Richard Bartle on MMO design (IMGDC 09)

[Tarami]

None of those mods automate anything though, they just track data, display information differently, or make different control inputs simple to set up.  They are negating, circumventing, and automating the mindless and sucky tasks in the game and as a result improving the user experience.

Data aggregation is worthless?

[Vash]

None of those mods automate anything though, they just track data, display information differently, or make different control inputs simple to set up.  They are negating, circumventing, and automating the mindless and sucky tasks in the game and as a result improving the user experience.

Data aggregation is worthless?

No, which is why the makers of some of these mods and database websites like WoWhead can pull in enough money through donations or advertising to actually allow people to make a living doing those things.  My point is why leave this to external mod developers and websites, hire some extra UI and Web developers so the game has more UI features and the game's official website has it's own official database with related search tools.  More moneyhats for the game maker and a better user experience right out of the box, win win?

[Hindenburg]

None of those mods automate anything though, they just track data, display information differently, or make different control inputs simple to set up.  They are negating, circumventing, and automating the mindless and sucky tasks in the game and as a result improving the user experience.

Data aggregation is worthless?

Your links kinda completely proved his point.

[UnSub]

None of those mods automate anything though, they just track data, display information differently, or make different control inputs simple to set up.  They are negating, circumventing, and automating the mindless and sucky tasks in the game and as a result improving the user experience.

Data aggregation is worthless?

No, which is why the makers of some of these mods and database websites like WoWhead can pull in enough money through donations or advertising to actually allow people to make a living doing those things.  My point is why leave this to external mod developers and websites, hire some extra UI and Web developers so the game has more UI features and the game's official website has it's own official database with related search tools.  More moneyhats for the game maker and a better user experience right out of the box, win win?

Why do it when you've got players doing it for free?

Besides, didn't WoW do this to some extent - release stripped back versions of stuff that player mods originally came up with?

But also:

None of those mods automate anything though, they just track data, display information differently, or make different control inputs simple to set up.  They are negating, circumventing, and automating the mindless and sucky tasks in the game and as a result improving the user experience.

You've got automate on both sides. You can only choose one for your argument to stand.

The mods definitely automate things - they might not play the game for you, but they make the tracking of information about how / when to play much much easier. You seem to think that this is something MMO devs should pick up and do themselves, but which particular mods do they spend time developing for a playerbase with multitude of play styles?

[Tarami]

Your links kinda completely proved his point.

Not really. I'm not saying it's not useful. Quite the contrary, it's very, very useful. In fact, so useful and powerful that multi-billion companies have been built around it. But just because it doesn't "play the game for you", it doesn't mean it's a ridiculously powerful tool that maybe shouldn't be trusted to the players.

Also, on Blizzard doing it instead; why wouldn't they simply just redesign it to remove those things from the fundamental game design instead of band-aid it with a UI? Because a band-aid is all it is. An addon like Auctioneer only works if not everyone is using it - if they do, it loses its purpose and could just be replaced with an automated auctioning mechanism. When you pick an item up, it compares its mean auction value to the vendor value, then magically posts it at the right price! The travel to and from the auction house is just tedium anyhow.

[Mrbloodworth]

None of these mods automate anything, they just simplify or remove crappy mindless tasks and let you play the game instead of alt-tabbing to look up information on some web database every 5 minutes.

I think his point was, these "crappy mindless tasks" were designed as part of the standard gameplay, so if a mod simplifies or removes these bits then it does in fact circumvent some of the gameplay as it was intended. Same for the alt-tabbing and web databases.

You could argue that these tasks being crappy and mindless shouldn't be made part of the gameplay to begin with, but that's another argument altogether.

Thanks.

You say that gatherer does not circumvent game play. I could have sworn that there was an ability made in the game that was designed to track nodes, this replaces it compleatly, and any intent implied by the skill in its utility. Compounded with i am quite sure that frequency of a player finding one (before it was known they had fixed positions) was part of the design (as well as placement, and density of nodes), and consideration for resources and economic impact of the supply.

All That, goes right out the window.

Auctioneer, negates the AH meta-game, in fact automates it with bottom scanner. Any other design considerations such as AH placement
(access to data, travel), and economic impact (supply, inflation, undercutting, working the system, capitalizing on the uninformed), again..gone.


EDIT: SORRY! I wanted to bring up another, not sure what quest tracker i used, but i gave me info that WAS NEVER exposed to me as a player on the default UI, i am referring to mob positions, even as they moved on my mini map and overhead map. This is not circumventing game play? Maybe this is a bit cynical, but why not just have the mobs line up right next to the quest giver?

In stark contrast, LOTRO (a closed UI system) added the quest helper, in function, it only servers as your players since of direction as explained by the quest giver, as the quests are incredibly detailed as it was, it just required you to know where you got the quest (Point of reference). The need was realized, and the gap in "shitty game play" filled, but NOT to the extremes of XYZ of targets, or objectives, with one exception, where to turn the quest in at. 

[Vash]

None of these mods automate anything, they just simplify or remove crappy mindless tasks and let you play the game instead of alt-tabbing to look up information on some web database every 5 minutes.

I think his point was, these "crappy mindless tasks" were designed as part of the standard gameplay, so if a mod simplifies or removes these bits then it does in fact circumvent some of the gameplay as it was intended. Same for the alt-tabbing and web databases.

You could argue that these tasks being crappy and mindless shouldn't be made part of the gameplay to begin with, but that's another argument altogether.

Thanks.

You say that gatherer does not circumvent game play. I could have sworn that there was an ability made in the game that was designed to track nodes, this replaces it compleatly, and any intent implied by the skill in its utility. Compounded with i am quite sure that frequency of a player finding one (before it was known they had fixed positions) was part of the design (as well as placement, and density of nodes), and consideration for resources and economic impact of the supply.

All That, goes right out the window.

Auctioneer, negates the AH meta-game, in fact automates it with bottom scanner. Any other design considerations such as AH placement
(access to data, travel), and economic impact (supply, inflation, undercutting, working the system, capitalizing on the uninformed), again..gone.

So gamers have no memory and can't take notes?  All both of those addons amount to is automated note taking, so you know, you can play the game instead of waste time taking notes on where X is located and how much Y sold for yesterday.

Auctioneer is a tool that enhances the AH meta-game actually.  It gives people who enjoy that sort of thing the data they need to make decisions like, taking over X market could be feasable and profitable, flipping Y item will yield a nice return.  You can do that without any addons at all by just camping out at the AH and regularly checking the prices of items or just using intuition and experience.

Is the real life stock trading game hurt by the fact that now anyone with internet access can track prices in real time and research just about anything they want to know about a stock's history with just a few clicks?

[Hindenburg]

As one who used to be one of the richest fucks in his server, I'll readily say that you'd have to be fucking retarded to let WowEcon or Auctioneer do everything by themselves. Way more cash if you actually sit down and observe the data it gathers, and then determine the prices by hand.

[sam, an eggplant]

Also more trouble. I topped 80k gold during TBC with auctioneer/bottomscanner. I did have to weed out the obvious bad data, but it wasn't a real problem. I tend to believe that people having difficulty making money this way are playing on servers without sufficiently active economies. I couldn't do it on horde side, with 1/3 the population, for example.

The WoW economy is not rational like the real world. It has much greater up and downswings that are easily, trivially exploited with minimal effort.

[Mrbloodworth]

My comments were not about an individual users effectiveness in using it. Optimal effectiveness at that.

[Hindenburg]

Yes, I got that. The point was that, even if everyone's using it, there will always be the no-life OCD's that'll take it one step further and plunder the riches.

For the QH thing, Alt+Tabbing isn't a whole lot different.

[sam, an eggplant]

Auctioneer effectively forces the economy to function rationally by eliminating non rational actors as factors. In other words, if you list your item too low, auctioneer users will buy it out and relist at correct market prices. That's just taking advantage of market ineffeciencies, there's not any real gameplay there. That's (largely) how I built my fortune, because it only takes 10 minutes per day.

The AH minigame is played at a somewhat higher level. For example, timing consumables to coincide with raid lockout resets, reading patchnotes and stockpiling items for a later increase in value, raising prices by buying out everything and relisting at a higher price, etc.

[Vash]

Actually my point is more that "automated" was being thrown around in a way that didn't really make sense.

Addons are not killing stuff for you, they're telling you where to find it, how fast your killing it, and possibly how rewarding it is to kill or what quest/rep it relates to.

Addons are not gathering resources for you, they're helping you remember where they are and plan more efficient routes for gathering them.

Addons are not making money for you, they're showing you how much something is selling for currently and how much it sold for in the past.

Addons are not playing the game for you, they are letting you get the most out of your time by providing useful information in a user friendly manner without requiring you to go through the tedious process of gathering and analyzing said data manually.

[Vash]

Auctioneer effectively forces the economy to function rationally by eliminating non rational actors as factors.

Are you saying that without Auctioneer nobody would bother to flip items that were listed well below what they would normally sell for?  I can say without hesitation that flipping occurred before auctioneer was even created as well as before it became as popular as it is now.

It is just making it easier to search through the thousands of items listed on the AH at any given time and find items that have a good potential for being flipped.  Since it is rather popular now there are tons of people on every server who can easily identify low priced items.  This means there is high competition between people flipping items and items will tend to get flipped fairly fast.  Thus, how much money you can make off flipping is still fairly luck based as you'll have to scan the AH and find these items before anyone else does.

The "real" AH meta-game is in controlling the price of items by completely buying out certain items, creating a monopoly for yourself, and marking up the price.  If someone tries to undercut your price you just buy all their stock and re-list it at your marked up price, thus turning a profit.  I've known people who spend all their time in game doing this sort of thing and had 1000's of gold on sub max level characters even pre-TBC.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yes, exactly. By making it easy to exploit such inefficiencies, auctioneer makes the auction house a more rational market. You could do it before, but it was a pain in the ass.

[Arinon]

Addons are not playing the game for you, they are letting you get the most out of your time by providing useful information in a user friendly manner without requiring you to go through the tedious process of gathering and analyzing said data manually.

And what if these so-called tedious processes are intended by the designers as gameplay mechanics?  Might be rotten design but you are still modding out parts of the game.  I'd call that having them play the game for you.  You just seem to be defining the game proper as only those parts you enjoy. 

Under your definition playing chess with a chess program beside you on a laptop is no problem.  It's not moving the pieces, just running a crapton of potential move scenarios and giving you the strongest ones as options.  Hey it's fair because it's just an information tool!

[Hindenburg]

Your example is retarded.

[Fordel]

Your example is retarded.

I second this notion.

[justdave]

You just seem to be defining the game proper as only those parts you enjoy. 

I think my eyes just fell out of my head.

[Vash]

Under your definition playing chess with a chess program beside you on a laptop is no problem.  It's not moving the pieces, just running a crapton of potential move scenarios and giving you the strongest ones as options.  Hey it's fair because it's just an information tool!

Just to make a point.

If for whatever reason you were determined to consider every possible move before deciding which one you would make (every turn), which would be more enjoyable for your oppenent, waiting a few seconds for your computer program to churn through that, or waiting minutes/hours/days/weeks for you to do that in your head?

Tedious is pretty much the polar oposite of fun so desinging something to be tedious is bad design.  This doesn't stop MMO developers from using it as a pacing crutch to keep players from chewing through content faster than they can create it though.

[sam, an eggplant]

Anyone have that arguing on the internet is like winning the special olympics jpeg? It seems appropriate.

[Hindenburg]

[Arinon]

Meh.  Just trying, and apparently failing, to refute the point that modding a UI doesn’t introduce a lot of automation. In a single player game go nuts.  When it’s multiplayer it provides a competitive advantage.  This is bad.

I never made a judgment on what's fun or not.  Trying to argue about what’s fun and what’s tedious doesn’t go very far after opinions have been stated.

[Rendakor]

Anyone can download any of the mods we've talked about (Carbonite excluded but that's been fixed now, amirite?), so it's not a matter of competitive advantage. It's into issue of keyboard turning vs mouse turning; one is widely regarded as superior but no one forces anyone to keyboard turn. Blizzard designed the game with some tedious things, but has not objected to mods which remove such tedium. Therefore, Blizzard does not see this as bad.

[Nebu]

Therefore, Blizzard does not see this as bad.

It's not bad for business.  That right there is the bottom line.  UI mods do give a competitive advantage.  That's precisely why many people use them.  Their existence helps the bottom line, so Blizzard supports them.  It's about providing entertainment for a price. 

Everyone has equal access to f13.net, but you don't see everyone here.  Mods aren't that different.  The only way everyone would have equal access would be if they were a standard part of the interface, which they are not.  I can say this, people that use many of the mods would have fewer sheep (be it financial or combat) were these mods a standard part of the UI, assuming that a part of introductory gameplay involved a tutorial on their features. 

[tmp]

Blizzard designed the game with some tedious things, but has not objected to mods which remove such tedium. Therefore, Blizzard does not see this as bad.

Yah, i just wish we could get all on one page and acknowledge the changes to the UI do remove this tedium. If it's for better or worse i really don't care at this point since it's debatable, but it seems there's also parallel argument running here that modding out parts of game through automation etc does not change the experience at all, and that part is bogus.

[Arinon]

I can say this, people that use many of the mods would have fewer sheep (be it financial or combat) were these mods a standard part of the UI.

That's exactly the stance I argue from.  Yes they are available, they are great, and I use them, but your players shouldn't have to climb out of a UI induced handicap.

[Rendakor]

It definately removes tedium. But nothing that the player could not have done outside the game already, as has been said above: QH instead of alt tabbing to WoWhead, etc.

The problem with saying 'just integrate them into the game' is that there are people that LIKE this tedium. Hell, I read the quests my first playthrough too; WAR has something like this, where your map is marked with a general area where you can find your quest mobs. As a result, I never read a single quest because I didn't have to. I didn't download QH on WoW until working on my 2nd 80; at that point I just wanted him max level and didn't care about the "fun" of leveling.

And good point Nebu. The complaints about competative advantage risk taking this into 'lolesport' territory. Bottom line is, those who would CARE about competative advantage are all using the mods; for the average WoW player, WoW is not a competative game.

[UnSub]

People download mods for variety of reasons - tracking, assistance and competitive advantage among them.

The most highly competitive players will be using mods and macros (and maybe dual boxing, and other things) to maximise their returns and are definitely playing a different game to those who aren't using the same things.

Mods change the game because it changes the type of game you are playing. It's not just customising the UI, it is changing the nature of the game experience by offering shortcuts. Vash's statement that "players can take notes" is ridiculous because this isn't one player taking notes based on their in-game experiences, it is players leveraging the experience / knowledge / notes of every player who has come before them.

I'm not against mods at all, but please let's recognise it for what it is - a shortcut through the system that changes the nature of the game.

[Lantyssa]

Let's keep in mind that not everyone processes information the same.  One UI element may not be as effective for all people.  A mod might not be an improvement for someone else.

Also "competative advantage" in a PvE game?  Please.  When you can mod a real PvP game we can talk.

[Nebu]

Also "competative advantage" in a PvE game?  Please.  When you can mod a real PvP game we can talk.

To be fair, many people play an MMO instead of a single player title because they want to see how they are progressing relative to others in their game world.  In essence, this is competitive albeit a different and less direct type than PvP.  The economic minigame is very much a pvp game if you care to think of it that way. The primary difference being that the "winner" doesn't really gain anything in terms of the game world beyond stuff like an epic mount. 

[UnSub]

Also "competative advantage" in a PvE game?  Please. 

Three key words: ultra rare loot.

[Sunbury]

I think all these mods would be fair - if they charged by the data packet and not by the month.

Someone using auctioneer is burning up way more server time / bandwidth then someone not, as with most of these add-ons.

They are all 'cheating' in some form or the other.

Why do they draw the line at combat macros?   Just go all the way and fully automate the client.  Turn all games into programmers contests - but only if YOU write the code - no useing someone elses macros!

[Hindenburg]

And schild thought that arguing about that swtor hermaphrodite's clothes was rock-bottom. Oh, to be young and candid again.

[Yegolev]

WoW's mods go too far, in my opinion, and they add to the can't-keep-up-without-rushing feeling I get when playing it.  LotRO's UI needs some tedium-relief.

I would not mind the WoW mods so much if they were a Blizzard product, because open source projects are a pain in the ass to aggregate, patch and use.  Refer to Firefox addons.  Even so, as they stand, they automate away a lot of my incentive to play.  This is, however, under Bliz control since they decide which parts of the UI to expose to modders and so I blame them.

On the other hand, only being able to buy one or fifty of something in LotRO is too simplistic.  Maybe I only want twenty-two glass vials and don't want to click BUY twenty-two times, you fuckers.  Mostly it's OK, though, and it doesn't go overboard like WoW.  When I ask for a more customisable UI, I'm not talking about a version of Gatherer for LotRO (not just because there's already something like it).  I like the way targeting works, and how I find resource nodes, and the quest tracker helps alleviate confusion (although I'd prefer better quest design and description instead of a map highlight). A better and more-intuitive button-creation system would be nice, and some sorting options besides "A-Z | Z-A | Price" would be fantastic.

Bloodworth mentioned the apparently-space-age Hide Locked Items toggle, but that is a great example of simplicity-looks-like-stupidity.  I cannot lock or unlock items unless I am in the shop interface, I can't filter by anything else while selling, and I can't sell part of a stack in the shop interface.  I can't do a text search in the shop interface although I can in the AH interface...?  I believe these issues can be remedied without open-sourcing the UI and letting gold farmers access the getRich() function.