Autoreferential games and mainstream culture

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Sometimes I repeat in my mind things I already know for a better (excessive) schematization and simplification. And to find and underline some specific aspects.

Months before Raph published his book about the “Theory of Fun”, I had already figured out the most important point on my very own (precisation: I don’t claim to be smarter. Raph talks in the book about a million of other things. I got one, Raph got the remaining 999.999 that I really could have never hoped to understand and explain so well):

– “Fun” is the result of a learning process. So “learning” is the key.

There are then two possible situations in a game:

1- The game is boring because it is too simple, or repetitive, or doesn’t match the interest of the player.
2- The game is frustrating because it is too complicated (cannot be “read”) or too hard (performance).

“Fun” is essentially a state of equilibre between those two positions.

Game Design is essentially about finding that balance.

A game is a problem to solve. A given situation with its rules that requires a solution.

Playing a game and solving those problems is divided into two moments: acquisition/reading and mastering.

There’s a wall. I need to pass it. I start to poke it.

The first moment about the acquisition/learning is about starting to observe the type of wall. You observe its shape, thickness, height. What you do is about trying to define the type of obstacle starting from what is already part of your experience, so confronting this wall with the wall types you already know. First you look for similarities, then you look for differences. You start to poke it as a form of experimentation, to check consistence, to look for passages. To understand the differences and finally add the new discoveries to your “system of competences”, a pool of knowledge and abilities. So even this fist moment is divided into other two:

1- Use of competences that the player already has.
2- Acquisition of new competences.

The second moment of the learning process is then about the “performance” or mastering. What you do is about acquiring a practice and getting better. Becoming a well-oiled system, being able to react to and identify obstacles more promptly and so on.

This is a basic schematization that can help to understand how games essentially work, but that doesn’t really help to make better games. In the meantime I was thinking that the system I described is not closed at all. And this is definitely important. What I mean is that when a player begins a new game he doesn’t start from a “tabula rasa”. Instead he brings along all the competences that he has developed in previous games. This may be one good reason why games are often derivative.

In fact I’m quite sure that modern FPS are much more complex and “hard” overall than the FPS we had years ago. The “target” of these games (and the majority of games in general) isn’t a noob. But an experienced player that, for example, has already a very good competence about moving in a 3D space using two hands at the same time to use a keyboard and a mouse. It wasn’t easy at all when I moved from Doom to Quake and the new configurations with +mouselook stareted to become popular. It wasn’t even “fun” because I was struggling with the controls instead of enjoying the immersion (non-immersive FPS suck).

Today we see that games that focus on accessibility (like WoW) can be largely successful because they go back to absorb those players that weren’t already part of the sub-culture and sharing its competencies. WoW is laregely derivative, so very familiar for veteran mmorpg players, but at the same time it is built to rely on competencies that are shared by a larger pool of players (“gamers” in general).

So I started to think about derivative games and mechanics, feedback, competences required from other games, subsets, accessibility issues and so on. And there’s a point where this model breaks: the immersion, once again.

The immersion is a way to break out of “games”. Like the debate about “mechanics” and “metaphor”. Think for example if you aggro a monster. The monster start to chase you and you run as fast you can. You could find an house and close yourself inside, trying to block the door while the monster starts to ram it. Or maybe you can try to climb a tree and move out of reach. Or, if the monster is big, trying to move in a point where the forest is more intricate. In a mmorpg you would already know that noone of these are possible. You know that a mob can run right through a tree, you know that terrain doesn’t affect run speed, you know that buildings have no doors, you know that you cannot climb a tree.

The problem is: we can build a game to rely on itself, on its subset of rules that you slowly teach and impose to the player, or draw from previous experience when the game is derivative. But maybe we can also “jump” these specific competences and leverage the audience through immersivity. The immersion could be the very best accessibility key. Free of artificial mechanics that you have to study, free of GUI.

How can you make a game with that approach? Maybe by using game mechanics that only draw from immersive elements. (will return on this. Comments on Lum’s blog, simulation and so on)

I was thinking: is more accessible a mmorpg with the standard aggro mechanics we already know, or one with more complicate animal behaviours but where monster behave and react more realistically?

The point is that current games have become incredibly sophisticated, but they seem to have lost the tie with their very origin. The original myth and culture. The shared values. These games don’t talk anymore about this world we share. They talk about themselves only. In the meantime we have developed so much practice with these artificial, sophisticated worlds that aggro mechanics and whatnot are incredibly familiar and foregone.

You know what’s this process? Games becoming autoreferential. They don’t need anymore to talk about something out of themselves. Because the myth we share is now the myth that these games have built. They are now so complex than their system is autonomous.

But, while doing so, I think these games are also losing contact with a greater public, and with that desire for “something else” that even the “gamers” share. So the possibility to talk and seduce outside their niche (big and growing, but still niche).

What I mean is that there’s now a gap between the fantasy genre and the mmorpg genre. The mmorpg genre was a representation of the fantasy genre. But now they are two different and autonomous systems. With the risk that the fantasy genre will become a subset of the other (movies and books made out of games). And I don’t think I like this scenario.

Vanguard is a perfect example of incredibly sophisticated game built around those concepts that were created right within the genre, instead of outside of it. The most derivative game you can imagine. As Lum said:

various subtle game systems and UI improvements that would only make sense if you were staring at a combat screen forever, such as pre-built combat macros for common tasks, inherent friendly – and enemy – target differentation and the like.

Where’s the immersion?

Blizzard gives up on balance woes: Blood Elfs Paladins, Dranei Shamans

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I don’t care much but I didn’t see any thread on the forums I use to browse. So here’s the news:

These new developments with the Draenei and Blood Elves mean that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will allow Alliance players to create shamans, and Horde players to play as paladins, using the newly uncovered races.

Source is european forums. A few minutes ago also confirmed by american community guys. So it’s official.

Full text/fancy justification/lore spin:

As we draw closer to the release of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, more of the secrets shrouding the Draenei and Blood Elves are being revealed. One legend involves the noble leader of the Draenei, Velen, and his vision. Velen’s vision was given substance in the form of Nobundo, a one-time Draenei priest who had devolved while the orcs decimated his race and tore the planet apart. Like his fellow Broken, Nobundo had lost contact with the Light, and so he ventured far into the deserts of Outland to meditate and pray for guidance.

After decades of silence, an unfamiliar voice finally answered his prayers. It was not the Light that whispered to him, but the wind. The breeze spoke to him of lost truths, of the might of the elements–of the delicate balance of power embraced by the shaman. Nobundo listened eagerly and learned all he could. When he judged the time was right, he departed the desert determined to use this knowledge to help the Draenei race.

Meanwhile, the Blood Elves busied themselves by establishing the fearsome Blood Knights. Their founding was made possible through the capture of a naaru from Tempest Keep by Prince Kael’thas Sunstrider. Kael’thas delivered the naaru to Silvermoon, where Magister Astalor Bloodsworn began months of study and experimentation on the naaru. Eventually, Astalor and his fellow wizards learned how to manipulate and corrupt the naaru’s luminous energies. In the end the wizards devised a process by which the powers of the Light could be transferred to recipients who had not earned such abilities. Instead of feeding upon the naaru’s magic, the blood elves would wield the naaru’s Light-given powers themselves.

Lady Liadrin, formerly a priestess, had recently renounced her vows, for she felt the Light had abandoned her people. She learned of the wizards’ achievement and volunteered to be the first to bend the stolen powers to her will. With her decision a new order was born: the Blood Knights. These renegade paladins are able to harness the sacred powers of the Alliance’s noblest heroes.

These new developments with the Draenei and Blood Elves mean that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade will allow Alliance players to create shamans, and Horde players to play as paladins, using the newly uncovered races. The ability for players of both factions to use any class opens up exciting new gameplay opportunities, with fresh group-play dynamics. Those who have faithfully pledged their allegiance with one faction or the other will finally have the opportunity to try out a class that was once unavailable to them. While Alliance shamans and Horde paladins mostly share the same talents as their counterparts across the battlefield, they will also enjoy some unique abilities to themselves, similar to the priest class’ racial specialties. Stay tuned to wow-europe.com for more information.

This was quite expected and already rumored. In fact I remember Cosmik anticipating exactly that (yep, here and here). After all the bitching about PvP/PvE balance between Horde and Alliance, here’s the fix.

Mythic learnt with Camelot that striving for uniqueness between the PvP factions is a quality with a very high price. Blizzard preferred to lower the risks and balance issues by just adding some minor perks in the form of racial traits and one “gimmick” class for each faction. Just for a spark of originality and uniqueness.

It seems that they gave up, and proceeded to uniform the game even on that front.

This also means that for the first month the expansion will be out about 80% of the new characters will be either Blood Elf Pallies or Dranei’s shamans. My God, the game will be totally unplayable in the new zones, completely desert in all others. Of course Blizzard will realize how significant are these dangers only when it will be too late.

Expect the servers to crash and burn, like at release. Just worse.

I think I’m the only one left in the world who thinks that asymmetry in PvP is a quality that is worth keeping. No matter of the costs.

Also: think of Starcraft and how different was the gameplay between Terran, Zerg and Protoss. Or even Warcraft itself. I guess those developers are not somewhere else.

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The romantic theory of game design (prototyping Vs reiterating)

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It’s from a while that I believe that “prototyping” is an overrated design approach. I always believed that a game should be done exactly as it was imagined, as close as possible to the idea that sits in the mind of the designer. I believe in a strong “vision” and direction and I don’t accept that a “prototype” is going to tell me what works and what doesn’t. I think it’s just a way to get fooled.

In short I think that prototyping is a bad way to figure out whether an idea works or not, whether it’s fun or not. In fact I believe that the conclusions coming as a result of those tests will likely be misleading.

To explain myself better I could oppose to that approach its theoretical negation: take the worst concept and reiterate long enough, and I’m sure you can make something fun out of it.

That’s what I believe making games is like. You persist doing something that just doesn’t seem to work, trying instead to make it work as you imagined it. It’s a strife. A prototype will just tell you that the idea sucks. But persist long enough and I’m sure you’ll finally reach your goal, and suddendly everything will start to work exactly as you imagined. Making a great game that finally can be recognized by everyone else. “Recognizing” is the key because that’s the function of a prototype, and, still, it’s what that approach does worse.

I believe that “game design” is “working against the odds”. A designer is a fool that noone can understand what he is saying. Someone who speaks in a tongue you don’t understand. A stranger. But, one day, he arrives and shows what he meant for all that time. And a standing ovation explodes, like an epiphany.

Game design is an epiphany. It’s a concrete way to let people step in your head and finally understand and participate. It’s an happy end. A catharsis.

And you cannot “test” a catharsis. You cannot anticipate an epiphany. Those things only happen when there’s a strong will behind.

This is why I believe that game design should always start from a strong *necessity* and that should always follow a definite direction. It’s a volitional act. NOT experimentation. The experimentation is just for the scientist, for someone who cannot shape anything in his own mind. For a designer in search of ideas.

But the “true” designer isn’t in search of ideas. He has an overflow of ideas.

I believe that prototyping is necessary only in the measure it becomes an “enabler” for the reiteration: a prototype is often something self-contained, so offering the requirements for the reiteration to start and refine the model. It’s about execution, not about the concept. The concept is a “black box”. It should never be tested, never doubted. It’s… faith.

—
All this after the announce of Valve’s Portal. It’s not really something that Valve built, but more something that Valve bought (the company website is currently down due to high bandwidth usage).

I tried the concept demo (mirror) but I wasn’t so impressed. It gave me a strong nausea right away (due to the inertia in the walking movement more than the portaling stuff, most likely) and I had to stop just past the third or fourth room (the one with the boulders). It’s a quite simple puzzle game, without some dynamism it’s just about discovering the right trick to move to the next room. Immersivity is next to none.

Then dress it up with a retro sci-fi/realistic mood, add a portal-shooting gun, add some more dynamics elements, picking things on the fly and a more realistic physics system and… wow! It’s simply awesome.

Great idea to time this on the release of Prey, like if they are mocking them by using the portal technology for something way more innovative.

It’s time to go develop a netcode for that. Multiplayer madness.

EverQuest Classic strives to find a reason to exist

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So there is a new expansion planned for September that will even break the naming convention of “noun of noun”. SHOCK!

As Ubiq wrote the interesting part is that it will provide content for all levels (also implicitly answering to Loral). A sub-world that is suppposed to be self-contained, with the possibility to level there from 1 to.. uhm.. 75? Must be a rather HUGE zone. Or maybe it’s the new frontier of the Pure Grind, like DAoC did with those horrible Task Dungeons.

I don’t know, but thinking about going back to EQ for this expansion looks like a very bad idea to me. If you want a brand new experience there are many other better games, EQ2 included.

Instead the only real interesting thing going on EQ Classic are the “progression servers”. Not only because they are alive, packed with players, but because they provide an answer to EQ’s greater problem: the mudflation.

And that’s also the tie between the progression servers and the new expansion in development. The new expansion is no less than the triumph of the mudflation. 10 years of expansion pack content? The truth is that EQ has now LESS content than the average mmorpg. As we already examined, content is subjective. It doesn’t exist if there isn’t an active interest. It lacks consistence. It doesn’t matter if the content is potentially there and maybe even in a playable state. What matters is that the content is for the large majority inaccessible because of the shifts of interest of the community. Content that exists, but that is now completely useless and that it would be just impossible to actually experience. Content without an use. Without an audience.

How much of that content is really accessible today? How much is desirable? How much is soloable so that you won’t have to remain flagged LFG for a month to do a quest that noone cares about?

With that new expansion they are basically cutting out another 95% of the whole game. A loss of function and “use” that is now so widespread to become an existential problem for the whole game. Why EverQuest still exists? What is its place?

It’s in sharp contraposition to those questions that it can be interesting to observe the dynamics of the progression servers. The progression servers are no less than obligatory paths, ways to find an use and purpose to content that lost them long ago. There are two basic points to consider.

– The first is that the content isn’t anymore mudflated as on a standard server, but is instead “aligned”. The idea of “progression” comes from a series of objectives that must be completed before you can advance. It’s all focused to be a solution to the mudflation. This new server type is just a way to remove the rust from content that has been ignored for a long time. Find a purpose, an use, a motivation. A way to refresh the memories and restores those qualities that the game has but that have been erased by the “progress” of the mudflation. A way to answer that existential question that plagues the whole game.

– The second interesting point is the “community effort”. The sense of participation. Not only in the fact that the zones are alive again, but that everyone is going to contribute and participate in a communal effort. While the great majority of the mmorpgs focus on a personal power growth, the idea of “progression” on the progression servers becomes a shared concept. The idea of progression is extended to the whole community.

And this is the strongest mechanic that a MMORPG can aspire to.

I have repeated and supported this for years. Doing something just for yourself, in a personal instance, can be fun for a while. But it’s when you become truly involved in the community, when you feel a sense of real participation, that this leads to an escalation of fun. Being part of something becomes the strongest motivation you can have. You don’t play anymore to kill some spare time, you play because you want to be there. You want to be part of something. You want to belong. You want a memory.

That’s where the potential of a community really is: participation, motivation and memory. Being part of something bigger than you and that unites all players. Something to share and remember. Without this, games are meaningless.

This is why I consider the progression servers as the most interesting thing happening to the game. EQ is a game that is losing its identity and motivation. It is losing pieces because of a lack of “answers”. The progression servers basically provide an use and meaning to the content in the game and, as a reflection, to the whole game. People come back because EQ regains its identity and purpose, the game “remembers” (and the progression servers also rely a lot on the nostalgia) who it is. The game regains a motivation and this motivation is understood and inherited by the players.

But there are also some basic weaknesses that undermine those ideas. The biggest problem is that the progression servers are only a temporary solution. They are transitory. The motivation is strong if you were there from the very beginning, but the majority of players won’t be able to keep up with the pace and will have to deal with the reality quite soon, which is much different from their expectations. People will be excluded from that sense of progression and, with the time, the players will trickle off as they understand that their hopes aren’t realistic and that it won’t be easy at all for them to be part of that community.

So the progression servers have done the miracle of giving EQ back a soul, identity and meaning. But these answers are only a temporary and the motivation will only work for a minority of the players. And then less and less.

The conclusion is that these servers have revealed interesting dynamics but that are limited by their transient, ephemeral nature.

Why we cannot design games starting from those important goals, instead of having them just as afterthoughts? Why we cannot have a sense of participation and motivation that can really aspire to integrate the majority of the players and that can be persistent in the game instead of just temporary?

I have some ideas. The point is to start designing games as concrete answers to those needs. That’s what I try to do, start from the need and then try to find an effective solution.

About the Final Fantasy XI sequel

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Zonk on the hypothetic sequel to FFXI:

With several expansions to the original game already released, and the title available on three platforms, Square/Enix is finally talking about a sequel to Final Fantasy XI.

Finally?

Anyway, Square pushed out a press release to confirm that they are working on something, but not directly as a sequel to FFXI:

As the Company announced in May 2005, it is currently developing an online title for next-generation platforms including game consoles and PCs; however, this title is being developed as a completely new MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online RPG).

Quite expected. They aren’t going to announce anything without an appropriated, dedicated event (that won’t be anytime soon, knowing how slow they are). And it’s obvious that they are going to start something from zero instead of consolidating and strengthen the world they already created.

I guess this news was supposed to tranquilize those players who started to worry about FFXI, but the truth is the exact opposite. That announce is no less than the announce of the end of FFXI, we don’t know when, but we know it will happen. With a completely new game in development it just means that Square’s resources are being moved and that they don’t believe anymore in the value of FFXI.

Stupid as everyone else. Worlds with expiration dates.

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A MMORPG “sequel” done right

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There was a rumor yesterday about a Final Fantasy Online sequel:

July 17, 2006 – Japan’s Nikkei Net news service reports today that Square Enix is currently at work on a sequel to Final Fantasy XI. The next generation massively multiplayer online RPG is being developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows Vista formats. Further details are not provided.

Square Enix has previously shown trailers for a next generation MMORPG engine, without actually announcing a final product based around the engine. It’s unclear if the FFXI sequel is going to be the game to use the new engine, or if Square Enix has another title in development.

The “next generation engine” they talk about is the one that Square presented during the E3 2005, which was nothing more than a flyby around that place you can see in those screenshots. It was for them just a test for the XBOX360 hardware, so it’s not sure if those art assets will be used or not, or if they’ll even reuse that engine.

That a new mmorpg was in development based on their main franchise was already known as Square hinted about this possibility in many interviews. It probably became a stronger need as they see FFXI subscribers slowly decreasing and the 360 version deluding and not taking off as expected. I’d say that the game is crippled more by awful game design on certain aspects than the real need for “new”, but if nothing has changed significantly along these years then it means that Square “doesn’t get it”.

So this news about the sequel is nowhere surprising, but still disappointing. Mmorpgs sequels are DUMB. But I’m writing about this because what is interesting is the possible transition.

Some players on the forums are already complaining since the development of a sequel means that their world of choice will be made obsolete soon, and all their invesment will lose value as the “new” will be hyped. I wonder if Square will be smart and handle the transition in a new way, or if they’ll be dumb and just repeat the mistakes of every other mmorpg sequels.

I think I just felt a hint of existential anguish.

What am I doing?! I’ve had this game for two years and my highest level is 42. I have yet to experience CoP or Zilart missions, Sky or Sea, HNMs or Dynamis!

And soon, it will all be obsolete!

Why am I not playing now!? My mortality is apparent and the end is nigh! Repent, repent!

/panic

My idea is that if you really want to develop a “sequel” then you need an “exit strategy”. What I mean is that the sequel should really replace the previous title and not try to co-exist as SOE tried to do with the EverQuest. You may think that is much more convenient from the commercial point of view to keep two worlds alive till they are both profitable (and the experience also taught us that sequels still have a very hard time to affirm themselves over their elders. This is valid for EQ as it is for Counter-Strike) but I have a different way to see at this scenario.

The idea is to create a real sense of progression between two titles, so that the players won’t be encouraged to try to keep a foot in both, but instead move to the new game with a strong motivation and bond with the game world and their characters. The risk with a sequel is that when a player is forced to look for something else it’s not granted that he’ll chose what you are going to offer him. It’s more probable that he’ll chose a completely different world, or nothing at all, to never return again.

When you encourage your community to move, you risk to lose them as customers.

This is why instead of a lax policy that aims to keep both worlds active, I believe it would be a better strategy to plan a smooth, deliberate transition. With strong incentives so that the players get even more attached to their character and presence in the world. Want to make a mmorpg sequel? Okay, then have the balls to really develop a replacement and advance the world. Moving your whole playerbase over.

Keep the “elder” game alive for a year or two. Develop the new one as a “remake” set in the exact same game world and locations. You can create a completely new system, but the goal should be about porting over at least 70% of so of the content of the previous game into the new one, with the remaining 30% being brand new. The new world should be familiar and new at the same time and I believe that the proportion I’m suggesting could be a good compromise. Porting the old content would be about reevaluating all the content in the old game to only select the best, and then polish and adjust it to the new standards. It would be interesting for all players to experience the content for the first time or even what is already familiar to then to discover what changed.

The goal would be about porting the characters directly to the new world (maybe set slightly in the future to excuse some compelling twists in the plot and the aspect of the world), offering them even an incentive to accept the transition. No need to reissue billing infos or resubscribe. Maybe even a refund of $20 if you move from the previous game to the new over the cost of the box, so that you would pay for about the same the price of an expansion to have your characters move to a brand new game, without losing progress and with still the possibility to access the large majority of the content that you could expect in the previous game (due to the port of content).

This is how I think you can create a strong bond between the game world and your community. The sense of progression would be lead by the content ported over, the slight progression in the timeline, the new content and continuation to the events to discover, along with the possibility to not lose your own progress and continue seamlessly with the character that you played for so many hours.

Instead of feeling that sense of loss because the world that you love for so long is being made obsolete and replaced with something that you feel distant, your character would become your tie and bond with that world. A way to reaffirm your presence and participation. An incentive to continue on that incredible journey instead of that sense of loss that would encourage you to look for something entirely different.

So progression and persistence could become a strong motivation to be part of that world, to renew the bond.

In short:
– 70% of old content ported and revised. To let the players continue to experience the content that they still didn’t see and preserve a sense of familiarity. Along with a strong sense of progression and discovery (new content, timeline advancement, new plot twists and slight changes around the world to discover)

– Possibility to port (copy) old characters. Again to create a bond with the game and not lose any of your progression on your character. Nor your “identity” and feeling of “belonging”.

– Semi seamless transition. Install the new game, log in with your old account, insert the keycode and select “upgrade” to have your characters automatically ported. The monthly fee is the same you continued to pay, no changes needed.

– Single monthly fee to access both worlds. For the one/two years that the “elder” game is kept online a player with an “upgraded” account can still log in the old version to play with friends. Since the characters data is ported to the new game as the account is upgraded, all the progress made in the old world past that point will be likely lost. This will be compensated through a form of “currency” to which you can convert/recash your progress (loot, money and exp, for example) and that can be transfered to the new game. (recycle exp/money/loot gained in the old game by converting them into “currency” -> transfer currency between the two games -> convert currency into progression in the new game)

– Concrete incentives for the transition. $20 refunded on the price of the full new game if you use the key code as an “upgrade” instead of creating a brand new account.

This, I think, could be a recipe to make a successful “sequel” that isn’t dumb and that would retain the former community without worriesome losses, while also attracting many new players.

Sadly I don’t even remotely hope that these ideas will be ever used.

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Eve-Online has its World Cup, go watch it

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The World Cup is over but Eve-Online decided to organize its own version and host an official tournament involving the best alliances in the game and done through 5 Vs 5 battles.

I don’t think it’s the first tournament they have, but what’s new and cool is that this time they launched an “Eve TV” that is streaming all the matches. Complete with commentators durning and after the events.

My bet for the final is Lotka Volterra Vs Band of Brothers.

More useful links:
– The rosters for the tornaments ordered by date or group and with all the results.
– Finals (I think they should have staggered these more, to build some hype and wait, and also to let people to download, follow and discuss the matches instead of rush everything in one day)
– Some recorded battles to download.
– Torrent files for the full three days. (go, go, smart use of pirating resources)

I think the only thing missing are the replays. The action is actually quite confused, the videos a bit blurry and it’s kind of hard to figure out the dynamics. But it’s still incredibly interesting and I’m quite addicted.

It also makes me wish, as it always happen. I don’t think that what they are doing is the very best way to present that type of content. Official touraments are a great idea (and one that I’m suggesting from a few years) but they need a different execution to be really enjoyable.

Idea for an Eve-Online TV client

Think for example to an “Eve TV client”. As a standard Eve-Online client to play the game, but modified to be public and become just a front-end to watch the matches.

You would have the option to stream the matches as they happen, or download them from players’ repositories and then load in the Eve TV client to watch even while offline.

Not only you would solve the problem of the blurred image and confusing action, since you would see directly in a perfect client, rendered by your PC. But you would also have the possibility to replay scenes from different points of view, watch a full match from the perspective of a particular ship and even “enter” one to see the modules that are being activated. So that it would be easier to figure out and learn the tactics that are being used.

Streaming a match in that way would also spare a *huge* amount of bandwidth because you would only need to send the movements and actions of the ships, plus maybe the voice commentary. But it’s still something quite manageable and even on this site I could easily host for download the whole tournament.

It would be a great idea, and also a wonderful way for CCP to publicize their game.

Guild Wars has the support for something similar (the “Observer mode”). You can watch the most important matches directly with the game client, but the limitation is that there’s no way to save them to watch them later. So you can often just see one once, shortly after it happens, and then it’s over.

Developing that sort of technology is easily doable, even if it would take some time. So it’s just about deciding the convenience of taking some resources from the actual game to make this possible. I think it would be worth it, and it would even contribute to the popularity of the game.

Better than waste those resources to found new mmorpgs as unnecessary replacements, in my opinion.

Making Prey a better game in two simple steps

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So, Prey is quite short. Moreover, it has zero replayability.

There’s a long debate taking place in different forums, but those two points seem well recognized and accepted.

The problem about the replayability is due to the design of the game. Prey relies heavily on interesting level design and puzzle-solving. Thanks to the new tricks, that’s the very best part of the game:

sluggo: I think the death walk partially saves Prey, because the combat is so bland and filled with “gotcha!” deaths that having to reload over and over would have made it an annoying, unenjoyable mess. The death walk is basically a license to zoom through the uninspired combat so you can spend more time soaking in the crazy level design.

But after you have completed the game in those eight hours or so, all the fun coming from the puzzles and crazy level design is spoiled. So what’s left for the replayability? The combat. But the combat isn’t so challenging.

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I have now something to criticize/suggest about the “death walk”, since I believe it would lead to a better game and also to a more fun nightmare/cherokee mode.

The reasoning behind my proposed changes is that the death walk, as it is designed and implemented in the game, removes completely the challenge since it’s exactly like a god mode. You don’t win a combat by fighting well, you win it exclusively through persistence.

The reason why death walk was introduced wasn’t to trivialize the game, though. But to avoid to break the action through reload/saves. And avoid to encourage the player to repeating a fight because it wasn’t done in an optimal way (instead of keep going). In two words: no downtime.

Proposed “death walk” changes

– (Normal difficulty) Instead of just respawning the player, all the monsters spawned and still alive would have their hit points completely restored.
– (Nightmare difficulty) Add stacking power-ups to the monsters (hitpoints or resistence) after each consequent death of the player in a short time span (a minute should be good).

The first change doesn’t break the original mechanic. It just restores the health of the monsters so that you have to actually kill something when you respawn if you want to progress.

The second one instead isn’t as harsh as you may imagine. Not only you would have to kill monsters between each death as in the normal difficulty mode (and that I believe is the BARE MINIMUM for a death mechanic). But you also have to pay attention and try to survive at least one minute after each death so that the monsters don’t get a slight power-up on their hit points (a 10% would be too much?). Maybe with a countdown displayed on screen so that you know exactly how long you have to resist and with the monsters hitpoint buff capping at 70-80% of their orginial hitpoint value.

Showing the countdown and even the hitpoint percent buff of the monsters on screen (Guild Wars-style, like the morale/death modifier appearing in the upper left corner of the screen in that game) would be definitely an immersion breaking element. But it would be limited to the “nightmare” mode, which is only accessible after the first run through the game, so with a definite more “arcade-ish” connotation.

The next possible step would about allowing the player to customize the three values of the nightmare difficulty before starting a game: the duration of the countdown, the mobs hitpoint buff and the hitpoint buff cap. So, for example, I could set the countdown at 1.30 minutes (the time I need to survive after each death to not trigger the mobs hitpoint buff), the hitpoint buff at 15% and the maximum value of the buff at 150% (of the original hitpoint value for that monster type).

I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It just ups the difficulty slightly as a nightmare mode is supposed to. Or not?

It’s something I believe could significantly improve the game, but I fear it wouldn’t be trivial enough to implement to hope in a patch from the developers, nor I think it could be achievable through a mod.

But you cannot stop me from wishing, can you? ;p

P.S.
This idea would also lead to two significant problems. The first is about having to attack regenerated monsters with less and less ammunition, the second is about making boss encounters un-winnable if they regenerate health completely after each player’s death.

Both of these could be easily addressed, though. The first by regenerating some ammo after each death (and also respawning healing sources on a timer), the second by regenerating only a portion of health of a boss.

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Think about WoW.

It was praised because of the mild death penalty. No xp loss. But the way Prey works it would be like respawning on the place with the hitpoints restored.

Come on, how’s that different from flipping the god mode on? If you like that sort of thing why don’t you just pull down the console and type GOD in every other FPS. You can have a “death walk” in every game.

It’s kind of obvious that “challenge” isn’t a flaw to remove from a game. What was to remove was the *downtime*, not the challenge. Prey’s implementation of the “death walk” removes BOTH.

My idea instead removes the downtime without completely removing the challenge.

A mob spawns and starts to shoot at you? Who cares? You can just sit there and make a face at it. It doesn’t really matter. If you want you can even go around with the pipe wrench and finish the game with just that.

In these kind if games you used to be cautious when you entered a room. You are on your toes. And that IS fun.

At the end a fight is something you need to overcome. If I intend you to prevail on a 1 vs 1 encounter than you have to figure out a way.

For God’s sake, if you remove that, you have NO GAME. It’s just an interactive movie that requires you to press a “NEXT” button.

The current implementation of the “death walk” in Prey doesn’t make a fight *possible*. It makes it trivial. You don’t have to be good at anything at all because the mobs will eventually die.

A game is about a given situation that you need to figure out. Something you learn and then re-apply till you master it. This from Tetris to Pac-man, World of Warcraft or Prey. All games are like that.

The death walk in Prey trivializes too much the combat difficulty because it doesn’t require you to actually learn anything. While the puzzles and environments are fun exactly because they are elements that you cannot skip. If a door is closed you have to figure out how to open it. You HAVE TO do it. You cannot just say, “okay, I pass anyway”. That’s a game. Something that requires from you an active brain usage.

Restoring the health of the mobs who have survived is really a small change, but one would keep the difficulty at least more consistent. Without taking away ANYTHING from the original idea.

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This is what George Broussard (3DRealms) said about the death walk and its purpose:

George Broussard: Nobody likes dying a lot and losing progress. It’s the thing that makes you stop playing a game and take a break.

People like to say “prey is short” or that they finish it in one sitting. Something to think about is the fact that it did not frustrate them enough to stop playing, and that maybe doing things like adding DeathWalk, while possibly making the game shorter by removing re-playing areas, made the game more enjoyable overall.

His other comments aren’t as smart, though:

You can achieve the same results with lots of quick saves, even during a boss fight. If you quick save every 10 seconds, you will never lose progress in a game.

There is a massive audience of gamers out there that haven’t played FPS games for 10 years. It’s about time we started thinking about them.

All DeathWalk does is keep you from losing progress. It does make the bosses a little easier, but then again, most people are frustrated by really hard or complex bosses.

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DeathWalk is not God mode at all. It’s simply a persistant quick save. You don’t lose progress. You still have some time penalty for dying (10 seconds or so – more if you try to shoot Wraiths to get full spirit or health).

This is false. If you reload a saved game you do lose progression, but in particular you are bound to your current state. Reloading doesn’t restore your health as the death walk does. At the end you can save and reload all you want, but you still need to fight well if you want to win an encounter.

This is not the case in Prey, and is the only reason why I proposed those changes.

Well, Prey was designed to be approachable to more than just core FPS players. That’s why it has dynamic difficulty and DeathWalk. In hindsight, we should have allowed a slider to core players could make the dynamic difficulty system harder. That was an oversight.

But still, the goal was to have everyone be able to finish the game. The worst thing you can do is make a game and people stop 50% through it. I’d rather more people finish, than not, and error on being too easy, than too hard.

Most people play games to see and do cool things, and not be challenged at a very high level, by combat.

I wonder if it’s possible for me to play a game without having gripes about its design and/or getting ideas that I think would made it much more fun (and consequently runing my fun in the actual game since I keep thinking at the better version that I will be never able to play).