteamcomment.html sorry Raph ;)

I keep hearing that Blizzard is working on a PvP reward and I really fear this because noone talks about a PvP “purpose”. A reward without a purpose is “yet another treadmill” and this is depressing.

A lot should be done to polish and work out the problems that will become manifest with the time. In particular the combat can result fast and fun in the initial levels but after a bit it also becomes completely chaotic and messy. This is due to many technical problems like a lack of integrity. Mobs warp everywhere, have strange pathing issues, lack of a Line of Sight. The animation system is broken with stuck and out-of-synch animations. And the spells behave strangely when offscreen, appearing in wrong locations. The last straw was about adding Hunters and enormous pets that in a dungeon take the whole screen making nearly impossible to play.

What will happen when we are supposed to fight in large raids both in PvE and PvP? The game will become a random mess of colored polygons? Things must be looked at. The animations and spell effects must be polished and synchronized. The mobs should move around in a realistic way and should stop “cheating”. Hunters’ pets must be rescaled.

And along this work about basic issues, the design should be developed to give some depth to the game. To stop adding treadmills and attach to the game a real purpose. Without it the PvP will continue to be a grief fest. Because griefing is still the only “impact” possible you have on the world.

I also suggested some time ago a complete system to make the PvP fun and interesting:
http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/view/135

What is important is that a different path must be choosed and developed to give the game a future and some ambition *after* release. Both for new players and mmorpg veterans.

So, playstyles exist?

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There “was” a thread at Grimwell where we started, once again, to discuss about playstyles. Something I hate because I don’t like strict models that kill any kind of creativity in the design process.

But it’s not important what I believe. Raph’s reply to Darniaq is extremely interesting and deep. Something I really cannot comment or criticize because it goes beyond my possibilities and because I also consider it true.

Here it is:

—

Darniaq:
I try not to get comfortable (first reaction is denial), because I trully feel the only constant is change (second is acceptance ). More so now with a 2 year old. Whether an EQ nerf, an unexpected job relocation or loss, or a car accident, way over 99% of the world is far beyond my ability to control. What’s left is adaptation.

Adaptation and the human ability to rewire the brain this way is a key evolutionary trait (and most importantly, doing it through mental modeling). This is, fundamentally, why I think games even exist.

Darniaq:
Which is why I wonder about those external factors.

We’ve all heard stories of people whose mental models and mental inflexibility could not handle unusual situations, and they “broke.” heck, some great movies have been made about that :)

Now, all playstyles are is a predisposition towards some of the following:

– particular learning models (visual? auditory? verbal? spatial? there’s a bunch that psych types have identified)
– bias towards tools which they have applied in the past successfully
– predisposition towards tools that fit their learning modes.

In other words, someone who is verbally predisposed, and is a fast talker, and has used that strength to get out of scrapes their whole life, and who is most powerful when using their verbal ability, well, heck, they are likely to come at the game with a playstyle that is social. Why should we be surprised? They are merely trying to maximize their success.

And if the game doesn’t give a flip about that, because the only successful strategies it allows are ones that involve spatial reckoning, well, that person may well not like the game over the long term, because they may

* fail to get positive feedback because they
– get beaten too much
– reach a cap in their spatial reckoning skills, and realize they cannot improve
* try to play the game in unusual ways and go outside the ruleset for satisfaction by
– holding weddings in Quake
– spending more time on the forums than behind a rocket launcher
* quit

Darniaq:
I can see people getting comfortable in a play style; however, I still don’t know how long that comfort lasts. How many new Warcraft knock-offs can a fan of RTS games take? Do they not eventually get bored with the entire genre and seek more action through RPGs or more cerebral gaming with turn-based strategy? You feel age is partly a function, to which I’d agree, but will someone in their 40s stick with EQ forever with so many other options?

They can take a lot as long as the curve of game complexity offered up is on a steady curve that they can follow. That would be the Total Annihilation fan. Of course, the Total Annihilation fan is (sorry) a freak of nature, someone who happens to be heavily adapted to RTS games. Someone highly specialized. The result is that the average person cannot play Total Annihilation anymore than they can fly a fighter jet. The game selects for a base level of competency in the skill set–which includes knowledge of the “literature” as well.

If the TA fan comes to Warcraft III and says “I think I get it, all the differences from TA are really minor and I can apply my entire mental model… huh, there’s nothing new here,” then they may not choose to play.

Darniaq:
Or is playstyle independent of a game and a genre? Perhaps it is. Maybe the reason players, particularly veterans, bounce around games so much they haven’t yet found the best outlet for their preference. Or maybe they’ve found it but are uncomfortable with their comfort (And Alexander wept, for he had no new worlds to conquer)?

I think it is definitely broader than game and genre. In the book I am working on I have one page which has drawings of four different avatars from four different hypothetical MMORPGs. All four are instantly recognizable as the same person. This is a very very common phenomenon, we’ve all seen it.

And yet, we can also see in certain people gameplay tendencies that go beyond one genre. My grandmother plays both poker and Scrabble in rather similar ways. I think it’s because of who she is, and how she thinks.

Darniaq:
And more importantly, is there a way to capitalize on this?

Games can train you in new cognitive skills. That is what they are FOR, at their core. It’s why the young of all ages play. But new cognitive skills are a tough sell on people, particularly older people. Games that call only on old cognitive skills tend to pall among those who are familiar with the mental models required.

So to capitalize, the formula is simple (and impossible): deliver fresh cognitive puzzles and new mental models of the world, but make them so easy to get into that nobody realizes they are learning whole new modes of perception and thought.

Piece o’ cake. But most games rely on very basic, hind-brain sorts of mental models, like territoriality, force projection, visual similarity and difference, and so on. That right there is why it is so hard to invent a truly new game.

Delving

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Delving on the comments of what I wrote below.

Jason McCullough:
So my official Doom 3 comments:

1. *Uncertainty* is scary. Knowing something is there, but not quite where, or what it is, is scary. Note these are not equivalent to “really dark and enemies jumping at you every single time you’d expect them to if you were designing a b-grade predictable horror movie.” The game is so goddamn predictable I got bored after an hour.
2. What the fuck is up with the armor and ammo scattered all over the place? It makes no sense in the context of the game world at all, and it isn’t fun.
3. What’s the point in having secrets and lots of items when it’s just ammo and armor? This might be fun if there was Duke Nukem 3d-style items like the holoduke that you actually could use and plan around, but nope. It’s just drudgery.
4. The scripting is static. That guy who tells you to stop moving in the initial airlock where they bio-scan you, fresh off the arrival ship? He always says that, whether you’re moving or not. Lazy.
5. Single well-lit monster syndrome!

God, what a turd.

myself:
All your comments are in-line with the other thread I wrote:

Doom 3 starts to become extremely annoying NOT because the unexpected is expected. This is a side-effect. It becomes annoying because we know what the possibilities of the game are. We define better the shape of the box and we start to be able to look at it from the outside. A scene isn’t scary anymore because it happens in-text, but it’s scary because it *always* happens out-of-text.

Jason McCullough:
But mine has bullet points!

myself:
Yes, but what I did was about collecting all those points and summarize them under the same flaw:
– The design breaks the “suspension of disbelief” because it exploits artificial “out of game” design strategies.

What you wrote in those points is true and originated by the same flaw in the design stage: “out of game” design.

DrCrypt:
Jason, even though (as H. Rose rightly j’accuses or il t’accuses or something) you ripped off H Rose’s penetrarating denunciation of Doom 3’s design flaws wholesale, I’d like to thank you anyway. So here goes: Thanks for neatly summarizing Koontz 2’s plodding forty paragraph post on things we all said about Doom 3 a month ago while expunging from your summary the bizarre comparisons he made to an MMORPG completely dissimilar to it in every way.

myself:
Fun that PcWorld has just posted a “mixed” review between DooM 3 and City of Heroes:

“Both are hugely entertaining, and both cater to a very specific desire of gamers: to remove one’s self completely from reality for a few hours per day (or week).”

Just a re-iteration of the flaws I focused. The purpose is the immpersion of the “spectator” inside an experience. And there are basic flaws in this process.

It isn’t important if the experience are completely different (single player FPS and a mmorpg), because there are many, shared purposes and mechanics under the skin.