Tag Archives: Game Design

Young and naive

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It is really surprising how FoH’s fans had their mind warped after playing so much EverQuest. It’s like brainwashing. They can just rinse, repeat and desire what they’ve been taught, without any hope to recover.

There’s a real masochistic nature, here. From a comment I spotted:

UO had no level system, and very little progression in their skill system. There was thus little barrier to consuming content, making UO a short term game.

Levels (or a good substitute) add a great deal to any game. The key points being the limiting of consumption of content and the game world as a dynamic place through the change of the player.

I mean, for some experienced players who actually understand game mechanics these claims are rather ridiculous and shouldn’t even deserve to be discussed since they are so obviously wrong. But what amazes me (and the reason why I’m writing about this) is the way a game “shaped the perceptions”. EverQuest somewhat damaged the mmorpg space, pretty much as Diablo was able to kill a true “RPG spirit”.

This kind of process is both negative and positive, I think. It can be positive because I see a demonstration of the fact that the players are like “believers without beliefs”. Waiting to be seduced. A good game doesn’t really build on top of previous values, instead it creates them from the void. Those values weren’t there before, but then they exist and they become tangible for so many players. It’s an active power of influence.

About that quote here above, what about publishing books written so small that you get an headache after a couple of pages? This, obviously, in the interest of the writer, the publisher and the reader. Let’s make thing harder just for the sake of it. It’s really a completely warped perception of value and worth. And it’s obviously masochistic from every point of view.

You could argue that the process is positive because it leads to a stronger community (harsh environment, social ties needed) but then it’s kind of obvious that you do not encourage community-building through barriers or processes of selection. While it can work better if you remove those barriers and go for processes of inclusion. Instead of actively going against them.

The point is quite simple. There just isn’t any concrete relationship between a satisfying “progression” and barriers between players and content. That was just a blunt system that stupidified the progression in a simplistic, elementary scheme that was just the bare minimum of an idea that was supposed to develop and evolve from there. It’s like taking the “progression” term and apply it literally, losing completely the idea of what it really meant.

Then it is obvious why EverQuest is considered a game for obsessive-compulsive players. It’s like being a “marine”, you are taught all you need to know and do. From there onward you are supposed to shutdown your brain and just execute instrutions. It’s the obliteration of the “roleplay”, or better: the free will. EverQuest is like the industrial age. People are taught to be cogs and be functional to the system. Do not take initiative, no questions, no doubts, no consciousness. Just an hypnotic repetition that slowly brainwashes you till your mind is shaped to understand and be functional only to those elementary structures.

Where’s the “progress” in this? Where’s the progress in the absolute repetition? In the total absence of the new?

Isn’t “progress” all about creating new dynamics? And where are the new dynamics if the world is so precisely defined and structured that nothing within it can change. Where is the progress if nothing can be learnt or discovered? What a wicked idea of progress is this if it doesn’t include any kind of choice?

This is what amazes me. Not that a game like EverQuest imposed a model that could have been perfectioned, but that it convinced the players to believe in values that are the EXACT OPPOSITE of the truth. A “negative” of the real world. And this is again why I find this process wrong and good at the same time. Wrong because it’s teaching people wrong things and having a strong, negative influence that seem to contaminate and spread more and more, uncontrollably. Good because it’s a demonstration that NOTHING is set and you can easily overthrow this stupid, wicked system if you only try.

It’s an open door. A game can easily build its system of values and shouldn’t worry at all about offering something that the players aren’t used to. Because those values and beliefs are volatile. It’s a kind of space where the strongest founding rule can be blown away in a second. Insects with an inch-sized perspective. I believe that players are ready for “something new”. Just because the traditions we can see and analyze now are so weak and temporary. There’s really little of what we see now that is solid enough to be able to resist for years.

And that’s again the point. What is missing in the mmorpg space is an “opportunity”. The opportunity to try something new that is based on more solid principles and that can work better. The “audience” is irrelevant because right now the public is used to a system so broken that just exists and is strong because… there are no worthwhile alternatives. No other perspectives. A narrow sight that is persisting just because noone is standing up to go open the window.

I mean, the games we have today are a demonstration of a complete lack of faith in the intelligence and perception of the people. As if we believe that the players out there really only understand “progression” as a linear, numeric one shaped as a treadmill and that their brains cannot grasp anything slightly more complex or dynamic. Brainless games because we believe that people don’t have a conscience or the possibility to think with their head, the possibility to learn and discover new things, but just execute the commands they’ve been passed and repeat them endlessly.

If you start with that mindset then, obviously, you can just ruin things with your own hands. Nothing good will came out of that.

I cannot believe there’s so much lack of faith. There isn’t really any reason or motivation to create games if we are doomed like that, if a game is just a way to waste some time.

I don’t see all this as “progression”. In fact that’s the absolute absence of it. And one day I’m sure we’ll all laugh at those silly ideas as we do today when thinking to when people believed that it was the sun to move around the earth.

A matter of perspectives. So young and naive we were.

I Wished

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Server travel, again

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I don’t know why when I write on a forum I’m able to explain an idea in just a few lines, when instead I have to write something here I write and I write and it never ends.

So there’s this thread on Grimwell that presents a rather old problem that I examined too many times to remember. Nothing new, but it works as a short summary of my points.

Geldon: I’ve found that MMORPGs are generally better when I’ve got a lot more players to group up with. Lately I’ve taken to trying to identify the most populated server and starting a character there – and it’s paid off quite hansomely. Comparing servers on Dungeons and Dragons Stormreach, I’ve found it’s the difference between waiting five minutes to get a group to not being able to find one at all.

What bugs me is this: Why shouldn’t I be able to access the entire player population?

Darniaq: Technical limitations are linked to costs too. Uni-servers require a very different financial evaluation model many are not accustomed to.

Grimwell: Tech limits and costs can only account for so much of the equation. Another part is ‘developer vision’ and the perks/limits thereof. Some developers are not pleased with the current implementations of Uni-Servers and have (likely) convinced themselves that it can’t be done (for X reasons).

Global servers aren’t really an “useful” possibility, but there are many other better solutions that can maximize the benefits and still use current technology without pushing the boundaries too much.

The problem is to allow the “permeable barriers”: the possibility to have a flexible system that lets the players travel between servers, switch classes and roles, factions and so on.

For example the “betrayal quest” in EQ2 is an example of “permeable barrier” since it allows you to switch faction if you want.

Traveling between servers would be another implementation of permeable barriers.

My idea was rather simple: let’s retain the server structure we have now, but let’s also work on a system that can transfer characters from a server to another. Then we transform this process from an OOC one (where you go to a page and ask the transfer as in WoW) to an IC one. Where your character steps into a portal and that portal is part of the fabric of the game.

On top of that we add a system of automatic rules so that the portals switch from “green” to “yellow” to “red”, regulating actively both the population and PvP factional unbalances.

For example, let’s say the server is flagged “red”. It would mean that you can move out of it, but not in. Let’s say you are in the red servers but you want to join your friends. Well, you cannot ask them to join because the server is closed. But you can always move out and join them.

So, again, the “barrier” is permeable in the sense it still defines a space, but without trapping you inside.

Four smaller things that WoW did best

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Yesterday I was taking some notes about minor details and design bits in WoW and here’s a list with smaller things, often not noticed, that this game does FAR better than every other mmorpg in the market. I think the Blizzard’s care and unmatched execution can become particularly evident from these smaller details, that are often more than details.

– Great terrain textures. Blizzard’s art direction has been praised many times, but in this case it’s the particular of the ground textures that I noticed and that I think is a demonstration of a wonderful work. No other game has beautifully painted textures as WoW (to compare with the dullness and variable quality in EQ2). It’s one particular piece taken out of all the graphic in the game that isn’t easily attainable. The one that better demonstrate the talent of Blizzard’s artists. You could criticize the cartoonish style of the art direction or take graphic bits from other games to demonstrate that something better is possible. But the ground textures are absolute, unmatched masterpieces with all the other games widely outperformed.

WoW ground texture gallery

I think the ground textures represent the very best part of WoW’s art. This becomes particularly evident when you compare the game with other games that can rival with it when it comes to render impressive environments, like Guild Wars, whose ground textures try to imitate WoW’s style but still failing to match the art quality. People may find silly that I point out a detail like this one, but the ground textures have an extremely important role on the graphic impact. Often in these games the ground textures are just repeated patterns that give a strong sense of dullness. In WoW the environments are immersive not only because of how they are modeled and varied, but also because the dull effect given by the “tiles” is removed for the most part.

The beauty of these textures is then not also due to the work of the artists, but also to the way the graphic engine was engineered. High-res textures on the terrain and long clipping planes are often enough to cripple the framerate in games with expansive outdoor locations. In WoW the textures on the terrain retain a decent resolution, the clip plane is amazing and the performance is still great. From this perspective you cannot desire more. These textures also take advantage of a pretty “shader” effect (I think it’s a specular mapping) that makes the texture “highlight” under the sun at a certain angle. Even here Blizzard’s choice is a very good and solid one. This effect is used consistently on all the textures for the terrain in the whole game, it’s doesn’t cripple the framerate at all compared to other shader effects that you can see in other games and it is also really well used to add detail and realism. So they always keep an eye to the performance of the engine, while only selecting those “fluff” effects that really contribute to the graphic impact, to then reuse them consistently.

Even when it comes to the design of the graphic engine all the smaller details are examined carefully and then added to the game only when they are truly excused and relevant. And not just thrown into the mix casually and without much though. Which corresponds to the overall philosophy used by Blizzard: toying with less elements, less “crowdedness”, less noise. But with a much higher quality standard to pass before something makes through to the game.

A game-y approach. Instead of adding complexity and delving in it, WoW took the mmorpg genre and put it under a magnifying glass to carefully examine it, simplifying as much as possible, radicalizing some elements, removing the bad-habits and the superfluous, and continuing to polish while striving for “perfection”. A model of a game where nothing is unjustified or experimental.

A detail of the graphic engine as the one I described is just a confirmation of the recipe used.

I’m also worried about “The Burning Crusade”. I fear that those artists that did those masterful pieces of art could be between those who left Blizzard to join one of the companies that recently spawned. So let’s hope that I’m wrong and that the talent is still strongly in Blizzard’s grip. Those arstists are priceless. Whoever they are.

– No artificial linked encounters. In EQ2 the designers, following a similar mindset used for Vanguard, decided to “expose” more and more the “wires”. While in other games like DAoC you can never easily tell those mobs that are “social” (so that aggro you by bringing along other mobs) and those who are independent, in EQ2 instead you can target the mob you are going to pull and the interface tells you directly if there are other mobs linked or if your target is detached and can be pulled safely alone. Actually in DAoC the “social” reaction of the mobs was often, in fact, a reaction. If you pulled solo you could get just one mob, while if you were grouped you could get more than one. In both EQ2 and WoW the pulling mechanics aren’t “reactive” in the sense that they vary depending on how many players are in the pulling group (in WoW the level of the characters affects aggro radiuses, though), but it’s here that WoW differs from EQ2 and that I think it is far superior from a design point of view.

In EQ2 it’s the interface that tells you which mobs are linked and it’s the designer to place these encounters by hand and decide those that are linked and those that are “solo”. So the mechanic is completely “external” to the game (see my OOC-design critics). You just “read” it through the interface and react accordingly. This was a major gripe for the players, in particular coming from the EverQuest Classic, since pulling and learning the encounters in that game was a puzze-game in itself, that was purged in EQ2.

WoW differs from that approach even if it keeps things extremely simple. There isn’t any “social” flag system that defines which mobs are linked and which mobs aren’t. I don’t know if there are special cases, but from what I observed the mobs simply react to a fixed radius throughout the game. If the mob you are pulling is at a close distance from another, then those mobs will run to you together. Out of that radius it will be a single pull.

The interesting design approach here is that the model is consistent throughout the whole game. Without cases that disrupt or contradict the experience. The players slowly grasp the rule because this rule is a constant, so it can be “grokked” by the players (using a term Raph used on his book to define the mastery of a pattern) even if they haven’t fully realized it consciously. It is a consistent in-game behaviour because these mobs don’t react to scripts defined by a designer, but on a somewhat “physical”/immersive element that is familiar to every player: distance. Already in the first ten levels of your character, while trying to make through a cave without aggroing the whole place, you start learning the “safe” distance between the mobs so that you can pull safely without getting more than one. And then you continue to re-apply and re-experience this rule till you have fully mastered it. Till it becomes “instinctive”. So that it’s actually about removing the filter of the interface to move closer to a “visceral” pattern.

The result of this is that “mastery”. The possibility to learn to track down mobs and pull them at the right time. Which is a so much better design choice then the one used in DAoC, where these mobs behave accordingly to rules that are hidden to the players (leading to frustration and a not-consistent game), and the one used in EQ2, where the wires are blatantly exposed.

Terrain inclination and physical barriers. Here DAoC is another example of how-not-to-do-it and WoW a good example about how to make it work, also directly linked to the previous point. In the “New Frontier” overhaul to the PvP zones, DAoC’s designers decided to add tactical elements and a better role of the terrain in the mechanics by creating zones that could not be passed and one-way barriers (cliffs, valleys etc..). The idea is not a bad one, but the implementation, as it not rarely happens in DAoC, was awful. The reason of the failure of this mechanic was that these barriers were arbitrary.

Those barriers were placed by hand by the zone designers following their own tactical reasonings that could have been good or wrong, but the problem was that they became “invisible walls” that the players could not figure out consistently. You just couldn’t guess where you could expect a “wall” and where you could instead manage to move through. As you can imagine this can be truly frustrating and the players ranted constantly about it for that reason. The “feature” was also even more crippled by another bad implementation. These invisible walls not only prevented you to pass, but they also made your character stop moving completely, so that you had to turn in the other direction and then move again, removing the possibility to “slide” against the wall to find an “opening”.

This was an engine limitation in DAoC (I could be wrong, though). The game didn’t allow to create one-way physical barriers. Or you had a zone border (so a two-way block) or you could run even up a cliff at full speed (actually much faster since speed was only horizontal and didn’t factor the verticality).

Often WoW is mistaken on this aspect. Some players think that it’s the texture that gives cues about where you can go and where you cannot, but the texture is not an active part of the mechanic, nor the one that is really utilized by the players. It’s the engine of the game that automatically determines the places where you can go from the places where you cannot, depending on the inclination of the terrain. It is then the world editor that the designers use to also pick the appropriate textures.

Even here the mechanic, as for the one ruling the behaviour of the aggroing mobs, is consistent. The behaviour is a constant that the players can slowly grasp and then reuse naturally. At a glance I can tell you where my character is probably able to walk and where I expect to “slide back”. I can guess where there are the passages and where I could try to “push”. This because while playing the game I’ve learnt to parse the concept of terrain inclination and it is now a spontaneous guess that can happen without me actively trying to have coscience of it. Like for the “distance” concept used to figure out which mobs I’m going to aggro with a pull, the “inclination” is another physical, consistent and familiar element that all players can grasp and reuse.

It is consistent because both the “inclination” and “distance” are elements coming from *within* the game and not out of it (like a script or a flag). And “game-y” at the same time because instead of striving for a simluation, they decided to simplify and reduce the pattern to just one, easy to grasp, element that is a constant used then for all the encounters. So they picked ONE element out of hundreds possible (game-y), while choosing it *within* the game world (intuitive for the players and coordinated with the “immersion” in the virtual world).

There isn’t even the need for visual cues that tell you where you cannot go because the textures change from zone to zone, while it’s the terrain inclination to be the constant. So the element that is always reused and that can be grokked more naturally and then applied effectively.

Even here game design is carried over to the game engine to support features and behave consistently. And it’s again another great demonstration of Blizzard’s flawless execution.

– No mindless fetch quests. What? No fetch quests? WoW is filled with fetch quests, why I say it has none?

Because it is true. In the sense that there are no quests whose only purpose is to make you waste time by walking from point A to point B. This mindset is simply missing from the game. There aren’t unexcused quests as a pretence of making you waste time with unfun bits of the gameplay (to an extent). It would be stupid to add a quest whose only purpose is to make you walk just to waste time and, in fact, WoW usually avoids this.

There are instead PLENTY of mmorpgs out there who use the fetch quest exclusively as a time waster. A good example is again DAoC, where the latest two expansions had a vast amount of mini-quests (tasks) whose only purpose was to be a time waster (see also my comments here).

In WoW, instead, there are no deliberate and exposed “time wasters”. At least if you don’t consider the whole game as one. To explain better, WoW uses “fetch quests” but with a precise function within the game. Never unexcused (see the constant?). These fetch quests are instead tools used actively by the game designers to direct the players. So their purpose is not only alien to the “time waster” idea, but also quite important in the dynamics of the game.

These fetch quests are often used to conclude cycles and make your character travel to new zones where its adventure will continue. They highlight a path and lead the player by hand. So it’s not just about completing a boring task that the quest asked you, but about building “narrative bridges” (or “rails”), used to connect the various locations and stories in the game and avoid the player to feel lost and clueless or move out of where he is supposed to be.

The quests aren’t just a method to deliver content in this game, but also as a learning process to let the players slowly discover the possibilities the game has to offer. And that “learning mechanics” becomes then on its own the very best form of gameplay that the game has to offer (and with an awful replayability since you can only learn stuff once).

And it’s another great example of how even the most stupid form of quest in WoW retains a strong role and function that works so well that is often not even noticed.

A well-oiled game. A masterful engine.

Gated content + Permeable barriers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World traveler: “gated content”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such is the multiverse.

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

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

The defenitive solution to the endgame: “gated content”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why this division?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These realities should coexist as possibilities.

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

– Accessibility
– Immersion
– Gated content
– Permeable barriers

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

Game design strictly dependent on software development

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I was reading the second part of an article on the evolution of level design in 3D games (mostly FPS) and it made me think that the game design has always evolved after new technology was available. In the FPS history the big titles have always corresponded to brand new engines and features. Significant advances in the technology to support new means of interaction.

This brings me to an older post:

One (of the many) requirements for new content is that it must be backed up by new systems.

Basically, content is a variation on systems.

You can only produce so much worthwhile content using a given system without having the player say, “It’s just another fedex quest, except I’m delivering jelly babies instead of flour” or “This monster is really just and orc with a different 3D model.”

Game design is and should be strictly connected to software development. Innovative games will need to be based also on significant progresses on the client and server technology. And this is also why innovation is more likely to come from consolidated, veteran companies instead of indie game development. Right now it looks like to have a mmorpg you just need chat functions, a trerrain engine, a pretty render for the water, a skybox, monsters and combat systems.

The high number of clones of mmorpgs is also due to the fact that the software development is much more complex and it barely progressed. Both EQ2 and WoW are supposed to drive the genre forward since they can take advantage from their many resources, but their upcoming expansions add very little on the front of software development. New levels, new zones, new monsters, new skills and spells. Stagnation. Maybe only the flying mount in WoW is something new.

I’m also thinking to Guild Wars. The second chapter is supposed to have roughly the same amount of content of the first chapter, in fact it was sold at the same price. But when the game came out I didn’t buy just the content. But also all the new technology that made the game possible. Technology that was then reused for the second chapter with very little improvements or additions.

The same with the upcoming release of “Episode 1” for Half-Life 2 (1 June). It isn’t expensive because they want to sell roughly six hours of content for 20$. But because the game is based on old technology (beside new filters like HDR) that is being reused, so the final price should also reflect this aspect. The production costs should be much lower. So the price.

It’s undeniable that when you pay for a game you also pay for the technology that made it possible. Episodic releases and expansion packs more and more cut to zero the software development and still pretend to be sold at a full price. This doesn’t sound right to me. Content isn’t “time wasted”. Content is variation and support for variation.

Beside the considerations about the costs, the main point is that the game design cannot progress without being integrated with an active software development. This is a CRITICAL issue for a mmorpg, whose technology research and progress is often completely abandoned just after the game is released (beside bug fixing).

It’s quite ovious that the limited life cycles of the current mmorpgs are a consequence of this behaviour. Software development stops and you can only stretch the game systems so far before the players see that there’s really nothing new beside cut&paste of the same stuff. The downward trends aren’t a rule. They are the consequence of a stagnation that comes as the result of a lack of support on the game. Even if mmorpgs continue to release expansions there’s often little to no development on the technology to support new features and evolve the game.

Immobility -> Stagnation -> Downward trends

The cause is still the lack of a true support.

At the same time this has also brought to the useless “sophistication” of the latest mmorpgs, with Vanguard as the most glaring example: aggro lists, multiple targets, complicated relationship and intergaction between the skills. All kind of GUI-intensive gameplay that I defined as a direct byproduct of the meta-game we are forced to play.

The way Raph rewrote my point:

he argues that the traditional healer role that exists in the modern MMORPGs only exists to fill a need in the core combat game system; that it is, in other words, purely mechanical, and present merely as a formal system, not because it captures the spirit of healing in any way.

Along those lines the current evolution (or better, convolution) of combat systems with the insane multiplication of hotbars, buttons, triggers, colored bars and pop-up messages.

It’s like if we hit a wall and are trying to compensate the lack of advance through the sophistication of what’s already available. A “specialization” of a genre out of its natural context and evolution.

Things you cannot do in mmorpgs

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I noticed that Aggro Me linked a video with EQ2 players doing crazy jumps around Freeport. It reminded another video that I saw the day before about a totally insane domino setup made in Oblivion.

“Empowering the players”, or: things you cannot do in mmorpgs.

Try for example to do those jump in Guild Wars, or, in the case of the domino example, try to give the players the possibility to dig holes in the terrain. The day after the whole world would be transformed in a Gruyere.

When I was imagining my “dream mmorpg” and thinking about focusing on the interaction, I got the idea of allowing players to “push” each other. Well, a simple feature like this would be already a disaster, but also “magic”. Think for example of sitting near a cliff, watching the panorama. A player passes by and pushes you down the cliff. See ya. It’s already a mini-game!

Add a platform as a limited space, add five players on it and then let them toy with the “push” function to see who’s the last one to remain standing on the platform.

It could be already a fun model that could lead to add some variation in a game and add to the experience. For example those thoughts lead me to imagine the “inferno” zone. A full PvP zone mingled with PvE where squads of players have to move around with flying platforms. Through a simple physics model these platform can bend in a direction (depending on triggers or players’ position) and the inclination would affect the physics model. Add both PvE and PvP combat to this situation and you would have the most crazed experience ever in a mmorpg.

There are lots of possibilities. During WoW’s beta you could create fireplaces to cook stuff, it’s still possible in the game. But during beta these fireplaces had collision on and the players learnt to use them to create absurd piles as ladders to reach unreachable places. I remember insane piles in Ironforge going up to the roof where the gryphon passes right now and people sitting on top of the auction house. The result? Blizzard removed the collision from the fireplaces so that you couldn’t stack them anymore.

While it’s not possible to give the players “control” in a game, all these tools can be extremely innovative and precious *in a mmorpg*. Not in a single-player game. These features aren’t a limit in a cooperative game, they are a potential that must be governed. It’s when you can affect other players that things become interesting, that what you do achieves a meaning. The interaction becomes the focus of the game. A game-world becoming consistent and moving steps away from game-y environments where you can only follow what is strictly part of the game. The overall idea of a “world” as opposed to just a game.

3D is powerful even for that reason. You can look around and turn in the direction you weren’t supposed to look to. Or jump and reach places where you weren’t meant to be.

At the end the driving purpose of these mechanics was the “immersion”. Or the possibility to shape an environment coherently with the expectations of the player. Or: self-consistence.

If it isn’t possible to give the players the control, it’s still viable a modular approach. The video from Oblivion suggested me some interesting possibilities for a “trap system”. Think for example to a PvP environment where the players can conquer territories and castles. It could be possible to build a simple trap system made modular so that a castle would have a number of hook points where you could place triggers and related traps. With a good modularity (different triggers, different traps, linked triggers and traps etc..) it could be easily possible to remove the predictability and obtain a system that still plays within the rules while adding variance to the game. Think about then letting the players set traps in the forests, set alarms and so on.

All these tools would add very little to a single player game, but they could become truly interesting in a game where you have more ways to interact and affect other players. With rules so that these systems cannot be used out of their context.

Adding this type of “variation” and focus to other types of interaction beside combat and enhanced treadmills, are ways to shape an immersive world. Think about going to hunt in a forest, and have the animals not react just to aggro radiuses, but to sound and line of sight, so that you would have to sneak in slowly and pay attention to not scare your prey and let it run away (instead of suddenly charge against you in every case).

These are ways to make the experience richer and more immersive. To create truly interesting and FUN virtual worlds. This is the “variety” I want to see. Consistent and immersive. Not penguins and metaverses.