I have a weird relationship with Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) that is unlike any other MMO I play. It’s definitely one of my favorites, and it is always part of my Steam catalog. Yet, after it becomes my main game for a few months. I have to go completely cold turkey on it for a few months. It stays there staring at my as Steam illustrates my array of games, but I have almost a revulsion thinking about firing it up. There is no logical reason for it. Seriously, I have written and deleted multiple sentences right here trying to put some sense to it.
However, I am back in it now that it has been re-born as a Free-to-Play (F2P) title. Not because it is now playable without a cover charge as I have a lifetime account, but because it feels fresh. It feels new, and in parts it feels like a different game. One that is more caring of my time. I like that. There is so much to learn, but I think that many LOTRO posts will be coming in the future. I saw a few blogger friends also in-game so hopefully they will speak on such things as well. (Oh look, during editing I see one has!)
Last night I was a little overwhelmed. Dozens of titles splashed across my screen. I was gaining Turbine Points (“TP,” the cash shop currency) at an irregularly weird rate, and I heard that my points I racked up the past few months might take a bit to show up. I checked out the slick new dungeon grouping system (please make a collapsible menu), and I did a quick Rift skirmish with a few friends. Last night’s play felt like walking into a restaurant and getting free samples of the coming meal before I am even seated. Then when I sit down to look at the menu it’s too hard to make one choice. I am excited about LOTRO, and I can’t wait to start digging deeper in to all the changes.
–Ravious
I really want to write about design that is forgiving of error, but a more basic point in The Design of Everyday Things keeps interfering: much user error is design error. If users keep doing the same things wrong, there is probably something about the design that is encouraging them to do the wrong thing. That is not their fault. Problems that keep arising are design problems; fix them, work around them, or admit that the problem is too hard for you. Do not blame users unfairly.
Veteran players forget this. You know what to do because you have done it twenty times, and maybe the current design even feels intuitive because you know what the developers were planning, how the system has evolved over several years, and how it interacts with or mirrors other systems. You will hear people decry the ignorance of newcomers; why can they not go through a simple 20-step process across only four screens where only two of the commands are undocumented? And look, if you just install these two mods, rebind these keys, and change these settings, that dungeon is easy mode.
This relates to my refrain from Gordon Walton that hardcore gamers will crawl through barbed wire to reach the fun while most of the market will not put up with that crap. There are virtues in that, as it allows quicker iterative development and lets players get a closer connection to the game and its development. But it means having an unpolished game with sharp edges and pitfalls. The new guy did not expect pits of broken glass on the path to the picnic. That you know the workarounds does not mean that there are not things to be worked around. That someone does not want to learn them all does not make him lazy, at least not in a bad way; I pay to play, I get paid to work.
Anti-social behavior in the game is also designed in. If players keep doing the same horrible things, game design probably encourages it. If the game rewards sociopathic behavior in groups, you will see more of it. Designers do not intend to reward people for acting against the interests of their groupmates, but game designs certainly do so.
If the players are not playing your game how you want them to, you should look at what the design encourages them to do. And remember that other design issues may also be giving people trouble in playing your game at all.
: Zubon
For my small viewfinder, not much news came out of PAX. Perhaps the biggest thing was the announcement that ArenaNet was making an iPad/smartphone app for Guild Wars 2 with such neuromantic functionalities such as talking to guild mates, scouring the auction house, and watching guild mates play via an overworld map. I was going to write an small post just on that news alone, but it wasn’t very meaty. What it’s really going to do is allow those of us pressed for game time due to other obligations to keep tabs on our guild until they get to that event where 40 people need to take down a dragon (or sharktopus). Then we can sign on for half an hour to play a very intense event without having had to help with all the lead-ins. It might sound selfish, but if the other option is just not playing at all for fear of only having “lead-ins” then I think it’s a fair trade-off.
I severely digress… although there was not that much news, there was lots of design-level discussion. My favorite was a Guild Wars 2 Event workshop where a small amount of fans came to learn about the event system and then work together in a brainstorming session to create an event system. Oh, and some nice person recorded the whole thing. The developers at PAX seem very open, and it is refreshing hearing from them instead of through the marketing grist-mill.
Continue reading ‘The Roads After PAX’
You used to suspect eBay when you met someone at the level cap with decent gear who did not know what half his abilities were, how to function in a group, or where common locations were. Now that is normal.
: Zubon
As a LotRO Hunter, I have contributed to that. Why find the dungeon when someone can summon from the campfire?
… or, “UI vs. Player” (not a FFXIV review).
You get used to playing with games that have first-person view or an adjustable camera. Playing some old school (-style) games, I am reminded of how the third-person camera and the interface was used against the player. It is like my earlier post about how the game abstracts, you suspend disbelief, then you are expected to forget that abstraction at some point.
The particular example I am thinking of is having things visible to the character but not the player. We all take advantage of this in third-person view games, looking around corners, above the ceiling, etc. You can see the entire screen, even if your character has a blocked view. But there can be a six-story boss just off-screen, with only a flat plain between you and it, and you will never see it coming. Many game reveled in having power-ups hidden just a bit to the left and right of the screen.
The game of the weekend at Kongregate is Epic Battle Fantasy 3, a Final Fantasy-esque game. There are chests and secret passages hidden behind foreground objects on almost every screen. Some of them are partly visible or have a hint that there must be a secret passage, but others are just invisible. Some of those chests hold equipment you cannot get elsewhere, and there are in-game medals for finding them all (and you need x medals per zone to get to a room with more chests with more exclusive equipment…), so the game encourages a mini-game of pushing up against everything and trying to open invisible chests. Your characters can see the chests and secret passages open in front of them, but they are powerless to tell you. They cannot even cry as they pass by the loot they so desire.
It had not struck me at the time that this is a related issue in Desktop Dungeons. Exploration is very important, but your character can only see next to itself, not down a hallway. Maybe you carry a very weak torch. I proclaimed a fondness for seeing the whole level so you would know if it was worth playing, but of course that is the other side of the absurdity: you can see the entire level, even though there is no way your character could.
Either approach works, first- or third-person view (or third with flexible camera), but it is annoying to have it used against the player. And it feels harder to use first-person view against the player.
: Zubon
The closed beta just went 24/7, which is a good sign of movement towards release. I have not tried it much, because I decided it was not for me, at least not in the mood I am in this year, but I should say: as far as I experienced it, the game was more polished than most games are months after release. And that was a couple of months ago.
: Zubon
Via our good friend Darren comes this developer post. You should read it all because, holy crap, that is how you admit that the launch did not go well. It would take longer to summarize than for you to read it, so I give you this excerpt:
The point is, the issue here is far far worse than many of you think it is. I wish it was an issue of the game being released too early. That’s an easy thing for a company to “fix”. Elemental’s launch is the result of catastrophic poor judgment on my part.
You win back a surprising amount of trust by not acting like the Iraqi information minister. [Commenters say, "no."]
: Zubon
Feeling the itch to try something different? Love is free to play this weekend.
This weekend Love will be free to play for anyone who wants to. All you need to do is download the client(42Mb), un-zip it start love.exe . Then just click “play for free” and you are in.
It wasn’t a game for me, but it might be for you. It certainly is different.
- Ethic
PAX starts today, and of course I am on the wrong coast. There should be a lot of great information flowing out of the last big convention of the year. Guild Wars 2 is running another set of demos, but unfortunately will not have a live stream like they did from gamescom. They will, however, be constantly updating the website and doing live Tweets of events throughout the weekend. The best place to follow all the news is at Guild Wars 2 Guru’s megathread. Also, I will sell a portion of my soul to anybody that can get me a Guild Wars 2 t-shirt!
I’ll be watching other new from across the MMO board as well, but hopefully Syp will have a great breakdown as he will be there. Hopefully this year everybody has built up their Vitamin C caches. Have fun to all attending!
–Ravious
