There’s been a homogenization of MMOs in the last 10 years, where there really isn’t a whole lot to distinguish one game from the other.  In continuum of RPG features, older games were more in the RPG space, with playing a specific role, choices made, and impacts that were felt over time.  Something like an FPS had little RPG to it, so that the start of a game resembled the end of a game (think Halo).

Time goes on and both of those have started to meet in center.  Nearly every game released today has a stats mechanic, often employed as a carrot for retention (bigger stats).  Fornite and League of Legends may have everyone start on “even” footing, by the end of the game there are large power spikes from the RPG mechanic.  Not to dismiss that an “underpowered” player can’t use skill to overcome, but the disadvantage is there.

MMORPGs on the other hand are moving into a more digestible experience, where the gap between a long term player (investment) isn’t so far away that no new players can come into the game.  Say what you will about WoW’s model, but it is much more willing to let new blood in as compared to EvE’s skill point system.  But is the WoW model where a new player can level to max in about a weekend’s effort the right path?  Or where a new 120 can hit near raid level stats in a couple days?

I’m going to posit that it doesn’t matter primarily because the world of RPGs has so many options today.  20 years ago the people using MMOs were the typical geeks (self-included), so the RPG aspect was attractive.  UO hit that button something fierce.  EQ was a glorified chat bot that tested those social structures that made geekdom work.  WoW’s greatest achievement isn’t the size of the playerbase, its that it normalized the playerbase in the eyes of society.  My kids will never know a world where video games were derided, where geek is something that’s ostracised.  The conversation has moved to from “you play games?” to “you play that game?”  I’ll take that shift as a positive one.

Within a game you’re always going to have exclusionary activities.  There’s not a developer on the planet that isn’t running some sort of heatmap of players vs. engagement.  I am not some ultra wise guru that can divine the inner workings of games or gamers.  So if a situation seems ultra obvious to me now, it most certainly was obvious to the developers beforehand.  NGE in SWG was immediately clear.  The Trammel split is not what killed UO, it was how long it took to be implemented vs. the launch of EQ.   Atlantis in DAoC.  EQ2’s grind vs. WoW’s open beta must have made people sweat bullets.  Someone, somewhere, greenlight FF14 v1.0 as being acceptable.

The decisions are not bad except when measured to the stated goals.  You want to increase the player base, you need to make it more accessible, not less.  You want to respect the existing player base, you don’t wipe all their progress and have them start as fresh as a green leaf.  You want to provide a perception of value, you make sure that the rewards are measurable and trend forward (*cough*azerite*cough*).  You want to provide an element of choice, you need to make sure that there are multiple relative options to choose from.  All of this is simple when written down.  All of it is a nightmare to code and balance.  But at the end of the day, that’s what gamers are paying for, and the insane amount of player choice today means that if devs don’t do this, then players will just move on.  There is no single horse in town anymore.

The first Age is always the Golden one. Where things are new. Where the impossible seems possible. Where mistakes are made and accepted as part of growth. Where hindsight after many years makes you really question the sanity of that time as the time context is gone.

Bhagpuss has a summary series on EQ through the ages. It starts, as they all start, with a Golden Age, a pinnacle, a decline, a resurgence and then… meh. It’s always meh for the current age.

You can apply the model to pretty much anything. Sci-fi. Cinema. Music. Food. And when you apply today’s paradigms, you can pull out all sorts of nonsensical items. Fahrenheit 451 has nothing to do with books – it’s a social commentary on technology making people into zombies. But since we’re all zombies beholden to technology, we don’t get that.

UO, EQ, WoW at launch were a gift from the higher heavens. Each of them was pure and focused and perfect. Time made them less so. Design decisions brought them to earth. The magic was lost. They are broken today. Hyperbole clearly, yet people still want to defend the idea because they find solace in it.

We were all 15-20 years younger. All our lives were simpler. We all had more time. It was new and different. It had other people! People like us! It was a level of social acceptance that really didn’t exist elsewhere. It was geeky before geeky was sexy. It provided shelter to people with different social skills and holy crap did that resonate.

Mechanically the games were ok. They were best guesses. UO was a skinner box, where PvP greifing was discovered (and exploited). EQ in particular was a glorified chat tool with the insane downtime in the game. WoW made the meta (resistances and raid checks) more challenging than the gameplay. Without each of those steps, the market would not be what it is today. And in the aggregate, there is no way that geek would be cool without them. Each built on the success of others and pervaded our larger social fabrics. Not everyone knows EQ, but everyone knows WoW – gamer or not.

The Silver Age is what follows the Gold. It is a time of trials and tribulations. Of experimentation to see what sticks and what doesn’t. It’s an age of refinement, not of creativity. What down the road will often be seen as catastrophic failures, but those are needed in order to stage a rebirth. And everyone loves a rebirth story. 

We’re in a time where ages are measured in shorter and shorter spans.  The Dark Ages lasted 1000 years!  Renaissance was 300.  Golden Age of sci-fi was less than 10.  Gold + Silver + everything else is just a tad over 20 for MMOs.  2 years for Gold EQ (which I’ll let others debate).

Time is a fickle thing.  Einstein had it right, our concepts change depending on the context.  A game is perfect when it fits your needs perfectly, and is horrible when it doesn’t.  That’s not the game, that’s you.  Viewing it through the Age lens, is just applying the larger social needs vs the game.  UO thought non-stop PvP was what people wanted, it wasn’t.  SWG thought people wanted a combat revamp – woo did they not.  EQ thought doubling down on challenge would keep people around – nope.  Blizz thought people wanted to play Cataclysm and hit walls of difficulty, people didn’t.  There isn’t a single dev that had instructions to follow.  They did what they thought was best… and here we are looking back with so much hindsight it’s like judging a baby that can’t do a backflip.

Games have grown.  We have grown.  It’s a veritable buffet of choice today.  I’m certainly appreciative of it.  Thankful for the people that came before to lay the foundation.  Time to enjoy today.

I think a lot of people have seen the Anthem dev blog post late last week, what with Christian looking like quite a few WFH folks.  The last time I heard a peep about Anthem dev work was in the fall, when they were re-tooling.  Which was cool to see that EA wasn’t giving up on what they had poured sweat into.  I do think that Anthem has a lot going for it, but lack of cohesive development (and suspected lack of experience) threw bad game out the door.

The post doesn’t go into too many details, but there are some larger items that poke out.  The team is only 30 large, and they are in the prototyping phase.  I am somewhat surprised by that, as it often means that this is an idea-generation phase of a project.  They throw ideas against the wall and see what sticks.  If you were looking at a 4 year dev cycle, this would be the first 6 months.  But that’s if they were building from scratch.

Anthem has a ton of stuff already pre-built.  The art, music and lore assets are already there.  The combat mechanics (aim/move/shoot) stuff works pretty good too.  The moment-to-moment portions have always worked well.  Sure, there’s some number tweaking required to get the TTK stuff in line, but overall, that part works.

What’s missing is the systems, the parts you can’t see but impact everything else you do.  The vertical aspects of the game are simply broken.  The game locks skills behind weapons, and then puts stats on those weapons.   It also adds skill boosting effects on rare weapon types.  It then balances the game against you having great stats, and access to those unique skills.

I’m going to time travel now, back to when Diablo 3 launched, with a game-built auction house.  Reaper of Souls (RoS) took all the garbage out and delivered a friggin’ amazing game, so it may be hard to recall what D3 looked like.  To it’s advantage, skills were not weapon based.  Player damage was (and to a significant degree, still is).  Game difficulty was based on having god-tier stats, which had insanely low drop rates.  RNG was not loaded, meaning you could find a Barbarian weapon with caster stats as much any anything else.  These stat pools made it so that the AH was the efficient way of powering up (other than grinding dozens of hours).  Sets/uniques didn’t matter because they simply couldn’t roll high enough stats, so there was no real variety in gameplay.  You’d be playing with the same skills at max, grinding the same spots, forever.  If ever there was a poster child for bad game direction, it would be D3 with Jay Wilson (this is a generic topic for later).

D3 launched in November 2012 . Jay Wilson “resigned” in Jan 2013.  RoS launched in March 2014.   1.0.4 gave paragon levels and 1.0.5 gave monster power (which evolved into Torment).  RoS was announced ~6 months before launch.  Dev timelime estimates plug this at RoS starting work before D3 actually launched, and taking a different stride when Jay left.  ~9 months of system design, and 6 months of polish.  RoS didn’t launch with many new systems, it just fixed the broken ones.

Anthem 2.0

Setting expectations here is important.  I don’t think it’s possible for Anthem to launch in a state ready to compete with anything on the market.  The Division and Destiny are stable and successful.  Their systems generally work, but there’s always some number tweaking required.  They add new systems to streamline and add variety to the vertical progression path.

System-wise, Anthem needs a rebuild.  The grouping/instance stuff is ok, though there are some bugs.  The art style works, though adding extra indicators to spot enemies from the background would be neat.  Things that really need to be looked at:

• Open World.  Frostbite 3 is used to host large PvP battles.  There’s no technical reason this can’t support better options for Anthem except for development experience/time.  The actual mechanics are found in almost every online game out there.
• Player skills.  A separate “rune-based” system to access skill loadouts, with achievements/quests/unique slots to unlock the rare variants.  There should be no stats assigned to player skill slots.
• RNGsus.  There are already massive improvements in this space, where there are weight based drops.  Quality drops are better now than at launch. The gap that remains is the range of random.  A unique drop must always be viable, just not optimal.
• Slot weight attributes.  There are basic stats (hp/power) and then there are slot stats.  Gloves should have stats that only show up on gloves.
• Stat balancing.  There are god stats, power stats, and flavor stats.  God stats are things you will sacrifice anything to obtain. Magic Find / Rarity increase is a good example.  They should never be in a game.  Power stats are linked to the damage you deal and take.  More combos, more damage, more health.  These stats are found on all piece, with ranges that reflect their rarity.  In no case should a rare glove be better than a unique glove.  Flavor stats are things that add options to a playstyle.  More flight time, more ammo, clip size and so on.  These are optional stats, that are limited to the slot.
• Difficulty balance.  A choice for when the player power curve starts to tick inwards determines how difficulty is balanced.   Today the game is balanced around “fresh” players, “maxed” players and then a no-man’s land in the middle.  The gap here is that the power range is so large, that it’s massive jumps between.
• Crafting.  Adding an RNG element to crafting like Kunai’s Cube would be good.  Balancing the odds on this vs. crafting materials is important.
• Player structure.  Open world is designed for single player, missions are designed for 4 players.  The group model combat structure works in terms of group synergies, but not in terms of power curves.  This ties into difficulty balancing more than much else.

I think the important thing here is that there’s no re-inventing the wheel required.  The main benefit of coming into the game late means you can refine existing systems.  There are at least 3 AAA games to pull from.  Hundreds of others if you cast a wide net.  There is a “buffet” problem of too much choice, and some systems that just won’t work with each other.  Game direction therefore becomes ultra important.

Time to Wait

This is already a long post, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of dev work left to relaunch Anthem.  30 people in a prototype stage is at least a year from any reasonable launch.  The desire is clearly there.  Now what’s a question is the actual investment.

I keep coming back to this topic again and again.  The recent gamer profile stuff kicked this to the front of the brain.

Games can be categorized as vertical or horizontal progressing, to varying degrees.  RPGs are mostly about the vertical (levels + skills), with some horizontal (strategy + tactics).  Fighting games appear vertical (ranks) but are actually horizontal (player skill).  In fact, PvP games need to be horizontal in order to give the perception of fairness (it’s why PvP generally fails in MMOs.  EvE being the sort of exception, but I can’t recall any battle that wasn’t predetermined before the first shot was fired.)

I’ve been playing various puzzle games, and that’s horizontal and quite enjoyable.  Obra Dinn, Edith Finch, Outer Worlds.  You never get new tool sets, just new data to parse through.  It’s your brain that gets better.  I find these games tremendously enjoyable.   Board games as a family are blast in this space as well, and the worst ones deal with vertical aspects (Monopoly!!!).  Building a story and seeing it through is great.  It’s why we watch movies and read books.  Having those be interactive is the next logical step.  The challenge here is that the difficulty curve has to account for the player getting better.  The Witness gradually builds on puzzle complexity.  If you somehow managed to skip to the last puzzles, you’d have no idea what to do.

I still enjoy the vertical aspects.  Getting better tools to address a challenge is fulfilling.  The challenge here from a game developer perspective is not making the content trivial.  Monster Hunter is a decent example, where the scaling of monsters is within a given range and even with the best gear, it doesn’t reach a point where you can totally ignore mechanics.  At least in the context of content that still provides vertical progress.  Other games struggle with this, where the reward loop makes the content increasingly trivial, yet still rewarding (WoW raining purples).  Or in the opposite direction, the challenge is extremely high with no reward (Anthem drop rates).

If the game is entirely based on vertical progression, you’re going to have a bad time.  Thankfully, many folks have realized this and all successful games are based on horizontal progression being a valuable option.  Think of a successful game that focuses on vertical and I’m sure you can find a horizontal progression system that keeps more people active (cosmetics, titles, pets).

Sometimes its good to enjoy games for just being games.  Other times, I have a heck of an itch to scratch and it’s good to find the right game to scratch the right itch.  Sometimes it’s a puzzle, sometimes a world builder, sometimes a world destroyer.

Call me nostalgic here but the THPS series was a defining moment of gaming.  The soundtrack alone is a super smash.  Remaster coming this fall, announced on Tony’s bday no less!

I remember sitting in a basement playing the first few games in this series with friends.  Everyone took a turn trying to figure out the most insane combo possible, or the way to get up to an area to get a collectible.  Being able to carry a manual for more than 30sec was a point of pride.

I took THPS1 for a ride on an emulator a few years  back.  The gameplay still holds up decent, as does the music.  But the graphics absolutely do not.  It’s impressive what our imagination did to fill in the blanks back in the day.

This looks like a remaster rather than a remake.  They’ll add bits that were added over time (including the Skate franchise), as well as multiplayer.  If they can keep the same tight controls, wacky moveset, skater building, soundtrack blasting, just-one-more-run cycle of the originals, I’m in like gin!

This being Activision, I am sceptical that this will be a “clean” game.  Micro-transactions will certainly be in here, which will as a highly cosmetic game, is expected.  Money making outside of that… maybe DLC for other skate parks.  If it ends up injecting more passion into the THPS/Skate franchise, maybe we can see a new take on it in a few years.

Stoked.

It’s been on my wishlist for a while now, I must have missed the sales.  It’s in the May Humble Bundle, making it an easy purchase.  Doesn’t include scenario DLC, but it does include some extra dinosaurs.

It is a “tycoon” type game.  You build a park, fill it with murdering monsters, and hope you get people to come buy t-shirts.  Replace the dinosaurs with caged clowns and there really isn’t a whole lot that changes.  ‘Cept maybe I wouldn’t feel as bad when one passes away.

Anyhoot, the main campaign has you build 5 main parks, all with the same goals, though there are slightly different factors for each.  Either you start in the hole, or it’s an island that gets a lot of storms (damage), or it’s some weird shape. Before I go into the game mechanics, I will say that the transition to one park to another is dumb.  Say you have $40m in park 1, you start park 2 with $500k.  All your research transfers.  All your dinosaur research transfers.  You can even transfer fossils (which you can sell for quick cash) but it’s still dumb.  I know how to run a park.  I just did it.  All it does is forces you to swap back to park 1, do some digs, then sell the fossils in park 2.

The game mechanics are simple enough.  Run digs to get fossils.  Research fossils to get % increases to dinosaur genomes.  Use those genomes to breed dinosaurs.  House/feed dinosaurs.  Breed different ones and raise the cool factor of the park, which brings more visitors.  Visitors want to poop, eat, and play.  Build stuff for them to spend money.  Repeat.  Become millionaire.

Of course it’s Jurassic Park, so stuff goes sideways.  Herbivores are simple enough, they get along.  Nearly every carnivore hates other dinosaurs, so you need to spread them out.  They will break their cages, so you need double walls.  You need people to feed them, repair cages, cure diseases.  You need people to tranquilize dinosaurs who get out and see people as a buffet.  Manage power, prices, roads, and a bunch of other stuff and things work (more or less).  This is sort of like disaster management, and some dinosaurs are much more annoying than others (raptors especially).

It may seem complex, but after park 1, it’s all pretty simple.  Where the game comes into play is in the faction management.  There are 3 factions (science, entertainment, security) that offer contracts (mini quests, 3 total at any time), and missions (more complex lists of tasks, 1 per faction, per park).  Raise the faction standing, and there are some minor monetary benefits.  The larger benefit is that the faction stops sabotaging you (like, wth).  Security doesn’t like you?  They turn off the power and dinosaurs eat people.  Faction going up for one, drops the other 2, and doesn’t transfer between parks.  Fine.

Contracts are simple steps.  Sell a dinosaur that’s like X, build Y, make Z dollars.  There are weird ones, like staging dinosaur fights.  There are some monetary rewards, but frankly you just want to raise the bar to unlock some research options.

Missions are multi-step items that explain game concepts.  How to breed special genes.  How power works.  How storms work.  How comfort works.  In general, these are straightforward.  The missions that force you into a negative state often cause cascading failures.  And if things go really wrong, you fail the mission and need to do it again.  It’s cool to teach concepts, but it seems like it was designed by someone who understands everything about the game.  It assumes you know how to complete the tasks without saying how.

The Real Stuff

Frankly, that’s gripes over smaller bits.  You know what matters?  I’m breeding DINOSAURS.  And they look AWESOME.

And really, taking a step back, the gaming cycle feels good. It doesn’t get old to have a T-Rex come out of the shop.  It’s amazing to see a diplodocus eating from the trees.  The monorail is neat.  Building pens feels fun.  Terraforming just works.

And it feels good to go back to a previous park with all the knowledge and upgrades you unlocked down the road.  There’s some optimization options, and getting 5 stars seems much more doable.

Some minor gripes aside, the game is fun and well worth $20.  More than that.