False Economies

[Raph]

So, Darniaq, the question will become what happens when you add more skill into the mix, and people find that they cannot cut it. I think MMOs look very different when the average player cannot level past the midpoint of the advancement ladder, for example.

Is that the right way to go? I don't know. I appreciate the value of having greater skill, and certainly we've educated the current MMOG audience to the point where greater skill levels need to be demanded by the game systems.

At the same time, I no longer play RTSes because they're just too complicated for me. The minimum skill level has gone up.

So how do we manage that problem as we increase the amount of skill needed to succeed even in PvE?

[stray]

So, to clarify, you don’t want your playstyle hindered by having to buy things off crafters, but you do want to be able to hinder the playstyle of crafters by killing them and taking their ore?

Sure. If it was a pure player economy, why not? Since they're able to grief me, I should be allowed to supply a little grief back their way too. Nothing about the "economy", especially a capitalist one, tells me it should be a utopia, with one set of rules to advance by. If the simulation of everything from corporations to coffee shops is going to be implemented, it's only fair and realistic to also make room for the Henry Hills of the world.

That's irrelevant though. I never advocated a pure player economy in an open pvp system. Being rewarded for defeating players who want to play the same game as me is good enough.

[Venkman]

I think MMOs look very different when the average player cannot level past the midpoint of the advancement ladder, for example

I am the average player. Skills alone don't keep me in a game. FPSes are just as niche as pure stats-based RPGs. Both are decidedly unfriendly to casual players, which is why I feel this convergence of both is ushering in the future of MMOGs.

However, players want to be more than just the sum total of their stats. Skills can help this. Combat Styles in DAoC, specials in SWG, CoH's and SB's fast combat rounds, all of these contribute realtime decision-making to a stats-based system, making the games more involving for the players on a moment-by-moment basis.

The system can grow as they already do: more options. More positional combat styles, more active and reactive powers, more ways to recognize and exploit vulnerabilities and more ways to customize the dispensing of power, smarter mob AI. Additionally, I'd wager heavily that players would have more fun fighting other players will skills than with spreadsheets.

I don't see an all-or-nothing approach being anything but niche. Being "just" an RPG or "just" an FPS, RTS or Sim game means the target market is solidly defined. Better to offer balance to ensure the game doesn't end up focusing on one playstyle too much.

Jump to Lightspeed is going to attempt just that it seems. If players don't like it, instead of them shying away from a skills-based game, they're free to shy away from a part of the game in which they find fun elsewhere already.

And all of this exists outside of the parameters of the economy, which means any control system can feed well into it.

[Raph]

Ah, OK. The "both present in the world" or even "many different mixtures of skill and stats present in the world" makes far more sense to me than what I thought you were saying, which sounded like "add more and more skill until the stats are choked out." I agree with you.

[Dundee]

And don’t pout.

And don't pout?

[AOFanboi]

Looking at economics with an historical eye somewhat slanted by patriotism, the Free Market systems seem to stand alone as the only systems that work;

Is that patriotic as in U.S.A.? In that case, plz wake up to the reality that the U.S. is very protectionist in international trade. It slaps import tariffs on goods based on the "flavor-of-the-month" lobby group or voter segment. Its membership in the WTO seems more to be used for sabotage of world trade while it makes self-serving bilateral agreements with poor countries. Did I mention the free-trade-violating use of subsidies yet?

Internally, between the member states, there is perhaps free trade. But certainly not on a global scale: There is a large difference between what your Government says and what it does.

[destro]

Dundee wrote:

And don't pout?

You were sounding a little put out at thinking I was of the opinion that you can't run an economy. So I mentioned that, on the contrary, it's rather a good economy.

[Sky]

I am the average player.

*cough*

I have to call bullshit. Don't make me call shenanigans.

You really don't want my thoughts on the thread beyond this, trust me. But claiming you are the average player is like me claiming I am. Preposterous.

[Dark Vengeance]

So, to clarify, you don’t want your playstyle hindered by having to buy things off crafters, but you do want to be able to hinder the playstyle of crafters by killing them and taking their ore?

Yeah. Players want to get rid of things that hinder their playstyle, and they don't care a whole hell of a lot about other players.

The non-PvP crowd wants to hinder the PvP playstyle, because that makes it easier and more enjoyable for them to hunt, craft, socialize, roleplay, etc. People are largely driven by self-interest. Amazing how that works, isn't it?

By the way, I'd just like to add that the sky is blue, the earth is round, and fire is hot. Let me know when we're done pointing out the obvious here, kthx.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Venkman]

You really don't want my thoughts on the thread beyond this, trust me. But claiming you are the average player is like me claiming I am. Preposterous.

Sky, without bringing our year-long disagreement into this, nor going into the most fundamental differences between our playstyles, I consider myself the average player as defined by Raph's statement here:

I think MMOs look very different when the average player cannot level past the midpoint of the advancement ladder, for example.

I editted the original verbosity out of my reply to that, but since you asked, I'll include it:

I don't stick around in a boring XP grind just for the purposes of seeing what new foozle I can get around the next corner. I don't care. I know how to beat EQ, DAoC and so on. The games are not that complex. They just require a dedication I don't feel like making, partly because that dedication is predicated in time I don't feel like spending. The compulsion to achieve has never forced me to stay in games I don't enjoy. And I reserve the exclusive right to define "enjoy" however the hell I want, since it's different for everyone anyway, and different per game (What does the average SWG enjoy about SWG? What does the average EQ player enjoy about EQ?)

Since that's what I thought Raph meant, then I am the average (MMOG) player.

In general though, "Average (MMOG) player" and "Average gamer" are mutually exclusive. I am not an average gamer, mostly by virtue of being a longtime MMOG fanboi at all. These aren't deep or complex games but they require compulsions very different than single or free-multiplayer games. That's the biggest problem I have with the monthly fee PS and CoH want from me. I want to pop in and out of them for a month every three months, but I can only do that if I line up my monthly fees to ensure I'm paying only one at a time. That wouldn't be a problem if I was single and living alone. But that hasn't been the case in half a decade and hopefully won't be ever again.

So I'm forced to make financial decisions about fun. I'm used to that. I'm not going to become an amateur photographer or a car collector either. I don't have the money. And part of that financial decision is based on "is this fun right now"? That is something the average player considers regardless of the genre. It's just that MMOGs require them to think more deeply about an ongoing commitment.

[Sky]

You've levelled past the midpoint many times over in SWG, and I recall you had a high level bard in EQ. Soo...huh? Just because a few other games haven't captured your nebulous attention (:)), it doesn't change the fact that given an environment you enjoy, you will level beyond the midpoint of the advancement scheme.

I don't have any illusions that I'm not an average player, in fact, I should be totally ignored by developers because my ideas run counter to what is apparently popular in mmog gaming. All I'm saying is you should realize that you are not an average player, either. Average players (and yeah, I'm talking mmogs, not gaming in general) don't write long opinion pieces about the state of the genre, they don't pontificate over the virtual economies. They camp the motherloving foozle and ding.

Me? I don't want to be Elfstar anymore.

[HaemishM]

None of us on this board are "average players." The minute we started crusing message boards and thinking as much about the design of the MMOG systems as we did about the playing of the games themselves, we left the "average player" behind.

The average players don't read message boards, don't sift through spoiler sites, and quit the game with no fanfare whatsoever.

[Raph]

I meant literally "when the average player cannot level past the midpoint because the game gets too hard and starts demanding above-average to exceptional skill."

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Looking at economics with an historical eye somewhat slanted by patriotism, the Free Market systems seem to stand alone as the only systems that work;

Is that patriotic as in U.S.A.? In that case, plz wake up to the reality that the U.S. is very protectionist in international trade. It slaps import tariffs on goods based on the "flavor-of-the-month" lobby group or voter segment. Its membership in the WTO seems more to be used for sabotage of world trade while it makes self-serving bilateral agreements with poor countries. Did I mention the free-trade-violating use of subsidies yet?

Internally, between the member states, there is perhaps free trade. But certainly not on a global scale: There is a large difference between what your Government says and what it does.

you're the guy with the giant yellow protest/parade float, aren't you.

[Fargull]

I meant literally "when the average player cannot level past the midpoint because the game gets too hard and starts demanding above-average to exceptional skill."

I like this sentence, but it also raises a good question.

Fun in a game generally involves a challenge.  Right now the challenge of most MMORPG's is time.  Time does not equal fun in my book.  'The Average Player', I would hazard to guess also thinks time does not equal fun.  What is challenging now?  Why have I not found a MMORPG that requires puzzle work, jumping skill, multiple routes to achieve a goal that does equate to challenge = time investment.  Most quests in MMORPG's are dumb, they are a grad 'D' movie dumb, and most if not all just involve time investment to complete.

[Dark Vengeance]

The average players don't read message boards, don't sift through spoiler sites, and quit the game with no fanfare whatsoever.

Don't confuse "average" with "casual". I think lots of "average players" probably hit stratics looking for information. Though, I agree that most of them don't spend time on the boards, and certainly don't post.

By the same token, this community has always been a bit different (dare I say more sophisticated?) than the stratics crowd.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

[ajax34i]

But that's the thing, the average player WILL get past the midpoint, eventually, somehow, with help.

You're talking about, for example, if healing in EQ required IQ way above and beyond what's required now, due to perhaps clerics and other healing classes having many super-specialized spells, instead of the general purpose CH.  So that at any moment, it would take 1-5 seconds to DECIDE which damn spell to use.

In that case I'd guess that the average player bent on playing a healer would either:  level slowly and carefully by soloing, get powerlevelled, or read up on all the possible strategies and formulate a simplistic algorithm (if ogre then CH, if elf then SH, etc).

The problem is that it's difficult to tune "difficulty" after release, because the devs have to alter core gameplay (make formulas more complex, add a slew of spells and take others out, etc.).  Think about trying to make EQ more complex for the clerics:  they'd end up totally changing their spell lineup.

So you either guess the target demographic's "difficulty" rating, and hit it spot on, or you don't take the chance and design an "easy" game.

[Venkman]

You've levelled past the midpoint many times over in SWG, and I recall you had a high level bard in EQ. Soo...huh?

Leveling in SWG is not leveling in EQ, as you well know. My Bard hit 47 (second highest was a 25 Druid) in the same amount of time it took me to achieve three completely different templates in SWG (about 8 months). That's only a comparison I make now, but it's just based on a core truth (for me): templates and levels are not primary motivators. Oh I've gotten sucked into the grind like everyone else, but I do it only as long as my patience lasts, not until "the end". It's little wonder I've only hit the end game in UO and SWG. The power curves are way shallower (though SB R5 is a joke and DAoC have integrated some good content for folks who can /level to 20).

I'm not saying this to invent any sort of validation to my earlier point. Raph summed it up yet again:

I meant literally "when the average player cannot level past the midpoint because the game gets too hard and starts demanding above-average to exceptional skill."

That works for most games. For MMOGs I'd just add "and starts demanding above-average motivation to complete a goal within a repetitious system simply because that goal is there".

I'm just a hobbiest. I get way into these things but unlike model building, I don't begin to enjoy it when I'm "done". There is no "done" in MMOGs. There is just staying ahead of the next nerf :)

[Sky]

I meant literally "when the average player cannot level past the midpoint because the game gets too hard and starts demanding above-average to exceptional skill."

As noted, I've not seen much of a challenge ramp going up levels in various games, I don't consider any mmog to be 'difficult'. The timesink is what always gets me, because inevitably at some point my mind does the math...and I realize I have to kill 1250 more of these dumb orcs to ding and get my stupid new ability. I guess I'm not an achiever.

So that makes me above average? My EQ necro made it to lvl 54, but I stopped not because the game was hard, but because it was painfully punitive. One death set me back a literal month's worth of experience (lvl 1-51 took a year, lvl 51-54 took another year). I logged off and haven't looked back since, but not because the game was in any way difficult, quite the opposite, most of it was sitting around regenerating mana.

Can we get some examples of games that get too hard to level past the midpoint? I'm not sure I understand your point.

[Venkman]

It's in the definition of "hard" :)

[AOFanboi]

you're the guy with the giant yellow protest/parade float, aren't you.

No, just a fan of a true free market - the kind that does not exist but is a nice dream.

Getting back on track: Crafting in medieval times was IIRC heavily controlled by guilds (read: not at all a free market). These both controlled who could practice, how many crafters should be per region - even prices. Mass manufacturing (industrialism) killed the guilds' power, and brought at least a freer market. But it's the guild power that's of interest for fantasy MMOGs.

Would it be an interesting gameplay feature if crafting was limited to those players accepted by said guilds (the guilds being player-run organizations), and crafting skills were tied directly to membership in such a guild? With price fixing and guild wars for all.

Food for thought, that's all.

[HaemishM]

I meant literally "when the average player cannot level past the midpoint because the game gets too hard and starts demanding above-average to exceptional skill."

And I understand you were trying to say that adding player skill in a game will lead to this problem quoted above. As has been said before, We ain't there yet, and there is a LONG goddamn way off. Because MMOG's do not challenge players, they challenge patience. EVERY SINGLE ONE, and I'm including COH in that. CoH just happens to be the best at IMO, challenging player skill, without implementing PVP that is.

I look at MMOG's lately as the kind of ill-fated socialistic (yes, Marxist) attempts at world creation. Everyone starts equal, with no personal ownership involved. No man is greater than any other man (or woman).

Ain't it funny how the first things most players strive for in MMOG's is some measure of power or prestige to place him above his fellow man? Whether that be more money, better items, or higher levels of personal power or political power, ain't it funny how feudal style guilds and hierarchical power structures develop almost organically?

There's a lesson in there.

[Raph]

Actually, I think we HAVE seen examples of it. Among them, I would include Puzzle Pirates, Planetside, WW2O, Air Warrior, Second Life, and There.

[HaemishM]

Actually, I think we HAVE seen examples of it. Among them, I would include Puzzle Pirates, Planetside, WW2O, Air Warrior, Second Life, and There.

Trumped by games I would never play for TEH WIN.

[Venkman]

But they are emerging concepts that appeal to gamers disinterested in what has so far been proven to be financially viable pursuits. At worst, they'll have core followings that keep them niche. At best though, their best features will be ripped off for inclusion in games with some actual marketable equity behind them.

Like, Planetside battlefields in SWG perhaps :)

[CmdrSlack]

What works about CoH is that the level of skill v. numbers is pretty well-done.  Even with the numbers game to your advantage, not knowing how to most effectively use powers will result in an untimely trip to the hospital.

Having not levelled a toon past lv 22ish, I can't speak for the time investment to be expected in the higher levels, but I'm guessing it will be somewhere shy of EQ, but still time-involved.  And that's the key to lots of these games, spending time.  It has nothing to do with actual difficulty, just artificial difficulty created by slower xp curves.  

SWG does an interesting job of having eleventybillion xp types, which makes the skill gain seem less painful, yet time is still a huge factor.  

In both games, I can see where enjoyment of the game world, any community aspects, and the underlying mechanics is going to be what retains players who may achieve the "end game" status at some point.

While I found SWG's economy compelling, it became a job.  I rather like the CoH "economy" (for lack of a better word).  I'll be in a zone running around and see someone selling an enhancer I'd like.  If the price is right, perhaps I'll buy it.  Could you graft an economy similar to that of SWG onto a game like CoH?  Sure.  You could have crafting of devices and such for technology and natural origin characters. You could have similar crafting of mutation and science origin chemical processes and genetic modifications.  Magic origins could create focus items and whatnot.  All of these things could be sold to other players who choose not to spend their time crafting.  

But what would be the overall point?  

You would still end up with those who love to craft and those who loved to craft until it became a job.  

It would be really interesting to see what you could do with some kind of players hiring players structure/crafting guild structure like mentioned earlier.  Yes, you'd have the big guy vs. the little guy -- so someone would have to be a bottom, most likely without the courtesy of a reach-around.

But what about general strike?  Or organized labor?  I guess if you want to see economies progress beyond a feudal system, you need to give the have-nots certain in-game tools/mechanics to force the hand of the haves.  Industrial sabotage, haymarket riots, luddites, etc.  "We are the city, we can shut it down!" and whatnot.  Don't like the fact that Bigass Cartel_00 is keeping you down?  Destroy their main production facility.

It would certainly take a lot of player skill to pull off, albeit non-combat related (at least mostly).  The only problem is that no matter how involved you make them, game economies are entirely closed systems.  There's really no ROOM for revolutionary change based on the game code.  Even if you had your SWG version of the Wobblies or whatever, I don't think game tech is advanced enough to then truly change how the economy works.  You end up with the previous have-nots teaming up against the haves, then fighting it out with each other for control once they're free of the yoke of the former "oppressor."

Meh, I shouldn't post past the 10 consecutive studying hours mark.

[geldonyetich]

So, Darniaq, the question will become what happens when you add more skill into the mix, and people find that they cannot cut it. I think MMOs look very different when the average player cannot level past the midpoint of the advancement ladder, for example.

Is that the right way to go? I don't know. I appreciate the value of having greater skill, and certainly we've educated the current MMOG audience to the point where greater skill levels need to be demanded by the game systems.

Yes, I know this was addressed to Darniaq but I wanted to butt in on the grounds that I was hinting at this at the bottom of page 1.

From what Raph's saying here, it is indeed a bit of a stumper: On one hand, people who feel they're no good at something are prone to get discouraged and find something else to do.  On the other hand, people should be encouraged to practice and get better.  

Boom: Can't trust people to play a game with skill requirements, can't properly reward people to play a game without.

Had a brainstorm.  Let me introduce a couple more ideas that could potentially sway this:

1. The treadmill holds less meaning if persistance becomes a neccessary requirement for any kind of advancement as opposed to persistance resulting in improvement on behalf of the player who is then rewarded.

i.e. Would you rather know that you've become a Black Belt at Karate because you're actually that good, or would you rather know that you've become a Black Belt in Karate simply because you've spent a required 2000 hours in the gym?    

The former causes the Black Belt to be a mark of personal achievement on your part.   The later causes the Black Belt to be a mark of time investment on your part.   In the later example, there's far less sense of achievement and even less reason to stick around and try to achieve it in the first place.

So what I'm basically saying here is that people would whine less about your treadmill if they felt it was worthwhile, and player skill requirements are one way in which it could be made so.

2. If the activity is adequettely fun, most people would do it regardless of if they are good at it or not.

This is a no brainer, right?   There's lots of folks who like to dance, play instruments, write fiction, and even play games (electronic or otherwise) without expectation that they'll ever make a major career out of it.  

In a game implemention, I again point mostly on the conceptual GUI interaction layer of things.     The outer design is important, and will fish in the intellectuals, but isn't capable of bringing the same kinds of hands on fun to a player who doesn't know what they're getting themselves into.

To put it another way, in order for this to work, the fun needs to be within the act itself, not it's consiquences.

[Venkman]

(ways to kill CoH)

Personally, while grafting an Eve/SWG like economy on CoH may be fun to contemplate, I can think of no better way to completely gut what the game is really supposed to be. Fun, frenetic, heroic.

I would rather CoH took a look at power customizations on simply a personal level. Quest/achievement based ways to personalize how your powers work versus how other's work. Sort of an Enhancements system on steroids, one where how your power actually WORKS can change, what it LOOKS like can change, what it's EFFECTIVE against can change.

Conversely, I'd like to see SWG's combat mechanic replaced with CoH's. Average the HAM bars between health and mana, and average the statistical outputs from all variables in weapon and armors down to the second decimal place so that the stats junkies can still get their 0.01% improvement for the night.

[daveNYC]

(ways to kill CoH)

Personally, while grafting an Eve/SWG like economy on CoH may be fun to contemplate, I can think of no better way to completely gut what the game is really supposed to be. Fun, frenetic, heroic.

Comic books don't have economies, except as plot devices (Peter Parker needs rent money).

Figure out what your core gameplay is going to be, if you need an economy for that gameplay to happen than include one.  If you don't, don't.

[HRose]

So, Darniaq, the question will become what happens when you add more skill into the mix, and people find that they cannot cut it. I think MMOs look very different when the average player cannot level past the midpoint of the advancement ladder, for example.

Is that the right way to go? I don't know. I appreciate the value of having greater skill, and certainly we've educated the current MMOG audience to the point where greater skill levels need to be demanded by the game systems.

At the same time, I no longer play RTSes because they're just too complicated for me. The minimum skill level has gone up.

This is a strict gameplay discussion and I think very near to the insanely long thread over at Corp where we discussed the "fun" in games from a theoretical point of view. In another thread over at Q23 we discussed about combat simulators like Falcon and the question was if it's better the absolutely complex and realistic simulator with 500+ pages manual or one tweaked to have just what's is required to give an impression of realism, wiping every possible system that isn't directly involved in a fun gameplay.

Aside the design choice I think we agreed that the way to go was not about dumbing down the game to make it more accessible to who isn't an hardcore fanboy. The way to go depends on the newbie experience. You need to build the game so that it will lead you by hand, slowly, through a long learning process that MUST be accessible to everyone but where, at the end, you are able to *reach* the competence of every else hardcore fan. That's the point. If you achieve that you'll be able to offer a very deep game but where the accesibility isn't a PROBLEM, but it is a STRENGTH. Because during the "tutorial" not only you'll offer to everyone the tools to enjoy the game but you'll also offer already the fun. Because half the fun is exactly about *learning*.

My simple rules about the "fun" in games are:
+ We have fun when we are able to learn.
+ We are frustrated when the learning process is hard or forbidden.
+ We are bored when the learning process is missing.

I think all the gameplay in a game must consider those rules. The problem of a game too simple is that it doesn't offer anything to learn. The problem of a game too hard is that it produces frustration because the learning process is hindered. Too hard.

The key isn't about making easy and bland games, but to study them so that they offer you the tools to improve without hitting a wall.

In a FPS both the hardware and the reflex/coordination *are* walls. Those games are more compelling when it comes to have quick fun but an RPG can exploit different elements as a strength. The game could be more relaxed so that it achieves more strategical depth and also relying less on the hardware (in RPGs lag and framerates are less a factor).

When it comes to an economy the reasoning doesn't change. Building the game so that only a limited few will learn how to "exploit" the system to be successful is depreciable in my opinion. I always hate when a game is built so that some will succeed when all the others not only will but *must* suck. The system is good when everyone not only has the tools to go up, but you need also to teach how to improve. To drive the players throughout the system.

Someone falling behind is a warning, you have to go back and see why it happened and adjust things to fix the problem. Without dumbing down the game nor its ambition.

[Margalis]

I missed out of the first parts of this thread, so it's time for me to disagree with a variety of positions.

Dude, niche? Across all games as a whole, it's probably more popular than all the forms of combat combined.
....
That playstyle is also the playstyle of games from The Sims to the Tycoon games to Civ. It's spreadsheets-as-gaming, as opposed to action gaming. It's not a small portion of the market, not by a long shot, and it tends to be a more female and mainstream audience.

This is a terrible, terrible analogy. This is akin to saying that all MMORPGs really need jumping, because jumping is a huge part of gaming. You can't take a really vague statement like "jumping is popular" and then say "so our game *needs* jumping." Similarly, you can't say "spreadsheet gaming is popular, therefore we need spreadsheets."

If you narrow down even slightly, to say, multiplayer games, suddenly spreadsheet games get a lot less popular. Quick, name a primarily multiplayer spreadsheet game...I can't name ONE. Making the Sims itself online didn't even work!

Does your puzzle game or RPG need jumping? Does your card game need jumping? Probably not.

If you examine spreadsheet games further (as in, for more than say 10 seconds), you might notice some characteristics about them or the people who play them. You can play them at your own pace. By yourself. You have great control over the situations. You are GOD. There is a very large space of possible "solutions."

Compare that to an MMORPG. You can't play them at your own pace or by yourself. You have little control over anything. You are the opposite of God. There is usually a very small space of immediately obvious optimal solutions.

IMO, a lot of what people look for in single-player "spreadsheet games" is exactly the opposite of what MMORPGs provide. A lot of spreadsheet games are called "God games." How does that mesh with a MMORPG? It doesn't.

It's fine and dandy to say spreadsheet games are popular. The next step is examining why, not just then concluding "and so...we need spreadsheets!"

----

About adding skill to the mix: MMORPGs take basically zero skill. It's funny that people would fret over it. GTA takes more skill. Super Mario 3 takes more skill. Pac-Man takes more skill. Street Fighter takes more skill. Yes, if you require very high amounts of skill, you may lose people. But if ANY genre has the most room for error there it HAS to be MMORPGs. On a scale of 1 to 10, the average MMORPG takes 1 skill. Moving it up to 2 or 3 isn't the end of the world.

What happens if players don't have the skill to make it to the top? Well, what happens if they don't have the TIME? This is the old "50% of people are below average readers." MOST people CAN'T make it to the top, by definition. (Unless your "top" is very generous) You would just be replacing one limiting factor with another. Personally, I would rather suck at a game because I'm an idiot or uncoordinated, rather than because I didn't have the time to kill 5000 rats.

Why is anyone even talking about this? Adding more skill to MMORPGs could only be a good thing at this point, because they are at the very extremes of no skill territory. Can anyone name another genre that takes less overall skill? (Other than the "Kriss Kross make your own music video" genre)

"I appreciate the value of having greater skill..." Was this supposed to say "any" skill? Seriously.

Super Mario 3 is 100x harder than a MMORPG. That didn't stop it.

Can anyone here name any MMORPG that was too hard, skill-wise? It seems that other people agree. How is this a concern at all?

"So, Darniaq, the question will become what happens when you add more skill into the mix, and people find that they cannot cut it."

If you add SOME more skill to the mix, maybe *5* people on earth won't be able to cut it. If you add a LOT of skill to the mix, you lose some people, and replace them with people who prefer challenge to obstacles. Difficulty is a challenge; time is an obstacle. The people you lose go watch TV...
----

Back to my original point...although combat in MMORPGs could use more skill, crafting is REALLY where that need stands out. I would imagine crafting appeals to people who are thoughtful, introspective, creative, open to experimentation, etc. They would want a large solution space that they could navigate with creativity and brainpower.

At least in that I think SWG had the right idea, but even so I haven't run across any crafting systems that don't reduce to a highly stratified tiering of recipes VERY quickly. The gun you make is EXACTLY the same as the gun 10000x other people can make.

AC tried to do their spell creation stuff to address this a bit. It didn't work very well, because they ignored a fundamental tenet of game design: once one person knows something, everyone knows something. (Welcome to the internet) But they had the right idea. What if to craft stuff you had to, you know, DO something, and maybe even figure something out?

[CmdrSlack]

(ways to kill CoH)

Personally, while grafting an Eve/SWG like economy on CoH may be fun to contemplate, I can think of no better way to completely gut what the game is really supposed to be. Fun, frenetic, heroic.

I would rather CoH took a look at power customizations on simply a personal level. Quest/achievement based ways to personalize how your powers work versus how other's work. Sort of an Enhancements system on steroids, one where how your power actually WORKS can change, what it LOOKS like can change, what it's EFFECTIVE against can change.

Conversely, I'd like to see SWG's combat mechanic replaced with CoH's. Average the HAM bars between health and mana, and average the statistical outputs from all variables in weapon and armors down to the second decimal place so that the stats junkies can still get their 0.01% improvement for the night.

Oh, I don't want to see crafting in CoH, I was just saying I guess it COULD be possible.  I like it the simple way it is.  Casually buying enhancements from other players is enough, thanks.  

Glad that you also think it would make the game hugely suck.  No need to craft, that's all in the enhancements anyway.  All of the "things you could craft" were basically the same idea as the current enhancement system.  Cept you can't craft them.  And that's good.  

I'd much rather see someone make this ultra-immersive, hard as hell to make economy where a steampunk game could have the labor disputes and class stratification and whatnot.  If EQ necros could gather up enough people to do a "sit in" more than once, players can gather up enough people to create the equivalent of a general strike.  Sure, it won't be fun for anyone, but it'd be nifty.  You could add some boobs.

[Venkman]

I'd much rather see someone make this ultra-immersive, hard as hell to make economy where a steampunk game could have the labor disputes and class stratification and whatnot. If EQ necros could gather up enough people...

Hehe. SWG, UO, Eve and ATITD are all systems in which general strikes, riots, proletariat and all of that stuff could happen. As with all of history though, you need a leader, and that leader must be believable and loud enough to gather and keep the masses together.

People are fickle. We've all had turns at trying to lead, and the biggest problems are focus and complacency. Since these games ultimately don't matter for anyone who doesn't want them to matter, players are free to simply walk away, or log on to another server, to wait until the dust settles.

Can anyone name another genre that takes less overall skill?

I think you're over-condemning MMORPGs. Yes, time is more rewarded than skill, but every single game has areas that do require player skill. Players need to make actual decisions during combat in a quick amount of time. As much as I like to rail on RPG PvP outside of SB, most PvP does require player skill. Combatants are not both hitting auto-attack and watching. They're making real-time decisions on top of the number swapping.

RPG PvP is more abstract, yes, because what you bring to the fight is at least as important as the decisions you make during it. In turn, that abstractness rewards time more than skill because most RPG PvP is the end result of a great deal of build up (levels, equipment, farming resources, etc).

The best example I can think of is City of Villains. I have no idea what we'll be playing when it launches, but at E3 that was near-FPS in skill requirements. SB comes very close to that as well. I imagine DAoC does too, but even my addicted bro-in-law spends 90% of his time prepping for battle rather than fighting in one.

[CmdrSlack]

[quote="Darniaq]Hehe. SWG, UO, Eve and ATITD are all systems in which general strikes, riots, proletariat and all of that stuff could happen. As with all of history though, you need a leader, and that leader must be believable and loud enough to gather and keep the masses together.
[/quote]

Very true.  I guess what I'm looking for is the ability to actually destroy the industrial centers, etc.  I mean if you're gonna go beyond a feudal economy, let's have some class war just for fun.

[Mordechai]

I look at MMOG's lately as the kind of ill-fated socialistic (yes, Marxist) attempts at world creation. Everyone starts equal, with no personal ownership involved. No man is greater than any other man (or woman).

That comes down to the fact that no player's money is greater than any other player's money. The game designers, whose point of view is strongly affected by their need to buy groceries, want to make sure that all of the players hand over their money on a regular basis. The first step in doing this is to provide the same set of starting conditions for each player. The outcome might look like an experiment in socialism, but the reasons for it are solidly capitalistic.

Would you buy a single-player console game if you knew that for your $49.95 the box would randomly contain either a game with 10 options and 200 levels, or a game with 2 options and 15 levels? Would anyone? Players want the difference in advancement in the game to be due to their own input, whether that be skill, time, or whatever the game demands, not a random set of starting conditions that gives their opponents an advantage over them.

Ain't it funny how the first things most players strive for in MMOG's is some measure of power or prestige to place him above his fellow man?

It's a game. That's how we keep score. But we want -- we demand -- to know that everyone is starting with a score of 0, rather than some people starting at 0, other people staring at 500, and some other people getting twice the points for the same action as we do.

Excessive realism in games is a bad idea.

Take the pseudo-medieval background of the "classic" RPG, whether paper or computer. In the real world, 99% of us would be peasants or serfs, enduring a life that features hard work, short rations, and disease. Of course, nobody wants to play a starving peasant, so that part of "realism" gets thrown out the door. Instead, we all take on the roles of essentially modern people dropped into a medieval society, without any of the constraints which confined even members of the upper class. The "realism" is just scenery. Realism there would make for a not-fun game.

The same is true, by necessity, of any element of gameplay which leads to a minority of the players having most of the fun while the rest of them endure something which is frustrating or tedious, especially if it is visibly to the benefit of that minority. In real life, you're stuck with the starting parameters you were born with. But you can always just quit playing a game that's not fun and either play a competing game or go watch TV.

While a wealthy clique in control of the game's resources, politics, etc., is the natural development of society, it's also poison to the profitability of the game. Most people are lazy, and in particular they don't want to work in their leisure time. Players who aren't members of the dominating clique will look at the amount of effort needed to join or compete with them, a position which seems to be required in order to have the maximum fun, compare it to going to play EQ instead, and take the path of least resistance: out the door.

Permadeath is an example of why realism can be bad. *watches opened can of worms erupt in a squirming mass* People say "well, players can accept the idea of losing a game" -- but that's not what permadeath is, in conceptual terms. In the context of a MMOG, the "game" is a single incident: a raid, a keep take, a crafting session, whatever. The individual character equates more to a player's long-term record. Imagine an online RTS game where, if you ever lose a game, your name gets completely wiped from the ladder. You don't have a win/loss record, you don't even have a high score record of 11 wins before the final loss, it's like you never played at all. Permadeath removes the rewards for competing because the eventual loss of a single game that erases your whole record is inevitable.

We can talk all we like about MMOGs as grand social experiments, but the bottom line is that they're a way of inducing us to transfer money from our pockets to the owners' pockets. How successful a game is at that, and only at that, makes all the difference in whether poor abused Raph heads for the steak cooler or the mac & cheese shelf when he walks into the grocery store. Even the free MUDs are driven by a form of market conditions, because their users are still budgeting a limited commodity: time. If they're not having fun, they'll go somewhere that they are.

This stuff isn't reality. It isn't a simulation of reality. It's a game where some of the fun comes from mimicing certain aspects of reality. That makes all the difference in the world.