Author: Zubon

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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Rollers of the Realm

Pinball-RPG hybrid. You have a standard RPG story: start from humble beginnings, collect a motley crew of allies, realize your initial foe is part of a scheme to take over the world, save the realm. You have RPG character advancement, whereby you can level up, select new party members, and upgrade them with equipment. The twist is that each map is a pinball table. Instead of standard RPG combat, your characters are pinballs that bash your enemies down. Each character has a special ability and different stat mods, so the knight breaks things and has a shield, while the rogue does more damage from behind and has a dog multi-ball, while the ranger shoots arrows as he passes by enemies and has a bigger multiball of animal companions.

The campaign mode is a few hours of content, so not a lot. As pinball, it is as replayable as your enjoyment of pinball. The achievement checklist suggests the “real game” is playing for gold medals on the arena maps. Those seem to be variations on “complete this map quickly” and “get a high score on this map.” I have only briefly sampled that part of the game.

If you like virtual pinball and character advancement mechanics, this certainly seems to be for you. I enjoy it in small doses, so I’ll check out the arenas gradually.

: Zubon

Order of Operations

Minor virtue of Card Hunter: the end of round steps put “check victory squares for points” and “check if someone has won” before “discard excess cards.” It is a small thing, but it saves annoyance. It is a good practice to check “is this necessary” before “has this been done.”

: Zubon

Acronyms

We know that Heroes of the Storm went through multiple names over the course of its development, and those were just the ones mentioned in public. How does a company have both “Heart of the Swarm” and “Heroes of the Storm” in the development pipeline at the same time without someone stopping that? I type at least one thing wrong every time I spell out either name now.

: Zubon

What Is Wrong with MMOs

To return to not making your content fun, I believe MMO content should be designed on a scale. On one end you have rewards, and on the other end you have fun. The more fun said content, the less rewarding it should be, while the less fun something is, the more rewarding it needs to be to stay viable/relevant.
— SynCaine, Fun vs Reward

In terms of designing a subscription-based game that retains players and makes efficient use of content, it makes a kind of sense to design a Skinner Box that rewards your players for spending time on the least fun content. This is where Moloch drives MMOs.

Pay to play a game designed to minimize fun per hour. The main thing we seem to learn from playing MMOs is that you will have more fun not playing MMOs.

: Zubon

Accumulating Dailies

We have previously discussed the differing needs of people who play an hour every day versus one big weekend binge. Heroes of the Storm gives you a semi-random daily quest rather than a first win of the day bonus, and your daily quest sticks around between days if you do not finish it today. You do not even need to log in to refresh this. If you have not played in three days, when you go back, you will have a full quest log.

: Zubon

Revive or Flatline?

Expansions are intended to reinvigorate games, but they are also what usually convinces me that I am done with an MMO.

When I am into a game, every new thing is exciting. Changes may or may not be good, but I am passionate about them. Revamping major systems is a learning opportunity, a whole new batch of Theory of Fun fun for a spade like me who is an Explorer of design and mechanics. Every set of patch notes is the seasonal menu at a fine restaurant, and an expansion is a smorgasbord of new content.

When I am not into a game, I can coast for a long time. Sometimes that is just downtime, waiting for something new to revive that spark after I have done all the things. Other times, it is a misguided sense of commitment and loyalty, not yet ready to admit that I am done. The current free to play trend lets one drag that out for a long time, logging in for a quick daily to keep a faint spark alive when a subscription fee could force an “is this worth it?” decision point.

An expansion forces that decision point on a grander scale. You need to buy something. Large mechanics are changing. The level cap is probably going up, and if not the population will still be moving to the new areas, so you must follow or be left behind.

And so I look at my emotional reaction. Do big changes inspire interest or dread? You have already made your decision, you just need to recognize it.

: Zubon

Town of Salem

Mafia (also known as Werewolf and a dozen other variations) is a piece of gaming literature, for which I knew the rules but never got around to playing. This weekend I tried out an online variant under the name Town of Salem and proceeded to play 17 games in a row.

Mafia is a PvP game of social deduction. You have a town of people, a few of whom are secretly the Mafia. The Mafia kills someone every night in their plan to seize power. Every day, the townspeople (including the hidden Mafia) can vote to lynch someone. Night follows day until one side is eliminated.

The town has numerical advantage. They will definitely have some losses, but when there are three Mafia members out of 10-15 in the town, having more bodies means not only more longevity but also more people watching for suspicious behavior. The Mafia has a coordination advantage, because the Mafia members know who is in the Mafia.

Variations include changing team composition, whether notes are allowed, and giving players special abilities. Online games allow more options for secret communication or abilities that might be awkward in physical games. Town of Salem gives every player a role with a special ability and includes neutral roles, such as the Jester who wants to by lynched. I am torn between enjoying the additional flavor and wondering whether it spoils the purity of the original game. The default game only uses about half the roles, with limited variation, but other options can use them all.

As my 17-game binge suggests, it is immediately engrossing and addicting. I can see why some conventions have continuously running games that successfully sell “all you can play” passes.

: Zubon