Tag Archives: design

Planetside is Not For Me

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All this talk about Planetside 2 made me want to give it a shot.  As most have reported, the second to log into the game, you’re going to die.  You’re not going to understand any single mechanic (like the inability to get more ammo without another player), what the hell any of the icons mean, why enemies look the same as regular players, and how it is you’re exactly dying.  Emptying an entire clip into someone’s head and them not dying while you die in a single shot is annoying.  Snipers that can’t hit the broad side of a barn, annoying.  1 grenade for all your lives, unless you buy another, annoying.

There are so many core mechanics that baffle a non-hardcore FPS player, it’s surprising.  I’m sure I ended up with a 100: 1 death to kill ratio.

None of this says it’s bad, so much as clearly the game is designed for a particular niche and makes no compromises.  I gave it a shot, some people are going to love it, and those some people aren’t me.

Let’s Get This Straight

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When you exchange money for something and it’s understood by both parties that you are getting a specific item, that’s a purchase.

When you exchange money for a chance at something, that’s called gambling.

This proliferation of lockboxes that can only be opened by exchanging real money is gambling. I know the US prohibits online gambling as it’s the easiest way to launder money. I am astounded that companies that offer this feature, without an in-game option, haven’t yet been brought to court.

I’ve studied enough math to know that gambling is a tax on the mathematically inept. If you gamble TO make money, you’re delusional (or a prodigy and lucky). If you gamble as a passtime, with the same budget as others (say a round of golf), then that’s quite a bit different. Sadly, there are more in the first bucket than the second.

Little fact for you. The odds of winning that $500 million PowerBall were higher than getting killed by a vending machine trying to coax the chips out.

ADD is Good

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Let’s say it’s taking me about 5-6 hours per level in Rift and that’s if I concentrate.  I find it extremely difficult to set myself up on a goal and continue to completion before something else catches my eye.  The eye catches are the following:

  • harvesting nodes:  I get to one, see another, see another, etc…
  • carnage quests: these are kill X quests that start when you kill the first enemy type.  There are 20-40 per zone from what I’ve seen
  • main quests: there are only 3-4 active at any given time, sometimes only 1.  It’s the driver to move through the zone often
  • rifts: these pop up (or I summon them) for a 5 minute battle.
  • random quests: these come from drops or items on the ground, they make you move around the map.
  • protect from invasions: at specific spots on the map are hubs that you use to defend against invasions.  sort of like rifts but without the quest mechanics.
  • artifacts: the shiny white spots that you collect to fill out, uh, collections
  • achievements: sometimes you just see a weird spot and know there’s an achievement, like jumping from waterfalls
  • exploration: the vistas look amazing. I like to find the highest point around and look around

All of these are happening all the time.  It makes it hard to just do one thing and then get to the next, as most themeparks do.  WoW and TOR are these types of games.  I remember doing 85 to 90 recently and I think there were a dozen choices total that I had to make.  I make more than a dozen choices per hour in Rift.

Though the content isn’t necessarily innovative, it makes it continually fresh because it’s given out in various types and amounts.  It sure does make the time much more fun than it could be and let’s Trion make leveling take as long as it does.  Now to go smash some giant bone golems.

What A Dollar Gets You

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Syp has a good post on the F2P change for SWTOR.  The main argument is against the two main models of F2P – one that lets people play for free with add-ons paid for cash and another that provides huge restrictions and essentially works as a limited trial.

Rohan has a nice breakdown of the F2P components that bears repeating, where the main ones include:

  • Box
  • Access
  • Content
  • Cosmetic
  • Convenience
  • Power

The box is simple, access too.  Content can be pieced out, as Turbine does pretty well with DDO and LOTRO.  Cosmetic is the way for most Cryptic games, including most super hero variants.  Convenience speeds up portions of the game that are clearly tedious.  Faster mounts, bigger bags, experience potions et al.  Power is the most controversial but the most prominent in the F2P world of Asia.

TOR is clearly using Access, Cosmetic and Convenience as the main drivers for cash.  Content is simply much too expensive for TOR to sell piecemeal, what with the full voice over costs and high production values.  Power isn’t an option either as the pusback on this model in western games can destroy a game.

You are paying for access to raids and PvP and whatnot but the general agreement is that these portions are a much better value in other games.  The convenience issue is an interesting one.  There is no real challenge in TOR, at any given point.  1-50 can be completed, if slowly, for absolutely zero dollars.  For 20$, much less than anyone would pay for a box copy of a AAA single player game, gets you enough unlocks to may the game very playable.

Once you hit level 50 though, then it’s much less about convenience or access.  Nearly every single aspect of the game at that point is locked behind cash doors.  You need to pay to do anything, use the AH, truly craft or customize your character.  Heck, you need to pay to equip items.

Right now, you can buy KOTOR2 for 10$ (on sale for half for a few days), a game dating from nearly 8 years ago or you can pay 0 dollars for KOTOR3 that’s 1 year old.  If you only wanted the Single Player experience, I would say “good deal”.  If you’re looking for the social experience, I would say that the F2P option isn’t an option at all, subscription is the only way to go.

This essentially means that TOR is offering a free trial from 1-50, with the option to buy perks along the way.  Once you hit 50 though, it’s a subscription game like any other.

MMO Legacy

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IGN articles interest me more for their ideas than their content.  There is a clear disconnect between their reviewers thoughts and the material that is posted on the site.  The gents are smart and thoughtful but the reviews (Colin especially here) are clear shills for vendors.  Their entertainment (movies/tv) sections are different though since the entire basis of that medium is subjective.  Not everyone likes Michael Bay and a review won’t help you decide the value.  What they do provide is ancillary material for people to comment on, like this LOTRO Legacy article, which posits that the series as whole changed the way cinema moved from that point forward.

The thing about MMOs that drastically alter them from any other entertainment format is that they are fluid.  You can say that King Kong did X to cinema because of when it was made.  Same with XCOM.  You can’t say EQ is a benchmark  because that benchmark no longer exists.  You can say it was a pathfinder or trailblazer or some such, but every MMO has evolved from its humble beginnings to something else.

Take EQ’s raiding scene.  When it launched, it was a zerg-fest and content was balanced against maxing out the zone population.  They eventually put caps on the amount of people raiding, which helped with balance issues.  Everytime they tried to bring the number down, in order to further provide some semblance of balance, the community resisted with massive outcry.  EQ’s inability to innovate internally is the main driver for the development of EQ2.  While at a high level, they operate under the same concepts, EQ2 is clearly a different take on the “Vision(tm)”.  Which part of EQ’s raiding scene will be legacy?

WoW’s leveling method used to focus on spending 8 or so days from 1 to 60, focused primarily on grinding with a few quests thrown in.  BC cut the leveling time down a fair amount and increased the amount of quests – you barely needed to grind at all.  LK and on, leveling was a small hurdle and everything was 100% quests.   Today’s leveling experience is but a shell for the end game, providing cut scenes throughout.  It’s practically on auto-drive.  Which part of leveling will be legacy?

Star Wars Galaxies is two games in one.  It launched as a PvE sandbox then was rebooted after a short while to be a PvE themepark with some sandbox elements.  People will always remember the NGE.  Few remember the Beast Handlers or the perma-death Jedi.

MMOs are reflective of the time, more of a zeitgeist than an actual thoughtful game.  WoW today could never have succeeded when it launched just like WoW of 8 years ago would be a massive failure today.  What MMO’s have left as a legacy is the popularization of gaming, the breakout of the “geek” mold.  No game made today will be able to succeed without some multiplayer online component.  The actual mechanics – phasing, raiding, crafting, grouping, collecting, automated tools – are all by-products of this need to break down social barriers and achieve mainstream success.   The true legacy is that we are now able to share gaming experiences with new and old friends, under nearly any terms we can come up with.  That’s a pretty good legacy.

Public Transport

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I take public transport to and from work. It gives me time to prepare for the day and relax after a rough one. It also gives you a chance to think quite a bit.

The bus is a lot like a themepark MMO. You get on at the stop, the bus has a determined route and you get off. You can do certain things while on the bus but you’re not free to do anything. The bus is made in a generic fashion to get as many people on board, make them “comfortable” and take them on a ride. A network of buses can get you from point A to point B without stress. Mostly.

Now the bus isn’t perfect. You are stuck with their timetable. You’re stuck with sitting next to some special people. You aren’t going to be picked up and dropped off where you want either. But it does offer a cost effective way to meet a need.

Themepark MMOs are just like that. Generic enough to get enough people to be sustainable yet flexible enough to differentiate between the solo experience and the group experience.

If taking the bus makes you mad then perhaps a themepark isn’t your cup of tea.

Expansions Are Fun

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So I’m a week into Storm Legion now and it got me thinking, what exactly is it about an expansion that tickles my feathers.  I really like having to learn something new.  This obviously precludes the argument of something NEW to do.  I can assure you that simply extending the content without some new mechanic doesn’t interest me in the least.  Horse Armor is not an expansion.

WoW’s expansions have typically added some new mechanic to the game.  Heroic dungeons came in BC, Lich King added phasing but changed grouping mechanics, Cataclysm added zero to the game and Pandaria added pet battles.  From a class perspective, I’ve played a Rogue in that game since launch.  I’ve see only minor changes for the most part, with a couple large swings along the road – such as the introduction of Mutilate.  Still, from Lich King to Pandaria, the Rogue has been practically identical.  That’s over 5 years ago and the playstyle has been more or less identical – all the expansions have essentially added more of the same.

I haven’t actively played EvE for any stretch of time but a few of the expansions over the years, the largest certainly the transfer of NPC stations to player-owned.  EQ and EQ2 have added plenty of mechanics over the years – mercenaries and AA top the list somewhat here.

Rift is 18 months old and 1 expansion in.  Classes were practically re-written from top to bottom a few weeks back to the point where my ability to play a given soul is technically different while being strategically the same.  My Shaman still uses melee attacks to deal damage but it much more thought based now then the previous macro-heavy build.  They also added the Alternate Advancement feature a few patches back, which gives a horizontal progress to top level players.  The new “no tagging” combat model allows for less griefing but perhaps more bad sport (simply hit once and run away).  I’ve yet to run any new dungeon or heroic raid but from what I can tell, they are under the same model as previous – if perhaps less reliance on resists.  Dimensions are certainly new and wow, I’m having fun there.

Expansions should feel different but familiar.  They shouldn’t just be-reskins of previous content.  The only way that sort of stuff works is in PvP games, where the content is delivered by the players.  PvE games need horizontal progress to feel different and give people something to do.  If you’re simply re-hashing what’s been done, then you’re in for a rough ride.

What’s in a Name

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What is an MMO? I think when we talk about this particular topic the definition itself becomes personal and very subjective. At a basic level, the wording must mean something though. Massively. Multiplayer. Online.

Massive doesn’t have an objective definition and is completely relative. What one person thinks is big could be small to another. At the highest possible level, we can infer than massive means big. So let’s say that Massive, in this case, is when you compare to the typical games. A typical game has enough content to last 12-20 hours. A massive game would require content that extends beyond that time. While you could play Solitaire for years (who hasn’t), you wouldn’t call that massive. The content needs to provide diversity. Counter Strike might have the same basic elements but the randomness of other players increases the content value.

Multiplayer is very objective. Either you can play with other people or you can’t. Pretty much every game on the market today has multiplayer. If the actions of one can affect the other, than it’s multiplayer. Simple enough.
Online is also objective. Either you need a network connection or you do not. If you don’t need to be online (or a LAN) then it’s not online. Co-op on a console is not online.

Using these terms we can come down to some agreement on what games should be considered MMOs, if their primary mechanics fit into the three criteria. EvE, Rift, WoW, LOTRO, DDO and the rest in that genre are certainly MMOs. Call of Duty has that primary focus, even if there’s a single player component. Minecraft is the same.

Some games do straddle the line though. Assassin’s Creed has MMO components but it isn’t primarily focused on those 3 attributes (certainly not the massive portion). Mass Effect, Uncharted don’t either. Diablo 3 might sink hundreds of hours but the content is the same throughout and the people around you don’t affect that. If I said that you needed to connect online to play Final Fantasy X, you could easily argue that it is much more massive than Diablo 3.

Looking into a crystal ball we can see some patterns emerge in gaming as a whole. The Multiplayer and Online portions are pretty much going to be the norm from this point forward. The kicker is in the Massive portion. Skyrim is massive. Batman is not. Most indie platforms are unable to be massive – unless they have procedurally generated content (Rogue-like games come to mind).

In the end though, what difference does it make if D3 is an MMO or not? Do all of a sudden all future MMOs have to follow that game? Is it easier to compare D3 to WoW or EvE to WoW? Do you even want to? Games today are more than simple statements. Games are experiences and experiences are personal.

Working Theory

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Here’s my theory, and catch me if I’m wrong.  The typical gamer is easy to please on the short term, hard to please long term.  Halo, CoD, Batman – pretty much any console game has a ROI period of a few months at best.  Rarely are any played past the 1 year mark.  MMOs on the other hand, typically only get into the black after the first year.

While I love Rocksteady’s Batman series (really, it’s amazing), I can’t see myself playing it 4-8 hours a week for a year.  Only RPGs ever reach that height of game time and that’s due to massive grinding (I have over 200 hours in FFX over many years).  This is one main reason many games now have RPG elements – not so much for the customization but for the stretch in longevity.  If CoD had no gated content with multiplayer, there would be a whole lot less players after month 2.

So, MMOs require some RPG element to gate content and stretch out the life of the game.   Any game that does not do this, that gives access to everything on day 1, goes out of business on day 2.

MMOs need to make that RPG experience both rewarding in terms of goal but rewarding in terms of activity.  FPS games do this well through bite size pieces of adrenaline – combat lasts 10-30 seconds at a time but there’s always a risk of dying.  Hackers/cheaters break this experience though, so you do have massive bans from time to time.  Typical PvP MMO don’t have cheaters, they have system abusers/exploiters.  When you’re not beaten by skill but by some mechanical fluke, you’re less likely to continue to engage.  UO failed to address this issue properly and lost a lot of people because of it.  EvE has problems with this as well, since it’s a mob mentality.  When it’s 100 vs 2, then there’s not much fun there.  EQ took away the PvE zerg strategy because of this.  Really good PvP is not static and each experience has enough nuances to make it different from the pervious.  It also makes you a better player.  Bad PvP has you mashing all your buttons.  The rewards are certainly motivating but the actual ACT is motivating as well.  There should always be something new as you’re working against 100K+ brains.

PvE content in general needs a risk/reward system as well.  If you never have the chance of losing something, then the actual act is meaningless and only the goal is a reward.  You then pick the most efficient route to get to that reward.  Once you have it, then there’s zero reason to participate again.  Eg: why go run a dungeon again if you have all the loot? Achievements were an attempt to solve this problem, especially those that say “stand on one leg and talk like a chicken while surviving the dragon’s breath”.  It made you experience the content in a different light.  Still, once complete, why bother?

Good PvE has you gaining skill and situational awareness.  You should encounter different pieces of PvE abilities and be able to adapt on the fly to counter them. You can mess up a couple times but too often and you’re cooked.  Bad PvE has you pressing the exact same buttons over and over again.  The catch here is that there’s going to be a point where you’ve learned all you can and the devs can’t think of anything new as you’re working against 50+ brains.

A quality experience is defined by the journey and not so much the outcome.  We could all say we’re going to take a trip to Vegas and back but how we get there and what we do once we’re there will give us vastly different experiences.

Not a Metaphor at All

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Let’s say you’re looking at the vehicle market, trying to get in as a seller.  You notice that trucks are by far the largest return on your investment – half the components of a traditional car after all.  You say to yourself “that must be easy, I’ve driven a truck”.  You run around piling up some investors.  Let’s say you end up with $200 million, all with a pretty picture of a truck.

Next is the design phase.  You go and buy a couple trucks, pull them apart to see the pieces.  You copy as much as you can but change the overall aesthetic design.  You start early production and testing.  The people who are testing your truck are people you know and likely people who are willing to give you a break.  Best-case sort of thing.

You know there are a few issues but your deadline is coming along and you decide that they are minor enough that you can fix them in the next release. Launch day is here, there are massive line ups.  People think “wow, that looks cool” or “hey, I’m bored of my truck, let’s try this new one”.  You put up adds with words like “revolutionary” or “cutting edge” – even though it’s a clear copy + paste from what’s already out there.

A couple weeks go by.  Those minor defects that weren’t a huge problem now are a massive PR problem with 2 million people driving your truck.  All of a sudden, once the truck hits 30,000 kms, the steering wheel locks up.  The innovative wipers only wipe ¼ of the windshield.  The engine has trouble pulling even a half load, since you didn’t understand the mechanics of it.  You have a nice looking truck but once people start using it, they notice a lack of attention to detail and long term testing.  Your innovative pillar is a set of fuzzy dice that people are continuously trying to get out of their sphere of vision.

What do you do to get your money back?  Discounts.  Massive discounts.  Maybe even sell the truck at a loss then sell the parts they need (say seatbelts) for a premium.  Maybe you break even, maybe you don’t.

Is that the end of the truck market?  The end of you?  The end of simple straight up sales?