MMO Gaming

I keep hearing this. I don’t understand it. It tells me something about the designers that say this that I’d rather not know. It tells me they have a horrible lack of creativity. Why do I know this? Several things pop out of that sentence. First, the word “can’t” is used incorrectly, what they mean is either they “won’t” or they don’t know how. Second, the word “force” is used instead of any sort of choice. The idea here is that players will only immerse themselves in your game if you make them and will otherwise do nothing. This is true if your game isn’t designed correctly from the start. The question is how do you design so players will interact with your game?

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I made it. I apologize for not writing recently because of being away, but quite frankly I don’t like any of you enough to mess with my vacation. Now of course the problem is coming up with what to write. And, really, that isn’t a big problem. In fact the problem is what do I want to write first. Sitting in my unfinished “Drafts” section, mocking me, is a collection of about 10 articles which I am working on, but I’m not sure which one to attack first. I want to talk about all of them, but I also know I don’t have the time to get them all completed to the degree I would like immediately, so I’m stuck. I don’t know which one I want to do first. It’s a problem of prioritizing.

My other problem, at the moment anyway, is that I am having trouble thinking as I seem to have a cold. Finishing anything right now is proving more difficult than writing fluff (yes, I readily admit to me not writing anything of substance here.) I have been thinking though, with some of my recent purchases, what MMOs should adopt as their own. My Nintendo DS is still getting more play time than my PC as of late, but even more than that I think MMOs could adopt ideas from television as well. Specifically I am talking of Heroes, which I recently got on DVD. Aside from better stories in games, which is most certainly needed, I had a few other ideas watching the show. I’ll mention one at the moment, and it is only loosely tied to the show at all, but the inspiration came from watching it and that is what I’m getting at.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, I’ll mention the only part of the show relevant to the idea I had. The show is based around an ensemble cast. Each character has their own story arc and motivations and is working independently of the others (for the most part.) That, though, doesn’t really explain what I was talking about. Getting back to my idea, I thought it would be interesting to see grouping done in a different way. What if being grouped with someone didn’t mean you were working together…as in proximity? What if each person in a group had to accomplish their own goal and only then could they come together and complete their larger mission? I, obviously, haven’t worked out every detail concerning this, but I think the concept demands further inspection. Other games coming out seem to be focusing on making the player just control a larger number of characters (Gods & Heroes, and Sword of the New World come to mind) but I haven’t seen games that require people to work alone, together. I think it can be done well, and in an interesting way, and I’ll work out how soon and post it.

I mentioned in a comment on my post yesterday that we need to start ignoring the hype machine. Here’s why. It’s all a load of crap. Triple-A titles are not good games (in this case I am using the term “good” to actually mean “innovative”.) Innovation is bad for business. If a person isn’t familiar with something they usually don’t like it. I, for instance, am not a big fan of EVE. I agree it is very cool sounding, but I don’t like it. That’s because I’ve only spent the 14 day trial in the game and I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. It was new to me and would require an investment of time. I was playing WoW then and had been for a while, I didn’t feel I wanted to wait to experience my fun, I could get it immediately every time I logged into my tiny gnomish tank.

EVE, of course, is still good business. With a subscriber base smaller than several other games out there (all of which were put out by major developers/publishers) it manages to work well and make a profit obviously but let’s face it, the subscriber base still is smaller. They aren’t yet competing with Blizzard, NCsoft, SOE, etc. All the next-gen games (for the sake of argument I’ll refer to the “big 3″ in this as my basis those being Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online) are not innovative. Or rather they aren’t really taking things to the next level. They are improving on a few things, changing a few things and calling it a new game but it isn’t any more realistic or interactive than my sock drawer.

That’s because, when it comes down to it, they want to make money and the best way to do that is low barriers to entry. In this case those low barriers are not system specs but the ability to pick up the game and play it. To do that you need to be familiar or you need to be very, very good. Guess which is easier?

The “A” in this case is for asinine. As seen here. For those who read my blog regularly you probably notice that probably 4 out of 5 times I highlight something another person wrote it is to agree, or to generally agree and throw a different spin on it. This is different. This time I disagree, and I plan to rant about it. As in all things an opinion is an opinion and it doesn’t have to be liked but I certainly mean no disrespect by what I am about to write.

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There is a great read that I completely missed when it was first posted. Probably because, like so many other blogs I never got a chance to add it to my blogroll before I completely forgot.

The blog is written by Dana Baldwin, the Senior Producer for WWII Online (note to self: you need to try this game out). I bring this up only to point out that this person is (if you’ll excuse the pun) on the front lines.

I’ll quote the part that I found particularly interesting.

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I made a post earlier about the/my “Perfect” MMO. As promised I’m going into a bit more depth, but rather than do it all at once and only add a little bit of information I’ve decided I’ll do pieces individually to get the full flavor of what I’m talking about. We’ll be starting this as a regular feature coming up soon.

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Earlier I mentioned talking about what makes a mob memorable. Of my top 5 list (fine, top 4, really) what makes those encounters so memorable? Is it the social/community aspect involved in taking down those mobs? Is it the challenge? How do you go about classifying what makes a good mob and what doesn’t?

Considering, of course, that the aspect of socialization as it relates to various encounters (raiding with a guild/friends) isn’t something that one can specifically design for (aside from needing a certain number of people to actually beat it) we’ll focus on some other things that make it worthwhile.

PvP is easier than PvE…to design. I think everyone can admit this. Let’s face it, a lot more work is involved with designing an encounter with specific AI, abilities, etc. than it is to say “here are some guidelines to follow, now fight.” PvE is perhaps more accurately PvD, player vs. Designer. It’s a lot more work, on the designers side, for encounters against artificial creatures than it is for other players. It would seem fairly likely that this is the reason we see trash mobs at all. Ask a typical PvE player (specifically raiders, but anyone who’s grouped really) about whether or not they like trash mobs and they’ll probably say no, but if it’s a slowdown to progression that is is good for the designers who can spend more time crafting the next set of enemies. All this though, is an aside to the real question, what makes a memorable fight?

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