Half a gig of patch

by | 2 Comments

Whoa! This last WoW patch weighs 492Mb, I think not even the cumulative patch from release till today wasn’t as big.

Of course I’m waiting for mirrors. I’ll have to download this twice, as lately I’m spending time mostly on the european version.

EDIT: My favourite patch mirror seems to work splendidly. With resumable downloads and all. They also have the patch notes.

Who knew that the LFG window took 400Mb of space? :)

In the last days it was also discussed the fact that the expansion will be released “unfinished” as not all dungeons that were planned will be ready. I don’t follow WoW’s beta so I don’t know exactly the number of dungeons that should be there, but this is one of the latest posts from Tigole:

Gruul’s Lair will ship with the expansion. It houses two raid encounters. Our Quality Assurance raid group has been testing the encounters for several months now.

Vashj’s Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, will ship with the expansion. We just finished it and sent it to test. Hyjal Past is in the game and being tested internally. Tempest Keep (raid) with Kael and his buddies is in the game and being tested internally.

Black Temple is coming along great but won’t make day 1. We’d rather hold it and polish it. Zul’Aman will not ship with the Burning Crusade. We might patch it in at a later date.

Miscellanea:

Raid caps:

Karazhan = 10
Gruul = 25
Magtheradon = 25
TK Raid = 25
Coilfang Raid = 25
Hyjal = 25

Heroic Difficulty

For testing purposes, the reputation requirement for the Heroic Difficulty dungeons will be reduced to Neutral. The reputation will be returned to Revered when the game goes live. Our current intention is that Revered should be achievable by doing the Exterior Zone quests along with 4-5 dungeon runs.

Most the instances should be under 1:30. Most of the level-up dungeons should take closer to 1hr with an average group. Some instances are even faster, such as Caverns of Time — Opening the Dark Portal.

Our goal was to keep most 5-man instance runs to 1-1:30 with a few exceptions.

Of course the raging beast that is Karazhan is in a league of its own =P

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged:

Eve-Online at 150k

by | Leave a comment

It was confirmed on the boards, so I take the occasion to report it.

Eve-Online had 145k this November (it was at 142k at the beginning of September, so it’s sitting more or less on the same level) and it’s fair to assume that it gained at least another 10k with the release of the latest patch/expansion.

The number of concurrent players seem to confirm this as they hit another record this Sunday, bordering 33k online at the same time.

I was also trying to compare Eve numbers with City of Heroes numbers to see if I could find a pattern in common, as it’s another game we have detailed statistics about. But I noticed that CoH has a very odd and irregular behaviour with the subs/concurrent user peak ratio. Maybe I’ll comment about this later.

Another form of communication

by | 2 Comments

I read with attention what Jeff Freeman wrote (and Lum’s reply) about forums and communities in general but I don’t have much to add or comment. Despite the clarifications about the myriads of misunderstandings I didn’t find any really strong idea.

If I read it correctly then maybe I’m not the only one waving that flag. I’m also for community networks but I don’t find the debate about what technology to use really interesting. I don’t see podcasts having any greater use than a blog, quite the contrary. And as I commented on Lum’s blog I hope that in the case they happen they are also accompanied by text transcriptions.

When it comes to the communication and dialogue with the playerbase I think that CCP is giving a better example than what we see everywhere else. It’s not perfect but it’s something. They use blogs for that kind of one-to-many communication addressing the bigger topics, but the point is that they use them in a meaningful way. They go in great detail to explain things and they don’t have community reps that filter that work. At the same time they didn’t use those blogs to replace the communication on the forums. The point is that the community reps don’t replace dev communication but integrate it.

But even SOE improved its communication with the time. I remember they linked “Aggro Me” blog once, so anticipating what Jeff Freeman intended as a vibrant network. Nothing revolutionary but it was a small step. I see that they answer occasionally on the forums and I use often their dev tracker on EQ2 to read things. Then there’s the example of Scott “Gallenite” Hartsman. He goes outside the official forums and takes seriously the questions and critics brought by the players, answering them without any apparent demagogy or propaganda. And I often found what he had to say interesting. He also demonstrated what I repeat from years: there’s nothing to “fear”. A better and more direct, honest and, in particular, unfiltered communication and dialogue between devs and players goes to the advantage of BOTH parts. I think the reaction to his presence on FoH’s, for example, demonstrates that all this can only be positive.

On the topic of official or non-official forums I’ve always been at the side of official forums and I still am. From what I read Jeff’s main critics is that an official forum can be better controlled and even used to manipulate the opinions. But I don’t see this risk and I don’t believe in this myth.

The advantage of an official forum is basically just because it’s flagged as “official”. This makes it a predefined place where the players of the game can go. It is centralized. On the internet the main activity and main problem is to “find things”. And an official forum just has that purpose. It’s official. It’s centralized, easy to find.

This can make an official forum, when used well, a good place where to look for informations. From technical problems to gameplay questions. Today we also have Wiki pages that do some of that even better. Good. Bring them on. But why not trying to give an official support to all this and encourage the process? This is can be a part of the game and I think it would be a mistake to delegate it exclusively to third-party initiatives. Instead it’s a good idea to integrate it with your service and make it part of the offer.

And all this goes in the same direction. Embrace the community instead of isolating from it.

I find it curious that it’s Jeff Freeman who brings up these points, because I remember clearly when long ago he commented thottbot for WoW and he wrote that game companies should incorporate those services, make them part of the service, as I just wrote.

As another counterpoint to what Jeff says there’s the same WoW. This game has already realized Jeff’s ideal of vibrant community network. It has thottbot, wiki pages, all kinds of fansites, player’s blogs and more. But it’s also in this precise case that I think the communication sucks. For the only reason that there isn’t any real involvement of the devs with the community. They rarely discuss about the game if not in some interviews. They are extremely close from this perspective and the work of the community managers has the purpose to filter and completely replace the communication between development and the playerbase.

Today we have different tools available. The main point isn’t really to use them well and use them all. The real point is to go toward a more honest and open communication at all levels. This is what is getting increasingly harder with the time. All the rest is slowly improving with the exception of this specific aspect.

Give more freedom to devs. Encourage them toward an open confrontation. Give them the possibility to express their ideas freely, wherever they want. Personal blogs, non-official forums, whatever. Leave them space and breath. Communication to be good needs to be given space, not to be choked and controlled closely. And this isn’t a problem of official or non-official forums. This is a problem of general attitude of a whole company toward the outside. It involves the promotion of a different kind of culture.

Take also the case of Lum the Mad forums. They slowly got legitimation. The power of the “red name”. There was something going on, an interesting process that was lost. The forums were an active part of a much larger process and they also became the (unfiltered) encounter between industry people and players. This was good and I think it was also fruitful for those who were able to appreciate it.

The exchange. The point isn’t that the players need answers to their questions. The point is a real dialogue and confrontation that happens in the interest of both parts. The point is the meaningful encounter of those two parts.

Posted in: Uncategorized |

Rigged statistics

by | 6 Comments

People are toying with WoW’s new statistics page.

Lum in particular says (or not, see comments) this is the perfect Mordor’s all-seeing eye that every designer would desire. Instead I’m one of thise who looks at statistics only with a mild interest.

People usually like statistics because they can be seen as something “objective”. But the truth is that they only give the illusion of the objectiveness. Even the statistics can be seen from different perspectives and there’s always something you miss. You can never be sure of your observation and at the end this makes statistics pretty much as arbitrary as any other observation.

Take for example this problem of the Defias. It’s the most evident one if you look at the kill list, and if you browse it you can see that every flavor of Defias is in pretty high position on that list.

So, instead of trusting what that page tells me, instead I consider my own experience. Well, in my own experience the Defias, and all Westfall in general, aren’t all that dangerous. Quite the opposite. In fact the last time I leveled a character (recently), moving to Westfall felt like a liberation because I knew things would have been very smooth and better manageable.

The most (and by a HUGE margin) dangerous zone for me at that level range, alliance side, has always been Loch Modan. I’ve died hundreds of times in Loch Modan and sometime even logged out in frustration. That kind of frustration that makes you want break things. That zone is pure hell and the quests really, really hard if you go solo and don’t outlevel them. There is aggro just everywhere and there’s always a random mob waiting to ambush in the worst moment possible that it feels almost like they have developed an artificial intelligence on their own.

I’ve died to troggs at least ten times more than I died to Defias. In particular if you aren’t a melee class, it’s basically impossible to fight troggs without aggroing the whole zone. Not only the troggs themselves are a great pulling puzzle, but there isn’t any decent safe space because as you move one step you aggro a spider or a bear or a whole other trogg camp with javeling throwing scouts and casters. If something goes wrong the risk of dying is extremely high. That zone is packed with roaming mobs and all the quests send you inside caverns or through narrow places that get increasingly dangerous. The quest given by the gnome who crashed near the lake with his plane is one of the hardest in the whole game for that level range. It sends you recuperating objects that sit deep in troggs camp where you have no possibility to pull one by one and also risk that they respawn right on you if you don’t clean the zone fast enough.

Westfall, instead, is much more open wide, there are safe spots and the encounters are much more spread apart. It has more breadth and it is much more accessible in general.

So. Ubiq says that Defias need nerfing. You know what? My theory is the exact opposite. Westfall and the Defias are the “easiest” part of the WHOLE game. And it’s for that reason that the players prefer it to other zones and play there for most of the time.

The kill list, as well as the number of “soul shards” created are documenting an use. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Defias are high on the list because, yes, they are more dangerous, but more dangerous among content that has the higher usage. This reveals a *preference* more than anything else.

Loch Modan is HELL compared to Westfall, but it isn’t represented in that list. And it isn’t represented not because the zone isn’t deadly, but because the players have learnt to AVOID that zone. As it is dangerous.

Moreover, the choice of (1) the faction and (2) the race, strongly influences those stats. It’s kind of obvious that the monsters who are being fought more often (and that may kill more players) are on the alliance/human side. No surprise there.

My conclusion is that those stats aren’t saying that Westfall is the deadly zone that should be nerfed. Those stats are instead the demonstration that Westfall is the zone preferred by the majority of the players and those zones that should be looked at are the others that the players have learnt to avoid (mudflation, or path of least resistance). Which is something I had understood from my own (arbitrary) observations, and not because a page of statistics was able to reveal all that to me.

And what I wrote here is just the demonstration that the use of statistics is an arbitrary observation as any other. And as valid as any other.

Jeff Freeman isn’t at SOE

by | Leave a comment

Sometimes I have odd premonitions. I found Jeff Freeman post as Dundee on my thread on QT3 and, I don’t know why, but I thought that maybe he left SOE. It was just a random thought I had without a reason.

Then I start reading a long post he wrote on his blog (that maybe I’ll comment), and here’s what I find:

I haven’t been on the SWG team in a long time, and I don’t work at SOE now.

And:

I am currently the Lead Systems Designer for a different project.

Wow.

So where?

On WoW’s players retention

by | Leave a comment

It’s a while this topic isn’t discussed and I take the occasion from a discussion on a forum (the GMG thread again) to bring this up again.

We are also close to the anniversary of the great analysis on “levels” that Raph wrote a year ago, and the long discussion that sprang from it. This was also tied to my further analysis (this is how MMORPGs die) that also led to the comments here below.

—

I do believe that Blizzard has focused on retention AND new player influx more then any other company really has, but thats saying a lot because they’ve also designed their game around new players vs. veterans.

At all.

Let’s be honest. WoW has an unexpected player retention but this is due to two main reasons:

1- WoW is “king of the hill”, and that fact alone assures a good retention and constant influx of new players. And this fact won’t change till WoW won’t have a serious competitor (and it won’t happen anytime soon).
2- The good retention the game still has is NOT due to what Blizzard did from release till today, but the great work on the “accessibility” that was done BEFORE release.

For example something that I repeat from *years* is that a soloable game usually ages better in the longer term as it can depend less on the presence of other players at the lower levels.

But despite WoW has a very good retention, it is still a clone of a model that is PREDESTINED to a decline. This is a rule.

A game world based on THAT model can die more or less slowly, but the fact that it WILL die is assured.

—
In particular I want to underline that “point 1” doesn’t depend on WoW’s game design worth, but just on a moment of the market.

While “point 2” is surely a WoW’s quality. Today the importance of soloable content is widely accepted everywhere, but it is often misinterpreted on its real meaning. Soloable content IS NOT important because there are players who prefer to play alone and that preference should be respected. That’s irrelevant, the least important aspect that is often seen as the main one.

The importance of soloable content doesn’t depend on a “preference”, but on the side-effects that forced grouping brings. The problem isn’t that some players dislike grouping, the problem is that EVERY player dislikes, for example, to sit LFG for a long period of time because he cannot progress in the game without a group. And maybe he has to sit LFG for a long time WITH a group because they cannot find an healer (and this is an example of a problem of game design that I did try to solve *radically* on this website with concrete ideas). The players don’t refuse force grouping, but they just don’t accept to have some time available only to see it wasted because they depend on other players. What is “punishing” and that was rewarded in soloable games that eliminated it, is the *dependence*.

So, if you could design a game where forced grouping can happen without side-effects, then you can also have a game with forced grouping that is largely successful. Today we have learnt that the solution isn’t forced grouping, but “favored” grouping. Where “favored” doesn’t mean that you put better incentives on grouping (like an exp bonus), but that you give the players better tools so that they can meet and play together more easily, with less burdens. For example by giving players the possibility to summon their friends (that WoW does with a warlock ability), or by giving them better LFG tools (that WoW still lacks today). Or by working on “permeable barriers” + “gated content”.

The key is removing the barriers, instead of building new ones.

And even in all these cases it is still a matter of “accessibility”. That’s the keyword of WoW’s success. That’s the word that defines WoW’s success. It is often mistaken as “polish”, but polish is important only in the measure it makes the game more accessible.

For example an interface is usually considered good when it is intuitive and simple to use. We can assume that a well polished interface IS intuitive and simple to use, but the “polish” is not the relevant trait. Because what really *matters* is the accessibility of that interface.

MMORPGs in general, but also MUDs, had a LONG story of user UNfriendly-ness. That’s the habit that WoW broke and that’s the real major key in WoW’s success.

The rest are a myriad of details, all with their own importance but also all subordinate to the “accessibility”.

P.S.
Also notice that this thing about the “accessibility” isn’t just my own fixation. There are games out there who made the accessibility their MAIN marketing strategy. Think for example to Guild Wars and their major decision to not require a credit card. This is again a case that falls in the field of accessibility.

There are aspects of the accessibility that are external to the game. Like this case about the credit card or the hardware requirements. But there are also aspects internal to the game and that are competence of game design, some of which I considered in the link above about permeable barriers.

Things That Aren’t Design

by | 3 Comments

On FoH’s and the thread about GMG I’m sort of fighting over the concept of game design. My opinion comes from here. In particular I’m fighting that quite widespread commonplace that a “game designer” is someone who makes a zone, drops NPCs and spawns points, and creates loot lists.

You would think that it should be obvious to consider “game design” a whole lot more than that. But then you can see a veteran like Lum that also consolidates that commonplace as a proven reality:

Purchase Neverwinter Nights (1 or 2, doesn’t matter, though NWN2’s toolset is closer to what you’ll see in MMO studios) and make a module. Bioware REQUIRES you to make a NWN module to even get your foot in the door on worldbuilding. The experience in general will teach you much about design and implementation, give you a set for what working with tools is like (most of which aren’t nearly as polished as the NWN suite) and will give you something concrete to show in your job interview. Having something concrete puts you ahead of 99% of the people trying to break into the industry.

If you want to be a designer and think deep thoughts, forget it and find something more useful to do.

He is obviously right, but the point is that it’s all part of a wrong culture of “game design”, as I wrote.

If you want to become a WRITER then, sure, go pick up NWN2 because it’s a great tool to demonstrate that. But writing is still a very, very, very tiny fragment of “game design”. And if you prove your talent as a writer this doesn’t make you a good designer on other aspects, in the same way being a good designer on other aspects doesn’t implies or requires that you are also a good writer.

On this site, even if I cannot be considered a game designer, I’ve written often, legitimately, about game design. But without ever giving ideas for a zone, or suggesting stories for quests or something similar. Why? How can it be possible? It’s possible because game design is a lot more than that and the strict story text is not what interests me.

In fact the writing aspect can be considered peripheral to game design.

Today I was cleaning some of the links and I found a pertinent article from Brian Hook, whose experience in the gaming industry is unquestionable and who has something to say:

Things That Aren’t Design

What this means is that a lot of things that are the purview of a designer are not, in fact, designer tasks.

* Level construction: Until a few years ago, traditionally a “level designer” was responsible for all aspects of a level’s look and play. However, playability and appearance are orthogonal, and so you had a lot of levels that were awesome to behold but boring to play, and levels that were fun as hell but bland. As such, I don’t really believe in the concept of a “level designer” anymore, I believe there should be a game designer, who maps the flow of a level, and an artist responsible for building the level and making it aesthetically pleasing. Thankfully this is how most companies are doing it today.

* Writing: At what point did someone decide that game designers were also authors? Writing should be left up to individuals that are proven to have writing ability — this may be a designer, but more often than not I’d argue this should be an actual writer. Go figure.

* Scripting: Being able to write scripts is a handy ability, but it’s not a first order design skill. Should a designer be expected to write code or make textures? Of course not, yet somehow designers are asked to wire together levels and write complicated AI scripts. As with level design, a designer should be able to define behaviour and hand off the coding to someone like, I dunno, a coder.

So what’s left for the NWN modder?

Posted in: Uncategorized |

Rules of engagement

by | 2 Comments

MMOs as services

If you are working on a MMO you have two paths ONLY.

1- Excel
2- Diversificate

If you cannot excel, you have to diversificate, if you don’t want to diversificate, you need to excel.

Posted in: Uncategorized |

On Mythic’s implementation of relics/artifacts

by | 1 Comment

I promised myself to not comment or criticize DAoC anymore, but since it deals with one of my ideas I want to add something.

Reading the boards I see the players complaining about two main points when the relic system is discussed:

1- Adding another RvR space was stupid. PvP action needs to converge, not being spread even more.
2- The bonuses aren’t appealing enough to remain interesting in the longer term.

The point is that while Mythic copied exactly my idea (you can compare their official description page with my original idea to see that one is the carbon copy of the other) those two points are the only ones who were left out and that represent the ONLY difference between Mythic’s implementation and my original design.

Mythic: These relics provide temporary bonuses, but in order to keep the mino-relic, the wielder must actively participate in RvR.

The wielder (and his group, if not solo) of the mino-relic must participate in RvR combat in order to maintain the mino-relic and its effect. Each mino-relic has a feed rate (the number of enemy kills required over a specific time period); there are different feed rates for different mino-relics.

HRose: In order to keep them on your character, you need to “feed” them by killing the players on the opposite factions and have a role in the conquest, participating actively in the PvP. Exposing yourself. If you are hiding you won’t be able to fulfill the “feed” requirements and you’ll lose the artifact.

Mythic: If the wielder of the mino-relic does not get sufficient kills to sustain the mino-relic’s feed rate timer, the mino-relic “decays” from the player and it is returned to its encounter location in its locked state.

HRose: If the feeding requirement aren’t met, or if the player with the artifact has been logged out for too long, not meeting the active requirements, the artifact is reset to the original PvE instance that will remain sealed for a set amount of time depending on the type of the artifact.

Mythic: Mino-relics cannot be taken out of RvR areas and cannot be stored in keeps.

HRose: They artifacts aren’t usable in PvE, they lose all their properties if they are brought in a PvE instance.

Note: since the relics need to be “fed” the prohibition to take them out of RvR zones that Mythic added is superfluous.

Mythic: The wielder of the mino-relic is visible on the RvR map and the zone map (or dungeon map) via a special icon.

HRose: The other faction will also know that one of the artifacts was summoned and will be able to “divinate” your position in the map. They can track you down. you will be hunted.

Mythic: If a player is carrying a relic upon death, LD, or logging, the relic will drop to the ground. Due to this, mino-relics will constantly change hands while they are active. This complex game of “hot potato” will present a fresh new twist for standard RvR play.

HRose: If you die in a PvP battle, your artifact will be dropped on the ground and one of the players in the opposite faction can loot it and use it, acquiring the powers that were yours.

So. I’m paranoid, egocentric, or maybe my “feelings” are a bit justified?

Let’s see these differences concretely.

1- Adding another RvR space. Even if my idea wasn’t traced upon DAoC, it still avoided that mistake. While in Mythic’s implementation these relics are taken from PvE encounters in another, huge, RvR space (the labyrinth). In my idea the relics/artifacts were taken from an instanced PvE-only space. The players could “race” toward a relic. When a relic was captured, all the instances would be sealed.

This effectively removed the mistake of adding another RvR space while providing a perfect environment for truly challenging encounters. Getting an artifact, in my idea, was really the “hardcore” part (to then be brought back to the rest of the community via the full-loot system and feed reqs). The harder PvE experience in any game. Something that happens rarely, not every day. Plus it was also planned to be tied to an innovative, different placement of “PvE raids” (more about the new form of raids).

2- Mythic’s relics aren’t all that desirable. They are relatively small bonuses to skills, nothing that created directly new forms of gameplay and that the players carve. It’s just about adding yet another kind of items to loot and toy with. Completely forgivable after the novelty wears off, as they don’t really have a “place” in the gameplay. They are a transitory “cool” system. A gimmick. Instead in my idea the role of relic/artifacts was more significant. I often described them as the “heroes” in Warcraft 3. It was something planned with a strong impact and, instead of small bonuses to skills, each relic/artifact was supposed to infuse and channel new powers. Not just significant for their impact in a battle, but also graphically spectacular.

One interesting part of my ideas is that a relic/artifact would mutate graphically the aspect of the player. And this idea of “mutation” and “corruption” was taken directly from my own source of inspiration, Michael Moorcock’s Elric.

This second point is particularly important because it’s not the first time that Mythic wastes good ideas with a poor or inadequate implementation.

The ideas were valid, and not because they were my own. The idea of the “hunt”, of the mutation and the collaborative, “epic” effort to take down a player demi-god, with a spectacular graphic impact on the battlefield. Those were seeds and they needed water, not sand.

Conclusion: while there are parts of my idea that would have required more work than what Mythic has allocated to it, from the other side the “divergencies” between Mythic’s implementation and my idea are what the players are complaining about. Some of them required more work, but some of them are blatant design flaws that I had avoided.

Moreover I also proposed Mythic in another context to add another RvR zone. So was I stupid too? No, because I proposed a special zone that wasn’t “always on”, but that would open only on special occasions. When the new zone was open all the players were supposed to converge there and leave the classic frontiers deserted, this zone would remain open for one, two or three days and after the event was complete the zone would be sealed till the next “event”, that could trigger one week or more later (for example you could set it open for 36 hours and triggering every 10 days). With the purpose to not overlap with the standard RvR activity while offering a different kind of gameplay (physics system in that case) and also giving the feel of “epic” and “uniqueness”. Something that the players could “wait for” with anticipation.

And also something that has never been seen before.