New Raph Interview

[Prospero]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/55/9

Pretty decent interview with Raph on his role in SWG and some reminiscing on UO. I'm curious to see if he pulls off the game design grammar he's working on.

[WindupAtheist]

Condensed version:

"Dude, my social-engineering bullshit would totally have solved the UO PK problem sooner or later, if only I'd had infinite time to fiddle with tweaking it while Rome burned.  As for SWG, the NGE suxxorz.  Also, I think people will get sick of Diku and want virtual worlds, even though nothing in the marketplace bears this notion out.  Anyway, I'm starting my own company.  Maybe I'll make something that isn't a grandiose overreaching clusterfuck, but don't bet the farm on it."

[Morat20]

Condensed version:

"Dude, my social-engineering bullshit would totally have solved the UO PK problem sooner or later, if only I'd had infinite time to fiddle with tweaking it while Rome burned.  As for SWG, the NGE suxxorz.  Also, I think people will get sick of Diku and want virtual worlds, even though nothing in the marketplace bears this notion out.  Anyway, I'm starting my own company.  Maybe I'll make something that isn't a grandiose overreaching clusterfuck, but don't bet the farm on it."

Virtual worlds at least have the benefit of having little competition. Frankly, I wouldn't want to compete Diku-style with WoW. Embrace the niche! :)

But yeah, the UO optimism still remains strong. Even if he was right, solutions don't do any GOOD if everyone's left by the time they work. Personally, I think he was misreading the situation -- something akin to confirmation bias. It's a bit hard to explain what I mean (curse you English language) but when you combine high churn, unhappiness with the PK situation, it would be easy for a small group to react positively to Raph's changes and seem much bigger. The churn would effectively self-select players who reacted to the his solutions.

I think it's a peril of live development -- when something unforseen crops up, something that is gamebreaking (or is driving off players) -- how do you react? A slow series of steps? A rapid set of changes, implementing the first semi-reasonable solution you can come up with? Ideally you'd want something in the middle -- you'd want to make it a massive priority, bring in everyone whose subsystems were even remotely effective (and probably loop in some of the more trusted users -- people who see it purely from a 'play' perspective) -- and find a solution. But you wouldn't want to be in such a crises mode that you threw the first solution you could think of into the game.

But the more time you take, the more patience you require from the users -- which requires you have credibility with them.

Blizzard gets away with a laughably slow patch cycle. So does EVE. I suspec it has something to do with a reputation for quality -- users feel the end result will at the very least fix the problem without fucking up too much of the game, and that if it isn't, the Devs will address it. I don't think many companies would get that sort of user tolerance. I don't think the UO player base (at least the non-PKers) had it at the time -- the problem had been with the game for a long time, and consistently got worse with each change failing to significantly reduce the problem.

I think you only get so many bites of the apple, before the user base expects you to FIX IT ALREADY. I think Trammel represented a necessary extreme -- too many slow solutions that didn't visbily reduce the problem to players (who care only for personal perception, not server-wide stats or upcoming changes) ran them out of patience. Even if Raph's ideas had worked -- only the PKers would have been left, and it would have just annoyed them.

[Fargull]

In general I like what Raph has to say and always have.  I think he is spot on with not advocating the trammel switch.  I was far more of a sheep in UO's early days than a wolf, but I enjoyed the challenges of the game.

One thing I have not seen anyone answer, though I think it was a very strong point in the game and world aspect of UO, was the tight curve of the item system.  EQ and and all the DIKU, hell, really every MMORG I have played outside of UO, has taken to mudflation as the shiney item over game play.  Loot has a place, and I enjoy it, but (as WOW is really starting to feel) the Must have Uber Item 001002 so I can WTFPWN anyone with just 001001 items... is a very very broken mechanic.  UO had a finite curve (that got broke by other mechanics on occassion), at least up until recently that is.  The biggest issue with UO was how awefully small the world was, even after the split and the additions.

[Morat20]

In general I like what Raph has to say and always have.  I think he is spot on with not advocating the trammel switch.  I was far more of a sheep in UO's early days than a wolf, but I enjoyed the challenges of the game.

One thing I have not seen anyone answer, though I think it was a very strong point in the game and world aspect of UO, was the tight curve of the item system.  EQ and and all the DIKU, hell, really every MMORG I have played outside of UO, has taken to mudflation as the shiney item over game play.  Loot has a place, and I enjoy it, but (as WOW is really starting to feel) the Must have Uber Item 001002 so I can WTFPWN anyone with just 001001 items... is a very very broken mechanic.  UO had a finite curve (that got broke by other mechanics on occassion), at least up until recently that is.  The biggest issue with UO was how awefully small the world was, even after the split and the additions.

As best I can tell, WoW at least acknowledges mudflation -- their items have an internal level associated with them and they don't seem to want to allow them past a certain point. Their raiding gear (And PvP) gear mods simply become better focused and more useful for a certain style of play as you progress through the gear. Of course, I say that as a 60 Hunter who just started on weekly MC raids (got my Blastershot launcher, but that's it -- no Giantstalker drops yet).

The Naxx gear (their new raid dungeon) seems really on the high end -- it's a much bigger jump over their Tier 2 than Tier 2 was over Tier 1. I suspect that's because Burning Crusade isn't far out.

As best I can tell, Blizzard's "solution" to mudflation is to decide what the most powerful set of gear should be, and offer a progression to it -- with a variety of side-grades available to fit different talent specs. It slows down mudflation, but doesn't end it.