An essential difference, as Ravious says, is collective rather than individual advancement. If I get a piece of armor, my character has a piece of armor, but if I make a charcoal furnace, everyone in the guild can use it. If we felt like it, we could set it up so that any passing visitor could use it; some guilds built public camps so that new players would have access without starting from zero. I made something and everyone benefited, even after I logged off.

I miss the commune. I have seen guild vaults used for collective sharing, but trust and space issues in large guilds tend to narrow that. Southern Star Guild (ATitD) had many shared chests and no assigned duties. You did what interested you, whether or not you needed the output of that activity, and there is a good chance that someone had already made the input you needed. Harvest that wood, someone will need it sometime. Reset the pottery wheels or the loom if you are going by.

Part of the benefit came from building something in the game world rather than having it attached to a character. We have all helped friends, I hope, and sometimes you help your friends and guildmates as a way of improving the guild. If the tank has a higher gearscore, everyone in the raid benefits. Back when we used to have */Regeneration Scrappers tank Hamidon in City of Heroes, I traded a non-guild Scrapper a Golgi Exposure (Health/Endurance, probably the most valuable thing in the game at the time) for something less valuable just because everyone on the server could benefit from his personal improvement. But how much more willing would you be to contribute to group success if your contribution really would be permanent, something that would stick around even if this person leaves the game? And would you be more likely to contribute to a moderate benefit for your guild or a small benefit for (potentially) everyone in the game?

What if you could build a crafting station somewhere convenient? Or some sort of permanent buff, always active in a zone? Would you wear a tabard that turned your faction gains into some sort of gain for the guild, maybe improving a guild hall or granting the enter guild faction status? Even if ridiculously expensive, these seem like good projects that can bring people together in support of them. We all celebrated when our Warhammer Online guild leveled; less so when our Lord of the Rings Online guild leveled, because that is simply a matter of time.

A Tale in the Desert has been very good for those collective goals, although I have no idea how much the new Telling will encourage them. You could have guild-owned property, so you build something for your group. You could donate property to the public, so anyone can use it (ideally things that do not wear out, due to the tragedy of the commons). There was research at regional universitites, and you contributed for the improvement of all Egypt or the glory of your region.

You see this occasionally in some games, although usually more in the form of a collective grind (like unlocking ATitD research). WoW had AQ, LotRO had Book 14 and the turtle. Horizons Istaria had this baked right in, with players working collectively to unlock zones and races, and you could pay others for helping you build things by plugging in money to exchange for materials.

One thing I miss is project-specific guilds. Because you could be in multiple guilds, new guilds would form like corporations or subcommittees of the local civic association. The Nileside Cafe built a line of kitchens to help people perfect their gourmet skills. Groups working on a pilgrimage or megalopolis would form a guild for internal communication. It was how you formed groups that let people communicate and cooperate across days and weeks. (One assisting factor is how chat channels work(ed): the last X lines of text said in a channel were visible to everyone in that channel, rather than sending a message to everyone logged on. It was like having an in-game whiteboard for every guild.)

Back when WoW raids were heavily tiered and gated, did anyone ever try that idea of having guilds dedicated to each dungeon?

You’d have guilds like the Karazhan Dragons or the Knights of Serpentshrine, and all that guild does is organizing raids to the one dungeon they were made for. Once people have all the loot from Karazhan, they quit the Karazhan Dragons and join the Knights of Serpentshrine without guild drama, because now this is what is actually expected of them. Others might opt to stay behind longer because they like Karazhan as a place, or prefer smaller raids, and become the experienced raid leaders in the Karazhan guild.

Sadly, the standard guild monogamy makes you choose between this and your home guild.

We always talk about making games meaningful and persistent, letting players affect the world. Let’s talk about letting players affect the world together.

: Zubon

More Guild Projects is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

I stand by my repeated claim that optimizing the new player experience is of paramount importance. You must grab my attention within five minutes, and you must deliver a satisfying hour or two for my first play session. Without that, any free trial is worthless, and you may even lose some people who have thrown down $50 for a box. This is the part of the game that every single player will see on every single character, and if you cannot do a good job here, I have no hope for the rest of the game. Yes, it is hard to make things interesting while giving the player only a few buttons to play with. Suck it up, we all have hard parts in our jobs. That’s why they pay us.

In retrospect, the original Asheron’s Call tutorial dungeon was truly horrible, only tolerable because these MMO things were just so new and exciting. The Lord of the Rings Online™ does a great job with its introductory instances, basic gameplay while introducing the setting and giving you some big name characters, and you don’t realize it is foreshadowing when an NPC saves the day while you watch. City of Heroes has a weak tutorial (including a “run in a straight line for 20+ seconds” segment), which City of Villains does better. World of Warcraft makes the less common choice of opening in its main game world, with no tutorial instance, but it manages to be dull for every race. Warhammer Online makes the same choice brilliantly by immediately tossing you into a warzone (best: Dwarf versus Greenskin newbie zones). The Champions Online tutorial just feels laboriously long. The Chronicles of Spellborn has a LotRO-style opening that ends well in a big fight with chthonic horror, but the gameplay along the way manages to be tedious even while very short. I remember starting A Tale in the Desert back before there was a tutorial, just drop you in the world and go; easily the most hardcore PvP game (with permadeath!) ever made. Wizard101′s tutorial explains things very well but is painfully slow and impossible to skip or hurry on a second character.

That hurdle overcome, the next question is where the most time is going to be spent in-game. Correct me if your game’s metrics suggest otherwise, but for most MMOs, it seems to be at the level cap. If nothing else, that is where your loud community is: the hardcore, the devoted, the guild community leaders who style themselves opinion-leaders or -makers (and may be). Any sane amount of content will occupy casual players, so giving people something to do at the “end” is how you keep and mollify the hardcore. How you do this well is widely disputed and the main topic of hundreds of blogs, so I will table (American sense) that issue.

World of Warcraft does this part famously well. Even if you do not like the WoW end-game, or the current end-game at any given moment, they have done a great job of recruiting and retaining players by putting an emphasis on late-game dungeons and raids. (Personally, I heard “the game begins at 80″ so many times that it was part of the reason I quit.) City of Heroes does this part famously sparsely, launching without the last ten levels and encouraging altoholism rather than building lots of level 50 content. Years into the title, there are exactly two raids and not a whole lot of level 50 task/strike forces (we try not to count the Shadow Shard content, out of politeness). Warhammer Online seemed to collapse (still does?) horribly at the level cap. Dark Age of Camelot had excellent realm-versus-realm combat but had horrible backlash when it added alternate advancement PvE content at the cap, creating a higher effective (and therefore required for PvP) cap. Back when I played, Asheron’s Call had a soft cap that amounted to an endless late-game. EVE Online has its PvP empire wars, to which Darkfall aspires. The Lord of the Rings Online™ has the ersatz version of the WoW end-game, taking the same approach but with very little content and alternate advancement grinds. It does, however, recycle its old end-games into new late-games better than WoW as the level cap rises.

Next up is the early game. If everyone is going to see that tutorial and new player experience, this is next, where you hope they all continue. It would be #2 on the list were it not for the amount of time your players can spend at the level cap between expansions. It remains very important, especially if it will consume most or all of the average player’s first month. A good start gave you a chance, but this is where you seal the deal and get the player to subscribe past the trial week or free month.

Age of Conan excels here, with near-universal acclaim for the Tortage experience. World of Warcraft varies between races/zones; playing on the Alliance side, I found I did not much like any early zones except for humans, although I recall a fondness for some early undead content. Dark Age of Camelot was good for its time but grindy and punitive in retrospect. City of Heroes/Villains does well except for a few painfully placed missions; maybe some of those are intentional, to make the travel powers that much sweeter. Warhammer Online is exquisite in tier 1, and if you have never played, you can go player tier 1 for free right now as much as you like. This is probably the worst time for EVE Online as players reach the “now what do I do” point. I have not tried the re-done LotRO low-level experience, but I always loved the Shire.

(Cynically, we also note that this is as far as most get in beta. There will be few to judge you on anything past this at release. This makes it a high priority while downgrading the importance of anything that will therefore have a smaller effect on your box sales.)

At this point, importance tapers off until you reach that end-game. Unless there is some modal point where most players end their second and third months, you focus on building the game out linearly. That early hook gives you some momentum through the mid-game. As long as the late-game is not so horrible that it is not worth getting through, players will get through those last few levels to see the glorious level-capped wonders they have heard to much about.

(Cynically, we note that promises to work on this area will carry you a long way. Wherever the population is centered at the end of the first month, just before subscription renewal time, announce you are going to fix that point and the range just beyond it. Repeat at month two. Warhammer Online did this brilliantly with developer letters just before renewal time in the early months. It helps if you can predict this point and really have improvements coming down the line, but developers are notoriously poor at predicting how quickly players consume content.)

You can see a great many games that have already embraced this approach. Part of it is just a natural consequence of sequential development. You worked really hard on the newbie zones in early beta, you worked on the glorious end-game wonders so you could show them off for the press, and then you fill in the middle as you get a chance, ideally trying to keep just ahead of the bulk of testers and/or players.

Some games really do fall down in the mid/late-game, hard enough to start seriously losing players. I love the 30s and 40s in City of Heroes/Villains, when all your powers and slots are finally coming together, but many people find it grindy without the quick progression from the early levels. Warhammer Online was appalling in the mid-tiers at launch, with poor PvE (“and such small portions!”) while the PvP balance problems were becoming apparent as all the powers and talents finally came together.

I’m stopping that thought so we can reflect. The mid to late levels are where you character finishes getting all of its abilities, with that “complete” point varying wildly across games and classes. If your game has horrible balance problems, they may be hidden under new shininess and quick growth, but they will become apparent in the mature levels. This is where the steam runs out for we the gameplay-Explorers. It is also where Achievers can jump ship as advancement slows down. This must disappoint the Killers: the sheep leave just as the wolves get the really fun ways to kill them all.

Zubon, it is sounding a lot like you’re saying that every part is important. And yes, I would love to say that, but experience suggests a few reasons why these later (but not end-game) levels are less important for retaining subscribers.

First, I am suggesting an extreme case of the game imploding. I do not know how many people ever experienced the Age of Conan end-game because the MMO blogosphere sounded like wailing from the fiery pits of Hell as people left Tortage. It is clearly possible to do far too little in that range, but many games get to “decent” at least.

Second, many of the extreme collapses are also end-game failures. They are balance problems or flaws in the fundamental systems that are to sustain players through the rest of the game, and there is no good news to reach after suffering through a near-empty, just-after-release late-game. These problems are not apparent in the early levels or not important enough to care about, while they first become visible in the mid or late levels. The Warhammer Online problems with city sieges compounded issues with the late-game open world RvR (plus a bit more), while the game had the same balance structure as most editions of D&D: just fine early on, when the numbers are small and luck can trump design oddities, but exploding into catastrophe as you multiply those oddities over many levels.

Third, “good enough” works. I would love to say that MMO players have discriminating tastes and high standards, but that is obviously false. We will put up with a lot of crap and flame anyone who suggests that quality and professionalism are below acceptable standards. One thing that Star Wars: The Old Republic has going for it is that at least some of their developers understand that the mass market will not put up with the crap we will, so selling to all those non-MMO addicts will involve improved accessibility and functionality (whether that idea has survived the EA merger is beyond me).

Kvetching aside, think of MMO players in two categories. For newbies, it is all new and exciting. Think back to your cherished memories of early struggles in your first MMO, and realize that you would never put up with EQ-at-launch today. Many of the problems in MMOs are not so bad once, just that we keep hitting the same bugs/grinds/AARGH for years. You will deal with it to see the new shiny when everything is new and shiny. New players are also more likely to play at a sane pace, perhaps try to experience everything on a first character (they don’t realize it is “first” not “my” character yet) before moving on to the next zone, thus giving more development time for that mid-game.

For veterans, we are obviously insane enough to put up with it, and we are already thinking long-run. Hardcore players are going to blast through come Hell or high water, and if the late-game content is weak, that is just more reason to push through to the promised land of Level Cap. You know common workarounds from previous games, you are tapped into the community to get tips on what is bugged and how to circumvent it, and you are already inured from years of suffering in previous MMOs. You have a community to help see you through, a guild of people to talk to, and you are not going to abandon your guild because (a) you like them or (b) you tell yourself you are playing to spend time with these people rather than get the next Ding! pellet.

So for all those reasons, I believe that if you sink the hooks in deeply, your players will probably view their first 40 or 80 hours as an investment rather than a sunk cost, and they will keep pushing on unless the game is truly painful with little promise of improvement. Or they are the much maligned, possibly mythical “tourists” who were never going to stay anyway, so again it does not matter.

Get the first day right: bait. Get the end-game right: long-term storage in the fish tank. Get the early game right: sink the hook. They may wriggle, but you will keep quite a few on the line with even a decent mid- to late-game. Or without the horrible fish metaphor: your early word of mouth gives the game life, and the long-run word of mouth sustains it.

: Zubon

Early, Middle, Late is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Citizens of Egypt,

Just a short newsletter about a new “social experiment” that we’re about to try. But first, I need to talk to you about “Dunbar’s Number.”
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar hypothesized that there are certain stable sizes that groups of humans tend to naturally form. Depending on the type of group (extended families, cultural lineage groups, tribes), the numbers cluster around 50, 150, and 2500 (upper limit.)
We’re toward the end of our fourth Tale in the Desert (preparations are underway for ATITD V!), but I’ve noticed a pattern in each Tale: Our peak subscriber count has ranged from 1750 to 2500, always about 30 days in, and regardless of the peak, we settle down to a population of around 1100 subscribers (slightly lower this Tale, slightly higher in Tale 2) where we remain for most of the Tale.
Could there be a “Dunbar’s Number” for A Tale in the Desert? If there is – if the game design itself leads to a population of around 1100 subscribers, then growing “the” ATITD community may be the wrong approach – we should try to create a second ATITD community! And if this experiment succeeds, a third and more.
So to test that theory, we’re going to start a second ATITD IV shard, beginning on February 20. I’ll have more details about “Shard Bastet” next week, but if you’ve always wanted to get in on the beginning of a Tale, this is a great opportunity to do just that.
I’d be most interested to hear thoughts on this from those that have been away from ATITD for a while.

On the Nile,
Teppy

A Letter from Pharaoh is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The same is true in our gaming genre built on communal interaction.  We might be “IRL” anonymous, but we really aren’t in an MMO.  We are just known by different names.

When I first started playing A Tale in the Desert, there was a big discussion on what names should be allowed in our little Egypt.  We had names with sexual innuendos, 20th century technologies, and even l33t speak (e.g., ]-[@xin8trrr).  The lead developer stepped in and said ‘anything goes.’  His MMO, he explained, was built squarely on the foundation of community.  If a person wanted an unpronounceable or ridiculous name, then that person would have more to overcome when trying to create the necessary social connections.

Things are not so different in a mainstream MMO, such as World of Warcraft of Lord of the Rings Online.  Guilds, players, and sometimes even areas (like the Prancing Pony) gain reputations.  With guild tags flying above our names, all it takes is one rotten apple spouting racial, sexist, or sexual obscenities in a pick-up-group to ruin the reputation of a reputable guild.  Sure the rotten apple might get booted, and the guild leaders might make public, persistent apologies.  But, the damage was done.

I think this is something most of us know.  When looking for a new guild or inviting new members, we are more careful in MMOs because something is immediately at stake. 

The effect compounds itself with the big brotherly punishment of exile.  One drunken tirade against a culture on public chat might cause a player’s entire reputation to vanish as his or her account is banned.  All the time and energy spent in creating a persistent online imago is stripped away because ultimately our games are a privilege.  And, the rules are simple ones we have known since pre-school:  play nice and play fair.

This post so far is pretty negative, but the negatives, in my humble opinion, are a good thing. It leads me to believe that our little gaming sub-culture stands above the uncouth hordes of gamers, if only a little.  It makes me believe that MMOs can be a breeding ground for social tolerance, friendships, and ultimately a real affect on those we game with because our reputations (and accounts) are vulnerably persistent.

–Ravious
this little light of mine

The Persistence of Reputation is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The problem is non-trivial. The seasons change as you cross onto a new map, but few comment on the walk from the perpetual winter of Dun Morogh to the perpetual spring of Loch Modan. You must have noticed at some point, but did you notice when the transition happened?

Some of this is gamer suspension of disbelief: we are used to having everything change when we get to a new level of the game, and moving to a new zone is the MMO equivalent. The game environment also facilitates this the same way it keeps you on the theme park quest path: channelization. How many zones have wide-open borders that you can traverse, rather than walls of impassable mountains with narrow openings?

Those openings can become rather like tunnels for about a draw distance, so that you see big rocks covering the transition point. The transitions to and from Loch Modan really are tunnels, enclosing you so that you cannot see the set being swapped, like taking an elevator in Portal. In other zones, see bridges and rivers serving a similar purpose. You may note this as a problem at the border of Westfall: river and bridges, yes, but it is brief enough for you to see the transition. On the way in, there are quest-givers to distract you, but Duskwood makes it look like the world ends across the river.

Touring through some other games of my acquaintance: City of Heroes does the same thing, complete with loading screens. Asheron’s Call never does, since you can run everywhere from anywhere, and there are large areas over which you can watch the land change. The Lord of the Rings Online™ Volume One: Shadows of Angmar™ is mostly open, with channelization into the lategame zones and the ones added post-release. The Lord of the Rings Online™ Volume Two: Mines of Moria™ channels everything, but it is set in caverns anyway. Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates has separate islands, with boats as loading screens (WoW does the same at points). A Tale in the Desert takes the same approach as Asheron’s Call, with some really impressive geography reflecting years of effort from volunteer world-builders.

: Zubon

Impassable hills are also good for hiding the Potemkin village nature of most of the landmass. Cataclysm needs to re-do the whole landmass anyway so flying mounts cannot show that there is nothing behind the backdrops.

Airlocks is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Dreams Undreamt is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Developers: why do you not have multiple guilds? This is not even innovation; A Tale in the Desert launched in 2003, and most of that game was two coders. Doing so could have solved the guild problems that Burning Crusade created through something like this, which is how all major projects are done in A Tale in the Desert.

One guild might leave all at once for a new game. If you are in seven guilds, and at least four are staying, you have far more reasons to stick around.

: Zubon

Guild Polyamory is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

A Tale in the Desert IV is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

My thanks to our commenters who pointed out my ignorance and cited other games doing something along these lines. Please consider this your report-out on games that have aspects of player-run, -built, or -defended cities. Add more to the comments if you think of any.

Unsurprisingly, EVE is the next closest in a major game. Almost everything is player-run in 0.0 space, and player-owned outposts have almost everything that starbases do back in empire space. Is anyone running shipments of Quafe for pirates in the far reaches of the ‘verse?

I should have mentioned A Tale in the Desert. Again, almost everything is player-built, although we did not think of them as cities when I played. Large guild bases could house dozens and take minutes to run across, but we still thought of them as bases, not cities. There seems to have been more population concentration since I last played.

Wurm Online is another one that has everything player-built, complete with guard NPCs for your structures. I don’t really have much to say here, however, since I had not heard of it before seeing that comment.

Wish was going to have something along these lines, but it never made it out of beta.

Star Wars Galaxies had a lot along these lines. Has? I have no idea what survived NGE, and people seemed to stop talking about it a month after NGE. I heard something about ghost towns from departed players. No idea, sorry.

And all my previous citations still apply: Shadowbane, Horizons, town attacks Asheron’s Call, and moments in City of Heroes/Villains. If you want to discuss these or have more, comments are open. If you have tried more than one, which implementation did you prefer?

: Zubon

Guardians at the Gates 1 is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

If you see it as a fancy trade skills game with a lot of cooperation, you are missing the point. Egypt exists to cause strife and conduct evil sociological experiments, and if the players are not generating enough drama the developers will cheerfully provide new ways to strike at your neighbor. What Pharaoh considers the most perfect part of the game is a test that encourages bribery, pandering, manipulation, backstabbing, and wasteful ostentation, and it requires that many lose for anyone to win.

You see a lack of violence and think there is no PvP. I see a game with every other way to hurt someone and make his life miserable, but you can never kill your tormentor. Oh wait, you can take your case to the ballot box or the right test-winner and have your enemy exiled or executed. You blew up someone’s spaceship and little egg? Big deal. Egypt has permadeath. There is no respawning.

When your players have a chance to destroy all life and end the game, come back and tell me how hardcore you are.

: Zubon

You Aren’t Hardcore Enough to Grow Flax is a post from: Kill Ten Rats