The Grind

[Righ]

you're kidding me right? oh look - a question mark. i must have used the shift key.

when this place turns into the Wall Street Journal we can talk. until then i think content is the only thing that matters in a place like this. if you have a problem or a point of view on what i said - discuss. if not get off your high horse.

The problem is that you are presumably writing because you want people to read your points and comment on them. Unfortunately, I can't be bothered to take the extra time to decipher your illiterate ramblings. I suspect that I'm not alone. The horse is low enough for elementary school children to ride.

[Jayce]

I suspect that I'm not alone.

You're not.

If you don't have enough respect for your own opinions to convey them somewhat clearly,  I don't have any respect for them either.

[AOFanboi]

What they are saying is:

Ignoring the convention of using a capital letter in the beginning of a sentence does not make you stand out as a writer, it makes your readers annoyed. Hence it is in your interest to adapt the centuries old tradition in order to actually have an audience for your writings.

[Mnemon]

 

[Margalis]

Eh, you aren't saying anything that hasn't been said before. When everyone is the hero, nobody is. It's an easy problem to identify.

It's a harder problem to solve. Identifying a problem like that is cake. In Zelda I was Link, not Runny_Nosed_Brat_0716. Maybe being the hero shouldn't be the point, or maybe there is a way to make everyone heroic at the same time?

Propose a solution.

[Krakrok]

Simple. De-emphasize the importance of a single character. If you give the player 2 characters they care about each one only half as much. Give them 10 and if 1 dies they only care 10%. Unless they have a favorite and the favorite one dies. This has  already been tested with pets. How many MMO players care if their pet dies? They don't because they can always get another one. You might grow fond of a pet but it isn't the end of the world when it is gone.

Personally, I don't play MMO's as me. I play in god mode. It just so happens that I can usually only control one character most of the time (or two if there is a pet or 6-8 in DAOC with a theurgist). Think about turrets and mines in Planetside in the context of a "pet". You don't care that your mine blew up and is gone. You probably got experience from it and there are plenty more where it came from.

And, to tie it into the letter from Smedley, if the MMO "family" that you controlled had 10 children and one died how much would you care? Just breed more.

Look at multi-character RPGs of old (read parties). If one of the six or eight guys in your party dies you might not be a happy camper but it wouldn't be the end of the world. You could pick up another member later. Wasteland. Baldur's Gate. Darklands. Wizardry. They all used a multi-character system. It just so happens that Ultima and DikuMUD only had single character systems.

In games like Darklands, you can switch party members in and out like gear at the nearest inn.


How much better of a game might World War II Online have been if you controlled a squad of players and not just one grunt?


I'm tired of these single character bullshit MMORPGs.

[Margalis]

You're just talking around the problem. Maybe you feel like the problem isn't really a problem or something.

I think there is a natural inclination for people to want to be top dog, but in MMORPG the vast majority of players are plebians. Everyone wants to be the guy who has his own castle and has serfs, not be a serf.

It isn't that characters die. It's that characters live mundane lives.

[Krakrok]

You're just talking around the problem. Maybe you feel like the problem isn't really a problem or something.

No. You're still thinking of it in terms of the single character RPG grind.

Your claimed problem is that current MMOs players feel like peons, fine. In a multi-character system (ala a god game like an RTS or even something like Ghost Recon) all players have god like powers. They do not have a sole manifestation in the virtual world. They have many manifestations. This removes the "everyone can't be a hero" problem because there are no single heros and the goal isn't to be a hero. You do not live and die, succeed and fail by your single manifestation of a character.

Everyone wants to be the guy who has his own castle and has serfs, not be a serf.

So give every player a castle with serfs. It doesn't mean someone with a bigger castle and more serfs isn't going to come burn your castle down. There will still be winners and losers I can't help you there. Always want to be the winner? Better play a single player game and save often.


A pretty good example of multi-character vs. single character is The Sims vs. The Sims Online. You have multiple sims to control in The Sims (aka god like powers). In The Sims Online you only have one character. You no longer have god like powers. You are a peon hence The Sims Online is a grind game. Is the goal in The Sims to be a hero? No. Is the goal in The Sims Online to be a hero? Yes.

Edit: If I have one character in WWIIOL and I run up to the front and then get shot in the head by someone I couldn't even seen and boom back to the respawn point. Was that a rewarding play experience? I would say no. I couldn't be the hero and I got smacked down hard. If I had a squad of characters in WWIIOL instead and my six guys move towards the front. My guys run into two squad of enemies and they lose maybe 3-4 guys and all my guys die except the sniper who sneaks away. Would that be rewarding play experience? I would say yes from a god game perspective even though I lost the battle.

[Evangolis]

I would shiver with dread if it was my job to keep 50,000 people entertained nightly for 12 months.

Jon Stewart, David Letterman, and Jay Leno would laugh and call you a pussy.

The other thing you mentioned, about Fallout - it was what it was because of expert storytelling. MMOGs have yet to have that going for them.

I'd point out that the folks you mentioned only have to produce less than 5 hours each week of content, and some of that is actuallly other people's content (e.g. Musical Guests).  Moreover, they have large staffs (Why isn't that staves?) and budgets (although the individuals listed are all very talented, they are not alone), and do not have the issues of running the whole affair through a software filter and out the internet to provide individual experiences to every customer.

Not that those people don't work their butts off.

I would suggest Soap Operas as a better example of the point you are trying to make.  Even there, however, you don't have to concern yourself with your audience being widely dispersed in terms of where they are in the storyline, although Soaps do spend a bit of time at episode start refreshing the viewer's memory.  Single player games also aren't faced with the sychronization issues like MMOs are.

Which is not to say that I disagree with where you end up.  I think more story and less grind is the right answer, but telling stories in a graphical MMO environment is unique even from telling stories in MUDs, which is the closest comparison I can make.  I don't think the whole answer is work harder or hire more writers, although I think some of it is, and I do think some of the answer is shifting focus from the empowerment system to the story system, and in part combining the two.  But I also think that there are parts of the answer I don't know.  I'm not sure if anyone knows all the answer yet.

[jpark]

Actually, the best indications from neurocognitive research are that we rationalize our behaviour *while* we are doing it.  For example: Twitch a finger, any finger.  Neurologists can measure the initial neural firing that led to that finger twitch.  The interesting part is, that neural spike comes around 150 milleseconds *before* you consciously make the decision to twitch the finger.  IOW, your brain sends the signal to twitch the finger, and then your consciousness tells itself it just decided to twitch the finger.

--Dave

Good points.  If you have an interest in this - in the journal Science paper was published talking about galvanic skin responses / autonomic responses in a card game.  These sympathatic responses developed as players actions began to track the correct action to perform - long before they actually became conscious of the rule set that would make them win the game:

Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5304/1293?ijkey=qvmuCiNjPcckE

Looks like Tony (Bechara) has continued with research along these lines - you might check his recent publications.

[Margalis]

Your claimed problem is that current MMOs players feel like peons, fine. In a multi-character system (ala a god game like an RTS or even something like Ghost Recon) all players have god like powers. They do not have a sole manifestation in the virtual world. They have many manifestations. This removes the "everyone can't be a hero" problem because there are no single heros and the goal isn't to be a hero.

It's the same problem. Everyone is a god, so nobody is a god. Some catasser is Zeus and you get to be that cripple Haephestus, what fun!

In a single player game, your character is a mover and shaker, the focal point of the action. In MMORPGS you aren't the focal point. If you run a castle and everyone else has a castle, or you are a god and everyone else is too, you still aren't the focal point.

[Krakrok]

It's the same problem. Everyone is a god, so nobody is a god. Some catasser is Zeus and you get to be that cripple Haephestus, what fun!

I know what you're saying. If everyone is Zeus no one is special. My point is in a god game the goal of the game isn't to BE special. The focal point of a god game IS YOU, the player. The universe revolves around YOU in a god game regardless if there are other gods in the game or not.


You make your own focal point in a god game.


I addressed the winners vs. losers already ->

There will still be winners and losers I can't help you there. Always want to be the winner? Better play a single player game and save often.

[Monika T'Sarn]

This 'hero' thing is interesting - I've allways had the most fun in games when I could be unique in some way. Being the highest level is unfortunately to often the only way possible, but over the years I found some exceptions.
In UO, I wasn't very good in pvp, my character was not maxed at all, but I think my poison-field tossing mage and my trap-stealing stealther were remembered in the faction fights as unique not as just one face in the crowd. In daoc, I was a kobold warrior - unusual choice, and gimp-stealthing (hiding behind trees) alone in the frontiers was fun to do, but not very effective. In shadowbane, I did a dagger-scout template that was different, to be really good at killing other stealthers - but being max level first was key here to be successfull to. SWG had no real grind, no levels, and I had great fun in pvp and pve with different optimized templates: Pistoleer/Animal trainer, doctor/commando or defense stacking swordsman. The jedi, of course ( which I got first only through luck, quick holocron farming and a nice weaponsmith macro ), turned out to be one big grind only - I never even seriously tried leveling him up.
In wow, there's not much grind, but no uniqueness either. Evem with the different talent trees, one level 60 priest in blue instance gear is just like the other, the only difference between us is how much we let our mind control victims jump around before we toss them into the lava. Maybe pvp rewards , battlegrounds or hero classes will help here.

So, many games did offer that opportunity to be special, even without a huge grind - but often times it was only possible through being first to find a template, or by 'exploiting' unbalanced elements - many of which got nerfed after a while. How could a game be designed to actually encourage players to be special ? Maybe D&D Online is on the right way, with smaller server populations and a big set of multi or dual class combinations to choose from.

Another idea I've had is making the player a hero simply by having a lot of npc peons around. Currently, I estimate you have a rate of 1 npc per 10 players - some token guards, some quest npc's, some vendors. At a guess, 100 npc's all over the world to interact with in wow, for 1000 players. Of course there's no room for heroes now, and the player feels like a peon send out on menial tasks (quests) by the heroic. special npc's.
What if you could turn that ratio around - 10 npc's for each player on the server, 10000 total. A town filled with activity, an army somewhere fighting back the invasion that needs help, npc caravans that get raided. The opportunities for pvp in a game like WoW are endless.
I think this would work best in a kind of RTS/MMORPG hybrid, where the RTS part is played constantly by AI against each other in a mutli-sided war, and the player can effect the outcome on a small scale.




 

[Samwise]

I agree 100% with having NPC peons outnumber the heroes.  The trick is giving those peons enough AI to act smarter than potted plants.  Remember SWG's cities, with big clumps of NPCs walking into walls and talking to themselves?

[Descended]

personally i think there's one huge thing a mmorpg has to tackle before things like the grind go away: the gaming mentality that my character has to be special and that I have to be the god-like creature among these thousands of others yearning for the same thing.

many gamers out there have played games for years upon years. until mmorpgs came around you were the god character in whatever game you chose. you were the star qb and halfback in madden - not the offensive lineman. you were the hero killing aliens and saving the day, not the alien that looks like ten other aliens getting smoked. you were the plumber stomping on the heads of multi-colored turtle-thingies to nab the beautiful princess, not the poor turtle-thingies.

Sorry, but I'm smarter than the average person.  I'm better at remembering detail, I have decent twitch skills, I enjoy optimizing and analyzing, I enjoy building social networks with other smart players, etc, etc, etc.  This should make the characters I play on an MMORPG better than average Joe's characters, if we spend the same amount of time playing.  If I have the time and interest to catass, and I am a superior player, I should be rewarded with a notable, --nay--, famous character.  This is the only reason beyond pure socialization with friends that I have to play MMORPGS instead of single player RPGs.

If a multiplayer game forces me into an experience which is much the same as every other players because, well, you're just a player, I can't expect to stand out due to my own, in-game efforts.

So, yes, it would be more realistic for most players going into a MMORPG to have the expectation that they shall remain a part of the unwashed masses.  However, marketing your game as some sort of socialist solution to inferiority issues will lose you players, not gain them.  I'm pretty sure the majority of players want the opportunity to be the hero far more than a guarantee that everyone else will suck equally.

[WindupAtheist]

Sorry, but I'm smarter than the average person.  I'm better at remembering detail, I have decent twitch skills, I enjoy optimizing and analyzing, I enjoy building social networks with other smart players, etc, etc, etc.

You're good enough, you're smart enough, and dog-gone it... you're also a thread-necromancer nooblet.

[Sogrinaugh]

Another idea I've had is making the player a hero simply by having a lot of npc peons around. Currently, I estimate you have a rate of 1 npc per 10 players - some token guards, some quest npc's, some vendors. At a guess, 100 npc's all over the world to interact with in wow, for 1000 players. Of course there's no room for heroes now, and the player feels like a peon send out on menial tasks (quests) by the heroic. special npc's.
What if you could turn that ratio around - 10 npc's for each player on the server, 10000 total. A town filled with activity, an army somewhere fighting back the invasion that needs help, npc caravans that get raided. The opportunities for pvp in a game like WoW are endless.
I think this would work best in a kind of RTS/MMORPG hybrid, where the RTS part is played constantly by AI against each other in a mutli-sided war, and the player can effect the outcome on a small scale.

A friend of mine did almost exactly this with a custom warcraft 3/TFT map (Battle for Icecrown, not as well known as DOTA due to requiring so much system recources due to its size and scale, but IMO infinitely more fun).

The key thing it lacked was persistence.  Even had the unique snowflake appeal since thier were SO many hero's to choose from per side, and only 1 person could be any given hero (only 2 sides, but he turned lots of the regular and neutral units into heros).

Im guessing technical hurdles are the biggest thing stopping WoW from doing this.