Category: General

General

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Another Casual Player Definition

I’ve been following Lord of the Rings Online developer Orion’s blog pretty closely where every day he updates the masses as to his redesign of the Red Maid dungeon, Garth Agarwen.  It is really interesting, and reading some of his mundane tasks really gives a good showing as to why design is slow.

One of his latest posts remarks on how Garth Agarwen is going to be re-released in bite-size form aimed at casual players, which is a hard “niche” of players to define:

It’s difficult to define the casual player, so I’m just going to go with the tried and true generalizations that may or may not be true of any given part of the player base: Casual players are those that value play time at a premium rather than a given; their time is precious and spent in many areas and as a result is parcelled in ways that make sense for their lifestyle, play style and life commitments. Casual players would prefer to have a fun bite-sized experience that is entertaining and challenging, but fits within schedule demands that other persons may not necessarily be beholden too. Casual players are not looking for the easiest path to fun, they just want a path to fun.

I have never nodded so much in reading a paragraph written by a game developer.  Like I have noted before, casual vs. hardcore does not really denote the amount of time played anymore.  I think, in line with Turbine’s devs (and hopefully many others), that casual vs. hardcore is based on the unquantifiable amount of fun per time played.

“Casual” like so many terms is becoming a misnomer for a way to define gamers, but the concept is simple.  Does the game let the player actually play without significant hurdles to overcome?  MMOs are a niche market partly because they are one of the few video gaming genres that requires hardcore play in the majority of gameplay.  Console gamers and non-MMO PC gamers probably scratch their heads in wonder.  After all, the point of playing video games it to actually play, right?

–Ravious
the majesty of my tower of hats

Consumer Expectations

Bryan Caplan writes an argument about insurer reputation that starts with bad drivers and passes very close to our subject area:

[Many dissatisfied people] have unreasonably high expectations about the kind of treatment other people owe them. The clash between their inflated expectations and reality is the cause of their bitterness.

When people scoff at the power of reputation to constrain business behavior, they’re basically making the same mistake. If you think that paying the standard market rate entitles you to top-of-the-line quality, businesses will constantly disappoint you. I call this the Law of Inflated Expectations: The main cause of cynicism about business is consumer narcissism.

50 cents a day, and that’s without the discount plans. Maybe I can argue that the world owes me something for my $50 up front. Maybe I can see that premium game someday, charging $30+ a month and having high quality for a small population. Maybe I can keep whining.

On another note, if you require 1 hour of CSR time per month, that wipes out the profits from having you as a customer.

: Zubon

Dreams Undreamt

A Casualties member mentioned Crimecraft last night. Ah, a gang-based online thing. “I’ve never dreamed of being in a gang, so not really interested.” Then I thought back through some previous games. I never dreamed of being a dwarf that set people on fire by writing on a rock, of making charcoal and growing flax, of summoning headless ice monsters that rained frosty death upon my foes, of being a buffing psychic cyborg, of…

: Zubon

Defensive Patch Notes

For the minority of players that read the patch notes, there is an even smaller minority.  Let’s call them nicely the Caretakers.  The Caretakers are players that love the game to a degree that emphasizes the definition of a love/hate relationship.  They read the patch notes for your favorite MMO, and whereas more casual players just nod that things are getting better, the Caretakers see holes.

The bear skill is still overpowered.  Those fire wizards are still overpowered.  The combo-class is still weak and still not wanted in parties.  The Cap of Pulcritude (sic) is still (sic).  And, what are all these needless things that the developers wasted their time on.  Who gives a rodent turd about the stuff they actually did?  Except for that one thing, that was pretty good.  A light salve for the godhanded slap in the Caretakers’ faces.

The Caretakers then unite in their public council for all casual forumgoers to see, and they pontificate on how the developers clearly do not understand the problems in their own game.  Which makes me wonder… Should developers put some defensive, non-patch notes in their patch notes?  I don’t just mean the “we understand the issues with [a most reviled feature], and are looking in to it” (which rarely makes it into the patch notes anyway).  I mean something that a game designer would query another game designer on.

At the end of the day the Caretakers truly care about the game.  Sane community managers and developers know this.  Caretakers are also some of the most expert of people on the game.  They know the game better than many of the developers.  Sane community managers and developers also know this.  So could the Caretakers be used manipulatively as an unknowing think tank? Continue reading Defensive Patch Notes

Morrowind Singularity

I am reading Vernor Vinge’s Marooned in Realtime, the well-known book about people who missed The Singularity. Last night, a character explained how an intelligence explosion works. You find ways to improve intelligence; you use that enhanced intelligence to improve intelligence further; repeat as necessary. At some point, you figure out the fundamental principles of the universe and build your own using common household items.

Anarchy Online and Asheron’s Call players have their own recursive self-improvement. Cast your level 5 spells to buff your stats, which lets you wear better equipment, which lets you cast level 6 spells, which lets you wear better equipment… That process caps due to game design choices like diminishing returns and spell durations, as opposed to the intelligence explosion, which is self-accelerating.

Only this morning did I learn that Morrowind includes intelligence explosion as a mechanic. You can beat the game in less than fifteen minutes, starting with the step “Create and drink Fortify Intelligence in batches of 5.” It is like having a skill that grants you bonus experience every time you earn experience, where you improve that skill by earning experience.

And now I have the compulsion to re-read Godel, Escher, Bach.

: Zubon

A Case For Massively

James at MMOCrunch brought up the upcoming game, Borderlands, which he classifies as an MMO.  Borderlands is a self-proclaimed FPS with RPG elements.  (Zubon recently discussed the “RPG” misnomer.)  Borderlands is very similar to Diablo’s style of multiplayer where players can join others’ games and the first player’s game adjusts in difficulty.  Only up to four players can join one game, and there seems to be no true persistence (even in a player hub).  Yet, James insists that it is, in his opinion, an MMO.  Going through the acronym: (1) Borderlands is multiplayer, (2) Bordlands is online, and following whatever colloquialism “RPG” means now, (3) Borderlands has some RPG elements.  So the sticking point, as is usually the case when deciding what constitutes an MMO, is whether Borderlands is considered “massive.”

 The sage Nicodemeus wrote out a classification chart two years ago to describe the thin red line between a mere multiplayer online game and one that is “massive.”  Nicodemeus wrote: “[The term “massive”] should mean that thousands of players are interacting in the same world/environment simultaneously. People that are on different *web pages* at the same site, or a game that has thousands of multiplayer games going at the same time do NOT count as massively multiplayer.”  Borderlands clearly does not fall under Nicodemeus’ definition of a massively multiplayer online game. Continue reading A Case For Massively

Divergence

At IMGDC 2.0, we met the folks from Stainglass Llama, a small studio making a game called Divergence. You may know my standing policy of not paying attention to anything more than 6 months from release, which has kept me from thinking about them. They are still working on it, and more than six months from release, but you might be interested.

If nothing else, this is something good to read for those of you hoping to live the dream of making your own MMO. We’ll show them all, right? Middleware is better these days, but it is still hard. If you look through their news history (the old site is more functional at present), you can see milestones like having a world they can walk around, actually being able to connect to that world, and getting basic chat. All those things that you consider basic and necessary? It takes a bit of work to get them going yourself. Filling in the content is even more work — even when it is not hard, there is a lot of it. For an easy extrapolation on that “develop content” problem, try making something in the City of Heroes Mission Architect. How long does it take to make one good story arc, including all the troubleshooting, text editing, making unique enemies, etc.? Okay, now multiply that by 1000 for the full game, and that is just the quests, and you had all the tech and art supplied for you.

They’re starting to fill all that in, so if you have ever wanted to get in on the ground floor as alpha starts up, here is a chance. They would love your attention and discussion. They would also love your money, if you have been hoping to fund an MMO. (On another front, our old buddy Nicodemus is wondering about funding a start-up via Twitter connections; I suppose it spoils that question for me to mention it here, but if you have the few hundred k for augmented reality development, I’m sure Robert Rice would love to talk to you.) I’m not sure at what point such the proper phrase goes from “dream” to “investment,” but then I am a professional skeptic and evaluator by profession, so don’t let me rain on your parade.

It’s Friday. Dream a little.

: Zubon

CRPG

In current gaming parlance, does “RPG” mean anything except “character advancement”? I see lots of games “incorporating RPG elements,” which means that you level up. If they’re really thinking outside the box, you skill up, or you unlock achievements for character advancement. You get more actual role-playing in Second Life or on LiveJournal, and neither of those have levels.

: Zubon

Beauty in Simplicity

I am glad that forthcoming MMOs are stepping back from the precipice of the uncanny valley– a revulsion to the near real.  Quite a few upcoming MMOs are hedging towards stylized graphics, ala Team Fortress 2 or dare I say World of Warcraft, which are also less taxing on system requirements than photo realistic styles.  The stylized feel for things also gives the MMO artists another opportunity in creating some artistic moments through simplicity.

Wizard 101, for example, is a very graphics light game.  It doesn’t have huge polygon counts or untold amounts of shaders, but it does have style.  It’s simple and clean, filled with teenage wizardry, and fairly evocative spells.  Even in the age of Aion and Crysis, Wizard 101 still has some moments that made me appreciate the artistic direction.  The spells are the obvious choice, but I want to focus on the level design.

In my play through Wizard City and Kroktopia most of the PvE zones have been a street or street-like tomb with buildings and props off to the side.  There is the occasional tree or sarcophagus, but the space is not really much for looking.  Most of it is actually rather mundane.  It really just sets the atmosphere.  However, in nearly each zone the level artists made sure to add a stop and stare moment.  In Wizard City it might be a portion of the zone torn asunder with pieces magically floating in the distance, or deep below in Kroktopian tombs it might be a cave with a quiet lightning storm below the skinny stalagmites the wizards stand on.  I do not think that these moments would be so evocative without the simplistic baseline the rest of the zone portrays.

Lord of the Rings Online, on the other hand, is debateably one of the most beautiful and atmospheric MMOs.  Yet, how many vistas and painstaking creations get lost in the clutter.  I was very excited to walk in to the Prancing Pony for the first time as a young lad.  I stepped through the door, saw Butterbur, and was thereafter sensually overwhelmed.   There were patron NPCs, “roleplayers,” countless tables, a fireplace, things on the wall, maybe even wooden or antler-built chandeliers.  I focused on the thing with the quest icon above its head.  Any stop and stare moment was completely lost in the business of the place.

The most picturesque moments on Lord of the Rings Online, for me, have been the interplay between the sky and the distant landscapes, or a night upon Amon Raith, or finding a quiet fishing hole.  The more active the environment whether through props or moving players or NPCs, the less stunning it becomes.

I have great respect for the artistic minds that create levels above and beyond mere game design.  The whole zone becomes a type of symphony having many active allegro and vivace moments that come from movement, combat, and realistic business, but I think it is equally important to have a holding coda as well.  The base tempo for each zone will definitely affect the spikes in either direction.

–Ravious
obliged to be industrious