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Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: El Gallo on November 04, 2004, 10:27:35 AM http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041103/bartle_pfv.htm
New optimism from Bartle, who points [gross oversimplification ahead] out that players transmit "genes" to new games, but games that are shitty spit out many more players than games that are good because of low retention rates. The result is that shitty ideas get spread further than good ones which, combined with the fact that newbies expect new games to be like their first, means that evolution will drive MMOGs to get worse and worse as time goes by. Quote [Author's note: What I'm calling virtual worlds, you might call MMORPGs or MMOGs or (if you're a real old-timer) MUDs. Macro replace with your preference accordingly. Got that? Then I'll begin…] Introduction Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted "survival of the not-quite-fittest" form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed. If you think some of today's offerings are garbage, just you wait… Yeah, yeah, you want some justification for this assertion. Even though I'm in Soapbox mode, I can see that, so I will explain - only not just yet. First, I'm going to make four general points that I can string together to build my case. Bear with me on this… The Newbie Stream Here's a quote from Victorian author Charles Dickens: Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £19/19/6, result happiness. Annual income £20/-/-, annual expenditure £20/-/6, result misery. Annual income £0, annual expenditure £20,000,000, result There.com. OK, so maybe he didn't actually write that last line. What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing. Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality. If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) that the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it. Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies Newbie Preconceptions Another quote, this time from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams: If we build it, they will come. Well, maybe if you're an Iowa corn farmer who hears voices inside your head telling you to construct a baseball stadium, but otherwise… A virtual world can be fully functioning and free of bugs, but still be pretty well devoid of players. There are plenty of non-gameplay reasons why this could happen, but I'm going to focus on the most basic: lack of appeal. Some virtual worlds just aren't attractive to newbies. There are some wonderfully original, joyous virtual worlds out there. They're exquisitely balanced, rich in depth, abundant in breadth, alive with subtleties, and full of wise, interesting, fun people who engender an atmosphere of mystique and marvel without compare. Newbies would love these virtual worlds, but they're not going to play them. Why not? Because they're all text. Newbies don't do text. Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't. Put another way, if a virtual world has a feature that offends newbies, the developers will have to remove that feature or they won't get any newbies. This is irrespective of what the oldbies think: they may adore a feature, but if newbies don't like it then (under point #1) eventually there won't be anyone left to adore it. Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like. Not-So-Newbies Here's another quote (kind of), from a private study of 1,100 players by the Themis Group. Themis's researchers asked veterans of 3 or more virtual worlds how many months they'd spent in their first one and how many months they'd spent in their second one. Dividing the second figure by the first, we get these averages for time spent in the second virtual world compared to the first: EverQuest 80% Ultima Online 70% Asheron's Call 70% Dark Age of Camelot 55% Anarchy Online 55% Players spend considerably less time in their second virtual world than they do in their first. Why is this? Well, the first virtual world that someone gets into is very special to them. It's a magical, enchanting, never-to-be-repeated experience. You thought it was only you who looked back wistfully on your early days like that? Nah, it's everyone. This has consequences. There used to be a virtual world called NeverWinter Nights, unrelated to the BioWare RPG, on AOL. When it was closed down, its refugees descended on Meridian 59. They immediately wanted M59 to incorporate every piece of NWN functionality that they could remember. In general, players view all their subsequent virtual worlds in the light cast from their first one. They will demand that features from their first world be added to their current world, even if those very features were partly responsible for why they left the first world. They'll say they hate treadmills, but if their first experience was in a virtual world with treadmills, then they'll gravitate towards other virtual worlds with treadmills, all the while still hating them. There's a long explanation for this, to do with the search for identity, which I won't delve into here because you only need to know that players do behave this way, not why (that's a different rant). Read my book (Designing Virtual Worlds) if you want the full story. Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into. Short-Termism No quote this time. When a virtual world changes (as it must), all but its most experienced players will consider the change on its short-term merits only. They look at how the change affects them, personally, right now. They will only make mention of possible long-term effects to help buttress a short-termist argument. They don't care that things will be majorly better for them later if things are minorly worse for them today - it's only the now that matters. Why is this? I've no idea. Well, I do have an idea, but not one I can back up, so I'll keep quiet about it. The fact is, players do behave like this all the time, and it would only take a cursory scan of any forum after patch day for you to convince yourself, if you don't believe me. This short-termist attitude has two outcomes. Firstly, something short-term good but long-term bad is hard for developers to remove, because players are mainly in favor of it. Secondly, something short-term bad but long-term good is hard to keep because players are mainly not in favor of it. Design that is short-term good but long-term bad I call "poor". Virtual worlds are primarily a mixture of good and poor design, because the other two possibilities (outright bad and short-term bad, long-term good) either aren't implemented or are swiftly removed. Good design keeps players; poor design drives them away (when the short term becomes the long term and the game becomes unfun). Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good. Summary OK, so we now have the four points I need to launch into my tirade. These are: Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like. Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into. Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good. I can now construct a line of reasoning that supports my initial assertion. The Newbie Induction Under point #4, players will eventually quit a virtual world that has poor features. Under point #3, however, they won't necessarily recognize that a feature which caused them to leave was indeed poor. Under point #2, they won't play those virtual worlds that lack this feature. Under point #1, those virtual worlds that do lack the feature - that is, those with the better design - will die through dearth of newbies. Any absolute newbies, for whom this is their first virtual world, will be educated to believe that this is how things are meant to be, thus starting the whole cycle again. Q.E.D. The normal rules of evolution by which computer games operate propagate good design genes from one to the next. Each generation of game takes the best mutations from the previous generation and adds to them. Virtual worlds also propagate good genes, but they propagate poor ones more readily. The best virtual worlds don't pass their design genes around much because of their high retention rate: "Why would I quit when what I want is right here?". Poor design genes cause players to leave sooner, so it's these features that wind up being must-haves for the next generation of products. This leads to a bizarre situation: for a new virtual world to succeed, it has to have the same features that caused its antecedents to fail..! You're not convinced, huh? OK, here are two of examples of the theory in action, one old and one new. Example 1 (Old): Permanent Death If characters that died stayed dead, it would open up all kinds of very convenient doors for virtual world design: It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power. It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters. It's the default fiction for real life. It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time. It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it. Many designers and experienced players would love to see a form of PD in their virtual world, but it's not going to happen. Newbies wouldn't play such a game (under points #2, #3 and #4), therefore eventually neither would anyone else (point #1). PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected. Example 2 (new): Instancing Instancing looks very appealing on the face of it: groups of friends can play together without interference in relative tranquillity. What's not to love? The thing is, this is not what virtual worlds are about. How can you have any impact on a world if you're only using it as a portal to a first-person shooter? How do you interact with people if they're battened down in an inaccessible pocket universe? Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone? Most players don't see it that way, though. Newbies see it as familiar - "fantasy Counterstrike, cool!" (point #2). They don't know what it means for their long-term enjoyment (point #4). Of course, they eventually will learn what it means - boredom and disenchantment - but even so, they probably won't connect the effect with the cause. They'll just go looking for another virtual world that features instancing (point #3). Older-era players will perhaps initially avoid anything with instancing because their first love didn't have it (point #3), but they'll probably try it eventually because (point #4) hey, maybe it's that missing piece that will give them the sense of closure they crave? Thus, instancing will get locked into the paradigm. New virtual worlds that don't have it will get fewer players than those that do have it, even though they have the better design. Instancing is short-term good, long-term bad: accepted. Analysis It's not just permanent death, it's not just instancing: it's teleportation, it's banks, it's non-drop objects - it's everything that makes sense in some contexts but not in all (or even most) contexts. Player: You don't have teleporting! How can I rejoin my group if I miss a session? Designer: Well gee, maybe by omitting teleportation I'm kinda dropping a hint that you can have a meaningful gaming experience, without always having to group with the same people of the same level and run a treadmill the whole time? Player: Are you NUTS? I want to play with my friends, and I want to play with them RIGHT NOW! Designer: But how are you ever going to make new friends? How - Player: Are you listening? RIGHT NOW! Designer: (Sigh) Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Regular computer games don't have this problem. The market for regular computer games is driven by the hardcore. The hardcore finishes product faster than newbies, and therefore buys new product faster than newbies. The hardcore understands design implications better than newbies. They won't buy a game with features they can see are poor; they select games with good design genes. Because of this, games which are good are rewarded by higher sales than games which are bad. In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Furthermore, in today's flat-fee universe, the hardcore spends the same amount of money as everyone else: developers aren't rewarded for appealing to the cognoscenti, except maybe through word of mouth that always comes with caveats (because of point #3). Possible solutions I'm not completely pessimistic here; there are ways the cycle can be broken, mainly by attacking points #2 and #3 (that is, by overcoming prejudices concerning what "should" be in a virtual world). Here are half a dozen hopes for the future: Innovation. If evolution doesn't work, maybe revolution will? A virtual world different enough that it doesn't map onto players' existing experiences may attract newbies and oldbies alike. Of course, there's no guarantee that the new paradigm won't itself be short-term good, long-term bad… Marketing. People can sometimes be persuaded to overcome their preconceptions. Even a text-based virtual world could become a monster hit if it had the right licence and was advertised to the right group of people. Unfortunately, marketing costs money. Cross-fertilization. If no poor features are ever added, point #4 becomes redundant. How do you know that a proposed feature is genuinely good, though? Simple - there are two traditions of virtual worlds (West and East) so you cherry-pick the best ideas from the other one. You speak Korean, right? Works of art. Virtual world design involves much craft, but at root it's art. A designer makes decisions based on how they feel things ought to be. Players will eventually pick up on the differences and play a new virtual world just because they like the designer's previous work: Raph Koster, Brad McQuaid and Richard Garriott already have more creative freedom than first-time designers. Point #3 evaporates! If only designing a virtual world didn't take so long… Time may heal. If you wait long enough that people forget why they ever objected to something, that something can come back. Fashions change, and who knows what the newbies of 2024 will think? Good ideas will always get a second chance to enter the paradigm, it's just that "wait a quarter of your life for it to happen" thing that's a little depressing. Growing maturity. Perhaps the best hope for the future is the growing maturity of the player base. First-time newbies will always assert the supremacy of their first virtual world, but oldbies who have been through the mill enough will realise that some of the features they've been taking for granted are actually counter-productive. If they're around in sufficient numbers, we may see virtual worlds appearing that do everything right and very little wrong, removing point #4 and leading us into a golden age. I can dream… Conclusion Virtual worlds are under evolutionary pressure to promote design features that, while not exactly bad, are nevertheless poor. Each succeeding generation absorbs these into the virtual world paradigm, and introduces new poor features for the next generation to take on board. The result is that virtual world design follows a downward path of not-quite-good-enough, leading ultimately to an erosion of what virtual worlds are. Fortunately, there are a number of processes at work that have the potential to arrest this descent. Thus, although the future of virtual worlds may look disappointing, it's not completely bleak. Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs. If you need me, I will be sitting on the toilet with a revolver in my mouth. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Nebu on November 04, 2004, 10:37:09 AM Great read... this said it all.
Quote Virtual worlds are becoming diluted by poor design decisions that can't be undone. We're getting de-evolution - our future is in effect being drawn up by newbies who (being newbies) are clueless. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 04, 2004, 11:09:00 AM I agree with his premise, not his conclusions.
Instancing is good, when done right. Perma death and text will NEVER get mass market acceptance, no matter how good the gameplay. It just won't. As I said on Corp about this same article, as long as MMOG's are sold as GAMES, the real virtual world stuff will not be considered good game design, because people don't pay to have negative things happen to them. Real virtual world projects won't ever be mass market. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: kaid on November 04, 2004, 11:19:09 AM Perma death will never stay in a production mmog until they can ensure that your character will never die to bugs/ connectivity issues/ or people cheating. As long as any of those three can cause perma death people will simply not stick with the game for any lenght of time. They may try it initially but after a while it would disuade people from staying.
kaid Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: stray on November 04, 2004, 11:33:34 AM Quote from: HaemishM Real virtual world projects won't ever be mass market. Are there any other markets virtual worlds can survive in, designed as they're meant to be, besides "games"? Should designers seek a sort of compromise or move on and find another use for them? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: geldonyetich on November 04, 2004, 11:39:30 AM Overall, the issue with MMORPGs is the same as any game:
I want masterpieces of gaming art. Creating games is about making money. Masterpieces of gaming art are harder to create than just a generic game with a shot at making money. Therefore Masterpieces of gaming art will remain few and far in between. The real issue is that most gamers are such phillistines they wouldn't know or care what is a masterpieces of gaming art or not. Hopefully, this will change in time. For what it's worth, a MMORPG cannot survive and expand well if it cannot adequettely entertain enough players to keep the subscription money coming in. Because the focus is on player retention, a MMORPG does have a minimal amount of required fun quality in order to remain operational and successful enough to expand. Either that, or it has a natural advantage such as a mindles fan following or giant financial backing. For the most part, though, successful MMORPGs I don't like are better interpretted as being cases were they are still enjoyed by players with different tastes than my own. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kenrick on November 04, 2004, 12:12:10 PM What we really need is for one of us (i.e. people who want a good game and not catassing) to win a powerball lottery jackpot of around $300M, to fund the project. Then we can put together a good team of designing minds (there are some in the industry, the industry just sucks the good from them). Our goal would not be money, or high subscription numbers, but sheerly creating the most perfect online world possible. Without our primary motivation being money, our creativity would know no limits. We would not rape our loyal and devoted customers (who obviously are buying and playing the game for the right reasons, otherwise they'd be playing the other dogshit on the market) -- Disc/box would be $20 and monthly fee of $5. Would we be losing money? Yes. But we have enough to spare.
/end fantasy Short version: Until money is not the primary motivation for a MMORPG developer, we will never see a game that truly meets our dreams. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 04, 2004, 12:35:19 PM Seems overwrought.
It rests on the assumption that newbies are all single-issue voters, as if the existence of even one feature that's short-term bad, long-term good will cause an unsubscription. The way out is to tease people into the game with enough short-term good features (graphics, CRAFTING, good social aspects, positive iterations on old ideas) that your short-term bad, long-term good features are worth it. Also, I think Bartle's categorization of good- and bad- ideas and how they propagate is fundamentally broken. The King MMORPG is Everquest, and if pressed I bet there's very little in Everquest he'd consider a particularly good idea. And yet the problem is not that Everquest is hoarding its players and their sweet good-idea genes aren't being propagated, the problem is that the commercial success of Everquest is causing its irritating ideas to be propagated way, way too much. Title: Re: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Roac on November 04, 2004, 01:16:11 PM Tackling his points:
1) Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies ANY service requires that the number of clients stays above a certain level, in order to remain profitable. I hope he doesn't consider this news, but only as the first point needed to make his conclusion. However, contrary to this point, any service can indeed experience a downturn in clients up to that point. It may require a restructuring of the company (downsizing) to remain profitable - but the goal of such a restructuring is normally to push the lowest allowable customer level down. 2) Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like. Then don't let newbies have access to them. Some things are too complicated to take in on day 1, or which a new player simply doesn't have the skills (either RL or character wise) to deal with. Devs have so far been fairly poor on bringing players up to speed on how to play their game. The best that they have done so far are tutorials and "newbie lands". More is needed, but to say/suggest that it CAN'T be done is fallacious. Working on a MUD, we needed volunteer devs. A lot of them - in our case we usually had 20-30ish at any given time. Our only source of recruits were our players. Granted, they had to be people who can enjoy text games, but we had plenty of demographics, including senior citizens and stay-at-home moms (though they were, of course, a minority vs 15-25yo males). My point is that we had to train these guys to write code, and Bartle isn't going to convince me that there's any MMOG feature anywhere that's more dificult than that. Most of them weren't doing real complicated stuff, but yes, they did get a handle of if-then, for loops, and putting them together to do interesting things. At any given point in time, very few of our coders were professional or student programmers (2-5ish). If a 45 year old housewife can learn how to build this "wonderfully original, joyous" virtual world, they can learn how a crafting system works. 3)Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into. I agree with that. More correctly, people will judge anything based on experience. With your first anything, you have no experience to go by, hence the newness sticks with you. Hopefully it's a good impression. Studies show that people tend to remember both the first and last in any series of events the best. What Bartle fails to mention, however, is that people will also remember the bad things about the "first time". When people arrive in a second+ game, they may well ask that features they are familiar with be added, but also that bad features or past pitfalls of features be avoided. 4) Many players will think some poor design choices are good. True. An easy example of this is that players often want things to be easier; however, by making things easier it can also make them more boring, which leads to shorter attention given to the game. The discussion about making a game difficult enough to be interesting, but not so difficult to frustrate, is an old one. Regarding his argument: Quote Under point #4, players will eventually quit a virtual world that has poor features. Under point #3, however, they won't necessarily recognize that a feature which caused them to leave was indeed poor. Non sequitur. The conclusion may be correct, but the reasoning is not. The assertion that was made was that many players will judge a specific feature based on short-term gains or losses. The argument is that, because of poor features (based on the player's pov), a player will eventually leave. The key point here, is how long is eventual; if a player sticks around long enough, per Bartle's reasoning, they will recognize that the feature they thought was bad was, in fact, good. That is, Bartle must be defining a good feature as one that makes players happier / increases the duration of their stay long term, since he has already defined a bad feature as one that players enjoy short term but dislike long term. If a feature has no benefits either short or long term, then I fail to see how it would be a good feature. In other words, if the "bad feature" doesn't cause the player to leave very soon, they will recgonize the change was in their best interest, and remain. I don't neccessarily agree with all the premise used in this argument either, but that is what follows from Bartle's claims, not the conclusion he stated. Quote Any absolute newbies, for whom this is their first virtual world, will be educated to believe that this is how things are meant to be, thus starting the whole cycle again. If a newbie felt that this good feature was a bad one, and as a result they left, they would certainly not advocate for that same feature to be implimented in the next game they went to. Players do not go around saying "wow, that feature in game X really blew. Lets do it again!" Also, his point #4 does not logically apply (another non sequitur) to absolute newbies. His point in #4 is that an experienced player would feel that a certain change was bad, based on short-term consequences. For example, a nerf to their class. However, an absolute newbie would walk in after this change, and not have this bitter feeling about it. It would not be a feature that they dislike. for the same reason that the player in #4 disliked it. It may cause both types of players to leave, but it does not logically connect them. Quote PD is short-term bad, long-term good: rejected. I disagree entirely. For example, his claim that it prevents players from gaining an absolute grip is untrue; it can very easily lead to a situation where advanced characters utterly dominate, because they slaughter anyone who attempts to level a character to become a potential threat. If the mechanics are different, such that newbie characters are a threat (even if a minor one) to the health of established players, it means that becoming established lacks much of the achievement. Afterall, there isn't much to achieve if a newbie lacks a significant percent of the power that an advanced one does. Quote The thing is, [instancing] is not what virtual worlds are about It can be. Virtual worlds do rely heavily on being able to bring together tens of thousands of people. However, I refute the claim that throwing 20,000 people into one room suddenly validates or improves upon a virtual world. Do you have 20,000 friends? Could you even possibly have 20,000 friends? Ok, not even friends - can you possibly interract, one on one, with 20,000 people in a single play session? If you gamed for six hours, you'd have to interract with almost a person every second. If anything, this intruduces insurmountable problems of scale. Raph mentions these in respect to support issues. I feel that as virtual worlds are bringing more and more people together, they need to do much more than they are to break out everyone into functional groups. Don't prevent interractions, but channel them so that at any given moment, I don't have to worry about 20,000 other people. Instancing is one way to help with this. Create dungeons (castles, evil temples, whatever) with a cap on how many people can join - or a cap on how many people from each team (clan/city/region) can join, so you can have several competing teams that don't get zerged. Make sure there are enough such zones to go around. Instancing, like any other feature, can be implimented in a good way, or a craptastic way. It's such a generic term/feature that it could mean most anything, and can't by itself slot into either the good or bad design categories. Quote In virtual worlds, the hardcore either wanders from one to the next, trying to recapture the experience of their first experience or they never left in the first place. Unsupported argument, and I disagree totally. In the paragraph above, Bartle mentions how the hardcore can pick and choose good standalone games. I see no reason, either logically or from experience, why MMOGs suddenly makes the hardcore customer stupid to design. Instead, I do feel that hardcore gamers are experiencing a lack of choices. No, seriously. Count the number of standalone titles released last year, on all platforms. Now count the number of MMOG titles released. Last year. When the number in column B is even a quarter of what it is in A, then come back and talk about this point and whether it's true. Quote Besides, for the purist there will always be text MUDs. Except that MUDs are proof-negative of his conclusion. If the de-evolution were in fact occuring the way he described it, successful MUDs could never have come into being. Or rather, MUD1 would've been praised as the Eden of MUD-dom, and nothing would've ever been better. He catches some exceptions in his possible solutions, but his conclusion seems to make the fate of MMOGs absolute. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 04, 2004, 01:45:43 PM Personally I think the man just likes to talk.
MMORPGs as a genre are stale, whooptidoo. Innovation will come its just a matter of time and it will most likely come from an outsider or a small upstart....shall we quote numerous examples in the business history when this has happened? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: ajax34i on November 04, 2004, 02:25:44 PM To concentrate on a sub-point being discussed, permanent death is also not possible in the current MMOG's due to the player-retention method being used: time invested in building up your character. I think we need to get away from that.
I distinctly remember the period in my pen-and-paper DnD gaming history when I went from min-maxing to actually being able to use "throw away" characters... just average characters that I'd play for their RP value instead of combat prowess. So I certainly think that story and content can be sufficient as player-base retention reasons. And once the characters themselves become unimportant to the player, permanent death can be implemented. The other way to do it is to defuse the effects of death or the character itself. Perhaps the character dies permanently, but the skill points/xp accrued remain on your account, and you can create another character if you so wish. It, again, depends on the purpose for playing: "to advance in the world" is not a good enough reason. Sorry for derailing this a bit into the permadeath discussion. The rest of the points he makes in that article are meh, I don't really agree with his reasoning. The original 4 axioms he states may be true, but the way he uses them, and his conclusions, I don't agree with. EDIT: Oh yeah, and the other thing is, I think the makers of MMOG's need to move away from the "Make a game to last forever" design philosophy. Aim for 5 years from the start, and you can design a dynamic game with a changing story line and effects on the game world, and it would be a better game than something static and fixed in stone. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kageru on November 04, 2004, 03:17:41 PM Hm,... The more mainstream you aim the dumber the product has to be. The designers role is to draw the line between comfort and challenge. Incidentally the extent to which the "short term bad, long term good" fits into the world, and is explained as an intentional part of the design, the more likely it will be accepted.
His example of perma-death is ludicrous. That's a fairly precise example of a designer being too focused on designer concerns. There are perfectly good reasons why players are not going to be interested, the main one being it's not fun and makes challenging yourself punitively punishing. This article was on slashdot yesterday incidentally, so it's had very wide distribution. Probably more than it's degree of insight deserves. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 04, 2004, 04:32:48 PM I think his initial blurring of the virtual world/mmorpg/mud term is a bit telling. Some view these games as worlds, some view them as games, and some view them as sandboxes. I think each would use a different term to describe their ideal game. Each has a somewhat different connotation.
If you view mmorpgs as virtual world simulators, i think you can easily believe what he is saying. But if you view these games, as 'games', not virtual worlds, then the genre is doing fine. I don't think any of the mmorpgs could be described as a sandbox, so i think that sort of view died at birth. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 07:37:01 AM I feel a little weird responding to this because I have a great deal of respect for Richard and let's face it, his credentials are a bit better than mine. :) But, while I think the first part of the article is spot-on, I think the assertions are a bit off. First, I agree that a design that is short-term good and long-term bad is a poor design. However, a design that is short-term bad, but long-term good is equally poor. In fact, I'd argue that this is one of the biggest problems with the genre. How often have we heard someone say "The game begins to get fun at level 20." or "Once you get past this part, the game is great!" Wait. Why can't it be fun right away? Design shouldn't force players to suffer through the short-term to get to the long-term fun. And those that do will often churn out players before they get to the "good" part. This is especially true now that players have so many options…they won't stick around if the game upsets them early on. Designs must take into account the short-term effects just as much as they take into the long-term.
Mostly though, I wanted to comment on the permadeath example. I believe permadeath is short-term bad and long-term bad (whether you are making a MMOG or a virtual world – and yes, there is a difference) and that the arguments for it are flawed. It prevents early-adopter players from gaining an iron grip on positions of power. -True. But there are many ways to keep veteran players from holding positions of power without deleting their characters. The bigger issue to solve though is making new players valuable to the veteran characters. We need to solve that problem first. It re-uses content effectively, because players view same-level encounters from different angles using different characters. -Not really. For the most part, players generally want to skip the early levels once they've re-rolled a few times. This is partly because the early levels are often boring, but mostly because once you've experienced a "decked-out" character, being forced to become a relative "weakling" again gets old fast. If you want players to reuse your early content, it's simple. Make that content fun. People play multiple characters in CoH (my gut says more so than most other MMOs) because the early experience is fun, not because the game forces them to. I do this in D&D all the time too. I enjoy rolling up new characters and starting new campaigns because playing the early levels in D&D is fun. I also like going back to play my old characters once in a while too and I like knowing they are still around. If my DM ripped up my character sheet every time a character died, I'd probably find a new DM. It's the default fiction for real life. -Honestly, this is mostly irrelevant, especially in a non-realistic setting. Realism isn't a bad thing by any means, but it's trumped by things like "fun" and "game balance". It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time. -No, it destroys role-play. People spend a LOT of time developing their character's persona. More importantly, they spend a lot of time developing their character's relationship with other characters. In fact, that forms the cornerstone of most role-play groups. To take that away from them is a mistake. The longer they have a character, the more developed they become and the more attached the player becomes to that character. I've never heard a role-player refer to their three year old character as "tired". In fact, quite the opposite...most are VERY proud of these characters. Also, keep in mind that most players do not roleplay. This is very important. As these games move into the mainstream, even less of a percentage of the players will be role-players. They don't want to roleplay, they don't even see it as part of the game. Also, both those that roleplay and those that don't roleplay cite "my character" as one of the top reasons they stay in the game. This isn't just newbies, its veteran MMOG players too. Every time you delete someone's character, you create a decision point for them whether to stay in the game or not. This is both short-term and long-term bad. It validates players' sense of achievement, because a high-level character means a high-level player is behind it. -Somewhat. Although one could argue it destroys the long-term sense of achievement the moment it is taken away because now I am a high-level player forced to play a low level character. One can make achieving a high level in the game more challenging/difficult/meaningful without deleting characters. Now I'm not saying permadeath is ALWAYS bad or that someone is stupid for putting it in their game. But, if you think about it, Permadeath is basically the equivalent of 100% xp loss at death. I'd imagine that a death system that had 100% xp loss wouldn't go over too well. It’s a hardcore system that will churn out all but the most hardcore players. So, I am saying that it will limit subscribers (both short-term and long-term) and that one should only do it with that understanding. If one is creating a niche, hardcore game that isn't meant to have hundreds of thousands of subscribers (and there is nothing wrong with that) then go for it. Otherwise, proceed with extreme caution. I think the jury is still out on instancing. I don't like the idea of fully instanced MMOGs, but I do like their use to facilitate certain gameplay, especially questing. I hate bringing up UXO since it got canned, but I really wish some of you could have seen the quests we were building in those instanced areas...stuff we could never do in a public quest. After having both played games that have instancing and worked on a game that had instancing my gut says it’s a good thing when used in moderation. All of this said, while I totally agree that we aren't innovating enough; let's not ignore the fact that there have been some attempts, even by the bigger companies. Majestic, Motor City, Planetside, and even TSO tried to break out of the standard PvE level-treadmill. Just because those games aren't wildly successful doesn't mean we should ignore the effort. There are also a lot of other games (Puzzle Pirates, ATiTD) that are very creative and some of the bigger games (like SWG's player controlled economy) have some pretty innovative features as well. I don't think its all gloom and doom. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: BlackSky on November 05, 2004, 08:18:04 AM Too . . .many . . .words . . .arrrgghh
Honestly, though, I do not believe that this genre is dying, nor will it die anytime soon. Even if there are shit games released, people WILL play them. The active account numbers for all MMO's on the market right now will attest to that. Just because I think a game sucks, it doesn't mean that 10,000 other people won't love it. One mans trash is another mans treasure. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 05, 2004, 08:45:19 AM I think there is any area where Permadeath CAN be used in a major market MMOG, but it's even more limited than instancing or any other feature. If a "high-level" or end-game or whatever label you want to put on a character maxxed-out on the achievement portions of the game could put themselves in a situation that risked permadeath.
It would have to be an instanced dealie. Perhaps the player could involve a group, but only the maxxed character would be vulnerable to permadeath. The character would be warned specifically that such an occurrence could happen, as well as being able to opt out of any encounter which might cause permadeath at any time before the encounter is engaged. It would be the most difficult quest in the game; not EQ-raid difficult, requiring assloads of people, but actually challenging to the players involved. Failure results in permadeath, with no reward. Opting out results in no reward, no loot from the quest at all, and the character keeps his levels. Success results in permadeath, but with a monument built in the game world specific to that character, as well as the ability to start a new character with the same "last name" as the now-retired character, as well as leaving the new character an inheritance of either a set amount or a set item or two. Perhaps the item woulld be the reward from the last encounter. The achiever gets noteriety and a twink item, and a high-level character is retired from the world. It would be the ultimate uber achiever's wet dream, but without unbalancing the world afterwards. But that's about the only instance of permadeath I can see being palatable, and even then, most will never see the quest. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 08:54:40 AM Yea, I think Permadeath as a sort of "hardcore mode" that players can opt into if they choose to is fine. Since most players won't, it's not really a true perma-death system though. Even then, you still run the risk of a player doing the quest, not really understanding the impact it will have on them, and then once that main character is gone their desire play goes with it.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Roac on November 05, 2004, 09:08:52 AM Calandryll, I agree with most of what you've written. However:
Quote It promotes role-play, because players aren't stuck with the same, tired old character the whole time. Actually, perma death can most certainly promote role play. It isn't either a must or must not, but the focus of real RP is RP for the sake of RP. It's not a case where the players care so much about power, such as gaining levels. Instead, RPers want characters that are interesting to play. It's entirely possible to think of a character that sounds cool, but once you get him into the game, you find out you hate him. It's not unusual in my experience for people to kill off their own characters - to reroll. It's also noteworthy that combat oriented characters tend to do poorly at RP. There's not much depth to a killing machine. In this case, perma death gives a lot of weight to the story. Death matters. Don't screw up, or I will kill you, and that has a massive effect on the story. Serious RPers take a hard look at whether the fiction is consistant and makes sense; being unable to ever die is a serious break to fiction. However, it's often an important element in MMOGs, because the focus of MMOGs is not roleplay; instead it is much more on achievement, with RP being secondary. In that type of game, perma death can be dreadfully painful, because you wind up being reset to the newbie ("my character is worthless") levels because someone else had a bad day. I'm sure there are D&Dish troupes who don't put much emphasis on death - I'd also argue that they're not that interested in RP. Hardcore RPers are interested in a story, and death is a powerful literary component in stories. I know quite a few RPers that are thrilled when their character dies such that it makes for a good story, because again, the story is the entire point of their playing. Really though, when you're talking about serious RP, you need to talk about White Wolf's system, or similar games. D&D is still highly achievement oriented. It's the EQ of pen and paper. Normal D&D uses RP only to the extent of "you're playing a elf wizard", and leaves it at that. The focus is more on the adventure, getting the phat l3wt at the end of the dungeon, after killing the uber mob, and counting your xp at the end. The pride gained by the players of this game is in the items they've collected, and the xp they've accumulated, not in the stories they've helped tell. Hardcore RPers don't care so much if their characters died, because what they take with them isn't a character sheet, it's the stories, and some of the best stories occur BECAUSE of death. But anyway like I said I mostly agree with your points, and I'm more than a little dissapointed that this is what Bartle came up with. I really hope that the technical article has more insight than this, or that he revises this before he presents it :/ Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 05, 2004, 09:28:55 AM Death matters in D&D and other PNP RPG's because to the characters, it is INFREQUENT. In MMOG's, player character death is a common, sometimes daily occurrence. In order for permadeath to even approach marketable, death has to be infrequent enough to actually be an aberration.
Most RPG players I know would not accept a DM who got the group killed as often as MMOG's do. They'd go find another DM or another game system. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 09:50:47 AM Quote from: HaemishM Death matters in D&D and other PNP RPG's because to the characters, it is INFREQUENT. In MMOG's, player character death is a common, sometimes daily occurrence. In order for permadeath to even approach marketable, death has to be infrequent enough to actually be an aberration. Most RPG players I know would not accept a DM who got the group killed as often as MMOG's do. They'd go find another DM or another game system. Actually I'll make the arguement that the less frequent death is, the worse effect a permadeath system can have. The longer my character is alive, the more I become attached to it. If I lose a character after 2 weeks, it's no big deal. If I lose him after 9 months, I'm going to be pissed. And that creates the biggest problem with permadeath... This is why I think permadeath as a game's death system is a lose-lose situation. If you make permanent death frequent, your players never advance. They'll get frustrated and quit. If you make it infrequent, you allow them to become attached to the character. They'll get upset and quit. Either way, it spells cancelled accounts. Also, keep in mind when I talk about players being upset when a character is deleted, I'm not just talking about the loss of levels, equipment, etc. I'm mostly talking about the emotional attachment players create with their characters and the attachment that players form with each others' characters. More than anything, that attachment is what keeps people interested in these games. I do like the idea of being allowed to choose[/i] to retire a character and gaining benefits for your next character or some other cool thing...but that's not really permadeath in the sense of a death system. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 05, 2004, 10:02:46 AM I think permadeath that is just "Bang, you're dead, start over" without any other kind of changes to a system is just retarded. Sure, it's "realistic" whatever the hell that means in a world with mythological creatures and magic. But without some serious juggling of the game system, you are correct in that it is without a doubt the worst possible feature one could add to an RPG/MMOG other than mandatory physical beatings upon logging in.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 05, 2004, 10:34:42 AM Permadeath will only work if it's voluntary. The same guideline worked fine on MU* for years. Obviously, for you to choose to voluntarily die, there has to be some substantial reward. Haemish's idea of a big, imposing shrine or statue is mighty fine.
Also, people are way too assumptive that combat 'death' must somehow model death as we think of it. There's no reason not to simply think of it as a combat loss or an unconsciousness and get out of the whole death&consequences mindset. I think the best model is superhero comic books. Here you have a bunch of freaks who get in fights constantly, and someone always loses, but death is incredibly rare and very significant. Most often people are just 'out of the picture' or jailed or whatever for a while. Which is exactly what MMORPG do. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Paelos on November 05, 2004, 10:41:35 AM So if you die you get tossed in jail? Like you unable to log in the character for a period of time or something?
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Roac on November 05, 2004, 10:44:09 AM Quote from: HaemishM I think permadeath that is just "Bang, you're dead, start over" without any other kind of changes to a system is just retarded. I agree, but only because of current design. The reason permadeath works in D&D and especially WW games is because the focus of the game is different from MMOGs. For WW, the focus is on storytelling. You advance your character as a result of good stories, so permadeath for one char isn't a big deal. You lose your character, but you're gaining social respect/admiration, as well as an easy time ranking your next char. Some GMs also take the stance that a well played first character grants special rights (access to restricted powers/classes/whatever) the next go round. So there you have a change to the system. For MMOGs, having anything approaching that would be drastically difficult. Can you even conceive of how to code something even close to that? Storytelling only works when there are people around to hear your story; in a world with hundreds or thousands of players online at any given point, let alone in the entire system (10k-100k++). This type of scale destroys storytelling for an individual. That's why so much about MMOGs are reduced to numbers/achievement - because it's really easy for computers to do. Flip side, SWG implimented permadeath to a point. Jedi who die under certain circumstances get slammed with a reset button. They don't lose the name, so I guess it isn't really "death", but for all technical purposes it is. Atriarch is planning something like that too, but again it's not a total reset; you get to pass your skills on to offspring (!). Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Wukong on November 05, 2004, 10:51:06 AM I find it very odd how many criticisms of Bartle's article have focused on nitpicking the examples he uses to illustrate design decisions. It's like dismissing one of Koster's presentations because of the roughly drawn cartoons. Bartle's thesis that the neccessity of attracting newbies can drastically, and in his opinion negatively, shape design decissions is, in my opinion, an important point.
It is particualarly interesting in contrast to a recent interview with both McQuaid and Garriott (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/mgp1/). Many of the questions and answers focus upon player retention. While player retention is surely important, it is only one side of the coin. Player attraction is just as important, and is something that has not been subject of much discussion. Unfortunately that discussion is suffering from partial-birth derailments on every thread I've read about this article. In the vain hope of getting the discussion back on track... I think Bartle's thesis can best be seen in the decissions live teams make for already established games/worlds/whatever. An interesting example of this is DAoC's Trials of Atlantis expansion. It always puzzled me why a game previously focused on realm based PvP would so drastically shift that focus to raid based PvE. It makes little sense if all you care about is player retention, but seems more reasonable if you take player attraction into account. When ToA was released, it was probably assumed that anyone who wanted PvP had already tried DOaC. Potential new players would likely be more interested PvE. So even though ToA was geared toward high level characters, it can be seen as a sort of rebranding designed to attract newbies. That seems to be a micro example of the macro effect Bartle discribes. Just as a game/world/whatever ages and needs to worry more about newbie attraction, often to the detriment of it's orginal focus, so too is the genre in danger of blurred Visions as it ages. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Arnold on November 05, 2004, 11:00:36 AM Quote from: Paelos So if you die you get tossed in jail? Like you unable to log in the character for a period of time or something? Legends of Kesmai had a "death quest". On each death and resurrection, your character degraded in some way (lost constitution, I think). You could choose to undertake the death quest, where your body was destroyed and you were transported to an Egyptian underworld. You had to complete a series of quests to escape and be reborn. People didn't do this every death though. I think I would wait until about 4 deaths before I did it. The timing to complete it varied based on what quests you got, how many people were down there doing them, and what state the quests were in when you came along. I think about 20 minutes was the fastest I heard someone doing it in, when everything was setup perfect. Sometimes it could take an hour if conditions were poor. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Mesozoic on November 05, 2004, 11:37:03 AM Bartle is concerning himself with the development of a virtual world at a time when players are more interested in the game. With that viewpoint, any attempt to garner new players (who want games) is going to look like a catastrophe.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Roac on November 05, 2004, 11:51:45 AM Quote from: Wukong I find it very odd how many criticisms of Bartle's article have focused on nitpicking the examples he uses to illustrate design decisions. It's like dismissing one of Koster's presentations because of the roughly drawn cartoons. It isn't a minor point though. It shows Bartle either misunderstands his points, or misunderstands the example he's trying to use to illustrate his conclusion. It's more than a matter of analogies breaking down after a point, because the flaws are fairly fundamental. If Bartle's supporting arguments are faulty, then his conclusion is invalid. The conclusion may still be true, but not because of his argument. Many of the people who are disagreeing with him are using his own illustraitons to note the differences. Quote Bartle's thesis that the neccessity of attracting newbies can drastically, and in his opinion negatively, shape design decissions is, in my opinion, an important point. That statement, on its own, isn't enlightening. It's true, but Bartle is attempting to dismantle why this occurs, which would suggest what can be done to tip things into the developers' favor. Bartle is arguing that Perma Death is good long term, which would suggest that he feels changing a game to add it would be unacceptable, but that including it from the start would be well received for anyone who hadn't played any other MMOG. The baseline conclusion he comes to however, is that since a significant majority of players have played a MMOG before, and they judge any new game based on that experience alone, and because they did not have perma death, it's impossible for any new MMOG to include this otherwise good feature and have customers. I find several faults with that. One, I dispute that perma death is a good feature for all MMOGs - there are many different ways you could impliment it, and it's the matchup of implimentation with overall game philosophy that determines whether it's good or bad. Two, his rationale would preclude ANY advances in design in ANY field. Nowhere does his argument require that this same logic only be applied to MMOGs. By this reasoning, DVDs should never have been able to replace VCRs; replacing your VCR with a DVD was a poor short-term answer, customers won't buy a video playback device (or whatever you want to call them collectively), customers will judge new VPDs based on the first one they got, customers won't buy a VPD with design features they don't like, and VPD companies die based on customers. By the exact same rationale, DVDs should not exist. That they do is proof-negative of his assertion. I'd rather use his own example against him (perma death), but that will do too. Or any of a million other items. People like the perma death one, because they can understand his example and show why it refutes his argument. But that's not the only way to do it. You could show why his points are invalid propositions, mostly on the grounds that they are far too broad to be applicable in the way that he is trying to use them in. For example, point 1: it makes no claims about how many newbies are neccessary to function, makes no reference to the fact that newbie *loss* is also relevant, or the fact that short term net loss is still acceptable. No game can function if it experiences unending, unchanging negative churn. However, his arguments lie on the fact that there is long term advantage for players, but short term loss, for certain design decisions. Well, that may mean that there is a short term loss of subscriptions, but a long term gain. This is a result of x percent of people thinking "This feature sucks!" and quitting, only to return later once they hear that it turned out really well. The time component is important for his argument, but he omitts it entirely. He is also comitting the logical error of bifurcation (trifurcation?). He only discusses three types of design decisions; short good and long bad (G/B), short bad and long good (B/G), and short bad long bad (B/B). He omitts discussion of short and long term good (G/G), as well as any business advantage of a B/G decision. Per above, it may be a good move to impliment something that hits your player base now, with a future payoff. The decision is how much of a payoff you get vs how much cost. However, Bartle doesn't bring this up at all; the hidden assumtion is that the cost is bound to be too high, or that devs/pubs are unwilling to accept ANY cost. Several other angles you could hit it from. Just that the perma death one is the easiest for most people. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 12:10:18 PM Quote from: Mesozoic Bartle is concerning himself with the development of a virtual world at a time when players are more interested in the game. With that viewpoint, any attempt to garner new players (who want games) is going to look like a catastrophe. I think that is a lot of it. Most of my post was about the perma-death example, but I also tried to discuss the other points as well. The perma-death example is an indicator though, so that's why I spent so much time on it. The bottom line for me though is that MUD != MMOG != Virtual World != Sandbox. I don't think we should be using the terms interchangeably, and that doing so has created a LOT of problems and confusion. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Resvrgam on November 05, 2004, 01:16:11 PM Quote from: Kenrick Until money is not the primary motivation for a MMORPG developer, we will never see a game that truly meets our dreams. You hit the nail right on the head with that one. Game design is a form of art. Art isn't a commercial endeavor, it's usually a product from creative passion. Businesses try to make art conform to the same rules as standard manufacturing: keep the stuff rolling out on assembly-lines and fulfill the profit/production quotas. As with most artistic endeavors, "business" destroys them. Take the music industry for example: When young, struggling musicians who have the passion to create music start off...their material is usually pretty good. After a few gold records and the inevitable "selling out" occurs, the passion dies and their "art" starts to dwindle into the packaged-for-production crap we're seeing today. The game industry functions the same way: someone makes a great game, big business sees a means for profit and thus the deluge of sequels and knock-offs enter the picture. MMOGs are the next DOT-BOMBs. That market was a virtual frontier and a decent avenue for profit....now it's a barren wasteland choked into submission by an oversaturated market of shitty games ("Ou! But now they're using Pixel Shader 3.0 and Voice Actors!!!"). Until someone wins that fantasy Powerball ticket or some disgustingly rich mad-man with no aim for profit takes the reins, this chariot of boring game design and lack of innovation is heading straight off a cliff....how long did the DOT-BOMBs take? Any bets? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Sky on November 05, 2004, 01:42:09 PM Quote some disgustingly rich mad-man with no aim for profit takes the reins Yeah, Tabula Rasa could be interesting. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kageru on November 05, 2004, 01:50:22 PM There's always going to be a pressure between creativity and whoever is picking up the bills. That's nothing new. It would be safe to say that virtually all great artists have had to balance their dreams against what is needed to get paid. But that doesn't disallow the creation of art, it's just another challenge. Indeed if you gave a true artist 300 million and a blank slate you'd probably find nothing would ever get truly finished.
It does mean that a project without a strong creative vision is likely to be warped by these pressures. Design by commitee, or focus group, or users feedback are likely to make lots of little changes in the direction of ease and convenience with the soul of the game being lost somewhere along the way. There needs to be someone who can point out to both sides how that little change does affect the goal (and determine if it really does, or perhaps the design did have a real flaw). Indeed I would put this as 90% of the explanation for why EQ2 is the way it is, lack of a strong creative voice. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 05, 2004, 02:25:59 PM Quote from: Calandryll Quote from: Mesozoic Bartle is concerning himself with the development of a virtual world at a time when players are more interested in the game. With that viewpoint, any attempt to garner new players (who want games) is going to look like a catastrophe. I think that is a lot of it. Most of my post was about the perma-death example, but I also tried to discuss the other points as well. The perma-death example is an indicator though, so that's why I spent so much time on it. The bottom line for me though is that MUD != MMOG != Virtual World != Sandbox. I don't think we should be using the terms interchangeably, and that doing so has created a LOT of problems and confusion. I am very much in agreement with this. One of problems as I see it, is a lot of "old school" mud types like Bartle, Raph, and even McQuaid, were introduced to the concept of these online games as sprawling virtual worlds with heavy RP and sandbox elements as a mainly socially interactive form of entertainment, with a small, self selecting player base. The game portions of those text mud were very very limited. So, when they try to develop a new "graphical mud" they still start from the premise that what they are creating is a virtual world with game elements. And as Ive said before, I don't believe that is what most current mmorpg players are looking for; they want a good game with world elements b/c that is where their backgrounds are coming from. SP games, i.e. take a good SP game experience and combine it with the benefits of shared online space with lots of other people. Thus, I think the title of this thread is mis-stated. It's not that Bartle thinks Online GAMES suck and will only get worse, it's online WORLDs that suck, and the reason being, most of the people in them don't want them to be worlds at all. My 2 cents. Xilren Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 02:30:57 PM Quote from: Resvrgam Quote from: Kenrick Until money is not the primary motivation for a MMORPG developer, we will never see a game that truly meets our dreams. You hit the nail right on the head with that one. Game design is a form of art. Art isn't a commercial endeavor, it's usually a product from creative passion. Businesses try to make art conform to the same rules as standard manufacturing: keep the stuff rolling out on assembly-lines and fulfill the profit/production quotas. As with most artistic endeavors, "business" destroys them. Take the music industry for example: When young, struggling musicians who have the passion to create music start off...their material is usually pretty good. After a few gold records and the inevitable "selling out" occurs, the passion dies and their "art" starts to dwindle into the packaged-for-production crap we're seeing today. The game industry functions the same way: someone makes a great game, big business sees a means for profit and thus the deluge of sequels and knock-offs enter the picture. MMOGs are the next DOT-BOMBs. That market was a virtual frontier and a decent avenue for profit....now it's a barren wasteland choked into submission by an oversaturated market of shitty games ("Ou! But now they're using Pixel Shader 3.0 and Voice Actors!!!"). Until someone wins that fantasy Powerball ticket or some disgustingly rich mad-man with no aim for profit takes the reins, this chariot of boring game design and lack of innovation is heading straight off a cliff....how long did the DOT-BOMBs take? Any bets? Who’s dream though? I can guarantee you that your idea of a dream game is different from my idea of a dream game, which is different from Kenrick’s idea of a dream game, and so on. I’ll probably get some flak for saying this, but I don’t think a lack of creative freedom or lack of creative people is the only problem or even the main problem. The problem is we don’t do enough research to find out what players really want, instead we build games that “we” want. Too often these games are largely designed in a vacuum, based on assumptions and personal tastes. If one wants to make a game that appeals to them and their friends, that’s fine. But it will usually only appeal to them and their friends. The truly tough part about making a game is putting in a feature that you-yourself do not like, but that you know your players do. At the end of the day, as designers we shouldn’t be making these games for ourselves. We should be making these games for our players … and the only way to know what they want is do to research. I’m not saying you do exactly whatever the focus groups, message boards, or excel charts tell you to do. And yes, we do sometimes fall into that trap. But you do use the research as a tool that can be used to give you some direction, parameters, starting points, and a frame of reference. Without it, you are flying blind. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: AcidCat on November 05, 2004, 04:06:38 PM Quote from: Calandryll We should be making these games for our players … and the only way to know what they want is do to research. . What about the fact that different players often enjoy totally different things in games. What do you do when one group of players wants A and another wants B in your game? What about the fact that players don't know if they like something that they have yet to experience - how do you create something new if you're only going off what your research tells you the players want? If games are truly an art form, they must come from individual vision, not trying to please an audience. Any great movie is not made aiming to please an audience - that motivation just leads to more formulaic recycling of the same old stuff in new packages. A great novel is written from a personal idea, not going off a focus group. Make something great and the audience will come. Aim to give an audience what you think they want, and you may produce something decent, but probably nothing truly exceptional. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Phred on November 05, 2004, 05:35:40 PM Those that dislike instanced zones probably never had to spend time in early guk or solb in everquest, and haven't tried city of heros either. Instances can add to a MMOG in my opinion, as it helps with the immersion if done properly. When was the last time you read about a stalwart band of heros going to a dungeon and finding it camped from one end to the other? They don't. They go explore the dungeon as a group and have adventures in it. It's too bad SOE is too cheap to put any effort into their instanced dungeons, which are all as dull as dishwater in the last 3 expansions. If they put the kind of effort into their instances as they did in the original dungeons it would kick ass. COH to me is instances done right. Not so much the city zones though they do help the lag that thousands of people standing around would cause (see early AO for example) but the missions are well designed, focused adventures, many with good goals and bosses to fight.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 05, 2004, 05:54:20 PM Quote from: Calandryll The bottom line for me though is that MUD != MMOG != Virtual World != Sandbox. I don't think we should be using the terms interchangeably, and that doing so has created a LOT of problems and confusion. He's trying to use "virtual world" as an umbrella term. Everyone here is reading into that. I try to use "online world" as an umbrella term, because MMORPG, MMOG, and all the others don't do that. We badly need an umbrella term because stupid discussions keep happening where people misunderstand one another. 80%+ of the design decisions one makes in all variants of online world are the same. The differences between "sandbox world" and "directed game" are really minor relative to the rest of the work you go to. But every time I make that point, the discussion degenerates. MMOGs and MUDs really ARE 80% identical. Probably more, actually. Then the thread derails on how it's not so, usually stated by people who haven't built either from scratch, much less both. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 05, 2004, 05:58:50 PM Quote from: Xilren's Twin One of problems as I see it, is a lot of "old school" mud types like Bartle, Raph, and even McQuaid, were introduced to the concept of these online games as sprawling virtual worlds with heavy RP and sandbox elements as a mainly socially interactive form of entertainment, with a small, self selecting player base. The game portions of those text mud were very very limited. Uh, no. Bartle's MUD1 was a scavenger hunt game with full PvP and worldwide resets. I cut my teeth on DikuMUDs, which were hack n slash games with significant questing elements. They featured no crafting or sandbox elements. Brad was a hardcore Sojourn player. Sojourn was basically hack n slash Forgotten Realms. Quote as Ive said before, I don't believe that is what most current mmorpg players are looking for; they want a good game with world elements b/c that is where their backgrounds are coming from And here you assume that the folks who played and mad etext muds didn't have that single-player background either. That's also probably false--I'll put my single-player game background up against anyone's. :) I could just as easily say that the reason why most mmorpg players aren't looking for the world aspects is because they haven't played online enough to get a clue yet. I don't say it because it's unfair. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 06:18:14 PM Quote from: AcidCat Quote from: Calandryll We should be making these games for our players … and the only way to know what they want is do to research. . What about the fact that different players often enjoy totally different things in games. What do you do when one group of players wants A and another wants B in your game? What about the fact that players don't know if they like something that they have yet to experience - how do you create something new if you're only going off what your research tells you the players want? If games are truly an art form, they must come from individual vision, not trying to please an audience. Any great movie is not made aiming to please an audience - that motivation just leads to more formulaic recycling of the same old stuff in new packages. A great novel is written from a personal idea, not going off a focus group. Make something great and the audience will come. Aim to give an audience what you think they want, and you may produce something decent, but probably nothing truly exceptional. As I said, you don't let the research dictate the entire game. I'm not saying we should create bunch charts and graphs and just say "well, the charts say players want a medieval fantasy world with floating islands and three-headed dogs ... quick, let's make that!" While game design is an art, games are also a consumer product. The research is an important and useful component to that. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 05, 2004, 07:28:06 PM Quote from: Raph Bartle's MUD1 was a scavenger hunt game with full PvP and worldwide resets. I cut my teeth on DikuMUDs, which were hack n slash games with significant questing elements. They featured no crafting or sandbox elements. Brad was a hardcore Sojourn player. Sojourn was basically hack n slash Forgotten Realms. Yes, and I submit that the average video game player trying those text only muds would come away with a distinct "meh" feeling. That's why I beleive that weren't very good "games"; their appeal was very narrow mainly due to the medium of the day. The barriers muds presented to even getting started were pretty high which is why you has small, self selecting audiences. Quote I could just as easily say that the reason why most mmorpg players aren't looking for the world aspects is because they haven't played online enough to get a clue yet. I don't say it because it's unfair. Um, didn't we just cover the short term bad long term good parts of design earlier in this thread? Besides, if the players are clueless, guess who's going to need to give them those clues based on the introductory game experience? You want to tell me the new player experience of both UO and SWG on release made it easier for players new to the genre to learn the ins and outs of it? Xilren Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 07:47:12 PM Quote from: Raph Quote from: Calandryll The bottom line for me though is that MUD != MMOG != Virtual World != Sandbox. I don't think we should be using the terms interchangeably, and that doing so has created a LOT of problems and confusion. He's trying to use "virtual world" as an umbrella term. Everyone here is reading into that. I try to use "online world" as an umbrella term, because MMORPG, MMOG, and all the others don't do that. We badly need an umbrella term because stupid discussions keep happening where people misunderstand one another. 80%+ of the design decisions one makes in all variants of online world are the same. The differences between "sandbox world" and "directed game" are really minor relative to the rest of the work you go to. But every time I make that point, the discussion degenerates. MMOGs and MUDs really ARE 80% identical. Probably more, actually. Then the thread derails on how it's not so, usually stated by people who haven't built either from scratch, much less both. No argument that an umbrella term is important. And I also agree that all of these types of online worlds do have very similar components. I am in no way saying that MUDs have nothing to offer MMOGs or that they have nothing in common. Of course they do. But, even if we agree that they are 80% the same, that means they are 20% different. And I do believe that 20% difference is significant, which is why I made that comment. I hope I am not coming across like I am arguing semantics. I'm trying to think of an analogy to express what I meant by that comment and I hope this one works. One could say that a sports car and an SUV are 80% the same (they both have 4 wheels, an engine, a dashboard, seats, windows, the same basic user-interface, are built on an assembly line in much the same manner, etc.) and that they both fall under the umbrella term "automobile". But the 20% that isn't the same makes for a fairly significant difference in the product, the services they provide, and the consumers interested in them. Something that works perfectly in an SUV may horribly "break" a sports car. The distinction is important, even though they are very similar. And I think while using an umbrella term when discussing online worlds is a good thing, one must also be willing to discuss the differences. Too often I don't see that. That said, you are right that this issue certainly wasn't the point of Richard's article and that it does often derail threads. I also want to make it clear that whether they are the same or not wasn't the basis for my previous posts either. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 05, 2004, 08:09:02 PM Quote I think while using an umbrella term when discussing online worlds is a good thing, one must also be willing to discuss the differences. Too often I don't see that. All I am saying is that knowing Richard, when he says "virtual world" he almost certainly does not mean "simulation-based sandbox-oriented online world," even though most posters here and at corpnews seem to have taken it that way. That isn't even his bias as a designer, near as I can tell. So everyone is saying "see, he's biased to SUVs, and he writes the whole thing from that perspective!" and I am trying to say that no, he really does mean "automobile" there. I think there's plenty of willingness to discuss the differences... seems like the differences is what most people point out (cf Xilren) without considering the similarities. For example, take Bartle's point about travel--probably the least controversial one he made (I disagree with him on permadeath, for the most part): Teleporting helps people connect with their friends. Teleporting helps people get to the experiences they want to get to. Teleporting helps people who have little time to play. Teleporting hurts people connecting with people they don't know. Teleporting hurts people bumping into new experiences. Teleporting hurts people who want "locality" in the game (for example, local economies, local items, local culture) All of these are true regardless of the type of online world we're talking about. Some of them have different weight depending on the type of world, though. In a social world, almost all the negatives are outweighed pretty severely. In a game world, it's kind of a mixed bag. In a world intended for immersion, I'd argue that the balance tips somewhat against teleporting--not by much, though. Saying that it all boils down to "fun" is reductionist of both people and fun. Quote I submit that the average video game player trying those text only muds would come away with a distinct "meh" feeling I am unsure what that has to do with anything. You're changing the subject. Your statement was that those muds lacked game elements. That is demonstrably untrue. Many of them have more complex and challenging games than any of the MMORPGs. The fact that those games aren't flashy or easy to get into has nothing to do with your idea that "the designers who played them were mostly social types" or whatever. Quote Um, didn't we just cover the short term bad long term good parts of design earlier in this thread? Heh, I hadn't seen my comment in that light, but you are of course correct. :) Quote Besides, if the players are clueless, guess who's going to need to give them those clues based on the introductory game experience? You want to tell me the new player experience of both UO and SWG on release made it easier for players new to the genre to learn the ins and outs of it? Of course it is the designer's job. And demonstrably, those games DO in fact do so MUCH MUCH better than the text muds did. All the MMORPGs do. I think it's obvious that SWG's introductory experience is better than the original intro experiences in UO or EQ... If it weren't more accessible in general, the rate of growth of online worlds wouldn't be outpacing the rate of growth of the Internet. But it is. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 05, 2004, 08:29:00 PM Quote from: Raph All of these are true regardless of the type of online world we're talking about. Some of them have different weight depending on the type of world, though. In a social world, almost all the negatives are outweighed pretty severely. In a game world, it's kind of a mixed bag. In a world intended for immersion, I'd argue that the balance tips somewhat against teleporting--not by much, though. Well, we're pretty much on the same page then. Again, my disagreement with his assertions on the first page of this thread had nothing to do with this issue anyway. I still think "short-term bad, long-term good" designs are poor (the short term effects on a game are incredibly important in a subscriber based game) and that perma-death fails both the short-term and the long-term test and is generally a bad idea. :) Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 05, 2004, 09:28:29 PM Quote from: Raph Quote I submit that the average video game player trying those text only muds would come away with a distinct "meh" feeling I am unsure what that has to do with anything. You're changing the subject. Your statement was that those muds lacked game elements. That is demonstrably untrue. Many of them have more complex and challenging games than any of the MMORPGs. The fact that those games aren't flashy or easy to get into has nothing to do with your idea that "the designers who played them were mostly social types" or whatever. Im not being very clear. What I mean to say is not that there weren't any game elemnts, just that my perception of them was they those elements were not particularly compelling games. Consider EQ's predecessor the Diku mud; was that text based hack and slash really that good a game? I'd say no; god know's eq's combat wasn't and that at least has eye candy to look at. Reading about you toon unloading a can or whoopass on poor npc ai is slightly above watching paint dry in terms of fun factor. Therefore, my impression is the main appeal of muds what the rp and social elements, not the "game systems" imbedded in the worlds. Another part of that impression come from the your development of UO and SWG and the kinds of approach they took, plus what I read into Bartle's comments. That make more sense? Xilren Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Resvrgam on November 06, 2004, 04:08:01 AM "Focus groups are worthless." At this year's GDC I got to hear this sentiment being preeched by many a jaded Play-Tester and Game Designer.
Since many MMOGs don't even hire Play-Testers into their projects, the end result is usually neither a game designed for what an audience wants nor a game with a unified, creative vision. I guess the Slot-Machine prinsiple is the easiest business model to maintain instead of actually making something people play into oblivion and still find fun in it: like old 16-bit era games, chess, sports, etc. I think it should be a responsibility of the developer to sit down and actually play their own product for hours on end before they shovel it off to the masses (or at least hire people to tell them what sucks: Play-Testers). Instead, we're seeing recycled formulae from an old title rehashed to wring as much profit as possible from it before it's completely exhausted (and that area of the market is dried up). Fanboys, Focus Groups and demographic research are hardly a suitable substitute for good ol' fashioned "playing." If I couldn't stomach something I designed for a projected period of time, how can I expect others to? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Calandryll on November 06, 2004, 07:23:32 AM Quote from: Resvrgam "Focus groups are worthless." At this year's GDC I got to hear this sentiment being preeched by many a jaded Play-Tester and Game Designer. Since many MMOGs don't even hire Play-Testers into their projects, the end result is usually neither a game designed for what an audience wants nor a game with a unified, creative vision. I guess the Slot-Machine prinsiple is the easiest business model to maintain instead of actually making something people play into oblivion and still find fun in it: like old 16-bit era games, chess, sports, etc. I think it should be a responsibility of the developer to sit down and actually play their own product for hours on end before they shovel it off to the masses (or at least hire people to tell them what sucks: Play-Testers). Instead, we're seeing recycled formulae from an old title rehashed to wring as much profit as possible from it before it's completely exhausted (and that area of the market is dried up). Fanboys, Focus Groups and demographic research are hardly a suitable substitute for good ol' fashioned "playing." If I couldn't stomach something I designed for a projected period of time, how can I expect others to? I'd submit to you that anyone who says focus groups and research are worthless either hasn't been involved in one or has been involved where they were used incorrectly. And nobody is saying that market research replaces anything (not sure where that came from). Before I came to the games industry I used to work for a variety of consumer product companies. During that time I've seen focus groups and research take a mediocre product and turn it into a huge hit and I've seen focus groups and research derail a good product into quite a mess. It's all in how you gather and use the information. If you let these things drive the product you're dead. But if you ignore the feedback or don't even bother to get it, you're probably missing an opportunity. And just for the record, play testing is a type of focus group. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kyper on November 06, 2004, 09:22:19 AM Quote from: Xilren's Twin Reading about you toon unloading a can or whoopass on poor npc ai is slightly above watching paint dry in terms of fun factor. Therefore, my impression is the main appeal of muds what the rp and social elements, not the "game systems" imbedded in the worlds. Xilren Not true. At least not for LPMuds and DikuMuds. They were nearly all about combat, not RP. That doesn't mean there was no RP, but the LPs and Dikus I played were highly achiever oriented: levels, quests and gear. MOOs, MUSHes and other types of MUDS were primarily oriented toward RP and socializing. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 06, 2004, 09:27:47 AM Quote What I mean to say is not that there weren't any game elemnts, just that my perception of them was they those elements were not particularly compelling games. Consider EQ's predecessor the Diku mud; was that text based hack and slash really that good a game? I'd say no; god know's eq's combat wasn't and that at least has eye candy to look at. Reading about you toon unloading a can or whoopass on poor npc ai is slightly above watching paint dry in terms of fun factor. In a well-done Diku, the combat was actually rather "twitchy." If I drop you into a high-level fight in Achaea (which isn't a Diku), I suspect you'll flounder and suck. I think also that people conclude that just because they have mastered that gameplay, that the game is bad. Connect Four is not a bad game--most of us grow past it, but that's different. Do you feel that Doom is a bad game now because Half-Life exists? I don't. So I would say yes, text-based hack n slash was a pretty good game--enough to pull in a million or more people over its lifetime. That's a pretty good record even by commercial standards. Quote Therefore, my impression is the main appeal of muds what the rp and social elements, not the "game systems" imbedded in the worlds. Another part of that impression come from the your development of UO and SWG and the kinds of approach they took, plus what I read into Bartle's comments. That make more sense? It makes sense, but it isn't really accurate, that's all. As a player, I primarily played hack n slash games, with occasional diversions into social games such as LambdaMOO, TinyTIM, a few MUSHes... as a mud imp, my goal was to bring the roleplay richness of those environments to Diku gameplay--not the other way around. Arguably, Armageddon or Achaea do it better than anything I've done. UO's original core team actually had on it people from all three major strains of mud development--Diku, LP, and MUSH/MOO. Half the core team, however, was Diku folks. The simulated ecology wasn't there in order to be cool or provide neat roleplay opportunities. It was an attempt to provide self-refreshing quests and things to kill. In other words, it served a Diku-style goal. The fact that SWG's combat doesn't satisfy you is not from a lack of attention; it got and continues to get far more attention than most any system in the game. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Megrim on November 06, 2004, 03:52:51 PM Quote It makes sense, but it isn't really accurate, that's all. As a player, I primarily played hack n slash games, with occasional diversions into social games such as LambdaMOO, TinyTIM, a few MUSHes... as a mud imp, my goal was to bring the roleplay richness of those environments to Diku gameplay--not the other way around. Arguably, Armageddon or Achaea do it better than anything I've done. See, this is what bothers me the most about MMOGs. Why does there now seem to be this artificial distinction about "role-playing" and "hack & slash"? As far as i know, ANY good book/film/etc.. (where i dare say the whole roleplaying thing comes from, especially books and stories) that's ever involved an adventure or some heroic deed has always been a combination of a rich world and some furious bunny-bashing. Certainly any PnP game i'v ever played has combined, or has tried to combine, the two. But now, it's like people are incapable of developing a good combat system (be it fantasy/sci-fi/whatnot..) and also developing a heavily rp-able, social setting and combining the two. Or, rather, you get separate instances of the two types being developed but not the two togather. asdf =( So we get these convoluted theories about how there are "different types" of players, and so forth. Which i think, in all seriousness, is bullshit. Given the opportunity people will play anything (as in a role) if it's interesting to play. Pidgeonholing people into categories and categorizing them into worlds that they'd "like" to play..? siiiiiif (/counterstrike) - Meg Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Roac on November 06, 2004, 07:14:30 PM Quote from: Calandryll I still think "short-term bad, long-term good" designs are poor You're being too general to make a decision. How bad is bad, and how good is good? Short term cost for long term gain may well be a viable decision. Upfront costs for longterm rewards. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 07, 2004, 06:27:56 PM Well, its one thing to try to choose a generic catch all term, but I think most terms we are familiar with have additional baggage. Certainly i think virtual world has some baggage. As does mmorpg, and mmog.
Personally if he wants to be as generic as possible 'online game' seems the most flexible, with as little suppositions as possible. But i think if he were to have used a truly generic term, his points would hold even less water. Some of his arguments are more universally applicable. And the cases where they aren't, like instancing/permadeath, they make the most sense if you are in the camp that thinks of OGs as virtual worlds, and not as sandboxes. I also suspect if perhaps he is not aware of the 1984-esque effect of how terminology shapes thinking. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 08, 2004, 07:37:42 AM Quote from: Megrim But now, it's like people are incapable of developing a good combat system (be it fantasy/sci-fi/whatnot..) and also developing a heavily rp-able, social setting and combining the two. I played MUSH's that did both quite fine (Btech and trek ones come to mind). The problem lies in when you try to ramp those systems up to thousands of players at a time. To be honest I think designers need to start designing games that actually utilize the 'massively multiplayer' aspect of them...IMHO the games of today are all single player PVE games set within a multiplayer environment. The goals they set out are all individual goals and so they never tap the huge potential that lies within mass human interaction..or something like that. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 08, 2004, 08:13:25 AM Quote from: Kyper Not true. At least not for LPMuds and DikuMuds. They were nearly all about combat, not RP. That doesn't mean there was no RP, but the LPs and Dikus I played were highly achiever oriented: levels, quests and gear. MOOs, MUSHes and other types of MUDS were primarily oriented toward RP and socializing. I'll go ahead and derail the topic in the direction Raph suggested. MUSHes and MOO's are both significantly different play experiences than MUD's and MMOG's. The entire focus of activities that the former are meant to encourage make them so completely separate from the latter that the two, IMO, should not be put under one umbrella term, other than perhaps Online Entertainment Experience. I almost said "online games" but MUSHes and MOO's really aren't completely game experiences. I think that is the fatal flaw that both sides of the issue came at this genre from. People try to crush MUSHplay into MUD social structures, but the two really aren't compatible. MUSHplay's basic tenets are not "achiever" oriented, nor competitive-friendly, whereas MUD social structures are almost wholly built upon either the goal of achievement or the rigors of competition. Defining what type of audience you want in your OEE is going to determine the type of success you have with it. And to define your audience, the best way to do that is actual market research, which can and should involve focus groups. Focus groups are only as worthless as what you do with the information you glean. It's VERY IMPORTANT information, but it requires the right type of thinking. You don't design from what the focus group says, you use what the focus group says to cajole the design. The design of the focus group, both in audience choice AND questions/tasks covered is more important in determining your game's audience than just whether your focus group likes or hates PVP. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shockeye on November 08, 2004, 08:51:54 AM Quote from: HaemishM MUSHes and MOO's are both significantly different play experiences than MUD's and MMOG's. The entire focus of activities that the former are meant to encourage make them so completely separate from the latter that the two, IMO, should not be put under one umbrella term, other than perhaps Online Entertainment Experience. I almost said "online games" but MUSHes and MOO's really aren't completely game experiences. I'd have to agree with you on this one Haemish. When I used to code for various Diku and Circle MUDs, the goal was to make things more challenging and from that challenge more reward. Socialization wasn't a design goal so much as an afterthough. Whereas MOOs and MUSHes that I had visited didn't have challenge as their goal but socialization through depth, creativity, and a strong sense of community. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Fargull on November 08, 2004, 09:02:23 AM Hmm..
I keep reading this post and looking over Bartle's that it seems everyone is arguing where either the stall or issue is with design. I only have one observation to make, and I have no idea how insightful or such that it is. I have found a steady dumbing down of game play from UO onward. I know that a need to inject the NEWBIE into the game environment is what many companies are targeting, but does the game have to devolve so far from being a challenge or at least interesting (subjective I know) to allow anyone from Walmart to kickstart into the game? COH (I guess I am a fan boy or something since I keep kicking that name out) is probably the first in a while to provide challenge in the addition of Enhancement Slots and powers through character build. The Z axis domination and addition of powers that would be deemed crazy powerful for a PC to possess as they allow basically god-mode against the idiot level of NPC intelligence. It all boils down to feeling like I have to not-think to play these games, and creative thinking leads only to punishment by the Devs.... Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: El Gallo on November 08, 2004, 09:04:37 AM The more I mull it over, the more I think Bartle has a good point (though it's pretty seriously overstated). I can’t tell you how many times I have heard these two statements on the same message board, and even by the same poster:
1. When I retire from EQ, I will never again play a game with forced grouping and significant downtime. 2. The reason I stick with EQ is because of the intense social bonds, whenever I try other MMOGs, they don’t hold my attention because that socialization isn’t there. This is a classic example of a player not knowing why they like a game. It’s not the particular examples that matter, it’s the fact that players don’t understand that, in MMOGs, things they don’t like are often necessary components of things they do like. So they cry for games with all the things they don’t like taken out, and then are shocked to find that they are playing some soulless crapfest. But they won’t even try a game with forced grouping, with some downtime, without instancing, or without insta-transport. They just try game after game that can’t hold their attention because there’s no socialization and no sense of being in a world. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 08, 2004, 09:23:44 AM We Want the World (http://waterthread.org/news/107359842430702.html) and we want it now.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 08, 2004, 01:18:04 PM Quote from: Kyper MOOs, MUSHes and other types of MUDS were primarily oriented toward RP and socializing. And simulated large-scale mechanized asskicking. Sorry, the avatar requires that I carry the banner. Quote from: El Gallo 1. When I retire from EQ, I will never again play a game with forced grouping and significant downtime. 2. The reason I stick with EQ is because of the intense social bonds, whenever I try other MMOGs, they don’t hold my attention because that socialization isn’t there. You're right that there's a certain lack of insight in those two statements, but you also can't argue with them. I mean, you can't logically prove to someone that they're having fun. They either are or they aren't. It is, I think, quite conceivable to have a third option that both eliminates the sense of pointless downtime and forced combat grouping and encourages social bonding. It happens in ATiTD. It probably happened in Shadowbane with player towns, despite its other mortal issues. I'm guessing it happened in UO, though I've never played. It certainly happened in the text-based world. One other thought about text-based environments. The lack of graphics made the turnaround time on new features incredible. I was involved in the development of various MU* and we'd come up with an interesting idea for a system (like weather, a communications system, a repair system, what have you) and we'd have a prototype up in a day and a fully functional system in a week. That kind of turnaround time encouraged an iterative and interactive development process that let the game environments become incredibly complex and interesting and yet stay friendly to the players. The modern style of bimonthly uberpatches is, I think, a bad road to be going down and only exacerbates the problem it tries to solve -- player bitching. If the players get used to the game environment changing a lot, they won't bitch as much. The only graphical game I've seen come even close to that level of iterative development is ATiTD, and it's the best graphical MMORPG I've ever played. Take the same system and drop it on top of a fantasy/combat game, and that'd be hard to beat. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 08, 2004, 01:34:18 PM .ca CF the Wraith! CF the Wraith!
.f .ff .k Don't forget the trekmushes which featured a full space combat system from the early 90s and on..I played a Trekmush that featured full blown combat, economic, research & development systems along with political elections (for those empires that had them) and constant GM run events. Only problem was we only averaged 60-80 players on the best of nights. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 08, 2004, 01:47:55 PM Quote from: Shannow .ca CF the Wraith! CF the Wraith! .j sh Another thought on Bartle's idea about carrying expectations. I wouldn't underestimate how much developers carry expectations about what a MMORPG should look like. Every time I read a discussion of combat that assumes asinine ideas like 'aggro' and 'pulling' are fundamental concepts of combat, I throw up in my mouth. And I don't think that's all the fault of the players. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 08, 2004, 01:56:41 PM .ch sr
Yah I find it rather sad when MMORPG players are discussing the various tactics to use in a new game and they have no problems using 100 percent of the tactics and terms from the last game they played. The fact that you can take a player from EQ , sit em down in front of a game of say, WoW and tell em 'alright this is the nuker and he does the buff while this guy pulls the aggros etc' makes me despair for the genre. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 08, 2004, 05:44:56 PM Quote from: Shannow The fact that you can take a player from EQ , sit em down in front of a game of say, WoW and tell em 'alright this is the nuker and he does the buff while this guy pulls the aggros etc' makes me despair for the genre. Does it also make you despair when you can sit someone down in front of a shooter and say "alright, this is the sniper and he does the camping while this guy carpetbombs etc"? Just wondering--seems like I see more complaints about this sort of thing in an MMO context than in the context of other game types. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: schild on November 08, 2004, 05:47:10 PM Quote from: Raph Does it also make you despair when you can sit someone down in front of a shooter and say "alright, this is the sniper and he does the camping while this guy carpetbombs etc"? Just wondering--seems like I see more complaints about this sort of thing in an MMO context than in the context of other game types. Yes, you can say that about a shooter, but in a shooter you can MISS. In an mmorpg, hit or miss has nothing to do with the user. The first video game I would say 90% of the MMORPG gamer world played was either Pac-Man, Tetris, SMB, or Sonic. Guess what? They all took more skill. But that's an argument I don't want to get into until I read your book. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 08, 2004, 06:05:03 PM Quote from: Raph Does it also make you despair when you can sit someone down in front of a shooter and say "alright, this is the sniper and he does the camping while this guy carpetbombs etc"? Just wondering--seems like I see more complaints about this sort of thing in an MMO context than in the context of other game types. Carpetbombs? You just made that up. I think we can all agree that in a shooting game where people team up to kill each other with guns, including sniper rifles, the idea of sniping will be pretty intrinsic. Notice that no one is complaining about the existence of swords, and the swinging thereof. I fail to see how the ideas of 'pulling', 'aggro', 'buffing', 'debuffing', 'pets', and to some extent 'tanking' are in any way intrinsic to the nature of simulated combat in a fantasy world. They're perfectly understandable abstractions, but arbitrary ones, not essential ones. And so why do the same basically arbitrary abstractions get carried from game to game? They're also bad abstractions. The first is an exploit tactic built on the fact that enemies are entirely ignorant of anything that happens around them, other than the appearance of a player. The second is an AI failure turned into a feature. The whole buff amalgam is a result of the fact that combat is currently reduced to a tiny handful of (or in many cases, a single) integers, and the need for class variety means increasingly repetitive and arcane methods of manipulating those integers have to be created. Integers which, mind you, are almost exactly the same from game to game. Health and Energy. Maybe Endurance, if you're feeling wild. Etc. So while you may find it tedious, I find my complaints extremely well founded. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Margalis on November 08, 2004, 06:53:01 PM Quote from: Raph Does it also make you despair when you can sit someone down in front of a shooter and say "alright, this is the sniper and he does the camping while this guy carpetbombs etc"? Just wondering--seems like I see more complaints about this sort of thing in an MMO context than in the context of other game types. I would point out that in real life there are people whose job really is to snipe people. I don't think in real life, or even in imaginary life, that it would be someone's job to just get hit over and over again. Sniper is not really an abstraction, it's a real thing. "Tank" is not a real thing. The whole idea of a tank is stupid. If the tank is so tough, wouldn't I just go attack the weak guys instead? Oh no, I can't because I'm too dumb and your taunts are just *that* maddening! The idea of a guy that gets in the way and protects the weak guys is a good one. The idea of a guy that doesn't get in the way but protects weak guys by "taunting" the bad guys is ridiculous. I would also point out that in a lot of games you can switch roles frequently. I may be a sniper, but 5 minutes later I may pick up a shotgun. In a MMORPG, you are what you are forever. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 08, 2004, 07:00:13 PM Pulling? normally i'd agree. But have you never 'pulled' a human in DAOC. I was pulled once myself. As soon as i realize it happens independent of the AI, then yes, pulling is fine. Try to imagine a game where pulling isn't possible. When you attack someone stronger than you, then run away, they DON'T follow. Doesn't make much sense does it. Maybe you'd rather they just sit there and take it. Or perhaps, they run to get help (which isn't always an option). If i get attacked by a little brat, the last thing on my mind is running for help. They're going to get beat even if i have to chase them.
Pets? I seem to remember various baddies having pets they can control. Its in genre at least, if not prevalent through out. Buffing and debuffing is a little more nebulous. Taking vitamin pills? Energy pills? Good luck charm that is cast on you? Personally i could take it or leave it. Aggro? Thats basic AI. It has to know who hit it and identify threats. He who hurts me the most is my biggest danger. Attacking from least dangerous to most dangerous is a sure way to die, assuming DPS is relatively constant.. Or is the mob supposed to attack randomly. Perhaps mobs could be a bit more intelligent in trying to take down the healer first, or a mage. But even then i don't think its clear that that is necessarily the smartest option. Short of buffing/debuffing. Pets would be more genre specific. I don't think those are abstractions, bad or otherwise. But a game where mobs don't chase you down, or run away when first attacked would be lame. A mob not identifying threats would be lame as well. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 08, 2004, 07:51:11 PM Quote from: rscott Pulling? normally i'd agree. But have you never 'pulled' a human in DAOC. I was pulled once myself. As soon as i realize it happens independent of the AI, then yes, pulling is fine. Try to imagine a game where pulling isn't possible. When you attack someone stronger than you, then run away, they DON'T follow. Doesn't make much sense does it. Maybe you'd rather they just sit there and take it. Or perhaps, they run to get help (which isn't always an option). If i get attacked by a little brat, the last thing on my mind is running for help. They're going to get beat even if i have to chase them. How about the mobs NOT attacking anything that it can clearly "see" i.e. has line of sight to. Basically, my thought is that if I can see a mob, it should be able to see me and if hostile, it should attack. But that takes too much processing power for MMOG client-server apps. So we have aggro radius, where things just know you are there, and his buddies ten feet over, in plain sight, but out of aggro radius, don't know I just gut shot his buddy because they aren't "bring a friend." Most of the combat mechanics and strategies of MMOG's are immensely retarded, and yet they are continually being copied. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 08, 2004, 10:55:55 PM Whoa, everyone, it was a serious question! I wasn't being defensive or anything, I was just asking.
Quote The first video game I would say 90% of the MMORPG gamer world played was either Pac-Man, Tetris, SMB, or Sonic. Guess what? They all took more skill. But that's an argument I don't want to get into until I read your book. One of the few italicized sentences in the book is "Not requiring skill from a player is a cardinal sin in game design." Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 09, 2004, 03:13:23 AM Quote from: Raph One of the few italicized sentences in the book is "Not requiring skill from a player is a cardinal sin in game design." None of my pnp rpg sessions required skill. Yet they were a blast. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 09, 2004, 03:20:35 AM Quote from: HaemishM How about the mobs NOT attacking anything that it can clearly "see" i.e. has line of sight to. Basically, my thought is that if I can see a mob, it should be able to see me and if hostile, it should attack. . That i can agree with to an extent, depending on the mob. It certainly gives a funny artificial feel when they just sit there. I would give exceptions to non-hostile mobs, non-intelligent mobs... OTOH, attacking everything it can see? What if it sees many things in different directions? What if it will take 10 minutes to get to the thing it can see? What if what it sees is more powerful than it? What if it doesn't have enough friends to win? What if it can't outrun the player (making all chasing pointless)? What if the player is far enough away that the mob could realistically think it isn't worth it. What if the game models stamina more realistically and by the time the mob gets to you, its tired, and easy to kill? Each of those things would make the mob look real stupid indeed. There are many many reasons to not attack everything you can see. The more complex the game, the more reasons you could find. I know you aren't proposing this, but I once tried to imagine a world where mobs had similar LOS to players, and had excellent ability to determine if it would win a fight. I realized in the long run that game would suck. BAF code is more understandable. With the caveats above. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Megrim on November 09, 2004, 05:48:41 AM Quote OTOH, attacking everything it can see? What if it sees many things in different directions? What if it will take 10 minutes to get to the thing it can see? What if what it sees is more powerful than it? What if it doesn't have enough friends to win? What if it can't outrun the player (making all chasing pointless)? What if the player is far enough away that the mob could realistically think it isn't worth it. What if the game models stamina more realistically and by the time the mob gets to you, its tired, and easy to kill? Each of those things would make the mob look real stupid indeed. There are many many reasons to not attack everything you can see. The more complex the game, the more reasons you could find. Yea, i think this is what they talk about when programming "non-retarded" a.i? Unfortunately it (programming thereof) does not seem to happen all that often. Well, not at all, actually. And furthermore, there is plenty of reason in not attacking some random 'puller', especially one that is weaker than you. Given even remotely intellegent a.i. it should go straight for the soft juicy targets rather than the hard pointy ones. I also could never figure out why no-one has bothered to give mobs the most base rudimentary group-functionality in that: if number of pcs = number of mobs -> one mob per pc (or some such). But then it becomes pretty evident that it's all a part of bad combat mechanics (i.e. the whole "no skill required thing".) rather that any one specific feature. - meg Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 09, 2004, 06:08:19 AM Quote from: rscott Quote from: Raph One of the few italicized sentences in the book is "Not requiring skill from a player is a cardinal sin in game design." None of my pnp rpg sessions required skill. Yet they were a blast. I wouldn't go that far. In terms of a pnp session, part of your player skill is knowing how to use your characters various skills and abilities appropriately in the structure of the games design. For simple example, knowling how to kill a regenerating troll if you're a fighter, mage or cleric, or how to effectively use positioning in combat to take advantage of things like backstabbing or subdual damage etc etc. Or deciding how to best utilize the spell set you chose before begining an adventure. Granted none of those seem terribly hard looking back but it did take experience to learn the ins and outs of them. Dealing effectively with the unknown was always a challenge b/c in a pnp session, there were always lots of unknowns. In an mmorpg, there are generally very few if any. The larger part of 'player skill' in a pnp game is the nebulous role playing ability, which is largely imagination and creativity. How to play the role of your current character well in order to tell/create interesting stories withing the confines of the gameworld. There is no real analog to this in crpg's today. I think it's also worth noting that a good pnp session also required a skilled GM to really work; for many this is the "missing ingredient" in mmorpg's being closer to pnp rather than video games. Let's see what Neverwinter Nights 2 brings... Xilren Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: El Gallo on November 09, 2004, 07:24:31 AM Quote from: Megrim I also could never figure out why no-one has bothered to give mobs the most base rudimentary group-functionality in that: if number of pcs = number of mobs -> one mob per pc (or some such). But then it becomes pretty evident that it's all a part of bad combat mechanics (i.e. the whole "no skill required thing".) rather that any one specific feature. That sounds like it would convert grouping into a bunch of people soloing next to each other. The skill required in these games now is the ability to cooperate efficiently and effectively. "Taunt" never bothered me because I never took it literally, as people here seem to do. I always figured it was a substitute for blowcking and attacks of opportunity, which you can't put into these games without opening the door to exploit city. You are going to have to suspend some disbelief in any of these games. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Falagon on November 09, 2004, 07:47:39 AM Quote from: Raph One of the few italicized sentences in the book is "Not requiring skill from a player is a cardinal sin in game design." Would you define "player skill" here? Are you talking about physical skill such as the hand/eye coordination required by FPS titles? Or mental skill such as figuring out which attacks to use against which creatures? Or some combination thereof? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 09, 2004, 08:06:03 AM Well there is skill in muds and graphical muds, it's that the only skill is the application of known statistical chance. And once you've initiated combat the only skill is to press a few buttons to raise that statiscal chance even more in your favour.
And lets face it players in muds don't commit themselves to combat unless the odds are OVERWHELMING in their favour. (well 9 times outa 10) edit: Im borderline dislecksick. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 09, 2004, 08:26:34 AM Quote from: rscott Quote from: Raph One of the few italicized sentences in the book is "Not requiring skill from a player is a cardinal sin in game design." None of my pnp rpg sessions required skill. Yet they were a blast. That has to be one of the single most retarded things anyone has ever said on this board or any of the other LTM-spinoff boards I have ever seen. First off, CRPG's are not PNP RPG's. The difference isn't even subtle. It's the entirety of Yankee Stadium in difference. It's a marathon's worth of difference. Even NWN, which tried to emulate the small feel of PNP RPG's, isn't. Secondly, yes, PNP RPG's required skill. You had to know how to build a character, and then you had to know how to play a character. And you had to have imagination. MMOG's require one of those, how to build a character. Most of them could be played by a monkey with a gamepad being randomly shocked by a cattle prod, and the addition of 3d graphics, immersive sound and such removes just about any need for imagination. As for the mobs not attacking everything they see, that's part of the entire problem with MMOG's. Static mobs sitting in one spot while armies worth of hostile creatures stroll around in front of them and a helpless, cherry target like a city sits waiting for the orcs to attack, but they never do. Even the most "virtual" of the virtual worlds out there DOESN'T BEHAVE LOGICALLY. The world is inconsistent, and much more suited to a game mentality than "virtual world." Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: El Gallo on November 09, 2004, 08:30:32 AM If there is no skill in graphical muds, why did the same 3 or 4 guilds defeat every encounter first serverwide in Everquest? Those guilds didn't play more than the power guilds on other servers, and they didn't play more than tons of players on their own servers. Or why were there so many complaints throughout the WoW beta that [insert whatever the highest level instance that was just added] is impossible for a single group to pull off and needed to be toned down, followed (in a matter of days, or even hours) by a single group posting screenshots of the boss loot? There is skill, but it is group skill, and not "can you mash down, down, back, x, up FOR TEH FATALITY" skill.
I don't think that the presence of statistical chance renders something unskilled. Competitive poker is all about understanding and manipulating chance events, but I would not say that it is an unskilled endeavor. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 09, 2004, 08:44:33 AM Quote from: El Gallo I don't think that the presence of statistical chance renders something unskilled. Competitive poker is all about understanding and manipulating chance events, but I would not say that it is an unskilled endeavor. Bzzt bad comparison. First off in muds its known statistical chance, in poker you have the element of the unknown (ie other players). Which brings us to the second point, bluffing. Explain to me how you bluff a level 20 troll with a level 5 warrior? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 09, 2004, 08:45:05 AM Why? Trial and error, followed by dogged persistence. Once you learn how to take down big mobs in EQ, most of it is just variations on the same theme. The "uber" guilds do it faster and with less failures than others because 1) they've learned the "tricks" of mob AI, 2) they are generally much better organized (which is a player skill), and 3) they are more motivated to do it than the casual players, who could give two shits about their e-peen.
Again, beating down big mobs in EQ is not a very skilled endevaor. It certainly isn't as skillful as competitive poker. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 09, 2004, 09:46:54 AM Quote from: HaemishM First off, CRPG's are not PNP RPG's. The difference isn't even subtle. Don't be dumb. Its irrelevant whether its a crpg or pnp game. Saying that games must have player skill when there is an entire class of games that flatly avoids that rule is kind of silly. There is no magical change of rule when things are typed rather than spoken. Certain things may work better, or worse, but they don't just go away. It works in pnp, it can work in computers. Granted, most weenies playing today only know how to play one sort of game, and any alternative sort of game, like rpg, would never pass muster with them and so they demand that the games have player skill. It says more about the player base than about the nature of the game itself. Quote Secondly, yes, PNP RPG's required skill. You had to know how to build a character, and then you had to know how to play a character. And you had to have imagination. The games i played were often homegrown. Often the character was premade. Or made on the spot by the GM. You don't need to know how to do that. You don't need to know how skills are applied, spells are cast, levels are computed... The GM did the work for the most part. Imagination was required, but i'd hardly call that a skill in this context. Quote As for the mobs not attacking everything they see, that's part of the entire problem with MMOG's. Static mobs sitting in one spot while armies worth of hostile creatures stroll around in front of them and a helpless, cherry target like a city sits waiting for the orcs to attack, but they never do. Even the most "virtual" of the virtual worlds out there DOESN'T BEHAVE LOGICALLY. The world is inconsistent, and much more suited to a game mentality than "virtual world." I agree to a large degree. But when i thought about the outcome of smart mobs and more symetrical sight rules, i realized it would be fun for a day, then annoying for the rest of the year. This might be okay if i wanted to make a simulator (virtual world) with no pretense of it being fun, but if i wanted fun i'd have to have 'dumb' mobs (or at least fallable). Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 09, 2004, 12:15:20 PM Quote from: rscott Quote from: HaemishM First off, CRPG's are not PNP RPG's. The difference isn't even subtle. Don't be dumb. Its irrelevant whether its a crpg or pnp game. Saying that games must have player skill when there is an entire class of games that flatly avoids that rule is kind of silly. If you truly believe there is no difference between the two, I'm not sure what the point of listening to you anymore is. You think RPG's have NO PLAYER SKILL INVOLVED WHATSOEVER? I respectfully say that I disagree with what you just said. Does it involve twitch? No, but then neither do games like Medieval: Total War and I daresay that involves a great deal of player skill. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Samwise on November 09, 2004, 02:15:02 PM Anyone who says that PnP games don't involve skill never had me as a GM.
Suffice to say, even the most braindead NPC in one of my PnP games (and I'm including things that literally have no brains, and act the part) looks like Napoleon compared to the lackwit AIs in every MMOG. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Fargull on November 09, 2004, 02:29:31 PM Quote from: HaemishM If you truly believe there is no difference between the two, I'm not sure what the point of listening to you anymore is. You think RPG's have NO PLAYER SKILL INVOLVED WHATSOEVER? Maybe rscott was thinking LARP... which, hopefully that is as close to discussion as we get on that subject. Imagine a MMORPG where in the NPC's had brains instead of four times the HP and three times the armor and damage dealing ability... the developer might actually be able to make a game not centered around levels... Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Raph on November 09, 2004, 02:43:38 PM I'll also disagree that pen and paper roleplay doesn't require skill. Even in the most purely RP-oriented campaigns, you still call on verbal skills and social skills. One of the arguments I make (very briefly) in the book is that the stuff we say is more like "play" and less like "game" actually demands MORE skills and has MORE rules than more formal games--often so many that you can't easily explain them.
To my mind, games that require too high a level of skill often close out audiences. I consider online FPS games to be one such--and I consider online chat spaces to be another, because social skill is also a skill, and it's one a lot of folks lack. Skill to me just means "judiciously taking action based on prior knowledge." Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: El Gallo on November 09, 2004, 02:44:56 PM PnP games are entirely irrelevant to MMOGs. The centerpiece of PnP is the DM, a storyteller who adapts the adventure on the fly to ensure that everyone is having fun. When you have a 5:1 player:GM ratio in a MMOG, then you can talk about PnP.
Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: rscott on November 09, 2004, 02:50:56 PM "If you truly believe there is no difference between the two, I'm not sure what the point of listening to you anymore is. You think RPG's have NO PLAYER SKILL INVOLVED WHATSOEVER? "
I'm saying that its irrelevant whether there is a difference or not. Are you saying that you've never played a pnp game where someones significant other came along with no experience nor skill and had fun despite their lack of skill? Perhaps your groups were more stable than mine. But it can and does happen. Now perhaps you're going to become pedantic and say they had to know how to speak and breathe, and those are skills, but somehow i don't think that was the gist of the initial statement. "Anyone who says that PnP games don't involve skill never had me as a GM. " That may be true in your game, but i've played several fun games with groups where smart/quick thinking, or any skill really, was not needed. And even in the sessions where it was needed, it certainly wasn't a necessary component to have fun. A good GM will make a gaming session fun even when every character has an int of 3. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Samwise on November 09, 2004, 02:55:33 PM Quote from: rscott i've played several fun games with groups where smart/quick thinking, or any skill really, was not needed. I suspect your definition of "skill" is narrower than mine. Explain the "fun", and I'll tell you where the skill came in. Quote A good GM will make a gaming session fun A GM that has.... skill? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: sidereal on November 09, 2004, 02:56:51 PM Quote from: rscott A good GM will make a gaming session fun even when every character has an int of 3. Of course. The question is will a gaming session be fun if every player has an int of 3. The answer is no, it will not. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 09, 2004, 02:58:19 PM But again, MMOG's have no active GM, and the GM in standalone CRPG's is in no way adaptive to the responses of the players. They aren't even in the same ball park.
And yes, I've played the games with significant others and such. It becomes obvious quite quickly who is an RP'er and who isn't. Fun doesn't necessarily require skill on the part of the participant, just a willingness to actually have fun. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Samwise on November 09, 2004, 03:03:29 PM Quote from: HaemishM It becomes obvious quite quickly who is an RP'er and who isn't. Fun doesn't necessarily require skill on the part of the participant, just a willingness to actually have fun. I would argue that those who are having fun are the ones who are using their innate RPing skills to get into the game. The great thing about RPing skills is everyone has them to some extent, and they tend to be greatly enhanced simply by a "willingness to have fun". Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kageru on November 09, 2004, 05:23:04 PM Not going to get into the skill / no-skill argument as it's very silly. Wherever a player is confronted with multiple options and some are better than others there is space for skill. Thus there is skill in both MMORPG and PnP. I think you are confusing the issue by assuming rule knowledge is a requisite for displaying skill. But in a sufficiently self supporting world, such as a vibrant description from a GM or a graphic environment like a MMORPG, the rules are self-contained within the world.
However I would argue that a MMOPRG does have a GM, just not a very flexible or imaginative one. The graphics stands in place of the GM's descriptions, and the game engine represents world physics and event resolution, which is precisely what a GM will provide. The only difference is this GM spends a lot of time saying, "you can't do that". Oh, and I'm sure a MMORPG could be programmed for optimum tactics, which in simple terms translates into "kill the healer". But all that means is you've merged the role of healer and tank, which doesn't actually make the gameplay more fun. The role of MOB's, in both games, is to provide the correct degree of challenge... you don't actually want them to win too often. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Margalis on November 09, 2004, 09:57:01 PM Quote from: Kageru Not going to get into the skill / no-skill argument as it's very silly. Wherever a player is confronted with multiple options and some are better than others there is space for skill. Only when it isn't blindingly obvious to everyone what the best option is. Most MMORPGs present a wide variety of options, but at any given time a couple are strictly better than all the others. Rock-paper-scissors or "fire beats zombies!!" doesn't change that. Sure you could use your ice spell against zombies, but why would you? I think what you are talking about is making real decisions. That is what interactivity is about, in ANY situation. (Not just games) If you aren't making decisions, or the decisions are all simple enough to make themselves, you are a passive observer more than an actual participant. Edit: Note that things like "hit the 'y' key when the enemy blinks yellow" fails that criteria. There is not decision being made, it's just reflexes. As far as programming opponents to be optimal, I don't think that is a good idea. What IS a good idea is different opponents with different personalities. Certain types of opponents like going after certain types of guys, some are smarter than others, etc. I remember playing FFXI one night we were on a beach with some Leech creatures and sometimes they would attack the mages even before the mages had cast anything. It was so weird I thought it was a bug, but it was kind of cool. It would be nice if opponents were just *believable.* I think a humanoid caster-type should be smarter than a giant snake. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kageru on November 09, 2004, 10:51:30 PM Much simpler if you cut it cleanly. The degree of "obvious" or "optimal", and the number of alternatives to select from, determines how much skill is needed... but it's still skill.
As for more personality in mob types, sounds good to me. But the "is this fun" test must be applied first. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 10, 2004, 08:15:50 AM Quote from: Kageru However I would argue that a MMOPRG does have a GM, just not a very flexible or imaginative one. Precisely. The GM's in MMOG's are not only unskilled, they are barely breathing. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Resvrgam on November 10, 2004, 01:01:35 PM There’s a world of difference between PnP RPGs and MMOGs…and that is relevant:
GOOD PnP: Players are introduced into a world of intrigue, action and suspense as they venture forth on a journey that develops their characters from the fledgling initiates they enter the story as to the seasoned heroes/villains they end the story with. A Storyteller is present to direct a smooth gaming experience and adapt to the playing styles and “unforeseen” actions some take. Combat isn’t always the focus and, like a great story/movie/(and for those who don’t like to read) audio book, the beginning and end is filled with substance that creates a neatly packaged sandwich of: trial, confrontation and climax (sequels are always made by cliff-hangers or interesting plot twists that compel players to continue with lures of more story or adventure…not new augmentations for their vehicle). Every player is also given the opportunity to be in the "limelight" from time to time and no ONE player is more important to the story than the other...but each has their own chance at being the Hero/Villain by their own deeds. BAD PnP: Players are randomly tossed into a world that usually has a generic bar (aka “The Tavern”) and a lifeless supporting cast. Games usually consist of players arguing over who stole the last bag of Doritos and serious players become drowned out in a wave of sexually harassing comments directed toward the one-dimensional barmaids from immature players who don’t really care about the game’s story (and rightly so considering it was written down on a napkin 5 minutes before the game started). Combat is predictable and players find themselves constantly rolling dice and usually knowing more of the rules than the GM. Occasionally, if there’s an attempt at creating a sense of danger within the game world, players may be heard whining “How long do we have to fight this thing until its dead?” Montey Haul games and “Quickies” usually fall into this category but some creative Storytellers have been known to pull that rare good experience from an impromptu gaming session. GOOD MMOG: Players are introduced to a digital world where the graphics are usually a high selling point followed by some “new” feature such as sound-file spewing NPCs or a system of player-vs.-player competition. The treadmill’s grind has been slightly masked by a few techniques that delay the effects of repetition: new animations, new sounds, something aesthetic but never anything mechanical beyond the firmly established paradigm. The monsters are beautiful to look at with their impressive attack animations and the ability to have an open chat-room while playing allows everyone involved to give guidance and support to one another. Occasionally, harder monsters require a “victory by attrition” tactic and thus, multiple players band together in hopes that their numbers will out-math their target. Eventually, the invisible ceiling is hit and characters will no longer progress through the treadmill…until the inevitable expansion (or sequel) is released for additional fees (on top of the $180+/year + retail fees already endured). BAD MMOG: How many titles can you name? Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Megrim on November 10, 2004, 01:56:46 PM Quote Most MMORPGs present a wide variety of options, but at any given time a couple are strictly better than all the others. Rock-paper-scissors or "fire beats zombies!!" doesn't change that. Sure you could use your ice spell against zombies, but why would you? Exactly. But if say, the zombie priest has some basic capability to maybe cast "Protection from Fire" on his zombie minions then all of a sudden you have to improvise. - meg Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 10, 2004, 02:00:56 PM Quote from: Resvrgam There’s a world of difference between PnP RPGs and MMOGs…and that is relevant: GOOD PnP: <mega snip> Ok, so now riddle me this;compare and contrast a pnp rpg to a single player crpg. The question being, is it the medium itself (i.e. computer controlled GM) which is limiting the rpg portions to being minute, or is it the need to throw content to mass number of players simultaneously? Xilren Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Resvrgam on November 10, 2004, 02:12:38 PM Quote from: Xilren's Twin Ok, so now riddle me this;compare and contrast a pnp rpg to a single player crpg. The question being, is it the medium itself (i.e. computer controlled GM) which is limiting the rpg portions to being minute, or is it the need to throw content to mass number of players simultaneously? Xilren I think (IMO) it has more to do with your latter "mass" appeal example. Heroes aren't "heroes" because they stand in line and whack the same monsters as the countless people in front of them, they're heroes because they have prevailed in a confrontation that no one else could have completed successfully. I've played a few single-player CRPGs that helped create the illusion I was a hero/villain in an epic tale but I've also played CRPGs that felt like MMOGs without the MMO. Levels, Stats, "Loot", etc. do not necessitate a RPG (considering the old PnP are essentially videogames of the mind that pre-date the GPU...and usually have better CPUs, RAM and processors: our own minds). If a game developer could capture the essence of a SP RPG and neatly package it into an on-going Soap-Opera-esque experience where other players may enter and leave whenever they wish, I believe they may hit pay dirt when players begin to rely on the "next chapter" of gameplay or storylines instead of waiting for the invisible ceiling to raise and new loot or different coloured monsters to appear. I've pulled it off in a G-MUD about a decade ago (just lacked the finances and computers to make it fully successful) so I hope one of the fat-cats out there may find merit in actually supplying their MMOG customers with actual substance over glamour. "But this Malibu Stacy has a new Hat!" MMOGs just feel like more effort was invested into the boring rules and the creation of the game world than in the actual game portion. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Koyasha on November 11, 2004, 01:16:50 AM Quote from: rscott Pulling? normally i'd agree. But have you never 'pulled' a human in DAOC. I was pulled once myself. As soon as i realize it happens independent of the AI, then yes, pulling is fine. Try to imagine a game where pulling isn't possible. When you attack someone stronger than you, then run away, they DON'T follow. Doesn't make much sense does it. Maybe you'd rather they just sit there and take it. Or perhaps, they run to get help (which isn't always an option). If i get attacked by a little brat, the last thing on my mind is running for help. They're going to get beat even if i have to chase them. Ok, let's take an example and put it this way. You're an Orc Centurion. You're standing on the outskirts of an orc camp containing 12 orcs. You see someone coming up nearby, and he shoots an arrow/casts a spell/insults your mother. You chase after him, and - to be fair, I assume the rest of the group is out of immediate sight - dodge around a hill, and find yourself face to face with an entire group of armed characters ready and able to kill you. Is the logical thing to do to A: fight to the death, or B: immediately turn around as fast as you can, and call the other 11 orcs in my camp to come help me beat these guys up? Even assuming you overestimate your skill and engage them in combat...why wait until you're almost dead? By the time you're at 70% of your health you would clearly be able to see that you're not gonna win this fight alone. Quote Aggro? Thats basic AI. It has to know who hit it and identify threats. He who hurts me the most is my biggest danger. Attacking from least dangerous to most dangerous is a sure way to die, assuming DPS is relatively constant.. Or is the mob supposed to attack randomly. Perhaps mobs could be a bit more intelligent in trying to take down the healer first, or a mage. But even then i don't think its clear that that is necessarily the smartest option. Another example. You're Rallos Zek in the Plane of Time. The group of players approaches and engages you in combat. You start fighting back against their warrior. It quickly becomes blatantly obvious that with but a few swipes of your mighty axe, you can kill this puny mortal, except his health is constantly being replenished by a chain of clerics which look even weaker than the warrior, and you could probably dispatch with two strikes each. Is the logical thing to do to continue attacking the warrior, or to dispatch the clerics, then the warrior, then all the other little enemies nipping at your heels? It's very rare that the smartest option in any current MMOG is NOT to dispatch the healer first. To see this one needs only look at any team-based PvP. Goals tend to be to dispatch the healer, then the damage, and the guy with the biggest armor and hitpoints last. The first is, at least, being adjusted in the latest MMOG's - EQ2 to be specific. Mobs come in groups, and even if you were to somehow separate the members of the group, deagro them all, then try to engage one, the others will agro and come at you. Ironically, while this makes things more logical, it doesn't necessarily make them more fun. I play a bard in EQ, and some of the most fun I have is making that challenging pull...managing to split that impossible group and all. Given that, how about a compromise between the logic and the fun? Pulling doesn't need to be eliminated, it needs to make sense. Lull to magically reduce the mob's tendency to agro/help it's ally/notice something's wrong, mezzes, etc. There are many ways to have pulling without it being as stupid as 'I chase the guy down and beat on him until I'm at 5% health, then I try to run for help now that it's too late'. All in all, I'd like to see some more intelligent AI. And corresponding to this, the mobs would have to have their NPC powers removed. After all, the reason mobs hit for 8 times as much as players and have 15 times as much HP is because mobs are stupid. Make mobs smarter than dirt, and they'd ALWAYS win unless they were on a more even footing with the players. Agro management should be a lot more dodgy, if you ask me. It would much better reflect what El Gallo said...it should substitute for physically interposing yourself between the mob and the crunchy target. Hence, occasionally the crunchy targets should get hit. Which is pretty much how it is at the low levels of most games I've played, but at the higher levels of the few games I've gotten to high levels of, it tends to be that if the crunchy targets get looked at wrong, they're reduced to a pile of meaty entrails - particularly noticeable in raids. The more intelligent the mob's AI, the less the difference in power between mob and player needs to be, which leads to a different type of game, and possibly a more engaging and interesting one. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Phred on November 11, 2004, 05:15:56 AM The trouble with all this let's make the AI smart enough to go for the healers first is, it's hard enough to get people to play healers now. Who in their right mind would play a class that got beat into the ground the second they cast their first heal spell. It's bad enough now in EQ with healing agro on raids. They insanely high dps mobs in GoD required fast healing on the tank before he'd got solid agro and you could usually cound on a couple of clerics eating it before things settled down on many of those raids.
There has to be a balance between good AI and having classes fun to play, IMO. Either that or you need to give the healers some better defence than the paper plate armor they wear in EQ, much less the cloth in WoW. And then you open the door for clerics to become tank mages, unless you nerf the crap out of their offencive spells and relegate them to a pure healing roll. Who the hell you gonna find to play that role? Maybe Guild Wars has the right idea. The monk henchmen was better than a lot of clerics I've played with in EQ, maybe we should relegate the boring bits to the AI as well. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 11, 2004, 07:51:43 AM We've had discussions on this before; I'm firmly of a mind that "healing" and "buffing" as they appear in fantasy MMOG's especially, is a totally fucked up idea. It ruins combat, because combat becomes about who has the best healing, not who fights the best. Funny that this type of idea comes from D&D, where in-combat healing really wasn't a big factor.
MMOG's and for that matter CRPG's do some strange things to combat as opposed to PNP RPG's. Think about your PNP RPG's, especially those very focused on combat. Large combats could typically take hours to resolve, hours for actions which in game time terms took minutes at most. This is fun, don't get me wrong, but it's also a function of PNP RPG's. You have all that dice rolling, looking up charts, time to think about what your next move is, initiative rolls, etc. The computer can take all that chart-lookup, dice-rolling stuff and do it in nanoseconds, reducing the time required for any combat to a fraction of the time it takes PNP RPG's. In order to make this last a length of time sufficient to make a player feel invested in the combat, the CRPG's and MMOG's multiply the numbers you might normally see in a PNP RPG, making players and NPC's into bags of hit points. Whereas in PNP RPG's a swing and a miss takes a few minutes and is somewhat exciting, in MMOG's and CRPG's a swing and a miss is a waste of time. Combat becomes a matter of two sides bashing each other's brains out and whoever can heal the most wins. The time shifting aspect of PNP RPG's (abstracting things like healing over time, sleep hours etc.) as compared to CRPG's and MMOG's is a huge difference that I don't think has been adequately translated. MMOG's make the time abstraction worse, because there are no "sleep cycles." The world is constantly in motion whether the character is in the world or not, whereas in PNP RPG's, the characters are always in the world. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 11, 2004, 08:06:19 AM ^^^^^^^^^^
a fucking men. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Xilren's Twin on November 11, 2004, 08:07:55 AM Quote from: Phred The trouble with all this let's make the AI smart enough to go for the healers first is, it's hard enough to get people to play healers now. Who in their right mind would play a class that got beat into the ground the second they cast their first heal spell. There has to be a balance between good AI and having classes fun to play. Actually, I think noticing the poor AI is in many ways due to the overall poor game system design with strict classes and roles and always known info. Reflect back to your pnp days, unless you went out of your way to look like a cleric, it was not always apparent "it's a cleric!" to the monsters on sight, thus often a battle would start and mid fight intelligent monsters may change tactics once they figure out who the biggest threats were. The reverse was true for player; finding a group of ogres, battle start and one of them suddenly starts whipping around spells, you change your plans to account for the ogre mage. Hell, intentional misdirection was simply part of trying to use your brain to get past yon horde of orcs and not your sword arm. Neither you nor the mob's in an mmorpg ever have that situation of dealing with the unknown. Player abilities and mob abilities are always X for mob/pc type Y. That's when the min maxing analysis starts to kick in like DPS. While there certainly are pnp munchkins who try to mathematically design their char for max ridiculous damage, the nature of most mmorpg's seem to make this a pre-requisite b/c it's so easy to find the one "best" damage formula for a class/weapon/skillset/spell/armor etc. Why? Makes it simple of course. Which reduced to brass tacks is often what "hit a and make a sandwich" complaints are all about; the games too simple or not involving enough. Granted, combat wheel and hit chains are attempt to artifically make the player feel more involved, but the other side, the mob responses, hasn't really changed. Xilren EDIT: Haem's point is also a good one and tied into this too. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: HaemishM on November 11, 2004, 08:18:45 AM Quote from: Xilren's Twin Granted, combat wheel and hit chains are attempt to artifically make the player feel more involved, but the other side, the mob responses, hasn't really changed. Thus my assertion that we still haven't left the first generation of MMOG's. We're still just redefining the shape of the wheel; I'm not sure we've discovered yet that square wheels don't roll as well as round ones. Forget the horse... we can't even get to the cart because the wheels don't work. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Shannow on November 11, 2004, 08:29:23 AM I actually think that designers should stop trying to shoe horn this type of game into the massively multiplayer environment. Step away from trying to include as many 1000s of players at once on a single instance of the 'virtual world' (ie a server) and maybe look at designing the game to handle 200-300 players at once. Either that or radically change how you are designing these games.
Right now I believe the only games that need to be truely massively multiplayer are Planetside and ww2ol because they depend on player interaction. Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Resvrgam on November 11, 2004, 12:56:38 PM Quote from: Shannow I actually think that designers should stop trying to shoe horn this type of game into the massively multiplayer environment. Step away from trying to include as many 1000s of players at once on a single instance of the 'virtual world' (ie a server) and maybe look at designing the game to handle 200-300 players at once. Either that or radically change how you are designing these games. I couldn't agree more. There’s no “game” in these MMOGs anymore. Since progression (and everything else) seems to only be gauged by combat, you’d expect something a little more engaging than a boring Rock’em Sock’em Robot fest where victory is usually pre-determined from stats (Level 20 characters will ALWAYS defeat Level 1 opponents). Haemish’s points about time-shifting between mediums are also right on the money when we start to dissect the very basic nature of Combat. What created suspense and tension in the PnP universe was only a blink of an eye for the CRPGs. This would probably mean an entirely new combat system may be needed if developers ever hope to destroy the barriers, clichés and overall bad feelings surrounding the current crop of CRPG combat. I’m with the “Quality not Quantity” idea myself and hope more developers start realizing that: just because you can place 100,000 people together in a stadium, that doesn’t mean they’ll make their own fun. These games are financially demanding to the consumer and many find it insulting to pay $180+/year (+ retail) on a subscription-based “service” that just doesn’t deliver the entertainment promised. Could you imagine how poorly received a MMOG would be if it was passed off as a single-player game? Things like: “This game makes watching paint dry more appealing as an avenue for entertainment” and “The AI was akin to a retarded Monkey on crack suffering from severe head trauma” would probably be seen in a few reviews. As a whole, this genre’s painted itself into a corner and will begin to rapidly lose customers when the bubble bursts. Someone pointed out that “customers are sheep” and, for the most part, they are. However, when the flock is led back to greener pastures from genres offering more for less, all these sheep will move in rapid succession and the genre will be devastated (especially with how bad the American economy will be devastated in the coming years due to out-sourcing and tech-jobs becoming offshore opportunities). It’s only going to take one or two Killer Apps to draw this flock away and I’m not going to be the one who has to deal with the aftermath. Until the industry as a whole gets its head out of its ass and stops being so full of itself (The GDC is now just an annual award show of self-congratulatory industry members spouting about what makes them so great…little do they realize, most of them are driving at extremely fast speeds down the road to obsolescence), genres, markets and games we enjoy will be racing through sequels and rehashes to collect cash in short-term gains (long-term loss). Companies will vanish or merge to stay afloat and eventually, we’ll only have one or two companies to turn to for games and we all know what happens when that occurs (consoles: Atari 1984). Yeah, yeah: “The sky is falling!” and this rant probably comes across as some know-it-all, jaded asshole bitching about things without trying to fix them. Why bother try fixing them now? It’s the “big kids’” ball now and they don’t want to play with the rest of us. I’ve played Flash games offering more entertainment value and interactivity than most of the MMOGs and it’s obvious that these games will stay this way until they stop making money. No matter what we say or attempt to do, Money will always speak louder than us and critiquing, bitching and shitting on games and their outdated, stagnant and downright boring systems only serves as a vent of frustration… companies could give a flying fuck about what angry nerds who may have “better ideas” really have to say, because the money is still rolling in and the game designs haven’t changed in 20+ years. /end rant Title: Bartle: Online games suck and will only get worse Post by: Kageru on November 11, 2004, 02:10:13 PM That argument might be a bit more compelling if the number of people playing MMORPG's wasn't steadily increasing.
The reason for the time-extension seems fairly obvious to me. In PnP you get a great deal of time to think out your actions, which means that speed of reaction is not an issue. In a real-time game you have to slow down combat or you destroy tactical elements due to it being a twitch-fest. This is also why these games have roles, because that increases the tactical complexity even if the mechanics of the encounter are predictable (as they are supposed to be). Big populations are also better in MMORPG's as long as player collision can be minized. The local unit is still going to be a group (or possibly a raid) but the larger the background population the more alternatives there are in constructing it. In other words the total server population is advantageous during group construction and largely irrelevant during play (unless you do dumb shit like have rare and contested known spawns). So in short the `realism' of the game mechanics is irrelevant, the only question is whether it offers a richer and more rewarding gameplay experience. And `frag the healers' does nothing more than destroy tanking as a role (and healing for that matter). Destruction of roles leading pretty naturally to a group of individuals with no tactical differentiation and zerging as the primary gameplay. |