Tag Archives: Game Design

Character customization and development in Warhammer

by | 3 Comments

As I recently commented on Lum’s blog, Warhammer may have the best implementation of “age” in a mmorpg, as I agree with Ubiq that it’s one of those bad ideas that just don’t die.

The way this system is implemented in Warhammer is instead interesting because it adds something without leading to other problems. Already in other games like Star Wars Galaxies (and UO too?) the physical appearance of your character wasn’t just defined and then locked as the character was created, but could be modified later on via other professions, like the “image designer”.

In Warhammer the idea is that “age”, “look” and “level” will be tied together in one progression. So not only you gain levels, but you’ll also see your character age and also further specialize his look. So that dwarves will grow longer beards or braids and so on. It’s a good idea on its own because it just adds more customization without really having an active role in the gameplay. It creates a better bond between the player and the character, but without the “age” becoming a negative element that eventually cripples your character and wastes all the time and dedication you put into it.

It also makes the players more recognizeable, as you would be able to identify a new character from one who has seen already many battles.

This is why I started to think that the idea of a “customization-in-progress” of your character would match prefectly the other idea I suggested about the recruit system (the second one). The problem is that with a linear customization, as the one Mythic suggested, all the “uniqueness” of your character is kinda lost. Why? Because the zones are tiered (I think). Every ten levels you move to the next “tier” zone. So you’ll always be surrounded by characters that more or less have the exact same customization choices you had as well.

The surprise and interest about seeing a veteran player passing by and looking much different would be lost, because all the players will be likely instanced around their levels, so that veteran player will never share the same space of lower level players and be admired for his unique look. The kind of awe that you feel looking at something still far away from your own achievement and that adds so much “flavor” and uniqueness to the game won’t be there. The fact that the player can further customize the character as it gains levels is a good idea, but it would be so much better if new and old players could play *together*. Emphasizing that differentiation.

It’s like if you are in a room filled with people that all have the same height. The customization loses its value if you are surrounded by people all alike, even if you know that outside there are rooms with people with different heights. But if in the same room you can have people of all different heights, then the customization becomes much, much more interesting. A value for the players, a way to actively differentiate themselves and even acquire “status”, because a veteran characters would be suddenly recognized.

But if you move linearly from zone to zone, this is lost, because the progessive customization will be staggered with those zone/tiers. As I tried to explain in the example above. Rooms where all players look alike because they are sharing the exact same moment/progress, instead of giving a value to the unuiqueness that would be possible if different kinds of characters shared the same space.

My idea plugs directly here. Instead of moving “forcefully” from one zone to the other as your character gains levels, the idea is to give the player a CHOICE. He would have the choice to move to the new zone or continue playing where he is. In this last case, THE PROGRESS ISN’T LOST. The player continues to earn experience and levels, but what he gains is only “archived” on his character. Then, as the character leaves the zone, the player will be prompted to bump his character up to his “real” level.

This means that instead of moving from one zone to the other without the possibility to visit again the places you left, you would just unblock the zones, progressively, having them ALL available once unlocked. As the character enters a lower level zone, the system would delevel it to respect the level range of that zone. If your character is level 40 this means that you would be able to access all the zones from level 1 to 40.

Now, why a player would decide to play in a lower level zone? In other games if you do this, you gain zero experience. In DAoC you can disable your experience so that you can continue playing in a Battleground you like. But this would mean that you don’t progress anymore. And you also have no way to access a Battleground below your level, so you can only enter one and only one. But not in my idea. In my idea your character continues to earn progress as if he was playing normally. A character could be active in a zone capped at level 10 and that character would continue earning experience that would be counted toward higher levels. That experience and progress is archived by the system. The character won’t break the level cap of the zone, but as he leaves it, he would be prompted to be bumped up to his real, current level. So no progress would be lost.

I explained better this idea and its goals in the post I linked, but in this case I’m looking at it from the perspective of character customization. The point is: the characters would be level capped to be balanced with the players in that zone (like a “mentoring” system applied to a whole zone), but this could still take full advantage of the character customization described above.

While the characters would be delevelled to respect the cap, the progress made on the physical appearance could be preserved without unbalancing the game. See what I mean? New and veteran players could play side by side in this system and the customization would have a whole new value. Veteran players would be easily recognized as their graphical “perks” would be easily noticeable. A longer beard won’t unbalance the game, of course, but it would become itself a valuable “trophy”. A recognized status. And players love these things.

I reproposed this idea recently on Corpnews. The idea is that not only you have the choice of playing in a lower level zone without losing progress. But there would be incentives doing so, with every zone having something unique to offer and to achieve.

Since it’s shaped around PvP, let’s say that to move to the next zone you need to score about 100 kills. Ok, the idea is that you can get those 100 kills and have enough experience to move to the next tier, continuing to level up. Or you can stay in that zone for another 1000 kills. Why? Maybe because there are special armor sets and perks to unlock and “collect”. Every zone would have some of those and the players could decide to just continue levelling up their characters, or instead try to collect all the special sets.

As I explained on Corpnews these would be an “horizontal” type of reward. Not more powerful gear to farm, but just unique *looking* gear to farm. “Trophies”. Something to reward your dedication to that particular Battleground and make your character unique. A symbol of status.

If all these ideas would be implemented the game would have three customization paths:

– Class specializations, levels, skills and spells (linear and progressive)
– Physical features/decorations (linear and progressive)
– Special armor sets, trophies, medals and “status” items (parallel)

But without those ideas the scope of the costomization that Mythic planned would be weakened. Because new and veteran players wouldn’t be able to play side by side, making the “status” and customization earned kind of redundant as you would be always surrounded by players that share your exact same progress.

(some more precisations here)

Crysis, again on the myth of MMOFPS

by | Leave a comment

I saw the news quoted on Joystiq but the original article is currently unavailable, so I cannot read the details.

Here’s what they say:

Power Struggle’s general concept isn’t innovative. You begin the game as a grunt, with just a pistol and basic armor. You’ll gain ranks and earn credits, which can be used to purchase upgraded equipment, by fragging your opponents and completing other tasks (e.g. securing capture points). The end goal is to help your team overthrow the opponent’s base. Now here’s where Power Struggle gets interesting …

To successfully destroy the other team’s HQ, you’ll have to harness the power of alien technology. Randomly generated throughout each map are various crash sites where players can scavenge for alien cores. These energy sources can be used to transform your team’s arsenal into weapons capable of achieving victory. However, you’ll first have to build up that arsenal by capturing structures that manufacture basic weapons and vehicles — and you’ll also have to provide the manufacturing materials.

Apparently, it can take up to 10 hours to launch an attack capable of winning a Power Struggle match. In-game, this feels like days, as one full day/night cycle is completed in two hours. Which means, yes, Crysis’ multiplayer will feature dynamic light – cycles as the icing on the cake.

I’m sort of reluctant to write about this because all I was thinking I managed to explain rather well in some old posts and forum threads. And right now I’m don’t feel as enlightened as I was. That discussion about “the myth of MMOFPS” was even spawned by some thoughts and anticipations about WoW’s PvP that are more actual today than how they were at that time (the theory is: “skill” and RPGs are antithetic, trying to match them is stupid).

Many FPS are already biting into the mmorpg genre or planning to do so. The point is that they can draw more useful ideas from it than what the mmorpg genre can draw from FPSs.

I was planning to write a follow up to that article and that forum thread I linked went in that direction (see the first page), then other things caught my attention as it often happens and I forgot to write it.

In the meantime I had managed to isolate three basic rules that say “why a MMOFPS cannot be a good idea”:

Exclusive choices

– You cannot have detailed character customization if you want large battles.
– You cannot have a satisfying and deep character progression if you want “skill” to matter.
– You cannot have persistent, huge environments if you want the situation to remain accessible for everyone

My point is, a FPS can integrate RPG-like elements and be a better game doing so. I believe that the FPS genre is already much more innovative and interesting than the mmorpg genre, so I expect to see interesting things. A FPS can already have all the persistence it needs, so inverting the model and make a mmorpg like a FPS just cannot be a good choice because it would lead just to many issues without doing really any good to the game.

In that original article I listed the only two “features” coming from the mmorpg genre that I think would be appealing to a FPS. The first is the more complex environments with various layers overlapping and interacting, the other is the persistence.

The first is already happening everywhere (as an example think to the upcoming “Enemy Territory”). Even this last description about Crysis tries to achieve that, hinting at the possibility to break the 10-hour game into a number of smaller missions. Those missions are there to add variation to an otherwise monotonous and static game (who is going to play 10 hours non-stop?). So it adds a tactical depth and a layer of complexity to the environment.

Then there’s the second point, the persistence, which I said was also divided into two parts. The persistence of your character and the persistence of the environment. In the case of Crysis we see the persistence and progression of the character directly tied with the one of the environment as the players progress by accomplishing tasks that depend on the world and “power struggle” itself.

But ultimately I HAVE to ask myself. What is the point? And you should ask yourself too.

In my mind that type of game described will likely lead to a bunch of issues. For example, how you keep the team balanced? It’s not a big issues in a CTF or Deatmatch, where the people you start with aren’t probably going to disconnect in the middle of the game. But on a game that can last up to ten hours you DO expect people to leave. Even if you keep the balance by forcing the players only to join the faction with less players active, you are still going to create gameplay paradoxes. What if, for example, a player drops out only to reconnect and join the opposite faction? It happens often in CounterStrike where a match only lasts a few minutes, so slef-contained, but how’s this coherent with a game mode that is based on the persistence? What’s the point of fighting for 10 hours, trying to slowly obtain progress for your team, when you can switch in a heartbeat to the other side and negate all the persistence? What prevents a frustrated team to gives up right in the middle of a game, drop out and go search for a more favorable situation in another game?

And if we admit that over the course of a 10-hours game there will be (obviously) a constant recycle of the players, then we have to justify the “worth” of the game within the limit of the playsession of ONE player. Where’s the interest of joining such a mode if you are only going to play for one of the total ten hours? You probably won’t ever know who won the match, so everything should be contained in that hour. How the 10-hour persistence adds to the experience of a single player who joins for his own hour?

How they prevent a game to remain balanced so that new players can feel motivated to join instead of jumping from server to server trying to find a match with a favorable situation? I mean, if the match lasts 10 hours then it means that both teams had the possibility to win for all those 10 hours, or one team would have just left the game if they were going toward a sure defeat. Isn’t this happening all the time in WoW’s Alterac Valley? And if the match remained perfectly balanced for ten hours straight, then it wouldn’t likely mean that the whole situation was rather static? And in this last case, where is the fun if for the hour that you can play you are just trapped in that immovable, static situation?

At the end there’s again that doubt that I expressed back then:
– Where are the benefits of a persistent environment in the middle term (week/month) compared to one that resets at the end of a play-session?

Or, more precisely, what are the benefits of a semi-persitent world that lasts longer than the average playsession?

So why trying to do all that?

Well, I have a theory. I suspect it’s all just in the name of the immersivity.

Monsters’ movement patterns

by | 4 Comments

I thought about this while commenting the EQ2’s video here below.

Have you noticed how in ALL mmorpgs ALL the monsters ALWAYS move just in straight lines? They aggro and run to you, or they flee, more or less randomly. In between there’s not much.

One of the things that caught my attention while I was playing God of War is how all the monsters had rather complex movement patterns that I would find hard even to describe technically. Complex rotations, retreats, fast dodges. They all look rather “fuzzy”. Not so easy to recognize and predict, in particular when you fight more than one at the same time.

That’s another element that has significant role in that game and one that completely misses in mmorpgs: the movement.

And another that I would really like being developed more, both aesthetically and for gameplay (different movement patterns during combat).

Add it to the “realistic aggro behaviours”, and mobs attacking in organized groups (unfinished post).

Think how much it would be cool to assault a goblin camp and have all those goblins start to fight in groups, parse the environment to take cover behind trees/tents as they fire arrows at you and while another small squad of three or four are running toward you to engage in melee.

And then you can work to “branch up” from a typical goblin mob to create a number of different variations, depending on the weapons and armor they use, their rank and so on. Instead of one mob type cloned everywhere, you would obtain a more organic environment that could offer much more interesting and deep gameplay.

This is again what the genre has still to offer. You just need to not stop at a very superficial level and “dig the myth”.

Then again, there are technical hurdles to overcome. This goes along with the lack of “physicalness”. The sense of contact, weight, solidity. In mmorpgs everything that moves is immaterial. You cannot reach out and “touch”. You just move through. Phantom-like. This isn’t just a limit for the emotes (cannot really “hug”, for example), but also for the combat, where you never really feel an impact. Stuns and roots are as far you can get. The monster cannot, for example, grab your arm and toss you away, or jump on you and keep you blocked under his weight. And if you are disarmed you are only losing the use of your weapon for a certain amount of time, you don’t see your weapon bouncing away and you don’t have to jump after it to use it again.

I think next-gen games will have to start to delve more on those patterns, see what’s doable and push some more the technology.

That’s innovation too. Without the need to look at other genres or fancy business models to experiment.

The evolution, from the “mechanics” to the “metaphor”

by | 10 Comments

Originally I was planning to write in this post just about the concept of “roads” in my dream mmorpg and its design implications, then I bit onto something.

It starts again from the long debate with Raph about the role and relevance of the “mechanics” and the “metaphor” in games. Raph thinks that the only essential one is the first, without which, we have no games. My belief is instead that they are strictly connected. And more than that, that one is the evolution and continuation of the other.

The raw theory behind these thoughts is rather simple to explain. We are cultural beings and we experience the reality only through the egg-shell of the “culture”, rarely in direct contact (and no, drugs are symbolic and cultural. As are games). So our perception is filtered through that shell. As Raph says, games tell us lessons about ourselves and the world. This is why the strict mechanics are much less powerful than a “metaphor”, because the metaphor is what adds the cultural value to something. Life-like patterns that are easier to recognize and that communicate their messages much more efficiently. In a word: immersion.

The basic critics I was making is that when we “simulate” something in a game we surely cannot replicate every other element. But we should choose the elements and rules that we are going to use to “make sense” in the game world. So, even if choosing a few elements, they must be drawn from a reality. If there are going to be five basic mechanics, those five should be “life-like”. Immersive. They should tell something concrete.

Years ago when I was working on a MUD concept there was an idea I really wanted in. NPC guards that would enforce realistic behaviours. At that time I was only playing Ultima Online and always thinking, “the guards should take all these people going around naked and throw them in jail”. And there were a lot of people running around Britain in underwear when I was playing. I couldn’t swallow that. As I couldn’t swallow all the stupid names that people used. I just didn’t like how awkward was the simulated world. For me the immersion has always been everything, the reason why I play. I imagine a game as if I’m being there, as a movie. I don’t think that a movie about Ultima Online would tell 50% of the walk-ons, “go sit in the set in underwear”. It just isn’t realistic and I always thought that if I was going to build a “world”, one day, this would be as immersive as possible, in all its smallest details.

Let’s see at this from a completely different perspective. Let’s take the Doom’s toilet. See, this means a whole lot. It tells us the evolution of games. The mechanics of FPS haven’t really evolved much. But you can see a definite, fundamental trend in the evolution of level design. In the classic Doom the environment didn’t make much sense. Raph would say that their function was exclusively about the mechanics. Long, narrow corridors, bigger rooms, moving walls, raising platforms. These had a role and this role was about creating a variation in the type of challenge, with a mix of different monsters and situations. Secrets to discover, puzzles to figure out. Everything was there with a purpose and the purpose was to create fun situations. The level design had the only purpose of creating fun and varied gameplay. Mixing the right types of rooms and environments with the right monsters.

That toilet represent the seed of an evolution. That toilet was out of place in that game. An anomaly, as it didn’t create any form of “gameplay” on its own. Think about it.

The evolution was about moving away from those generic rooms strictly with a functional purpose to reproduce more “life-like” environments. Think at those elements that made Duke Nukem 3D so popular. The interactivity, the voice comments, the dancers in the bars. Compare the classic Doom to the modern FEAR. The level design in itself isn’t so different. We still have walls, ceilings and doors. But today the designers and artist go in great detail to model these environments to look as realistic as possible. Instead of having rooms that are just rooms without a “metaphor” or an actual context, now we have enivronments that are reproduced as photorealistic as possible. We model officies, depots, parking slots, industrial complexes, and then desks, computers, cans, cables, ducts, sidewalks, manholes, posters and so on. More and more we go into the detail. And then we add physics so that all these objects also behave more realistically.

For me those levels in Doom that somewhat replicated more realistic environments were by far the most fun and those that I replayed more. Urban-like combat was the most fun to be had. The less linear was the level the more I enjoyed it. The mechanics weren’t “better” in those cases, but the “metaphor” was much more powerful. The game communicated better with me and it felt much more immersive. Running around an urban environment was for me more direct and powerful than moving around rooms connected together with little sense. I loved so much Doom 2 because it moved in that direction. I remember that when I played in multiplayer with my friends we used to give nicknames to the different zones in a level, the “house”, the “bridge”, the “refuge”, the “jail”. We were parsing those environments to make them look more familiar.

Think about it and you’ll see how the evolution we had is exactly that. We moved from the generic rooms in Doom, to reproduce realistic environments in the tiniest detail. Rooms that are linked together with a sense. Not because those details really add a lot to the gameplay. But because they add so much to the immersion and the results is significantly more powerful that you can imagine. These games communicate better. They establish a better link with the players. Today people love to play stealth games, from Metal Gear Solid to Splinter Cell. The immersion is everything. The only real difference from a normal shooter and a stealth game is that the latter replicates patterns that are more immersive. Where you have to think with the mind of your opponent, study his behaviour, follow where his eyes are looking, look around the rooms to locate the spots where you can hide better. The patterns that these games replicate are just more “life-like”. More complex and immersive.

Take also the AI used in FEAR. It was the must praised element of that game but I didn’t find so great as I expected. Imho the game isn’t all that much more challenging compared to other shooters. What I noticed is that if you move around the level trying to mimic a realistic behaviour, leaning past the corners, duck behind things, the enemy AI seems to react much more realistically. But if you take the “run & gun” classic approach the game is even easier and the bad guys look as dumb as in every other game. The thought I had is that the AI in FEAR isn’t harder to defeat or more challenging. It just tends to behave and react more realistically. And people love that. They like to go in a message board and write down a play session like a story. And this story makes sense. It’s not just a game. It’s pure… roleplay.

People seem to love to roleplay shooters. An enemy that yawns, sneezes or starts smoking. When they play a game and there’s something that behaved realistically they go “Cool!”. It’s the “wow factor”. (and take even the example of my short report about Sin) They call their friends and say, “Look at this!”

Is this more fun? Hell yes! That kind of “sophistication” isn’t anything else that the link between the bare mechanics and the “metaphor”. The life-like patterns. The immersion. “Being there”. Communicating in the most efficient way as possible.

Games tell us about life. Reality and the world. But filtered through the culture. The level of the metaphor is what bring that culture in a game. We like sex and blood and things that go BOOM! in games not because they are more fun (oh yes, they are) but because they are metaphors. Nothing else.

Take someone who never played a game and that thinks that games, comics and animated movies are things for children or nerds. Then show him Pac-Man, Tetris and Bubble Bobble. Then show him that fake trailer of Killzone 2. What you think will impress him more? What you think could “win” him?

And this brings me to what I really wanted to write about. The concept of “roads” in a mmorpg and a simulated word. Right now we have various levels of implementation:

1- In some games the roads are nothing more than a different texture on the terrain to give that “life-like” impression.
2- Then in other games the roads are used to lead the player. If you follow a road you’ll eventually arrive somewhere.
3- In fewer cases the roads are also safe spots, where wandering mobs do not pass, so a better choice if you don’t want your travel continuously interrupted. In the case of WoW there are also NPC patrols to guarantee that the monsters stay away.

One thing that I really wanted in my dream mmorpg was varying running speed and an active role of the environment in the game. So that, for example, it would be more convenient to pass over a bridge to cross a river instead of just swimming through it. For me these are fundamental issues because, again, I aim to create game worlds that can make sense. That are immersive and where the elements have a purpose.

In the recent games we always have maps but I remember that when I played DAoC I usually had to stick to the roads to not get lost. With the maps, those roads become more like superficial graphic features than something that has a “role” in the game. In these game worlds the roads don’t have a similar purpose like in our real worlds, where roads are sort of indispensable.

The idea was to change all that. What’s a mount in WoW? Well, a mount is just a well-animated model below your ass and a bonus to the running speed. Then, if we nitpick, a mount defines also a social status. It says that your character is at least level 40, and if it is an epic mount it says you made a trip to IGE or that you catassed or cheated enough to get one.

The idea was, again, to change all that. Everything pivots around the keyword “realistic inventory”. And then “realistic loot”, but this one I won’t discuss here. A realistic inventory means that I want the “weight” back in the game. It also means that a bag isn’t an icon on the lower right of the screen, but a physical object that you have to wear in certain locations. And in that bag you can fit only something that is at least equal or smaller than the dimension of the whole bag. The quests tells you to bring back twenty goblin skulls? Well, you’ll have to find a way to carry them.

Here plugs the idea of mounts and caravans. They are used to transport stuff that you do not usually carry with you. You can buy a cart and tie it to your horse. But the horse will run slower if you do.

And the roads. The roads will have a definite role because the carts and horses move much more quickly on cobblestones than they do on raw grass. And for sure they won’t go up a mountain. If you want to transport goods between a town and the other, organizing a caravan would be required. The purpose is to give the environment a role, and more, a realistic role.

In a PvP world the players could control, camp and block roads because those roads aren’t there just as a different texture on the ground, but because they were built so that the carts could move without breaking up. As it happens in our real world. This brings to an immersive game, but also to a game that has a better complexity, where the players can play actively with these elements because these elements have that realistic role that then behaves in a meaningful way.

Giving a purpose to the “roads” is just the first step to bring in the game another layer of complexity that enables the players to have a control over those elements. Patrolling and controlling roads will have a definite use. The game world would start to become more “life-like”. More immersive and deep.

If you think about this, it’s the path that we should take toward an evolution of these games. We always moved from a superficial reproduction of elements to then progressively add more complexity, more depth, more “meaningful” interaction. So this path is already traced, I’m only better defining it with concrete ideas. I believe it would lead to better games. Immersive games that communicate more effectively. Realistic loot, realistic inventories, realistic aggro behaviours, monsters attacking in teams instead of getting “pulled” one by one. One day these things will go away because they are only “temporary sketches”, temporary compromises.

It happens everywhere. It happened when for the first time we killed the dragon in D&D to find piles and piles of gold, but instead of becoming suddenly rich the master said, “how are you going to carry all that gold?”. And it happened in today’s comics, where Brian Michael Bendis took the Avengers and made them live stories that are truly “dramatic”. We don’t have anymore Capitan America fighting against 100s nazis with a smile. We don’t have anymore the superficial propaganda. Instead we scratch and scratch more on the surface. Give realistic and deep relationships to the characters, give every element a “weight”. Even the random combat scene isn’t anymore just a generic sequence of punches. Instead the backgrounds get more detailed and the action flows much more organically and consistently, with the “actors” respecting their positions and states. It’s a more detailed and careful description. More realistic, and more immersive.

“What would you do if?” The roleplay. Immersion. Being there.

Simply put: immersive games lead to stronger bonds. They communicate more efficiently.

DAoC’s expansion will save the game?

by | Leave a comment

Some more “neutral” comments after the whiny post.

It looks like someone else took my role.

See, the truth is that DAoC’s fanboys and fangirls are VERY HARD to please and I would dare to say that we were even spoilt along the years. When Mythic stops trying, we notice. And our original enthusiasm and dedication backfires.

From my point of view the content of this expansion was quite predictable. After all the rants about the classes in the Catacombs expansion and all the efforts that Mythic had to spend to tweak them along the months, the choice to use just one class shared by the three realms became more and more attractive.

The real problem is that the game has already way too many classes. At this point one more is BETTER than three. Zero would be even better than one, but this expansion for Mythic is like a duty. Something that they have promised and now they have to finish even if they don’t really want to. Because now that the Warhammer is the focus of the attention and of the “serious” development, DAoC is just a burden. A dead weight.

They had to fit something in this expansion. And classes and races seem to be obligatory in the recipe even when they are POISON, as in this case.

If you read the negative feedback about this expansion you notice that the general opinion is quite uniform. There aren’t many complaints about the features themselves (well, there are. But I’ll return on this), but more concerns about the direction the game is taking.

Because the point is that this expansion IS NOT what DAoC would need. That’s what people see. That’s what Amber is ranting about in the link above, and even what I read in a comment here. But what’s new? How is this different from ALL previous expansions? None of them really helped the game. Darkness Rising, Catacombs, ToA. In a few cases they damaged or deviated the game from its track. Not helped.

This isn’t a problem of resources available. This is a problem of an overall model of development used. By definition the expansions are the only way possible to develop significantly the game. To do that kind of stuff that the Live team cannot do alone. At the same time the only real part of the game that can be made optional (which is the true problem) and expandable is PvE.

Please notice: optional and expandable. Take these two terms, then think about “revitalizing the game”. How’s that “optional and expandable”?

That’s the point. It was the real problem since the beginning. The core of the game and the potential and scope of an expansion pack part ways. In the same way ToA derailed the game when the players wanted the RvR to improve. And not that kind of PvE that they can find in a better shape in other games.

But the RvR and all the basic structure of the game CANNOT be worked in an expansion. Because those parts aren’t “optional and expandable”. They need the opposite, they are mandatory and need to be consolidated because there’s already way too much space wasted. CCP solved this problem with Eve. They have a sandbox and they adapt to its model. Eve HAS expansions. And those expansion CAN improve radically the CORE of the game. But they aren’t optional.

So the point is: do not expect that kind of development on an expansion. Not only because it isn’t possible, but because it would even damage the game if that significant work would be restricted to an expansion pack and not the totality of the players (and the game).

Mythic had to deal with that. And their plan to minimize the side-effects was to use the expansions to expand and improve the PvE, while bundling the “technology upgrades” with it. While along the year they tried to work on the RvR and all the other parts of the game that couldn’t be made optional. That’s how we got the “New Frontier” and all those WoW-like eases of use that started to trickle in the game. Looking back, that’s how we got the original masterpiece that was Darkness Falls.

If you ask Mythic what’s their plan about “revitalizing the game”, they answer: “we have done that and always continue to do that.” Now the real question is: are they doing it effectively?

My opinion is that they aren’t doing enough, and I always specified that it’s not a matter of resources, but the way they are used. But then I would also say that that “Catacombs” damaged more the game than ToA. It took Mythic two years to admit the flaws of ToA, and it took them even more to admit the flaws of “/level 20”. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day they’ll even admit that Catacombs design was a big mistake.

Yes, I have ideas about how you could revitalize the game so that it could go from a negative to a positive growth. That idea they “stole” from me didn’t have that purpose and cannot be blamed for it. At least I could suggest some serious attempts that could make that a possibility. Many of these ideas are already in all I wrote. One of these is a reorganization of the overall structure behind “Catacombs” that doesn’t directly touch the content, but only the overall scheme and function. Doing something along those lines while also making the whole expansion (content) free for everyone could already do something. Then you could do the other part working on all the Battlegrounds in the game and convert them to the “Permeable Barriers” design strategy (see point 2), while also working on the BGs to make them all unique and special (with specific rewards and perks), instead of moving linearly toward a complexity.

Want another idea that could draw the attention of more players without requiring too much work? PvP classic servers:

– You take the classic server rules, no ToA, no buffbots
– You unify all the underground zones in “Catacombs” so that all the three realms share the same structure, used also as a “subway” connecting the three realms
– Make all the private instances, public
– Instead of the current “free-for-all” mode of the DAoC’s PvP servers, you retain the three hardcoded realms factions

It would require a quite significant effort to work on the technology (but I think it could be possible with Doom-like “visportals”), but it would also be great if all the Catacombs zones could be made “seamless”, with no zoning. Becoming one big seamless PvE/PvP environment.

Of course the negatives are that it’s yet another server that thins even more the population on the other servers. But, still, it risks to be insanely popular if well executed. And then you can work on the idea, adding mini-games and objectives in each dungeon and maybe doing the impossibe: REMOVE the frontiers entirely. And then reintegrate parts of them directly on the classic zones. With the realms becoming the RvR territories and the players taking control of Ludlow, Prydwen Keep, Cornwall, Ardagh, Mag Mell and so on. In a full PvP world.

So much is still possible. DAoC could still have a so huge potential and still have a lot to say. It could still make pale even the newer game and find its own noteworthy place in the market without getting overwhelmed. The game has still that kind of strength. But it’s a strength that you need to recognize and then pull out of it.

You decide if Mythic is doing that or not.

I believe that not only Mythic made many mistakes along the way (which isn’t bad and can lead to improve) but that they are still making them, and even easily predictable ones. The server clusters were a partial mistake, Agramon was a mistake, Catacombs was an announced disaster whose true effects are only visible today. The implementation of boats, PvP missions and rules to ease the realm unbalance way too weak and inappropriate in some cases.

The point is: there is so much that could be discussed, but I cannot believe that you really hoped that this expansion was going to solve the long-standing problems that this game has always had at the core.

Specialization Vs versatility

by | 9 Comments

This idea is something close to the old debate about SWG, where I was saying that one of the biggest delusions was that you were somewhat locked into a certain role, instead of taking advantage of all the game had to offer (combat, crafting, trading, social professions and so on).

That debate was also near the release of Jump to Lightspeed, where the characters gained a new pool of points and career so that they could play both the game on “the ground” and the other part in the space. Wouldn’t have been a very bad idea if the players were forced to choose between the planets or the space? So why it is a good idea to force the players to specialize into just one role?

The ideal is that if your game has cool things to offer, then it makes sense to make all of them available to everyone. Like it’s a bad idea to develop a game where the players can only access half of the whole content.

All this while I was thinking again that the best part of Dungeon Siege was the very beginning. Some of the best fun. Monsters pop out all around you and you grab your bow and start to take down some of them, but they are too many and they arrive close to you, so you switch to your sword and finish them off.

So what you would like to play?

– The character that specializes into just one type of attack and have to stick with it throughout the whole game.

– The character that has access at the same time to multiple possibilities, like ranged attacks when the enemies are away from you, melee for when they are close and magic spells to blow them up with spiffy Area of Effect attacks.

The “all around” character is DEFINITELY more fun to play. The game would offer more variation and different kinds of strategies would be possible instead of being forced to repeat the exact same cycle of moves. Having different tricks available is fun, being able to hit something in ten different ways less so.

Then, going back to the example of Dungeon Siege, you notice that the game doesn’t really support the constant switch between melee, range and magic. In fact all three have about the same use of efficiency and their purpose overlaps. You can still use the bow even at melee range with the same effectivity, so what’s the difference between the three? I’m not sure but from what I’ve seen the melee obviously works only in melee range but deals more damage and it’s faster, ranged weapons are a bit slower and weaker and the magic is the slowest between the other two but it should never “miss”. Sure, you could still use all three evenly, but you would have to do it just for “fun” (since there are no actual advantages doing so) and you’ll even risk to gimp your character in the later game.

It’s interesting to notice that in Dungon Siege the quick switch between the three modes isn’t even supported. So that’s the impression I got, what I found “fun” in that game was a way of play that the game didn’t actually encourage. How could have been the game instead if the design was really aimed at giving each of those three “modes” three different roles that complete each other? For example being hit in melee could have delayed the use of the bow, which would have encouraged the player not to switch only because it’s “cool”, but also because it would lead to a better strategy, where using a ranged weapon even in melee wouldn’t be convenient at all. And the same about the magic, instead of developing a “wizard” class, the idea would be about finding a special role for the spells to accompany and complete the melee and ranged attacks, instead of directly replace them.

Then compare those two models. The standard one, directly supported in both DS1 and sequel, that requires you to specialize, and the other one I “guessed” and hypothesized, where your character is required to switch between melee, ranged and magic, where all three fit specific situations and purposes and where you develop a versatile character that has access to multiple styles that you can (and you have) to mix all at once depending on the situation, the environment and the types of monsters you face. That’s what I think would have been much more exciting and involving to play. A mix of situations and gameplay, a mix of different types of attacks to use to plan the best strategy and a “1 Vs Many” type of combat that thanks to the variation could be even more fun to play than Diablo 2.

The next step is to examine the other side of the problem, though. The group play. Dungeon Siege is a game based on a group. Being able to develop a character that can master just every area means that you don’t need other characters in the team who can complete you. So this is a problem to solve, retaining the versatility of the single character, while allowing for character progress and specialization that can be also varied and deep.

WoW could be taken as an example here. The “talents” are a design idea that doesn’t usually remove or add skills, but just directs certains types of patterns you use. In DAoC, as a contraposition, the specialization paths give you directly skills and spells to use. A fire wizard won’t have access at all to ice spells. In WoW instead all the skills and spells are “open”, while the talent system still allow you to define your character into a more specific role.

In the case of my dream mmorpg I’ve fiddled with all of these ideas without never finding a definitive solution that I felt satisfying. But the overall idea was about giving each character a lot of variation, while specializing in a “fighting style”, more than a role or class as we currently consider them (give a look to this). In the case of Dungeon Siege this would be about specializing with a certain type of melee weapon, developing particular attacks, and the same about the magic, only having access to certain types of spells. But still having access to melee, ranged and magic all at once. So you retain the access to different “roles”, while you specialize into the way these roles behave.

A small detail? Not really, because it would completely overturn the group gameplay in a mmorpg. So that’s something to consider and figure out if the idea could open to interesting new way to conceive the “combat”, or if it would just cripple that part of the game.

Genesis: the world, to the players

by | 6 Comments

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

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

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

The world, to the players

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

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

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

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

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

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

The context: the war and full PvP

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

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

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

The conquest system

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

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

Full loot and economic system

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

The RTS: NPC bots for the boring duties

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

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

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

RMT out of the door

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

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

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

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

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

“Money Vs time investment” and “The good game is the one where EVERYONE WINS”

by | Leave a comment

Two controversial comments I wrote over at Raph’s blog about RMT, money vs. investment of time and the problem of the accessibility and processes of inclusion.

Disclaimer: To those quoted, I used those quotes as an excuse for context, not because I want to paint those who wrote them in a certain position.

The title is obviously a provocation.

—

Allen Sligar: As far as MMO players go, the demographic is a broad one. Some players have more money than time, some more time than money. Arguments premised on what is “fair” from either side are from the POV of investment of money vs. investment of time.

Like if the main reason why someone plays is to “invest”. On what? Two, three years later he will probably abandon the game anyway or the game and character not being there anymore.

One is supposed to play a game because it’s an interesting and fun experience to be had. Like if you read a book because you are interested on it.

Of course this requires time. Everything requires time. If you have no time, then you cannot play a game and enjoy it. The “time” isn’t a currency, the time is just what is absolutely necessary for you to enjoy something. If you don’t have two hours you cannot go in a movie theater to enjoy the movie.

So the point isn’t about *time*. Because if you play a game then it’s absolutely sure that you have time for it. The point is just about if you can have fun for the time you can dedicate to the game.

RMT is an exploit to leech money, not a scheme that leads to better games.

RMT devalues games. I don’t say that the model cannot or shouldn’t be used, I’m saying that those games will suck.

—

Michael Chui: RMT is delusory when it confers status normally gained through experience. It is reinforced by game designs where player skill matters very little, and thus the ownership of accounts or their contents typically means equally little, whereas their transfer has great value.

And I also disagree with this because I don’t think that mmorpgs should require “skill”.

The content is there to be enjoyed. The basic requirement is that you want your game to TEACH skill, not to discriminate players on it. If a game fails to teach, then it’s a game’s failure, not player’s failure. A game isn’t a good one if people with “no skill” cannot play and cannot advance in any way. There should be no skill required to enjoy a good story and participate in it.

A virtual world should strive for that ideal. People have different skill sets. A virtual world should give home and deliver fun to everyone, not to the most skilled. Everyone will then contribute with what he can. But there shouldn’t be processes of selection, distinctions of merit and so on. There shouldn’t be “premium” players who can enjoy the game more because they are more skilled.

Of course there should be “challenge” in a game for it to be fun. But the challenge shouldn’t be a way to tell skilled players from not skilled ones, it should be instead something that *everyone* can overcome. Because that’s the DUTY of a game: make everyone succeed.

The best game isn’t the one where a x% of the total players fails while another x% succeeds, because, again, the purpose is to present challenge and then offer all the conditions for that challenge to be overcome by everyone. So a game where the TOTALITY of the players are included, instead of discriminated or selected.

The objection is that in current games the challenge is just about perseveration and time invested. This is obviously not a good model because that’s not real challenge and that’s not what I’m wishing. That’s a devaluation of “skill” and it leads to empty games.

It is possible to preserve challenge and skill in a game, but again not with the purpose to discriminate the players and exclude some of them. Guides, tutorials, HowTos… There are plenty of ways on the internet to overcome the difficulty of a game. Asking other players, creating bonds and have more experienced players helping you and answering your questions are very good ways not TO REMOVE the challenge in a game, but to make it accessible. Instead of a exclusive selection, it’s an acquisition of competence.

There’s one absolute principle about games and virtual worlds: they should be accessible to the largest group of people possible.

I do not want any discrimination about skill, nor discrimination about the wealth of a player in RL.

Of course a 100% success rate is not realistically achievable. But that’s what an ideal is about. The ideal just means that I design games with that goal, having that goal always present. To strive for it even if it’s not possible to fulfill it completely. With the difference that who is still left out, wasn’t left out BY PURPOSE.

Animation system in “God of War” (and other thoughts)

by | Leave a comment

I’ve already wrote about this fantastic game and every time I play it I cannot stop myself from analyzing it in its smallest details to try to figure out what makes it so great.

I’m still convinced about all I wrote. Take this quote for example:

“God of War” is completely designed following that simple rule. All the encounters are almost impossible till you figure out the proper tactics to beat them. Once you have mastered them, the game becomes rather simple even at the highest level of difficulty. The game is never frustrating because it encourages you to master the (wonderful) controls and discover the proper patterns through a continued, varied exploration of your possibilities (types of combos, use of the environment, timing, positioning etc.. You have many, leaving space for a lot of “creativity” in how you decide to face a situation. Another fundamental trait of that game, in fact).

And then read it in the light of what I wrote about Diablo-like gameplay anf the two moments:

Observing it from the perspective I’ve described here the game is addicting because it does both “moments” really well. The first moment requires you to solve the level by “reading” it and then planning a course, the second moment is then about the quite challenging execution and the mastering of the movement.

Both of these together keep the game fun and varied, letting you experiment new solutions and then slowly improving and getting used to the control scheme.

I’m talking about another game in this quote, but the same applies to GoW. You need to find a proper tactics to overcome the various passages of the game. This process allows a lot of experimentation, variance and even some player-driven creativity. That’s the first moment. Then there’s always a second moment, because even when you figured out the proper tactics (the “trick” or “epiphany”), you still have to “master” it and execute it well if you want to succeed.

After the first moment the difficulty of the game goes down and you are supposed to easily succeed. The frustration is kept at the minimum because there’s a lot of space for the experimentation and you never find yourself forced into an abrupt stop. “Try again” is fun because you know there’s a lot of space to improve.

So again, there’s discovery from a side, and then practice and execution from the other. These two together are what make the game fun at a very fundamental level.

Then this time through the game I also started to observe some more technical aspects. For example the camera movement and the “level building”, but what amazed me more is the movement patterns of some of the monsters. For example right at the very beginning of the game there are some undead centurions that are constantly moving around you. I tried to figure out what kind of algorithm was used for their movement but without any luck. I was just impressed and I would be really curious to know how they managed to obtain that. It’s definitely a kind of movement that I wouldn’t know how to design.

I wish there were more places where you could learn about design a technology. Like being able to ask “How you did that?” I think I would never stop with the questions.

And finally the animation system on the main character. It’s impressive. But this time I don’t mean the quality of the single animations, but the technology below that interpolates PERFECTLY all the transitions. It’s fluid to the extreme.

Try to point the character against a wall, then slowly move the D-pad to make it walk against that wall, progressively moving the pad more till it makes it run. It’s simply impossible to notice when the walking animation stops and the character starts to run. What kind of animation system is using this game? How they managed to make it so absolutely fluid?

There are no jerky changes of state. You can press two times the square button and the character would finish with the right foot ahead, which then works as a starting position for a third attack. But if you do not trigger that attack, the character triggers another animation to make it move the foot back in the default position. It’s all planned to match perfectly. Timed perfectly.

Another detail I noticed is about the jumping. Even in WoW the characters have a “landing” animation that triggers only if you aren’t moving at the moment of the landing. So if you jump on the place, or stop moving while on the air, the landing animation triggers, while if you jump and continue to run the character switches suddenly to the running animation bypassing the landing one. You could think this is all normal but for example DAoC didn’t have all this “detail” and the characters just performed the landing animation in all cases, looking quite silly since they slid unrealistically on the terrain (this was fixed in one of the most recent patches). In the case of God of War, the game follows a similar pattern to WoW, but I think it even have a really tiny landing animation (or at least a very good interpolation) that makes the transition from the jumping to the running perfect.

The whole point is that, beside the quality of the animations, the console games just seem to have available a MUCH better technology and tools. Why that kind of technical stuff cannot be leveraged? We aren’t talking about netcode, databases and server programming. That’s work that is limited to the client and we should be able to port those achievements to the mmorpgs.

I think it’s about time. Mmorpgs still PALE compared to console games when it comes to technical execution. And that’s one particular field that with the time should become increasingly accessible. I mean, at least when it comes to these technical aspects THERE WILL BE concrete, unavoidable progresses. We can have faith on the industry from this perspective because “we can have shinier things”. Contrarily to the progresses from the design point of view, that requires a different kind of competence and will to push things to the next level.