And Now Back to Our Feature Presentation
Yesterday we got off on a tangent. I blame no one for this, unless they happen to be PE for being newsworthy yesterday. Aside from that though, I blame no one. I’ll speak no more of that subject though, unless I do, in which case you’ll know that this statement was a lie. Back to talking about “Arcs” and “Paths” today though.
As you all remember, I’m sure, I had a post on Tuesday which discussed another aspect of designing an MMO. Let’s delve a little bit deeper into those arcs I mentioned and find out exactly what I’m talking about (and I’ll be honest, as of right now I’m not even sure if I know, but I’m going to run with it anyway.)
There are 4 arcs, each with a set of paths, that identify the ways in which to create a world. Having all four arcs is important but also difficult and time consuming. Each arc you add is another layer of complexity. While complexity in itself is not a problem it can lead, if you aren’t careful, to making your game complicated. A complicated game causes frustration, a complex game allows for depth and growth.
These arcs, remember, go beyond what type of a player a person is, or how they want to interact with the game world, it goes to the fundamental design of not only the world (which needs to feel real) but also the features of that world. There is crossover, making it difficult to simply map out each feature to a single arc. The most common arc, and the one we find in most every game, regardless of whether it is an MMOG or not, is what I’ll refer to as “Adventuring.” This can encompass a great many things but for the most part it is self-explanatory. Questing/missions, PvP, exploring, and others; all of these things are part of the Adventuring arc. Game features need to support this. This is a common arc because it is extremely simple. It is almost impossible to create a game without having some sort of adventuring in it (I will not say impossible as I’m sure someone could think of something or point me to something that has already been done that does not use this.) Adventuring means your world has “stuff” in it to do and see. If your game world does not actively support looking at it then you have a fundamental problem (remember: play the game, not the interface.) Does your world have a reason to look at it? Would making your world completely flat and sticking a layer of brown or green texture on it affect things? If your answer is no you need to immediately go back to the drawing board. If your game could be played running around on a flat, white piece of “ground” with random sprinklings of enemies then there is a big problem. Aesthetics can not be the only reason you have an environment to play in.
The second arc which is also common but rarely fully developed is the “Social” arc. Some people argue that the social arc can not be built for, ignoring this logical fallacy I’ll simply state that this isn’t the case in any sense. Design for social interactivity. Every player wants to interact with other players. This does not mean every player wants to group, it means they want other players to be there to interact with, whether this be for a purely social purpose (chatting) an adventuring purpose (grouping) or for some other reason (which we’ll touch on later, such as “playing the market” in an economy or obtaining wealth/status through their playing.)
As I mentioned before though, this social arc also exists as a common link between all things. Remember the grouping/adventuring act of socializing in a game is there as well as the purely social aspect (chatting/talking/role-playing.) There are other factors also to consider here. It is more than just having a friends list, or a guild/clan feature or a party/group feature. All of those things are nice, and necessary but they only touch on half of what the social part of the game could be. Where else can we tie this aspect in at?
That question brings us right into our third arc, “Economy.” Most current games support a very limited view of the economy (not all, but most.) They use socializing as a part of the economy only in the smallest extent, through some sort of “Auction House” or some other such similar feature. This feature, also, is good and can be used well, but is not the only way to use the economic arc. Players can also run the economy and socialize in the form of owning businesses/shops. Shouldn’t players be able to own a business in your game world? Not everyone, after all, is a hero or wants to be for that matter. Someone has to make sure the hero is charged good money to get the latest equipment to save the world. Look at developing your economy through interactivity of players. Some players own shops and sell items through them. Of course, they may not also be the original developers of these products, someone else could do that, perhaps your explorers are out mapping your world and players can buy maps from you at your Map store. You only get new maps as your friendly explorers bring them to you to sell, selling you the right to publish their map and distribute it to as many people as want to buy it for a small fee on every item sold. Of course this means that you probably don’t want just one player running their own business and exploring your world supplying the business also. This means you have to give your players some real freedom in building a business. Let them hire NPC employees, let them grow their business and expand into other towns and cities. Give them the control to actually run the business.
Finally we’ll move on to my last arc, “Government.” This is perhaps the most under-utilized arc in the current gaming sphere. I guess since it is considered one of the things that you don’t want to bring up to people (it’s a very hot topic) that you shouldn’t put it in your world, or only use it in passing rather than an active role. This is a huge flaw. This assumes that the only way to design a working government in your game is to comment on government in the real world. This is not the case. Players should take an active role in running whatever faction they belong too. Just as players need to actively take part in the economy, and in so doing create a robust market they need to take part in some form of governing process.
It may, of course, be best not to make things quite as obtuse as real life governments tend to be. Large amounts of bureaucracy with no substance is not fun, which needs to be always at the forefront of the game design, but allowing players to make important, real decisions is key. Think of any strategy game, any one of them has important elements that can be used in allowing government to play an active role in your game. Why can’t NPC guards be limited by number of cities a faction controls and allocated accordingly? Why can’t technology available to members of a faction be determined by what your government is researching? The answer is there is no good reason. These things can all be done, they simply aren’t. It takes more work, sure. It takes a lot more planning even before any coding begins but then, if we are shying away from the work involved in making great games why bother in the first place?
In an MMO the “realness” of the world is one of the most key elements to the design. MMO gamers do not play them for the brilliant stories that they hold, most often this is not the case at all, we play them because they allow us to interact in a world. The only way to grow in the industry then is to expand the areas in which your player-base is allowed to interact.
game design, mmo design, mmo gaming, mmog, mmo games, mmo, design, virtual worlds
October 12th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Whoah…
I should go find one of those lolcats “I’m in ur head” slogans; everything you just wrote here is eerily in line with my own thoughts on the subjects.
Now if only someone would give me a budget to hire a team so I could actually make the MMO I’ve designed that uses (and expands upon) all four of these arcs…
October 12th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Talyn,
Thanks for the comment. I’ve found that these things I’m saying aren’t really all that amazing when it comes to the way design should be approached, the problem is that no one actually does seem to design in this way.
Getting someone to give you money is the tricky part isn’t it
October 12th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Agreed. And in fact, I made a very similar post just a few days ago though I didn’t have the Government aspect. I would actually include that under the social arc.
Oddly enough, the social aspect seems to be the most neglected, even though it’s very easy to support. You don’t really need to do much beyond giving the players some tools to work with. Chat channels are just the start. Meaningful interactions with the world and with each other should be available. And no, new dance moves don’t count.
Of course, things such as player governments and cities are much more complex, but the social possibilities increase exponentially when you start adding those sorts of features.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Tholal,
Interesting post, I wish I’d seen it before I wrote mine as I probably could have mentioned a few things from yours into what I was thinking about.
As far as the inclusion of government as an arc goes it is something I struggled with when I was writing it as well because, as you mention, such things would be able to be covered under other areas. I feel it is important to separate your social design from your government design of the virtual world for one very simple reason, you can add non-social elements to the government design of a game.
When I speak of these arcs I also mean to say that they can be combined to create their own features as well as be able to stand alone and have features exclusive to them. For instance it would be simple enough to create a way of putting together the “Adventuring” and “Government” arcs without adding a social aspect to them.
These arcs, of course, do not take into consideration the actual use of story in your game or how you want to achieve that. I do not consider “Story” to be an acceptable arc when designing your world but it is an important element (and perhaps could be applied as a path) to consider when designing your game.
Thanks for the comment!
October 12th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I’ve yet to see an MMO with a story at all, which is a shame since story is what got RPG’s started to begin with. I guess LOTRO would be the exception, it’s rather fun and exciting to get into those story-based instances, which is such a different beast than the static dungeons of WoW.
I’m exhausted, so forgive my mental wanderings but I’m wondering if I’d go so far as to include your Government arc (I’d simply call it Political and be done with it) into Social or not. In a sense, the two go hand in hand, but I’m also thinking of it as a sphere of advancement. Using old SWG as an example, we had our player towns and *someone* had to bite the bullet and level up their political skills (I can’t remember the actual name of the class or profession) in order to get the extra benefits for the town. Now, let’s kinda keep that same basic concept but beef it up with military abilities ala RTS mechanics. The guild/town leader can allocate a budget for NPC guards/security/defenses which will operate regardless if any live players who live there are in town (or online). He can place acquired ranged weapons to defend the town, and much like various levels of guild status can also designate security levels to guildies so they too will have some ability to set defense options in case the leader is offline. Of course the ‘normal’ political aspect is also another sphere to develop - diplomacy, and your guild/clan/corporation/town can become its own ‘faction’ with benefits for its members, the ability to have (potentially UGC) faction quests, and can ally with or oppose other player factions (and dev-created NPC factions).
October 13th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Talyn, exactly!
Those are a few of the items that I am referring to putting in. There is a reason I chose to say government instead of political, these arcs are designed for world design, not necessarily the system/feature design of the game. I’ll have to explain my methodology a bit more in another post but my breakdown of design works so that your world is the reason you have the features you do.
In essence you build a world that is “real” and that follows the patterns we see in real life and therefore pull features for game mechanics (such as RTS style faction development and allying of factions with one another) from that design of your world.
Also, you can set up your world separately from the story you create. It is true that the majority of MMOs don’t really have story, at least not all the way throughout, but that could be because they look at things the wrong way. If you build your story to have interwoven ideas throughout you can end up with an interesting story that can be, if not as good as a single player experience at least reasonably enjoyable.
For instance, let’s say you have an idea for your overall story that your players are trying to stop an alien force from taking over the world/galaxy. This means that your quests/missions, or at least a chunk of them, will have that idea in mind. But you can also set up story lines within that overall story that can sort of be “objectives” of your story. For instance, the aliens could be trying to take over “Mars” (or an appropriate place in your world/galaxy.) You may only find out about these plans by following the story line of a traitor to the cause on the planet who is helping them to filter troops in.
Now, that is a very simple example but I think it is a more realistic approach to crafting a story for an MMO. Obviously you can take entirely different approaches with single-player experiences that work so much better, but for an environment where thousands of players will all be interacting you not only need to keep your objectives interesting but also able to be built upon.
That of course would bring me to a point about changing content based on player actions, which is an entirely different post I’ll have to write altogether.
Thanks for the comment.