MMORPGs - The Downsides of PvP Design [Archive]

Sharpe

08-03-2002, 01:31 PM

So I recently tried DAOC again, after having left the game back in January due to a combination of a new job and boredom with levelling. My return turned out to be a vast disapointment: it feels like the game is a ghost town, and the same complaints that existed in January are (mostly) still in force. But what really struck me is that new problems have cropped up, very serious ones, stemming from the game's focus on PvP. Unless the Shrouded Isles Expansion gives DAOC a huge boost, I could see DAOC getting hit VERY hard by competition from SWG.

After the succes of a PvP switch in EQ and the decided popular preference for the non-PvP world in UO (Trammel?), it seemed like the market had spoken and PvP in MMORPGs would be a secondary choice, with PvE the main focus. But the whole next wave of MMORPGs (DAOC, Shadowbane, AO, SWG [at least initially] ) had PvP as a focus during design. This has been discussed and it seems like designers focus on PvP for two reasons:

First, most of the designers seem to have a committment to PvP based on ideas about role playing, ideas about the necessity of conflict, the fact that they are mostly hardcore gaming types, and MUD experience. The designers are not a micro-cosm of the market, IMO the designers are out of touch with the market on this issue.

Second, if PvP can be made to work it can provide a great source of "repeatable" content for gamers without sucking thousands of designer-hours to produce new content. Especially if the hardest core players can be drawn off to fight each other (and keep each other amused), the content of a game can be made to last MUCH longer. Since there is really no way that designers can keep up with gamers' infinitely voracious appetite for content, it seems like PvP can be a godsend to provide some "free" self-generating content.

So for those reasons, DAOC had PvP as a major component of its design. And having seen it in action for about a year now (since beta 3) there are a number of downsides, costs and negative consequences to PvP designer. Here are a few:

1)PvP requires truly exquisite class balancing. One of the sharpest blows my group of friends took in DAOC was when they reached RvR levels and found that some of the classes they LOVED to play in PvE sucked rocks and were essentially useless in PvP. We started in Albion and a lot of folks played Armsmen, Paladins and Friars only to feel like complete idiots when they hit RvR b/c during the initial RvR battles they felt completely worthless. We lost about 2/3 of our guild that way and never really recovered. Pretty much every group of friends I talked to in DAOC had similar problems: the skills needed in RvR were different than PvE and even a slight class imbalance could cripple a player, given the fierce RvR competition.

2)PvP requires intense realm/faction/etc balancing. I don't think I've ever checked the DAOC main dev board without seeing a serious, well written and extremely frustrated rant about Realm balance. Of course web boards are a poor source but our remnant guild gave up on Albion in December due to Midgard being overpowered. There are similar stories. When Mythic then tried to fix things by nerfing Midgard, a chain reaction occurred that results in Midgard being the weakest (and least played) realm. During the spring, Albion was considered overpowered and now Hibernia is considered dominating.

Both points one and two rest on the idea that for players to voluntarily indulge in PvP they absolutely REQUIRE the feeling that they have at least a chance to win based on their skill as a player. When players begin to feel that their class/realm/guild has no worthwhile chance to win, they won't bother. This is a basic weakness of all PvP. Most players vs AI have win ratios of 90% or better. Vs humans, the win ratio will be 50% on average so people are always going to feel they are not winning "enough", except for the elite few who happen to have the skill (or class/realm/guild advantage) to win a lot. When people don't win enough to feel like they are having fun, they look for excuses. Whether valid or not (and certainly much of the class/realm whining in DAOC WAS valid, although some was not), this leads to deep frustration with the game and causes people to quit RvR. This may be an unavoidalble, basic game-theory type problem for all PvP designs in MMORPGs. (FPS and RTS games avoid this problem b/c of the much lower time investment - people are much less sensitive to loss ratios in those genres for a variety of reasons.)

This leads to problem 3:

3)PvP requires stable server populations and relatively equal levels of player power and player participation in the opposing factions. This the problem hitting DAOC hard now. Many servers are dominated by one realm, or some servers have "ghost" realms that can never win a battle. The rich got richer over time: the realms with the organized high level players to win battles over time gained power in the form of relics, realm ranks, and realm abilities so that now the victors are near invincible. Additionally the losers frequently get disgusted and quit: nobody pays $13 a month to be somebody's chump, no matter what John Romero thinks :). This is the most serious long term problem, and IMO the most insoluable. How do you MAKE people play for the losing side?

4)PvP requires compromises in other areas of game design that can be painful or annoying. In DAOC, they refused to enable zone-wide chat b/c they did not want to allow mass-coordination of RvR without guilds and alliances. This means that for average players without access to large guilds or alliances, the communication options are very limited, and the newbie and lower level zones can often seem silent, barren and boring, with no chatter. Also, to avoid people using kamikaze tactics in RvR, the initial bind points kept away from RvR areas, necessitating long and boring runs after dying in RvR or in the frontier. Also, I believe one reason DAOC does not have better travel options is to prevent people from responding overly quickly to RvR.

5)PvP requires adjustment to abilities that may work great and be fun in PvE but suck rocks in RvR. DAOC stumbled badly with the way it handled crowd control and stealth in RvR. Crowd control worked GREAT in PvE, leading to exciting multi-pull battles with lots of tactical options, but crowd control is probably the biggest number one hated aspect of RvR. NOBODY likes to stand around mezzed/stunned or rooted while the other blows us away. Being unable to resist in one of the most un-fun experiences I have ever had. Also, Stealth was somewhat weak in PvE but WAY overpowered in RvR (initially). In order to make a more balanced RvR game, DAOC should have severely limited both stealth and crowd control early on. Problem is, that would have crippled several popular classes, and would have required a complete re-design of large chunks of PvE.

I guess my bottom line is that if DAOC had put the effort that they put into RvR into PvE they could have had a much better game. On the other hand, if they wanted a PvE game, then they needed to approach the design differently from the word go. And even if they went pure PvP, I think there are very serious issues about server populations, participationg levels, and winner/loser mentality that will plague all PvP games.

I am looking with interest at the Shadowbane launch. You won't catch me playing it on a bet, but I anticipate vast amusement at the debacles that are sure to occurr. I predict right now that class balance, faction balance, server balance, server domination & collapse, along with griefing, and plain old anti-social behavior will be HUGE issues. Even if SB cures the traditional ills of PvP (griefing, newbie predation and anti-social behavior), I believe that balance issues, most especially keeping the losers on the playing field, will be crippling.

Dan

Jason Becker

08-03-2002, 06:03 PM

Anonymous

08-03-2002, 06:42 PM

PvP is very balanced in CounterStrike; I don't see why this can't be done in a MMMROROPGG.

Xaroc

08-03-2002, 06:52 PM

"PvP requires truly exquisite class balancing. One of the sharpest blows my group of friends took in DAOC was when they reached RvR levels and found that some of the classes they LOVED to play in PvE sucked rocks and were essentially useless in PvP."

DAOC is a team PvP game. Not every class is meant to be equal to every other class 1v1. Camalots PvP is fantasy based Team Fortress style not deathmatch. Just like in PvE some classes are designed for support not direct combat.

Yeah but his analysis is spot on. I played an Armsman up to level 47 and a Minstrel to level 50 and it is just not even close how much better Minstrels are than Armsmen in RvR in groups or not. About the only thing better about the Armsman was the crossbow for keep defense. Being able to plunk bolts into the invading hoards was pretty cool.

The Paladin and Friar and warrior types from other realms with no ranged attack and no speed are screwed in RvR. The big things to have in RvR are mesmerize, range, speed, and stealth (at least it used to be important). Those classes have none of these. Paladins are complete gimps no range and weak melee don't make a good combo. Friars will kick the crap out of you if they can get within melee range. Armsmen can do some damage at close range, more than a paladin and have crossbows but the range and speed on those is poor so it is really not much use other than in keep defense.

The typical RvR fight for a tank type goes like this. You see the enemy, you start towards them because you aren't going to do anything to them where you are standing. You are AE mezzed and are stuck in place while the minstrel has sped to the outside or gone stealth and the casters are standing in the back hurling ice and fire at the enemy assuming they haven't been mezzed too. Chances are you are going to die to a caster before you even get a swing in or stand around doing nothing the entire fight if your side wins.

A minstrel can use stealth, mez out of stealth, use speed to track down runners, use instant damage shouts from a distance, and use an instant stun to stop people from running in the first place. And compared with sword and shield Paladins Minstrels can do almost as much damage meleewise.

The game is unbalanced and not just at the class level, from what I hear from my wife the Hibs run roughshod over everyone now. They have more mezzers and more PBAOE casters (takes a good 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of Albs to Hibs to take a defended Hib keep whereas they can take one of ours with a 2 to 1 ratio) and generally better classes overall. Mid on our server overall was bad off because they lacked the overall numbers when their biggest guild left. Still despite nerfs if an evenly matched group of Albs and Mids met the Mids would win most of the time due to better crowd control. According to my wife the Mids have finally gotten more people leveled and are a force to be reckoned with on our server. I would probably rank Hib first overall with Mid and Alb next maybe close maybe not. Alb suffers from having more classes than the other two realms so the abilities are dilluted across them. The few decent classes Alb did have (Minstrel, Cleric, and Scout) have been nerfed so badly it was hard to put up a decent fight when I quit playing.

If you are still reading sorry for the long post, I had to vent and agree with Sharpe.

-- Xaroc

mtkafka

08-03-2002, 07:02 PM

Yeah, kinda pisses me off how DAoC has left everything EVERYTHING to PvP and its still unbalanced most towards stunning and range attacks and ultra fast melee kills...

All they had to do was do some content additions... but they haven't released anything but that dark dungeon which really is a mid to high level dungeon.

One thing I loved about EQ (and AC) was that there was always places to explore. In DAoC you can literally see most of the game (of your realm) within a couple weeks.

That next expansion MUST be as big as Kunark was to EQ. If not, the game is forever dead to me. A shame because DAoC is a good game overall.

etc

Mark Asher

08-03-2002, 07:46 PM

Dr Fear

08-03-2002, 08:04 PM

Both points one and two rest on the idea that for players to voluntarily indulge in PvP they absolutely REQUIRE the feeling that they have at least a chance to win based on their skill as a player.

You mean their skill as a character. To have player skill you need to have a way to use your reflexes. This is a point that wumpus made.

This is the most serious long term problem, and IMO the most insoluable. How do you MAKE people play for the losing side?

Come to their house and hold a gun to their heads. If you are going to make a game for people to live a alternate life you have to make it like real life, where sometimes people say they will kill you if you do not do what they say.

PvP requires adjustment to abilities that may work great and be fun in PvE but suck rocks in RvR.

I still do not understand why things have to be exactly the same when fighting monsters as when fighting players. Why balance the whole thing together? Have one archer table for PvE and another for PvE. Balance the things separately. Maybe have a new skill you get when you fight a real man.

Anonymous

08-03-2002, 09:07 PM

Oh I won't let that go. You don't need to have a a system that uses a players reflexes for there skill to impact the outcome of a battle. A decent tactical combat system would do. Allowing melee fighters a wide range of of skills to use in/before combat would help. As well as having more spells then root, mez, heal, buff, debuff, nuke.

Overall I"d say most people don't like or want pk so the wise choice for designers would be not to focus so much on it. Of course I love it so I"m not complaining.

mtkafka

08-03-2002, 11:47 PM

The lack of collision detection combined with the sleep spells makes melee classes unimportant in RvR. They get mezzed and the attackers run right through them to gank the casters.

Speed, stealth, and long-range damage classes rule in RvR.

Melee are neccesary on raids on keeps... which is pretty much most of the 'important' parts of rvr. when a mez or stun doesnt break through, a pure melee CAN go nuts on non melee classes... but you are right in the general rvr sense, the best are archers/stealth (b4 it was nerfed) and especially combined with stuns/mezzes and a fast moving party.

etc

Xaroc

08-04-2002, 03:33 AM

mtkafka

08-04-2002, 04:16 AM

Most of my experience with DAoC rvr was pre March... so maybe they nerfed melees? I've probably died most by some buff Thane then any other class in my DaoC days... not to say melee is THE class... but I think they had there needs moreso than the hybrid classes (which I played stupidly!). But I agree. DaoC is defintely stacked with the stun/range combo.

With DAoC, I wish they focused on more actual physical content. Theres still only 5 dungeons per realm and they are so small comapred to the dungeons in EQ and AC. And they are so generic. They need to hire some content people. EQ has this in spades. DAoC needs it badly. imo.

etc

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 08:27 AM

You can take a keep now without tanks because theurgs have siege spells that do sucky damage to doors.

Tanks can be effective, but there's a good chance they'll be mezzed and chopped up.

DAoC and others do require a certain amount of skill if you consider understanding your class capabilities and using them effectively to be a skill. A group of players who know their shit can take down higher cons who don't.

I'd like to see a twitch MMOG because I enjoy variety, but I suspect the current phased-based combat in MMOGs works much, much better than twitch combat would simply because it deals with latency much more effectively. There are no low ping bastards in DAoC and EQ.

A twitch MMOG would probably drive me from the game too because I'd end up losing most of the time and who wants to continue to do that?

Qenan

08-04-2002, 11:35 AM

I think Shadowbane and SWG will provide a test of the whole PvP thing -- if it doesn't work well for either of them, I suspect it will become hard to get financing for PvP games.

I agree that the fundamental problem is that no one plays to be someone else's chump, especially for the long term. PvP and persistent world/character development games may be a tough mix.

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 01:58 PM

Jason McCullough

08-04-2002, 02:08 PM

One guild, Conquest, leveled all their members from 1 to 50 in the first two weeks that Mordred was open.

Dear lord.

Sean Tudor

08-04-2002, 02:35 PM

What do these terms mean ?

Gank?
Tank?
RvR?

I know PvP is player versus player.

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 04:03 PM

"Gank" is a term for killing another player.

"Tank" refers to a warrior type who engages the enemy. He's basically a damage sponge.

"RvR" stands for realm vs. realm combat. In DAoC there are three realms, Hibernia (elves!), Midgard (vikings!) and Albion (arthurian knights!).

About Conquest, yes, it's hard to imagine how they could level so quickly, but they did. I think they had multiple groups working together and pulling massive numbers of mobs and getting all kinds of bonuses.

The uber guilds tend to be rather dickish, too. Some high level guild type told me last night I should worship him like a god. Like, I suppose, the god of dorks?

Sharpe

08-04-2002, 06:11 PM

Thanks for the summation of my point, Quenan: you said it cleaner and quicker than I did. My basic point is that I have formed the opinion, based on DAOC experience that there is a fundamental disconnect between a persistent world MMORPG (which could more properly be called persistent world character advancement games, b/c thats what the players DO) and PvP. There are a number of solid game theory reasons for this. Here's one example:

About a year, Mythic's CEO Mark Jacobs talked about why DAOC would not have a death penalty for RvR or looting in RvR. He made the point that penalizing RvR would lead to the people with poor loss ratios quitting. So only the high-kill ratio types would be left, leading to an ever-tightening spiral. As the competition level rises, the kill ratios drop so that at each cycle there is a set of "losers" who become discouraged and quit. Nobody wants to be somebody's chump, persistently; therefore you cannot build in penalties for losing. That reasoning is rock solid.

The problem is, DAOC went ahead and violated Mark Jacob's logic by introducing rewards for RvR. Rewards work just like death penalties but in reverse: instead of the weak becoming weaker, the strong become stronger. Look at Mark Asher's example of Conquest in Mordred: after they dominated the server like that, how many incoming people do you think will PAY to play as Conquest's bitches? I doubt very much that the 'Dreds get more players: I suspect that both have already hit their peaks and will slowly dwindle over time in the loss-ratio death spiral described by Mark Jacobs a year ago.

Bottom line is, in a persistent world game with serious time investment, NOBODY is going to pay for a long time to be a loser. Nobody. You cannot build a game design on that expecation and frankly I can't think of any good way to prevent the strong becoming stronger and weak quitting. RTS and FPS PvP games work fine b/c of the short time investment and the sense of "well you rocked me but JUST WAIT TIL NEXT GAME!". Since the next game of FPS/RTS will start with both players on an even field, there's a chance that a better strategy, better reflexes, better tactics, better timing, etc will give you a win in the second game. In an MMORPG, once you've been schooled, expect to be schooled yet again. Or better yet, do what a lot of people have been doing, quit :).

One other issue is character skill vs player skill. I agree with wumpus et al that player skill should be more important than character skill. However I disagree that player skill equals reflexes exclusively. Sure reflex-based gameplay is ONE form of player skill. But so is gameplay with strategic and tactical options, gameplay based on teamwork and coordination, etc. My ideal would be a game where player level is much less important than the strategic and tactical choices of the players, and where teamwork and coordination can overcome superior levels / superior numbers. That does not *require* reflex based gameplay: I believe a solid tactical system can reward skill without being twitch based.

As a slightly off-topic example, I prefer the skill exercised in playing Kohan to the skill exercised in playing WarCraft III. Both games require lots of skill to play well and a good player can overcome a poor player very rapidly in both. But the skill in WC is partly twitch based and partly hyperactivity based (ie the ability to switch attention instantly and constantly). In Kohan the skill is tactical and strategic: usiing the resources you have to field the most potent companies you can, using combined arms, flanking and retreats to win battles etc. Of course both WC3 and Kohan have flaws, but that *type* of skill based play is what I'd like to see more of in MMORPGs.

Dan

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 06:29 PM

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 06:33 PM

Anonymous

08-04-2002, 07:12 PM

One correction. Conquest is on Andred, not Mordred. My bad.

Here's how dominant Conquest is:

- they hold all six of the relics.
- they have over 4.5 million realm points. The next highest guild has 1.3 million RPs
- they have 16 of the top 25 individual realm point leaders, including eight of the top ten slots
- they hold all the top 25 RP leaders spots in a couple of other categories that deal with kills vs. being killed.

Eh, this is all just a function of them getting to level 50 before anyone else. Because there are no super-powerful relic guards on the PvP servers, all it takes to snatch the relics is a raid by 8 guys at some low-population time on the server, and it helps when you have the majority of the level 50s at the time. Once more people start getting to 50, this will all change, but you may be right that players won't stick around that long if one guild owns the whole show.

Anonymous

08-04-2002, 08:52 PM

Actually, I think that even in RTS and FPS games players who lose more often than they win will abandon those games. Sure, you can get better, but your opponents are probably getting better too.

It's true that your opponents are becoming more skilled but at least you still start every game on an even footing. Even though I invest minimal amounts of time playing FPS I can still play competively on most servers. I won't RoXoR, but I can get frags.

And my stats, er... skills from one FPS largely transfer over to others.

But my experience in MMORPG is the opposite. Without massive time investment to level up my character- something I have neither the time nor interest in doing, I am totally outclassed in those games. I just can't compete. There are no interesting monsters or quests to do and I certainly can't go head to head against most other players.

And it has little to do with skill--it's all about spending the time to make the little green bars on my character longer than the green bars on yours.

Bleah.

wumpus

08-04-2002, 09:11 PM

One other issue is character skill vs player skill. I agree with wumpus et al that player skill should be more important than character skill. However I disagree that player skill equals reflexes exclusively. Sure reflex-based gameplay is ONE form of player skill. But so is gameplay with strategic and tactical options, gameplay based on teamwork and coordination, etc. My ideal would be a game where player level is much less important than the strategic and tactical choices of the players, and where teamwork and coordination can overcome superior levels / superior numbers. That does not *require* reflex based gameplay: I believe a solid tactical system can reward skill without being twitch based.
I agree. I've never said it should be heavily reflex based, just partially. For example, Warcraft 3, which I've been playing a lot recently, strikes a fine balance. Building fast and micromanaging is important, but it's even more important to make good strategic decisions on where and how to deploy your forces.

The analogy (I think Rob?) used of "trimming a rapidly growing bush" used is a decent one. Or juggling. Sometimes, it's fun to throw a bunch of stuff in the air and see how well you can deal with them as they come at you.

wumpus

08-04-2002, 09:17 PM

"You cannot build a game design on that expecation and frankly I can't think of any good way to prevent the strong becoming stronger and weak quitting. RTS and FPS PvP games work fine b/c of the short time investment and the sense of "well you rocked me but JUST WAIT TIL NEXT GAME!"."

Actually, I think that even in RTS and FPS games players who lose more often than they win will abandon those games. Sure, you can get better, but your opponents are probably getting better too.
Not if the player matching system is doing its job. This is probably the single best new feature of Warcraft III. While it doesn't quite work out in practice the way I had hoped, it is head and shoulders above what anyone else is doing in either genre-- basically, nothing.

But the sky's the limit with this technique. For example, a counter-strike server could attempt to dynamically balance the teams based on the XP of the players that join up over time.

Or, let's imagine a world where counter-strike games are fired up on the fly like on b-net, rather than being static servers cycling through maps. As people fire up the game and click "find me a game", a nationwide "player pool" could be sifted through. At that point a game would spawn on a server somewhere (you'd have to take ping into account as well) where each side consists of all level 2 players.

Just some thoughts.

Dr Fear

08-04-2002, 10:40 PM

For example, a counter-strike server could attempt to dynamically balance the teams based on the XP of the players that join up over time.

Then you would have the real problem where XP would have to relate in a real way to ability. What if XP awarded did not accuartly reflect player ability? Maybe a player who had played a million games but only recieved 1 point per game would have an XP of one million? I can see how the whole thing would blow up in your face.

Mark Asher

08-04-2002, 11:02 PM

That's true about XP. In MMOGs, it's a factor of time played.

The secret to the PvE MMOGs is that everyone wins and no one loses. If you play, you advance. You can't say that about PvP games, including RTS and FPS genres.

Sean Tudor

08-05-2002, 04:24 AM

mtkafka

08-05-2002, 04:35 AM

hehe, its not far from reality with some of the inflated ego's I've seen on Veeshan when I used to play EQ. Seriously warped ego's. It was amusing actually!

King of Dorks :D

etc

Jack

08-05-2002, 07:15 AM

Hey, folks. Let me just toss this into the mix, but first, I have to state that I've played UO and EQ, but not DAoC. I'm not a PvP type; personally, I agree with the comments on this board, but I have to mention one thing -- just to be the Devil's advocate in this conversation. (Only because I enjoy a good debate).

MMORPGs, believe it or not, are contingent on some kind of role-playing aspect. During the design phase of something like DAoC or Shadowbane, you can bet the designers pull out their hair trying to balance the classes, but with XP, abilities that mimic most of the comic book superheroes, and huge variety of weapons, true balance is essentially impossible. Especially considering the ever-growing need for more classes, more abilities, more items, etc. The equation becomes too complex to resolve. MMORPG'ers are victims of their own desire for individuality.

What's the devs solution to this hair pulling? Team play. They throw it out there and state "Form your own guilds. Make your own laws. After all, folks, it's an MMORPG. Get out there and role-play!" The logic is mimicked after real life: No one in this world truly accomplishes anything grand on his/her own. Skills are too diverse for any one person to master them all.

So I speak for a demographic of devs out there who say, "You can't win all the battles alone. If you're too weak in ranged combat, then team up with someone who is."

As a person who can't stand PvP peanut butter in his MMORPG chocolate, I'm also speaking for myself when I say that maybe we are just asking too much. We all want to feel like individuals in real life -- to the point of where a goofy haircut or body piercing is supposed to mean something. A MMORPG is just a reflection of this. Unlike real life, in a MMORPG, we're asking for everyone to be individual, but equal. I'll submit that true balance is impossible, given the diversification we demand from MMORPGs.

Xaroc

08-05-2002, 07:20 AM

I was on Veeshan when Fires of Heaven basically controlled the high end game. They even went so far as to try and kill steal Nagafen (the biggest dragon at the time). A guy I knew in DAoC was a guide at the time and to stop FoH from getting the kill he killed the dragon himself so that they got nothing from it. He said he got in a bit of trouble for it but he thought it was worth it.

-- Xaroc

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 07:43 AM

The uber guilds tend to be rather dickish, too. Some high level guild type told me last night I should worship him like a god. Like, I suppose, the god of dorks?

LOL! I wonder what sort of people play in Conquest ? Kids with delusions of grandeur ?

I would assume it is difficult to join a uber-guild ? Is there a selection process ?

Yeah, some at least will evaluate you before they let you in. Some of the guilds actually generate real money via eBay sales of stuff, too, so there's cash at stake.

I've never been in a guild, but for a PvP server, they are the way to go.

Xaroc

08-05-2002, 07:48 AM

So I speak for a demographic of devs out there who say, "You can't win all the battles alone. If you're too weak in ranged combat, then team up with someone who is."

But the thing is if all you ever do is stand around mezzed and rarely get to hit anyone and when you do hit them the results are poor then your experience is not going to be a good one. Basically what the devs are saying at that point is "Team up with someone with useful skills because we can't figure out how to design yours correctly." People don't expect perfect balance but they do expect that their characters won't be a complete waste of time in the end game which is what many feel like in DAoC.

I'll submit that true balance is impossible, given the diversification we demand from MMORPGs.

I don't think people want perfect balance between classes. I think people just want their class at least not to completely suck. I mentioned Paladins before, they are a perfect example. They pretty much completely suck in RvR due to reasons I stated before. If they could get to the point where they could actually get into melee range more than 1 in 3 or 4 battles and hit with a little more authority than they do now then they would probably have a much better experience yet not be a class of choice. They would be viable but not preferred and I think the playerbase would be pretty happy with that.

I think the more difficult thing, at least for DAoC, is balance between sides. The way in which Mythic decided to dole out various important RvR skills among classes in each realm has caused major balance issues. One quick example is the Healer in Midgard has the best crowd control (AE mez and stun) in the game. To level you have to have healing, so by default Midgard has to have a decent number of healers. Contrast this with Albion where the best crowd controller is the Sorcerer which is not a neccessary member of most groups. So you end up with fewer Sorcerers therefore Albion ends up with less crowd control which is probably the biggest decider in most battles. These are the kinds of things Mythic did not take into consideration when balancing the sides and it is killing them now.

-- Xaroc

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 07:53 AM

DAoC is a bit unique because some classes work great in PvE and suck in RvR, such as tanks. It's not like Mythic didn't design them well enough to be good classes most of the time.

I think it's really the RvR that's not designed well. Despite it being a focus of the game, it feels thrown together.

Xaroc

08-05-2002, 08:03 AM

I think it's really the RvR that's not designed well. Despite it being a focus of the game, it feels thrown together.

I completely agree, the game could have used another 6 months of beta to sort out RvR issues.

-- Xaroc

Anonymous

08-05-2002, 08:25 AM

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents about some of the topics mentioned:

1. PvP. I think Mythic did a great job with splitting up PvE and PvP, so that one can choose which they prefer. Personally, having killed one hundred thousand or so AI monsters, I have no desire to ever PvE again. One can even to choose to participate in "realm wars," which are obstensibly PvP, in a largely PvE manner by taking keeps.

2. Content. I think there would never be enough content for an active player. So you can either stretch out the leveling to make it harder to get to content (like I have heard EQ does), or introduce PvP. Someone mentioned role playing, but my experience is that noone ever role plays. Bruce even wrote about how noone role played on the role playing server. Consequently, things like quests have zero interest for me. They could open ten new PvE zones and it would not excite me in the least: the mobs either come solo or in groups, they have fast spawn or slow, they have large or small aggro range, there are safe camp spots, etc. Same thing I have done a thousand times already. PvP, on the other hand, is different ever time.

3. Character viability in RvR. IMO everyone thinks their character sucks at PvP. Everyone is affected by sleep spells equally (with the exception of root). In fact, tanks have specific abilities to significantly reduce sleep spell duration that other classes don't have. The small guild I am in has a fair representation of tanks and they do quite well in RvR. They get about 1/3 of all kills (with casters getting the rest). That may seem like they are ineffective, but they also are much more durable. We normally have two casters (runies) in our group of 8, and one ususally dies within 5 seconds of any encounter. They are easy to spot and easy to kill. Every class has it's strengths and weaknesses, with tanks being no exception.

4. Balance. I think it is pointless to try to balance every class for 1-v-1 combat. It pushes all classes towards a generic design. What they need to do is insure that all classes are viable (class improvements have been going on since the game's inception), and that a "realm" can put together a group that is competitive against another realm. Someone crunched the numbers and found that up to patch 1.51, there was equal distribution of realm points across the 3 realms (I think it was Albion 34%, Midgard 33%, Hibernia 31%). Not a bad outcome if you think about it.

5. PvP server Andred. Once you get past the early levels and get into a guild, ganking really drops off. Unless your guild is a player-killer guild, you will be "neutral" with the vast majority of the other guilds, meaning they are off limits (and vice versa). I spent one evening soloing for at the entrance to the busiest dungeon (DF), and I did not get attacked for 2 hours, when Conquest come through and killed everyone. And Conquest won't be so much on top for long: their sucess is largely due to hitting 50 first. Many others will hit 50 over the next month and they will have a lot more competition.

Jessica

08-05-2002, 08:36 AM

I don't think PvP is for me. I've spent the last couple of weeks giving DAoC one last try on the new PvP server, Mordred. It certainly brings an excitement to the game knowing that you can be attacked at almost any time. I'm tired of being a victim, though. I've been killed too many times now where I had no chance at all to do anything -- so many battles come down to superior numbers or superior levels and, most importantly, who attacks first, that player skill has nothing to do with it.

For example, today I zoned into a dungeon and got attacked immediately by four players. I had no chance.

In PvE I "win" most of the time. In wide open PvP I'm reluctant to victimize other players so I lose most of the time because the battle is forced upon me, which means I'm usually attacked in such a way that the odds are stacked heavily against me.

The wide open PvP just crushes all but the most feverish players. The winners are the highly organized, highly competitive guilds, probably analagous to the top Quake clans. One guild, Conquest, leveled all their members from 1 to 50 in the first two weeks that Mordred was open. They were patrolling the entrance to Darkness Falls last night, killing other players at whim until they got bored and left.

I've been saying this since 1997, both privately and in print; until last year, most people just scoffed me. It is all because PvP "hasn't been done right yet." Right. Nonconsensual PvP simply breeds gangs of uber-characters who prey on the rest of the players as their victims. Character accountability means nothing; gankers could care less about the rules. That's what mules are for.

If they aren't very careful, Shadowbane risks ending up being one large gank-fest, with predictable results. I trust Raph Koster to have some solutions available to prevent this from happening in SWG or at least ameliorate the effects, but then, he has 5 years of direct experience to draw on.

Rob de los Reyes

08-05-2002, 09:23 AM

I think the Dragon Empires (DE) crew is attempting a few things to ameliorate the problems listed here. (Let me add the disclaimer that I'm not clear on all the details.) Some strike me as having a better chance at success than others, but it should be interesting to see.

Fights for towns in DE are to be scheduled events, as in from time/date x to time/date x, clans may contest for control of a town. From what I can tell, victory is determined not in a last man standing sort of way, but by some sort of point system. The idea is to avoid the DAoC problem of forcing everybody to run from far away to join a fight, since you need not "clear out" a town in order to take it over. It should also avoid the problem of hanging out in a frontier keep waiting for an attack that never comes (I did WAY too much of that in my DAoC days). The downside, of course, is that suddenly you have to schedule your real life around your gaming life, not the other way around.

The ganking issue is less clear. I think they're planning to make it so that any character can look high level, in an attempt to force people to think twice about ganking. That may work for a little while, but becomes meaningless once you know your character is at or near the top of the potential power chain (since you know everyone else has to be equal to or less powerful than you). They also have these guardian dragons who appear to have some kind of policing role against outlaws as well as a whole "role" for players dedicated to bounty hunting.

I'm not sure any of this will fully or even partially address the concerns of this thread. But maybe. At a minimum, I think I'm willing not to pronounce nonconsensual PvP dead-on-arrival. And that's despite the fact that I'm incredibly leery of nonconsensual PvP (one the reasons I was enamored of DAoC in the first). Like others, though, I think we'll have our answer next year.

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 09:36 AM

Jessica

08-05-2002, 11:31 AM

"If they aren't very careful, Shadowbane risks ending up being one large gank-fest, with predictable results."

What gets me about SB is that the whole game seems aimed at the tiniest niche in the MMOG market -- PvPers. Seems like a recipe for low sales. I can't imagine it breaking 100,000 subscribers. Even holding onto 50,000 might be tough.

Remember, the only reason that PvP is such a small part of the market is that no has 'done it right' yet. Probably for the same reason that we have wars in real life; no one has done peace right yet. Part of it comes from people looking at Diablo II and Warcraft sales and thinking, "Wow, those are PvP games; there must be a huge market for that sort of thing!" All the while forgetting or not realizing that MMOs and hybrids are two totally separate markets.

Part of the potential problems with PvP in SB, I think, is that Wolfpack as a developer culture seems very much inhabited by fanatical PvP, "I will crush you!" l33t players from other games. It started as a privately funded effort, with the founders hiring like minds. When you ask them about their MMO development experience, many of them take off on a tangent about how they were ubers that no one could beat in Everquest or some other game and used to organize serverwide events and all that. What that has to do with hands-on experience in actually developing and then managing a commerical online game on a day-to-day basis is never really discussed, other than a pat "So, you know, I've been there." This does not seem to a be a recipe for a smooth launch or for attracting 200,000+ players long term.

However, I could be wrong; it has been known to happen. I promised Wolfpack in public that if they can show me that they have 100,000 paying subscribers at the end of the first year, I'll eat crow publicly in a BTH column. Of course, that was almost two years ago, when they would supposedly be going into beta test in a couple months, and the bar for a self-sustaining MMORPG by a large publisher has been raised since then from 100,000 to 200,000, but I'll stick by my original agreement.

And I'd prefer they make it happen. However suspect their development experience might be, they are wizzes at online promotion. If SB flops, it is going to be a high profile, very noticiable flop that can only hurt the industry.

Jessica

08-05-2002, 11:39 AM

What gets me about SB is that the whole game seems aimed at the tiniest niche in the MMOG market -- PvPers. Seems like a recipe for low sales. I can't imagine it breaking 100,000 subscribers. Even holding onto 50,000 might be tough.

Let me also note that when I pointed out this very same thing back in 2000, I was absolutely excoriated by the SB fanbois, including Chris Mancil (Vosx) who, as a moderator of an SB fansite, wrote a response titled "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" It wasn't very logical, but it did have a lot of appeal to the other fanbois, since it made fun of someone who questioned whether appealing to almost exclusively to the PvP market was a good idea for making money with an MMOG.

It worked for him; UbiSoft later hired him to be a community manager for the game. Loyalty counts, even when you've never played the game.

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 11:41 AM

Thing about SB is that the uber guilds are going to be among the early adopters, and if they can make other players miserable, they will. SB needs some kind of mechanism to either protect players or make "losing" painless if it expects to retain players. It also looks like it will be a bit dated, graphically, when it launches.

Sharpe

08-05-2002, 03:13 PM

There are three big concerns I have about the current crop of MMORPGs featuring PvP:

1)The traditional PvP vs non-PvP arguments. Its pretty clear that the market has voted in favor of non-PvP but the designers keep focusing on PvP b/c they like the idea of free self-generating content, and b/c they tend to be pro-PvP personally. The argument is "PvP has failed in the market so far b/c it has not been *done right*". Well, I'm still waiting :). I tried DAOC, which compromised its PvE design quite heavily to allow PvP and hey, it was a pretty disapointing experience overall. I remain unconvinced about the "PvP done right" argument.

2)The issue of uber-guild / high kill ratio / winning team dominance. In games requiring high time investment, with no reset or "new game" switch to level the playing field, I fear that the Conquests of the world may always ruin the experience for the less intense players. I'm pretty well convinced that you cannot have both persistent world character building AND good, balanced, fun PvP in the same game.

3)Even if a game "does PvP right" the development investment is going to be HUGE. There are just tons of issue that to "do right" would require vast amounts of design, coding, testing, re-testing and implementation. For example, if you have PvE crowd control working well, those skills are HATED in PvP (see DAOC for example) - so basically the devs would need to either re-create character skills for PvP or redesign the rules for PvP so that crowd control is either replaced with something else in PvP or is not onerous, WITHOUT ruining the CC class. This is a tall order (Mythic failed miserably at this) and even if you get it right it would mean the devs had dumped two or three times the effort into this. Basically, adding PvP to a PvE game is not just a matter of tinkering, adapting or slight re-design. To do PvP right would require a ground up design with intense development of PvP issues. Based on the current budgets of those games I just don't see a game being able to do PvP right unless they cut out PvE entirely, and then the game wouldn't be an MMORPG - it would be some kind of FPS or RTS combat game.

Bottom line: I expect ShadowBane to have intense problems. SWG I think is going to have to make adjustments as PVP problems crop up. Planetside on the other hand is likely to succeed b/c they are not trying to mix MMORPG and PvP - Planetside is pure PvP from the word go.

Dan

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 03:32 PM

The thing about Planetside is, what's the draw for paying a monthly fee? I can play shooters online now for free. What are you going to do to get me to buy the game and then pay at least $13 a month to play?

And does my $13 a month give me a lag-free game? It'd better, if I'm paying to play.

I think Planetside might suffer from uber guilds too. Just imagine some of the top Quake clans playing on it. How am I going to compete against those guys?

xahlt

08-05-2002, 04:15 PM

The hell if I understand how you're supposed to be involved in Planetside in a way which justifies per month cost. A good portion seems devoted to taking territory, objectives, etc. The rub is, if those missions don't make any difference in the game world and despite some enhancements, a player's abilities don't change, how is that better than a regular FPS?

And if the territory changes do start to affect the gameworld, wouldn't you feel the same frustration that you do playing on public CTF type servers, that too often one side dominates completely and despite the pride you might take in your individual skills, you can only have a very limited effect on the outcome? I'm not saying that you can't have fun winning handily or losing outrageously, but that situation is likely to be permanent in a online world where it's hard to keep people from flocking to a dominant group.

Like Mark says, the real problem is that for every little thing the developers don't do EXACTLY right (imbalanced weapons, slow pings, failures in vehicle design, whatever) someone will be able to point to a game you can play for free that does it better. It would need to be one heck of a fun game to justify monthlies.

Mark Asher

08-05-2002, 07:24 PM

It might just be that RPGs are uniquely able to command large numbers players who are willing to pay a monthly fee.

After EQ hit it big we saw a lot of developers rush to start other MMOGs that would exploit other genres -- FPS (Planetside and several others), RTS (Sovereign, Dune, and Shattered Galaxy), Sim City-ish (Starpeace), adventure (Mudpie), etc. I wonder how many non-RPG MMOGs will make it?

Alan Au

08-05-2002, 08:01 PM

Mark Asher

08-06-2002, 04:35 AM

Starpeace didn't do well as far as I know. Shattered Galaxy has been out for awhile and doesn't seem to have big numbers. That cartoon beat 'em up MMOG came and went. I'd be surprised if WWII Online has 30,000 subscribers.

Jessica

08-06-2002, 05:04 AM

Granted I'm not privy to actual revenue or subscriber numbers, but there isn't much favorable precedent for other genres. I'm thinking of things like Fireteam and Air Warrior (which actually was a modest success, but got canned anyway).

My observation over the past 16 years has been that RPGs financially outperform other subscription MMOs (vehicle simulators, shooters, etc) by a factor of about 10 to 1 and greater. They tend to outperform merely multiplayer games (2 players to 32 or 64 players, no true persistence) by a factor of about 20 to 1 and greater. This is based on years of inside data accumulated by working for and with both service providers and publishers/developers.

The demarkation line seems to be drawn at A) the zero-sum nature of non-RPGs and B) the persistence of character and the character's action in an RPG. Players like to have more than one avenue to success and they want that success to be persistent.

BTW, Air Warrior was more than a modest success; it was canned by EA after close to 15 years as a live production game. It was first shown in Beta test format by GEnie in Spring, 1986 at the West Coast Computer Faire and launched officially either later that year or early the next (I forget the exact date off the top of my head). It had the distinction of being the first true client/server online game and the first game that players paid $5 an hour to Beta test (God bless 'em!). It never made as much money as the RPGs, but it made enough to stay alive for a long time. It also spawned more than one competitor from it's player ranks.

From what I understand from sources close to the situation, AW was still profitable when it was retired, just not wildly profitable enough for EA to want to continue to support it with upgrades and expansions.

Fireteam is another story. As designed and implemented, that game was never going to be a success as a subscription offering. I remember Loretta Stagnitto from Multitude talking to me about doing some consulting with them on the Fireteam project back in 1997. When I mentioned that they would have to add some persistent, RPG-like elements to the game for it to make any money, I was told "You'll never convince Ned (Lerner) and Art (Min) of that. They are sure that massive-multiplayer is not the way to go and won't last. It will be replaced by games like Fireteam." I told her that might come true in 20 years or so, but for right then, MMO was the only game in town and if Ned and Art wanted Multitude to be around in three years, they'd realize that and make some changes. Needless to say, I was not offered a contract, :D.

A couple years later, when Fireteam had crashed and burned, they contacted me again and wanted some help finding a buyer for the game, so that the several hundred subscribers could keep playing (No one in the US was willing to pick it up). I asked Ms. Stagnitto how Art and Ned felt about massive-multiplayer now, but received no answer.

They are not the first developers of traditional PC games to feel the bite of the unique issues of the MMO and online game industry; they won't be the last.

Mark Asher

08-06-2002, 05:36 AM

"B) the persistence of character and the character's action in an RPG. Players like to have more than one avenue to success and they want that success to be persistent."

This is the big problem Planetside faces. How do you let the player have some kind of character advancement that matters while keeping combat on a level playing field? To put it in EQ terms, Planetside needs to allow a level 1 to have a reasonable chance of defeating a level 60 in combat while somehow allowing players to care enough about their characters to want to advance them via whatever advancement method Planetside will employ.

You have to wonder if Planetside is the result of careful market study or just SOE's gut feeling that shooter fans will flock to an online persistent world shooter? Certainly Sovereign seems to be a case of a project that wasn't thought through very well before it was begun. I'm guessing that no more than a skeleton crew, if that, is still working on it.

Sharpe

08-06-2002, 07:42 AM

As far as Planetside goes, I threw that out there as an example of how PvP might work in an MMOG setting. Since I don't play shooters I didn't consider the issue that there are already numerous FREE titles providing excellent team-FPS. So Planetside may have a hard time getting subscribers if it sticks to the FPS model of easy reset and no permanent character/world. I suspect Planetside will work around this either by having lasting character improvement or a territorial conquest setup. Either way, they run the risk of the problems plaguing DAOC: if you allow character improvement, the newbies are always going to at a competitive disadvantage *no matter how personally skilled they are*. If you have a territorial conquest model with persistent annexation, then you run the risk of new players joining a realm and saying "Jeez this faction is down to the size of Switzerland; I'm outta here". Nobody wants to play if they feel they don't have a reasonable chance to win and nobody wants to play for the persisently losing side. So Planetside may end having real trouble, we'll see.

I think Jessica is right that what draws gamers into long term (and highly profitable) subscriptions in MMORPGs is the persistent character development. I am strongly convinced that you cannot mix persistent character development and PvP. Despite all the strong desires of the PvP grognards who want it "done right" and despite the strong desires of the devs for "free, self generating content", I just don't think the mix works out. The problem with doing PvP right is that by design, character building MMORPGs do not have a level playing field. And I've become convinced that players need to at least *perceive* a level playing field to participate long term. The problem with "self generating content" is that PvP has so many nasty class balance, faction balance, player ability, bug, exploit, cheesy tactics problems that by the time you develop a good PvP system you probably could have massive quantities of content, without all the potential anti-social and customer service issues of PvP.

I am curious as to how this will play in the next 6 to 12 months. I expect Shadowbane to be a pretty huge debacle. As for SWG, I still don't quite understand how the PvP will *play* in that game - is it just a sideshow for the hardcore empire and rebel types or will be a major part of the game? My current sense is that if you join a PvP faction in SWG you can do *some* PvP but mostly you will still be fighting PvE (vs stormtroopers or rebels, etc). If SWG relies on PvP as a major component of gameplay then I think they will have problems as well. However their current design looks pretty dang diverse so maybe they will be able to offer enough options to avoid being overly dependant on PvP.

Dan

Mark Asher

08-06-2002, 08:03 AM

Last I heard about SWG (I don't follow it, really) is that there will be areas for PvP and areas where PvP can't happen.

Planetside will feature persistent characters and some kind of character development, but SOE doesn't want it to tilt the playing field and remove the twitch skills from being the deciding aspect of the combat.

For instance, one of the examples I've heard is that you can buy implants. You might be able to buy sniper eyes, for example, that give you a permanent sniper scope, though you'd likely still need a sniper rifle to hit what you can see. SOE didn't consider that to be an overwhelming advantage, probably because anyone can just buy a sniper rifle easily too. Some players might like being able to see farther, though, so it's a goal to work towards to raise the cash. Earning money is probably the equivalent of earning XP in an online RPG.

There will be some kind of territory acquisition, too. You can take over a base, for example, but when you log off anyone can grab the base again.

There's potential for lots of interesting persistent elements, including player apartments, but will any of them be compelling enough to warrant the monthly fee?

Brian Rucker

08-06-2002, 08:33 AM

I've been following SWG pretty closely (I'm OddjobXL in the forums over there). Frankly, you've got the PvP aspect sort of right Mark, but, at this point, it seems a bit more complicated than that unless you, perhaps wisely, decide to avoid PvP altogether (which, also, is a bit more complicated than that).

It's a good thing that SWG will be, because of the skill/advancement/twink construct, a newbie friendly game because newbies are going to need native guides to walk them through the PvP, PvE, minefield. That said, there's no easy way to balance immersion and conflict for the long term that's also going to be crystal clear at first. You can get into all kinds of particular situations in which any hard and fast system of segregation will cause more harm than good (unless you move these playstyles to different servers entirely which I'm starting to think isn't such a bad idea assuming it's economically feasible).

Things seem, from the outside, to be in a bit of flux at SWG - at least considering the flurries of fan debates on temporary target tag triggers (oooh, I like this one the 'TTTT') and Overt/Covert voluntary PvP status and other alphabet soup issues. I think the devs either already know what they have in mind or are sitting back and watching the gerbils tire themselves out on the forum wheels before making a decision.

I do think SWG has the best ideas for how to incorporate PvP, in a variety of primarily voluntary ways, and keep combat characters from dominating the landscape. There is no loot. All wealth seems to come from civil commerce and resource exploitation (and no resource is reneweable - which makes old products and their designs obsolete, and broken older products into trash or salvage), there's plenty of PvE adventure including faction quests and randomly generated and placed Points of Interest (the POIs are generated based on the types of characters in the party in some cases - meaning Rebels might run across Imperials building a covert listening post etc...) as well as prospecting. The combat character isn't top of the foodchain anymore.

The big question I have, though, if there's plenty to do without getting involved in the Galactic Civil War - why do it?

My answer is fame and rank - allowing a character's rank to dictate what kinds of weaponry he can use on battlefields (not Main Street for personal jollies) and fame should act like a 'ladder' system so heroes and military PAs (player associations) become well known participants in the most central event of the game. Otherwise, why bother? There may be other compelling reasons but I may have missed mention of them.

At any rate, having PvP players competing for fame makes sense as that's what propels Clans in any competative online game. If players want to make money they should get involved in business (on one of a multitude of levels and specialites). If players are just looking for escapism there are huge tracts of wilderness and plenty of random/faction events to keep them entertained. All of these characters (and playstyles) need each other for various reasons which is what will, if it works, keep SWG balanced and dynamic.

JFeil

08-06-2002, 09:17 AM

I think Jessica is right that what draws gamers into long term (and highly profitable) subscriptions in MMORPGs is the persistent character development.
Dan

In all honesty, the thing that draws gamers into long term subscriptions is the community, not any game mechanic. I have known many people that remain active in games only because they have friends there, and have a feeling of community. In terms of the game, their characters have hit the end of the development curve, accumulated the quintissential assortment of equipment, and have visited every single corner of the world. Yet they still kill themselves physically to participate in weekend-long raids on things they have killed a hundred times before.

This is why community development is so important with MOGs, and why the most critical elements of any MOG interface is how players can communicate with one another.

Mark Asher

08-06-2002, 09:26 AM

Brian Rucker

08-06-2002, 09:37 AM

Mark: I read an entry on Raph Koster's homepage where he's talking a bit about PvP and SWG. Initially, it wasn't going to be included at all but there was a demand for it from some players and they've been working on systems ever since. Frankly, I think it's pretty cool and it's not all that complicated it can just sound that way when it's all typed out for you. Like anything worthwhile there's gonna be a learning curve but hopefully an intuitive one. TEFs (temporary enemy flags) are a good example of a threshold between PvP and PvE. If you initiate combat against a hostile faction NPC when he has PC allies around you've just gone from PvE, potentially, into PvP. If those allies decide to shoot at you (you can't shoot at them first as PvE or 'Covert') then you're in a firefight with players. It's pretty intuitive 'I should be able to defend allied NPCs' but sounds complicated.

Most of the time, if not all of it, you'll have the tools and the power to avoid PvP with little effort. PvP isn't all that offensive either as player characters in this system are alot closer to each other in ability. The ability to 'clone' back to life with all 'insured' items intact takes most of the inconvenience out of the process as well.

Jessica

08-06-2002, 09:55 AM

Community is a bit of a chicken and egg thing, however. You have to play long enough to become part of the community. What's going to keep you playing long enough to make those friends? It has to be the gameplay initially.

Getting back to SWG's PvP -- sounds complicated. I don't even want to think about it until SOE's got it nailed down. My main concern is that I want to be able to opt out of it and keep from accidentally opting into it.

I also think SWG could have no PvP and do just fine. I wonder why they want to include it in some complicated fashion?

Both Mark and JFeil are correct. The game draws the player in, but they stay for the friends and micro-community connections. When I give seminars to publishers and developers, I emphasize it by drawing a parallel to mudfoot soldiers. They may join to fight from a sense of patriotism and service, but what makes them charge a machinegun nest is that their buddies are in danger.

It is the same with MMOGs and virtual worlds.

Raph Koster

08-06-2002, 11:29 AM

I'm fond of saying "there are no simple PvP systems." Even "not having it" entails quite a lot of nasty code, and the more complex your game is, the more code you need. Have pets in your game? OK, now you have to support indirect damage blocking. Can you make traps? OK, now you need delayed damage blocking. Can you build things? OK, now you have to worry about blocking people in... the actual design document for a conceptually simple PK switch still takes multiple pages dense with pickiness.

You get the idea. The only simple system is to let anyone do anything to anyone, but we all know that's not tenable commercially.

As to why we ended up with PvP in SWG... well, because it turns out there's a huge amount of hardcore SW fans who love the Empire and want to play as an Imperial. Soon as you have both Imps and Rebs running around in the same game, you start getting the need for a PvP solution.

The system we're going with is basically a PvP switch. The wrinkle is that when you turn it "on" you can only be attacked right after you do something that is PvP in nature. So a Rebel can't be attacked until he attacks that Imperial base. Then he's vulnerable for 10 minutes. That's the "alphabet soup" of "temp enemy flags."

There is a 24/7 PvP option, but I expect it to be used fairly little compared to this "covert" option.

-Raph

Mark Asher

08-06-2002, 11:47 AM

Well, we gamers don't care how complicated it is to code. That's your headache. We just want ease of use.

The only question I have is can I attack an Imperial base staffed with NPCs and not engage in PvP? EverQuest has halfling camps that dark elf players attack and dark elf camps that other players attack. It's all PvE.

Raph Koster

08-06-2002, 12:55 PM

Well, we gamers don't care how complicated it is to code. That's your headache. We just want ease of use.

If you can target it, you can attack it.

It it has an Imperial/Rebel icon over its head, you might get attacked by other Imperials/Rebels.

The end.

The only question I have is can I attack an Imperial base staffed with NPCs and not engage in PvP? EverQuest has halfling camps that dark elf players attack and dark elf camps that other players attack. It's all PvE.

Yes, but it's only specific bases, not just any base.

And that's because dark elves and halflings grouping together in a fantasy setting isn't as big a deal as seeing a Rebel soldier and a Stormtrooper partying together. :P

-Raph

JFeil

08-06-2002, 01:09 PM

Both Mark and JFeil are correct. The game draws the player in, but they stay for the friends and micro-community connections. When I give seminars to publishers and developers, I emphasize it by drawing a parallel to mudfoot soldiers. They may join to fight from a sense of patriotism and service, but what makes them charge a machinegun nest is that their buddies are in danger.

It is the same with MMOGs and virtual worlds.

I agree that gameplay is very important, not only to attract initial users, but to keep players interested throughout their stay in the game world.

One of the things I am always amazed at is how many things EQ got right in a seemingly blind way in terms of building a community. In many cases, game mechanics that looked like faults were actually what helped build cohesive communities. For instance, a lot of people complained about EQ's zone structure, (where the player goes from one distinct "zone" to another) which was used as a fault point of EQ's by many competitors. I remember how Asheron's Call's dynamic zone system was supposed to be so much better than the EQ zone system, because it made much more open spaces, made combat more realistic, and there was no wait while you "zoned" from one area to another. However, with confined zones, added to the ability of the player to "shout", a lot of connections that might never had happened sprang into being.

Another example would be the long wait players have to suffer through in order to gain back health and magic. While other games advertised a quicker combat-to-combat speed, the slow speed in EQ kept players still long enough and maybe bored enough to actually begin talking to one another. Add these things together with the purposefully built in interdependencies and team-requiring mechanics and you have a game that, IMHO, has been unmatched in its abilities to connect people to one another.

Qenan

08-06-2002, 05:14 PM

Brian Rucker said

I do think SWG has the best ideas for how to incorporate PvP, in a variety of primarily voluntary ways, and keep combat characters from dominating the landscape. There is no loot. All wealth seems to come from civil commerce and resource exploitation...

NO LOOT? Hoo boy, it's not going for the Everquest players then. I'll definitely need to find out a lot more before considering it.

Not saying it's bad, but I'm not too attracted to "resource exploitation" myself.

Qenan

08-06-2002, 05:20 PM

One of the things I am always amazed at is how many things EQ got right in a seemingly blind way in terms of building a community... For instance, a lot of people complained about EQ's zone structure, (where the player goes from one distinct "zone" to another) which was used as a fault point of EQ's by many competitors... However, with confined zones, added to the ability of the player to "shout", a lot of connections that might never had happened sprang into being.

Another example would be the long wait players have to suffer through in order to gain back health and magic. While other games advertised a quicker combat-to-combat speed, the slow speed in EQ kept players still long enough and maybe bored enough to actually begin talking to one another.

While I think EQ overdid it a little in the downtime department, I mostly agree with you. However, they made some important mistakes too:
1) making higher level mobs take more and more players (and more and more time);
2) providing so little to do besides bash mobs;
3) making stats have no real effect;
4) some of the worst PR management I have ever seen.

Brian Rucker

08-06-2002, 06:03 PM

There is a little more to PvP than Raph's letting on. You also have PA wars, player town militias (that can be PvP and can comprise the entire town population), bounty hunters and duels. It's definitely not wild west and I like the way PvP's being handled but it's not one simple toggle though I can say, at least as best as I understand it, it would be pretty easy to play through the game entirely PvE and not feel you're missing anything. Personally, I'm going to check out PvP because if it does organize around good military PAs it should be a great deal of fun.

As for no loot - there are material rewards but you just have to pay for them on the open market or be part of a PA that either has craftsmen or has good ties to craft and industrial PAs. Power, in the sense of wealth, flows from the corporate and political sectors. This really is a huge improvement, IMHO. If all you want to do is blast some Stormtroopers and max your stats you can do that too but I like the idea of a more complex world and a greater variety of interplayer interactions.

There really is a little something for everyone. If it's the idea of being able to 'find' great stuff that you like - maybe become a prospector or explorer. You can always sell rights to the resources you find to some other person and set off for distant horizons the next day - encountering POIs and other characters as you adventure. Maybe mosey, carefully, into a new town and see what 'treasure' you can discover to buy with your proceeds. Each crafter can evidently develop a variety of unique designs based on his skill and what resources he has to experiment with. They can develop prototypes (one offs) or plans to sell for manufacturers for industrial production. You may discover a one of a kind item developed in some backwoods town...who knows?

Looting bodies really isn't the only way to have a good time. Take it from a roleplayer that's been around for a few years.

JFeil

08-06-2002, 10:49 PM

While I think EQ overdid it a little in the downtime department, I mostly agree with you. However, they made some important mistakes too:
1) making higher level mobs take more and more players (and more and more time);
2) providing so little to do besides bash mobs;
3) making stats have no real effect;
4) some of the worst PR management I have ever seen.

I agree that EQ had its faults, but to address point one, requiring more and more people to fight a mob was, once again, a game mechanic meant to stimulate community. If a mob takes 50 people to bring down, that means you have to have 49 friends to make a go at it. Further, this mechanic wasn't that bad until the designers at Verant saw that people were naturally gathering in large groups to face their greatest mobs. Then they felt pressed to create, in expansions, areas where these groups could feel challenged. So people gathered bigger groups, and so Verant made tougher monsters, and etc..

As for point 2, I totally agree that bashing monsters in EQ is extremely boring after a while. However, making combat simple and easily judged was yet another unforseen way to develop community. In a fast paced game that requires all your wits to survive, how much time do you have to talk to someone else? However, in the more relaxed atmosphere of EQ, where combat becomes an ingrained, reflexive skill fairly quickly (press "A", loot, repeat) the player has a lot more time to at least read incoming messages and, in the case of some talented people, allow full-blown conversations in between pressing hotkeys for "kick" and "taunt" and "sense heading".

Point three is definitely a valid concern, because Verant built a lot of expectations over a game mechanic that ended up not having as much effect as players thought it would. Jessica talks a lot about the importance of managing expectations, and this was one place they dropped the ball. If they had said from the start that stats had little effect on actual play, then no one would have felt betrayed. However, they decided to make stats "mysterious", which created expectations that were blown out of proportion and, ultimately, let down.

Finally, to point 4, I've always felt that the customer service of all of the major MOGs were pretty much the same. In every game I've played, UO, EQ, AC, AO or DAOC, there have been players who complain loudly about service, rumors and actual cases of GM favoritism or cheating, and a general lack of instant gratification that has generally made me avoid customer service in the first place. One thing I found that was good, however, was that EQ's website always had answers for my technical problems. Got to appreciate that.

John

Qenan

08-07-2002, 05:19 AM

Jessica

08-07-2002, 06:02 AM

Both Mark and JFeil are correct. The game draws the player in, but they stay for the friends and micro-community connections. When I give seminars to publishers and developers, I emphasize it by drawing a parallel to mudfoot soldiers. They may join to fight from a sense of patriotism and service, but what makes them charge a machinegun nest is that their buddies are in danger.

It is the same with MMOGs and virtual worlds.

I agree that gameplay is very important, not only to attract initial users, but to keep players interested throughout their stay in the game world.

One of the things I am always amazed at is how many things EQ got right in a seemingly blind way in terms of building a community. In many cases, game mechanics that looked like faults were actually what helped build cohesive communities.

<SNIP>

For all that Brad McQ. and some others like to talk about EQ being a "1st generation MMOG," it isn't, by about 20 years. It is more like a 3rd generation game, although a case could be made for it being a 2nd Gen game.

EQ is more or less a DIKUMud, which Brad and some of his people played extensively for years before starting to build their own and adding a GUI (and an outstanding one at that). That gave them many years of independent development and trail-and-error to lean on; the basic compelling elements were already fleshed out.

JFeil

08-07-2002, 10:05 AM

Can't agree on the first point; it's one of the things that keeps me from going back. Party's of 6 are OK, but I'm not up for more organizational effort (and time) than that. Dreading the end-game makes me a non-customer.

On the second point: combat was only "simple" for melee, and anyhow that wasn't the complaint. The complaint was that there needed to be other things to do that were fun. (Pressing the trade skill buttons was NOT fun.) EQ is a very one-dimensional game.

On point three, it goes beyond managing expectations (although that's certainly important); there are fundamental design issues. Don't offer players useless options. Every decision needs to matter if you want to keep folks involved. (Another example of Verant flubbing this one was the tremendous variety of useless food items.)

Finally, I wasn't complaining about the customer service, which I almost never used. I was talking about PR -- things like Abashi (a disaster), Brad's posts (also bad news), the way they dealt with whineplay (stupid from start to end), etc. This was a company that had no clue as to how to deal with their customers. They have done better in the last year or more, but much damage was already done.

All good points. For the first, that's definitely a personal choice. Although I have never found myself social enough or committed enough to do the guild-thing, I have several RL friends that swear that the only fun in EQ was massive raids. As was mentioned in an earlier discussion, the tactics involved in taking down some of the extremely top-end mobs with huge groups of people adds a new dimension to gameplay in EQ, and my friends apparently dig it. I, on the other hand, was never patient enough to do the hour-long assembly period, followed by the hour-long transportation period, followed by the hour long tactical group assembling period followed by etc. etc. etc.

I'll agree that there isn't much to do in EQ besides chat, bash and inventory management, but most single-player games have even less to do, variety-wise. I, personally, find the options that EQ gives me to be fulfilling enough for 3 hours of entertainment a week (when I was still playing).

Personally, I find useless options fun. To illustrate a counter example, DAOC's spell lists are all about utility. Everything has a clear use, and all spells are generally oriented towards succeeding in combat situations. I find that kinda boring. I like a little fluff for fluff's sake. It keeps me entertained. Interesting meal options, though of limited entertainment value, make the world feel less focused and a little more real.

And, finally, I burned out on the whole "online community" thing back when I was playing UO. (Although I always admired Raph for his even-handedness in his posts as "Designer Dragon", btw). So I really can't comment on the public relations methods that Verant had.