Trucolor World with a Four-Color Community

[HaemishM]

We are the world.

[WayAbvPar]

Good writeup. I think CoH is a great start for an MMOG. It will need to evolve into something more than it is in order to keep my interest long term, but I am having fun with it so far. I like the lesson that it teaches- do one thing very well, make it fun, and then build from there. beats the hell out of releasing buggy, half-finished crap with the fun to be patched in later.


I will hate you forever for sticking Rod Stewart's goddamn voice in my head, however.

[Signe]

Sometimes I think that as I grow older, my sense of fun is subtly changing.  When I was younger, I would install a game and immediately start playing, learning the game as I fought the good fight.  Now I find that I take in my surroundings and try things out in a more thoughtful manner.  I look for the storyline instead of stepping in it by accident.  I'm not implying that all those things that have always been an attraction for me such as PvP, skills, loot, etc., are not still as important, but the atmosphere has become a factor lately, too.  

CoH is a lot of fun and I enjoy it when I play.  I don't, however, find it immersive.  Maybe I just can't relate to the whole comic book thing, as I was never an enthusiast.  At times, I can get into the 'feel' of it... like during a particularly creepy CoT mission or the first time I ran through Perez Park.  On the whole, though... it's simply a fun game for me.  It's easy and quick and takes very little sussing out.  It takes my mind off of my real life worries without ever really engaging my mind.  I like it's simplicity, but I would pay more for an MMOG or MMOW with atmosphere, interesting puzzles and a compelling story to follow.  I am a completely different sort of gamer than I was just a few years ago.

I think I would like to have both sides of what you have presented, but I've found that they don't necessarily have to be in the same MMOG.  I wouldn't mind a game where I could build a pyramid AND blast an evil mage to smithereens, but I'm not too fussed about it.  I'm playing 2, at the moment, both completely different, neither demanding a huge amount of my time, and it seems to suit me.

Anyway... enough of my confused wibble.  That was a great piece, Haemish!  I thouroughly enjoyed it.

[SirBruce]

We are the world.

I think it was Raph who was telling me that he doesn't really buy into the world/game distinction.  Not denying that it exists, but simply noting that if you create a "world", you can always put fit the "game" into it -- but you can't do the reverse.  I'm not sure that's true, either, but I think it's a terminology problem... obviously you can make a game into a world by adding world elements to it, which is the same way you add game elements to a world.  So I don't really think there's an issue here.

But taking it down a notch, it is worth considering whether or not it is easier from a design point of view to create a whole world, and then fit a game into those constraints, or create a fun game and then try to design a whole virtual world around it.  I am tempted to agree that the former is probably easier, but only if you are willing to modify the game world in order to accomodate game play, because I think when push comes to shove, the game is more important than the world.  A fascinating, complex, and immersive world that isn't entertaining to the consumer won't be able to match an entertaining one that is superficial... you can see as much in TV, movies, books, music, etc.

I would hesitate to say that CoH is lacking in "world" though, because I think there's a lot of virtual world elements there.  What it's lacking is depth in both gameplay and virtual world elements.

Bruce

[schild]

Bruce, the elements may be there, but truly, unless you create your own content (like those phone calls to an agent, which are a one time gag for each one, or some kind of makeshift cantina), all there is to do is fight.

Just to note: that's not why I quit, life is why I quit. But CoH had nothing but the combat part (and travel with superjump, if you consider that content. I consider it a good gameplay mechanic).

[sinij]

If I do not interact with other players where they can affect me then I’m not playing a multiplayer game. If I only limited number of player can interact with me then it is not massive game. If I do not use Internet to play this game it is not online. If I don’t assume control of my avatar then it is not role-playing. CoH is not a mmorpg since massive is severely limited by instancing. If anything CoH is a matchmaker service for a game of instanced dungeon crawls with graphical “city” lobby. Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

[SirBruce]

Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

Good question.  Perhaps this indicates your previous statements are wrong?

Bruce

[SirBruce]

Bruce, the elements may be there, but truly, unless you create your own content (like those phone calls to an agent, which are a one time gag for each one, or some kind of makeshift cantina), all there is to do is fight.

Oh, I agree there... I stated as much here (or was it corpnews?) during beta.  All there is at the moment is combat, and that's pretty poor for a MMOG.

However, it's not like there's no world.  There is a world, and several ways you COULD interface with and effect it, if the game elements were added to connect up that way.  An example of a game with no world would be a pure dungeon crawl with generic monsters and no backstory at all or any logical connection between them or with the characters.

Bruce

[Arnold]

We are the world.

But taking it down a notch, it is worth considering whether or not it is easier from a design point of view to create a whole world, and then fit a game into those constraints, or create a fun game and then try to design a whole virtual world around it.  I am tempted to agree that the former is probably easier, but only if you are willing to modify the game world in order to accomodate game play, because I think when push comes to shove, the game is more important than the world.  A fascinating, complex, and immersive world that isn't entertaining to the consumer won't be able to match an entertaining one that is superficial... you can see as much in TV, movies, books, music, etc.

That reminds me of playing pen and paper games when I was younger.  Some of the guys I played with had these super detailed campaign worlds and I thought I needed to have the same for my own.  So I'd get some idea and start working on the world.  I was making all sorts of maps, trying to come up with detailed histories and all that.  Eventually I'd get frustrated at all the work I still had to do before I got it to a point I considered playable and then would give up.

Later on I came up with the idea to run a game that would be mundane fantasy campaign set completely within a huge city, using the Fantasy Hero system (with low points for character building).  I went into it with huge assumptions and generalities, fleshing out nearly nothing but what pertained to the immediate adventure.

I was playing this game with just one player mainly, though sometimes another sat in.  The other guy and I would alternate GMing and whenever one of us made something, the other incorporated it into the world and future adventures.  Sometimes one GM would have an NPC vaugely mention something, and the other GM would pick up on that lore and write something around it later on.  

Pretty soon the generic (hell, the city didn't even have a name at first) setting started becoming very detailed and populated with colorful, recurring characters.  Of course the whole city wasn't like that, but just the parts of it frequented by the characters, and those parts grew as sort of an ever increasing circle as their exploits took them to new places.  I have a feeling that the features we created through play were far more detailed than they would have been if I had sat down and attempted to detail everything beforehand.

[daveNYC]

All there is at the moment is combat, and that's pretty poor for a MMOG.

I don't know if your comment is saying that having only combat is bad, or if the combat itself is bad.  If it's the latter, I'll have to disagree with you.  COH combat is rather fun.

[HaemishM]

Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

Because CoH is fun, and Diablo2 is not?

EDIT: And going past snarky, I think the CoH is quite immersive, in that it gives you as much detail as the setting requires. For the most part, it holds that immersion; one minor quibble of immersion-breaking for me is part of the level process. All superheroes in the comics would do everything they could to stop muggings and citizens being accosted and crime on the street. Whereas in CoH, I often will not stop a mugging if I'm either going to a mission, or the criminals are too high for me to defeat, or too low for me to gain experience and influence from. That's a symptom of an MMOG, in that you have to have more content than one person can do so there's enough for everyone, and a symptom of the level game, where you have to segregate content based on levels. Neither one kills the game for me, or really destroys the world, but it does put the game out there in front of the world aspect.

As for CoH being all about combat, after years of design failures that are released as games, I think one of the reasons I'm still so happy with CoH is that it chose to do one thing and did it very well, as opposed to trying to do 6 things and being mediocre at 4 of them and 2 of them sucking ass.

[tar]

Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

Another reason : secure servers.

[Daeven]

For me, CoH is fun. It's the first MMOg in a very long time I can say that about. So, for me, I really don't give a fuck about people parsing definitions of the meaning of *is*.

IS the game fun for you - yes/no?

If yes, then why do you care if it is a world or a game or trumped up instanced Diablo2 with subscriptions?

If no, then why the hell are you wasting oxygen by yammering about it?

Feh.

[AOFanboi]

Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

Because you get what you pay for. Having problems with a level 99 duping sploiter harassing you? Tough luck, Blizzard don't care.

And to add my vote to the others here: Because CoH is a fun multiplayer game, and D2 isn't.

[Paelos]

Multiplayer D2 was fun to a point, but then it got old in the upper tier and dealing with the raving morons. Plus, people that jumped games and PKed and blah blah blah. You got what you paid for there, they promised entertainment for free, and I got a good value.

[personman]

I like the concept.

Your writeup parallels the comic book/promo - the heroes rescue an NPC who they discover later on in a Vahz body shop, rescue her, and then leave us in a cliffhanger as they try to escape.

All they had to do was click out.  Duh!  :)

Whereas in CoH, I often will not stop a mugging if I'm either going to a mission, or the criminals are too high for me to defeat, or too low for me to gain experience and influence from. That's a symptom of an MMOG, in that you have to have more content than one person can do so there's enough for everyone, and a symptom of the level game, where you have to segregate content based on levels.

The role-player in me hates running by a Level 1 mugging.  The good MOG citizen in me does nothing so as not to deprive lowbies.  I admit things like that finally pushed me into the "CoH is for thirty minutes of bunny bashing" camp.  Fortunately bunny bashing in CoH is a lot of fun given the powers and the special effects.

[SirBruce]

All there is at the moment is combat, and that's pretty poor for a MMOG.

I don't know if your comment is saying that having only combat is bad, or if the combat itself is bad.  If it's the latter, I'll have to disagree with you.  COH combat is rather fun.

I meant the former.

Bruce

[daveNYC]

All there is at the moment is combat, and that's pretty poor for a MMOG.

I don't know if your comment is saying that having only combat is bad, or if the combat itself is bad.  If it's the latter, I'll have to disagree with you.  COH combat is rather fun.

I meant the former.

Bruce

Once I win the lottery I'll have the Cryptic people get together with Teppy and his crew.  And while I'm at it, I'll have Lord British run the whole show.

[Kyper]

I've given up finding fun in online "worlds".  I want gaming goodness when I sit down to waste several hours of my time, not a lesson interplantary commodities mining and trading.

[Miscreant]

I don't want the concept of virtual worlds to be lost...

Say you were a lazy Cryptic dev who just wants players to stay interested.  You want easily playtestable additions to CoH that build on the city's strengths without endangering the core fun.  Given this constraint, what are the best ways to make Paragon City more a world?

[Joe]

Off the top of my head, I'd say make a police force that actually does something. Let them compete with heroes to get criminals off the streets, and depending on player activity/acceptance, let the Mayor of Paragon City initiate action for or against heroes depending on how much crime THEY stop, rather than the police. Then you'd be able to have corrupt cops, too, which would open up the world/game (I hate this distinction with a passion) to another, slightly more realistic mission/story arc.

Additionally, NPCs in general would be a lot more fun if they did things other than get mugged and tell you what time it is. Letting them fight back against the muggers, or commit vandilism, or even team up with the bad guys for whatever reason could make things seem a bit more "real" (that's what "world" means, right?).

Letting players damage the buildings at the cost of influence would be fun, too. It adds some accountability to the player's actions, and makes misses/area effects a lot more interesting. Repair crew NPCs could come out after the fight (make it once nightly or something - I don't know), and assess damage in terms of influence.

This is just armchair shit, and I'm not sure what the engine can do in these regards.

[geldonyetich]

Excellent writeup HaemishM.  I'd have replied sooner but prior to now I had not managed to acquire the focus to read entirely through the article.

To throw in a comment of my own in regards to what your talking about (which, to summarize, is the viability and potential niftiness that well simulated true Virtual Worlds have to offer) one little point I want to make:

Even if we had a very, very, very realistic Virtual World, it would still be virtual.   And players would still be playing it to have fun.

Consider the consiquences of that:

Many players out there are going to say, "What, you want me to to follow the virtual rules and work towards building a virtual society?  Hell no, I'm here to unwind.   Burn it all down - that's my idea of fun!"   We call these players griefers, but in the grand scheme of things they're legitimate players that simply choose to unwind by venting their pent up emotions in what they find a safe, virtual environment.

I can guarentee there's going to be a very high ratio of players simply won't take a virtual world seriously, no matter how well simulated it is.   That's because these players will remember, first and foremost, that virtual worlds are just that: Virtual.    That's their appeal - you can screw around in a virtual world and suffer very little real life consiquence for it.   That's a large part of what makes pretend fun.   If we wanted the Real World, we just have to turn off our computer.

So when I see games like City of Heroes or Guild Wars use instancing, or other "true" virtual world conflciting features, in order to make the game itself better, I say:   "Good! You developers are not deluding yourselves.  You know why people are here - to have fun and unwind."    In other words, I applaud anyone who realizes that realism needs to take a back seat to quality gameplay.

But that's just me.  Maybe you'd rather play house online.   Fine, be a stickler for playing a realistic simulation over a well balanced game.   However, I'll point out, most people will find my way more fun.    Why do you think most of us are steering clear of SWG right now?

I like the idea of building a MMORPG up around the activity of Swashbuckling Adventure.    This allows us to vent those pent up emotions of chaos in an appropriate scheme.    Heroes, not just heroes in City of Heroes but heroes like Indianna Jones or Luke Skywalker, well those Heros break a lot of things.   Smash!   Good, lets put that in a MMORPG in such a way you have the freedom to do that all you like without burning the whole shinoly down.    

Star Wars Galaxies wants players to instead vent their productive side online.    Listen mac, after 8 hours at the office, I'm productivitied out.    Give me something I can do to unwind!    Let me saw the legs off some banthas or blow up a Star Destroyer or something.    City of Heroes, now we're talking, lets knock some villian's heads together.

[geldonyetich]

To comment a bit on a few of the replies on this thread...

I think it was Raph who was telling me that he doesn't really buy into the world/game distinction. Not denying that it exists, but simply noting that if you create a "world", you can always put fit the "game" into it -- but you can't do the reverse. I'm not sure that's true, either, but I think it's a terminology problem... obviously you can make a game into a world by adding world elements to it, which is the same way you add game elements to a world. So I don't really think there's an issue here.

Sure, you know Raph.   I've a lot of respect for him, but judging by his handiwork, his school of philosophy is the "virtual world" approach all the way.    Just as I differ in my opinion that I do not enjoy SWG, I differ on my opinion as to how to put together a game.

"World" or "Game"?  It's really a matter of prioritizing.   I can see Raph's point that add an activity (game) in an environment (world) is logically more possible than creating an environment and putting into into an activity.    An environment is a container, an activity is not.    See how that logic works?

However, if you shift your perspective a bit, you can look at it more in the light of how you're going to assemble the program.    You can choose to prioritizing first designing a game and then keep in mind that you have this world as the backdrop.   Conversely, you can prioritize creating a virtual world that has some game-like elements added here and there.    It's clear to me that SWG took the later road, and I don't like the result.  

It's the difference between deciding to look at the design from the outside in or looking at it from the inside out.  

The problem is: the players play it from the inside out, not the outside in.

I'm strong on pointing out there's a great importance in player interaction that many MMORPGs miss.   They seem to think it's okay to assemble a treadmill and make all matters of success or failure in the game depend entirely on your characters stats that, in turn, are based entirely on how much time you invested in the game.   Whammo: We've got a catass-tastic abortion of a game that nobody in their right mind would enjoy.    The games flop, and the developers knock their heads against walls yelling, "WHHYYYY?!"

That'd not have happened if they listened to me first.   People play games to play games.    If your game plays them, instead of allowing them to play the game, you're in trouble.   But inventing an new activity on the spot that's genuinely fun for most people to do for a prolonged period of time is HARD.

CoH is not a mmorpg since massive is severely limited by instancing. If anything CoH is a matchmaker service for a game of instanced dungeon crawls with graphical “city” lobby.

The thing that annoys me about this is you might as well point out a man on the street and say, "That's a man".   Then, reacting to my unsurprised expression, point out a lamp post and say, "Also, that is a lamp post."

My point?  MMORPG, ORPG, CRPG.  What differences does it make?    They're all games that you play on your computer.    They all waste time in exchange for entertaining you.   Do you really think it is all that important to distinguish the difference between them that you will bring it up whenever?

Why would you pay monthly fee for that when Diablo2 did it years ago and free of monthly fees?

Actually, to retract a bit, let me talk about your point of initial classification importance strictly on the level of justification of financial expendicture on behalf of the player.

CoH actually does have several zones in which 150+ players are running around in it fighting bad guys.  So the Diablo 2 comparison simply does not pan out.    While Everquest may tolerate more players per zone, in general there won't be more than 150 in each zone anyway.    As for instancing, instanced missions have been around since Anarchy Online.   Justification for not having to pay subscription to CoH when you would EQ invalid: Try again.

Now, if you were talking Guild Wars or Phantasy Star Online, I could see you have a point here.    They do have the 3D lobbies in which no action takes place and instanced places were the fights actually happen.    ALL action takes placed in these instanced locations, and behind the scenes I suspect one player is actually hosting the game.   How could they justify having a subscription based system?    Oh wait, Guild Wars and Phantasy Star Online don't have a subscription based system.

Overall, it seems to me that the developers are not taking us for a ride.   They know what does and does not qualify as a subscription-requiring game better than some players, it would seem, and are playing their cards the way they are because it's the right thing to do.   Stop being so paranoid (, or else stop trying to weasal out of subscriptions via half-baked justifications).   (Well okay, you did stop, seeing how this post I'm replying to is 5 days old.)

<skips, among other ones, 6 messages where other people are cleaning Sinij's clock for the same reason>

Off the top of my head, I'd say make a police force that actually does something. Let them compete with heroes to get criminals off the streets, and depending on player activity/acceptance, let the Mayor of Paragon City initiate action for or against heroes depending on how much crime THEY stop, rather than the police. Then you'd be able to have corrupt cops, too, which would open up the world/game (I hate this distinction with a passion) to another, slightly more realistic mission/story arc.

It'd definately make for a more interesting, living, breathing world.

Like I was saying in my previous message though, most players would rather have fun by any means neccessary.    Take a look at the policing attempts back in Ultima Online.   Griefers outnumbered the more responsible players so much that things dissolved into utter chaos.    

Interestingly enough, this utter chaos was remembered by many as being the most fun Ultima Online ever was.   Perhaps it was at that.   However, the thing is, the actual social-economic structure of the game *could not handle* giving players that much freedom.

My thoughts?  Design it like a game, not a virtual world.   This is because there's going to be many, many players who are playing it like a game, because that's exactly what it's supposed to be.   So what do we do when we want to make a fun game?   Put in a bunch of largely artificial barriers whose purpose is to both enforce fair play between the conflicting players and to stop the entire virtual culture from crumbling down.

Emmersion is the casualty, of course.   However, with a little tricky plot-winding, you can usually minimalize the damage.    Instancing?  No!  Inter-dimensional special effects make it clear that these are seperate planes of existance.    Limiting each side in the PvP conflict to 8 players?   The security systems of this modern space ship only allow for that many to get in - sorry, it's the best hackers can do in this day in each.    You can't gank that miner and steal all his hard work - what's with that?  Virtue Shields, Lord British is using them to protect craftsmen, you attack one within one of his protected areas and they're instantly teleported to a  town of their chosing, and the patrolling guards are given your description.   Ect - these barriers stop the virtual society from crumbling while still allowing some level of emmersive gameplay to take place.   These are just some cruddy ideas I generated on the fly, if you've a good development team with some powerful brains working for you, you can come up with far better ones.

City of Villians should be interesting along the lines.   While players aren't allowed to be cops, it will at least get the basic "good players versus evil players" battle lines drawn.   Because the developers recognize the need to design CoH as a game first and a virtual world as a much lesser priority, there's going to be liberal use of instancing to keep fights nice and even.   Guild Wars E3 has shown this approach can work, and work well.   (Guild Wars E3 also shows there will be much bitching about PvP balance.)

(I hope you guys over at Themis are taking notes.  I'm only handing you all the answers you should be telling MMORPG developers here ;))

[Hanzii]

All superheroes in the comics would do everything they could to stop muggings and citizens being accosted and crime on the street. Whereas in CoH, I often will not stop a mugging if I'm either going to a mission, or the criminals are too high for me to defeat, or too low for me to gain experience and influence from.

http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20040613

Funnily enough, I still stop and kick lowlevel butt, when I hear a cry for help... it just feels wrong to run on.
... on the other hand I shoot off like a frightened kitten when the mugger is purple, so my superhero is somewhat less super.

[SirBruce]

Yes, the cries of help which I ignore have bothered me enough at times that I wished the game dynamically filtered-out cries of help that were more the, say, 3 levels lower than you are.

Bruce

[HaemishM]

Many players out there are going to say, "What, you want me to to follow the virtual rules and work towards building a virtual society?  Hell no, I'm here to unwind.   Burn it all down - that's my idea of fun!"   We call these players griefers, but in the grand scheme of things they're legitimate players that simply choose to unwind by venting their pent up emotions in what they find a safe, virtual environment.

And I think, putting aside any value judgements on those players, isn't that why we ALL are supposed to be playing games? To get away from it all and enjoy ourselves?

Which seems completely counter to the entire "achiever" mentality, but that's the mentality that rules the MMOG industry.

Consider the concept of a game that allowed you to live in a monogamous relationship, and then sent all these different NPC's to tempt you, and allowed you to have "virtual" sex with an NPC, cheating on your in-game relationship. Is it cheating on your real world relationship? Is it an activity that you'd want to allow in the game "world" considering the consequences such a thing might bring about?

Granted, that's not quite as easy a concept to get across as "you can kill other players, do you?" but it's similar. In a game meant to be stress relief, meant to be fun, how much of the real do you want to be saddled with? The line is different for everyone, just like the line between fun and unfun.

[MrHat]

Consider the concept of a game that allowed you to live in a monogamous relationship, and then sent all these different NPC's to tempt you, and allowed you to have "virtual" sex with an NPC, cheating on your in-game relationship. Is it cheating on your real world relationship? Is it an activity that you'd want to allow in the game "world" considering the consequences such a thing might bring about?

Oh Jesus, I hope there aren't any dev's reading because that's the kind of talk that gets made into a game.  I'm pretty sure it would work and would put a dev team on the 'controversial edge' of video game development.

Maybe you could have situations where you go on business trips with that hottie from marketing, and as you drink more and more on your business outing, she graphically gets enhanced...  Brilliant!

Edit: Because Grammer killed my sister.

[Heresiarch]

Who are the developers? Ultimately it's producers, beancounters, and suits at EA, Microsoft, Sony, and NCSoft that are making these games. The grunt developers aren't given the option of trying to convince us that there is a virtual world there. SWG is the only example I can think of where one person was given a lot of control over the direction of a product, and I stayed the hell away from that pile.

Let me be clear: I think most of the grunt developers have more of a clue about making a good game than the suits do.

Yet as an MMO developer, I see few of my coworkers talented enough to build a good game in a fun world. Most MMO devs are caught up in teh shiny, in one way or another. By way of example, I looked at WC2 and thought that the only way to make that game better was to add more units, more buildings, more upgrades. As Gulstaff would say, "MORE MORE MORE". It's like looking at chess and saying "this game is boring, it needs more pieces, and a bigger board, and four players instead of two." Kohan taught me that wasn't the case. Games are fun because the rules are interesting. I think WC3 threw too many rules in, and the result is a complex, disorganized mess that, as a result, manages to emphasize one particular aspect of gameplay (micromanagement) over all others. Make your game too big, and it will get away from you. The only way to fix this is to trim the game down.

"I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal. Maybe designers lack the talent, or the desire, or the backing of management.

Players come in many colors. Some like to explore new rules; once they learn a set, they want to move on. Others like to explore the intricacy of a ruleset and gain mastery of it. Possibly the first group sucks at rules, and so avoids mastery because they have learned (through constant failure) to stop trying, or they have a short attention span. Maybe the latter group is suffering from OCD. With regard to WC2, WC3, and Kohan, I appear to fall into the latter, obsessive group. Oh well. I think I'm right, and those other people are just wrong. That's where I started when I wrote the foregoing, but now I think it's just a case of different segments of the audience. Some people like to explore new rules, some people like to master existing rules. (I think this is the new-map vs old-map-again debate in FPS communities.) So let me leave this point and move on.

From a game-theoretical point of view, MMO combat is a simple model. Move points in one bar to another bar. Move mana into health, reduce my bar and his at the same time, spend time to decrease his bar, spend time to increase my bar, pause his actions, etc. It's just time and bars. Get rid of the animations and graphics and you have a text MUD. Get rid of the creature names and you have a puzzle game. The world is important because it enhances immersion. I feel more the hero when I've got an avatar in front of me, doing his goofy idle animation. Worlds provide flavor.

I think immersion should be the primary goal of the world part of the world/game dichotomy. To the extent that immersion is a goal, "world" is its implementation. NOTHING MORE.

Humans have a desire to make order out of the chaos around them. Some people do this obsessively; sometimes that obsession becomes a clinical disease. Personally, I just like arranging my desk just so. Sometimes--and here's the interesting bit--designers like to build things that are nice and symmetrical and balanced and round and even. "Look, isn't it perfect?" I've seen this among many MMO designers; they want to put balance into the system, to build a sense of aesthetic beauty into their systems.

But I don't think that's what most players want. I'm not talking about making art pretty; I'm talking about whether the game systems (from a game-theoretic point of view) have an internal sense of balance. If a player can easily make a mental model out of a system, it becomes boring. If you don't have to think about what you are doing, you have time to think about how you're not thinking. That's what boring is. Lineage 2 had a trivial combat model, and as a result playing through the first 20 levels was mind-fuckingly boring. I think EQ and SWG get grindy when the complexity falls away and you are left staring at what's left of the game. The game feels boring because you don't have to think about it. Spend too much time running from town to town, grinding the same mob, using the same skills, whatever--and the lustre will fall away.

Put things just out of kilter and it becomes intriguing. Create an interesting, complex system and keep your players amused for endless hours as they try to learn it. CoH combat is like that; combat is fun. Pleasure exists in the many interconnected ways of ordering combat actions.

I think many of the "world" trappings creeping into games are some designer's overblown sense of beauty creeping into the game. Dark and Light and the original Horizons struck me as masturbatory designer fantasies. Do these designers understand the effect that 'world' has on players, or are they missing the boat?

Almost no-one I've ever talked to in the game industry has a sense of player motivations. Just talking about killers and socializers doesn't mean that you understand psychology. And I mean understanding here, not knowledge. Why does a killer do what he does? Why does an achiever feel loss if someone is a higher level than him? What drives these players? If you want to appeal to an achiever, you don't just stick levels in your game. Life is more complex than that. Lineage 2 might amuse an achiever for a while, but there is a lot of missing potential there.

To chase that potential, a game designer needs a practical, working understanding of player psychology. In the original article, Haemish mentions that he (as a young lad) didn't think about the effect an assassin's guild and PvP would have on its victims. That's the designer's entire job. Not only should the designer look at that, but he needs to know (or think) to look there in the first place.

And so I end where I began: 99% of the people with control over game design lack that understanding; 99% of the people with that understanding lack that control.

-

My apologies for the length of this post. I lack the desire to make it shorter.

[Scorus]

So, is it possible to get the kind of 'world' that you and your buddies first dreamed about? A world full of non-griefing role-players, content (instanced and not), and fun, fun, fun?

Could a game costing $30/month that promised enough content to keep you happy for a long time, enforced rp, and had enough overseers to squash griefers like the vermin they are make it? Would enough people be willing to pay that amount of money for a clean, fun, rp game? Would that be enough money to actually create that much fun and original content? Would it be expensive enough to scare off enough lowlifes so that those that sneak through could be easily squashed? Could the massive amount of content be as bug-free as one would expect from a premium, high-end product?

And I love instanced content. I loved it in AO, I love it in CoH.

Scorus

[HaemishM]

So, is it possible to get the kind of 'world' that you and your buddies first dreamed about? A world full of non-griefing role-players, content (instanced and not), and fun, fun, fun?

Only in a niche title not run by pigfuckers. MMOG's are going to eventually go more "boutique" as bandwidth goes down and broadband penetration goes up. They are going to have to figure out how to make good, high quality games that are profitable with less than 50k subscribers.

So, no, not for quite a while.

[Raph]

A couple of things--

1) Nobody ever gets the level of control that Heresiarch seems to think I had. There's no "director's cut" in the game industry. Don't forget that making these is absolutely a team activity, and the fact that you happen to know some of the team's names and not others doesn't necessarily mean that the contributions of those people is necessarily all-controlling. Having my name more visible means mostly that I get to take the blame for what goes wrong--credit for what goes well, you try to share.

2) I'm not anti-game at all. Games are good, games are cool.  As a player, what I want is a game that has all the depth of a world. Haemish says that it's a different of what point you design from, the inside out or the outside in, and I think that's a very good analogy. What I was saying to SirBruce is that once you make some decisions from the inside out, you preclude huge swaths of possible design choices. CoH is a very good game that will have a devil of a time implementing a player economy, should they ever want to. They may not ever want to, but they made some choices that make it very hard to do so. Not technically impossible, but very hard to the point where it may be pragmatically infeasible.

I always resist calling MMOs "games" because it's better to regard them as environments within which games can exist (such as a combat-and-phat-lawt game, but also other parallel or intertwined games, or even something as simple as an embedded checkers or puzzle game). That does not take anything at all away from the required quality or fun factor of the games you embed.

[Big Gulp]

That does not take anything at all away from the required quality or fun factor of the games you embed.

The problem, though, is that the more you widen the scope of what you want to create, the more you dilute the quality of the "games", because your available resources will always be finite.  This just comes down to whether you want a more comprehensive universe to run your toon around in, or if you'd rather developers focus like a laser on one area and do it as slickly as possible.

After years of developers thinking of themselves as "world makers" I'm flat out sick of it.  Give me the studio that focuses on making a game, please, because frankly a true virtual world is just never going to happen.  The entire notion of duplicating the complexities of the real world (at least in my lifetime) is Quixotic, so please, just entertain me.

It's like being forced to watch some avant garde, black & white, French movie when all you really want to do is go down to the carnival and watch the dancing bear.  We need more dancing bears, not artistes.

[Raph]

That does not take anything at all away from the required quality or fun factor of the games you embed.

The problem, though, is that the more you widen the scope of what you want to create, the more you dilute the quality of the "games", because your available resources will always be finite.

Yes, that is very true. I think it is a highly valid question for the entire industry (makers and consumers alike) as to whether the scope of what we can create at a high quality bar and the scope of what the market wants match up.

After years of developers thinking of themselves as "world makers" I'm flat out sick of it.  Give me the studio that focuses on making a game, please, because frankly a true virtual world is just never going to happen.  The entire notion of duplicating the complexities of the real world (at least in my lifetime) is Quixotic, so please, just entertain me.

I don't know of anyone who is trying to duplicate all the complexities of the real world. Not even close, actually. You're either overestimating the complexity of the game systems, or underestimating that of the world, I'm unsure which. ;)

Are there really that many developers thinking of themselves as "world makers" as you put it? By my lights, it sure seems to be a minority--a pretty significant minority, at that.

It's like being forced to watch some avant garde, black & white, French movie when all you really want to do is go down to the carnival and watch the dancing bear.  We need more dancing bears, not artistes.

Hmm, I'd argue that the games that most fit that description are maybe ATITD or Eve or Puzzle Pirates even. Aren't most of the games dancing bears, by your definition? Which ones are artistic statements, and which are mass entertainments? I'd love to see your breakdown.

In looking at the market, I'd assert that most of the MMOs are intended as mass entertainments first, and artistic statements as a distant second.

[Big Gulp]

Are there really that many developers thinking of themselves as "world makers" as you put it? By my lights, it sure seems to be a minority--a pretty significant minority, at that.

Not completely, not by any means.  However, most MMOGs have dabbled into stuff that I would consider "world building"; housing, crafting, etc.  You've definitely raised the bar in that regard...  C'mon, man, at some point there was someone on your team responsible for ensuring that if the recipe called for it, you could milk some giant Star Wars lizard monster.  

That said, though, most every time some little "side game" like crafting, whatever, is introduced into these games they're almost always implemented poorly.  I'll definitely fess up to my CoH fanboiness, because it seems to me that whenever they tried to implement an idea that either wasn't that well thought out or couldn't be implemented well, they scrapped it.  I believe that that's probably the right way to go about it.  It seems to me that too many developers will throw their little "sub-game" in, even if it isn't very good, just because it adds to the overall content.  I just can't believe that that's the right way to go about it.

[Raph]

Some of that sort of thing is done in the name of appealing to a larger audience. Most ordinary people are not turned on by the idea of fighting baddies while in tights. This is not to say that it isn't cool or fun, because we all know it is. But it doesn't play in Peoria.

For a contrasting view on whether or not appealing to a larger audience even makes sense, you can check out Dave Rickey's latest column:

http://www.skotos.net/articles/engines21.phtml

Some of it is done in order to round out a larger system (e.g., I don't think anyone was actually aiming to have a milking simulation--rather, they were aiming to have a crafting track for cooking, and milking ended up being not only a logical necessity, but worse, one that got forgotten and that players rightfully bitched needed to be added).

Now, both those cases taken as given, yes, often innovations are done poorly the first time. Sometimes they turn out to be things that will become part of the accepted minimum feature set for games (crafting, housing) and sometimes, they don't go anywhere. Most often, they fall in between, as is the case with say, dancing or musicianship, which aren't anywhere near realizing their potential, but which are also one of the thigns that most make genre newcomers (and women, especially) get excited about the game. Neither AO nor SWG has fully managed to deliver on dancing, but I still think that eventually, it's going to become something very cool.

Now, yes, you could leave it out, but then no progress will be made on it. Or we could try the dancing-only game--but if it's a feature like dancing that is unlikely to sustain a game all by itself, that's not likely to happen either.

So what way IS there to try out something new like that?