Piercing the Veil On Bioware's MMOG 88
Ziff Davis' newly rebranded computer-games magazines, Games for Windows, is showing off some of its new content on the 1up hub site. They've got a fantastic interview with James Ohlen, the creative director at Bioware Austin, Rich Vogel, and Gordon Walton, co-studio directors. For the first time, they reveal some new details on Bioware's upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Game. They don't talk about the game's setting, unsurprisingly, but they do go into some depth on the thinking behind their game. From the article: "GFW: One of the big problems with MMO gameplay is repeating the same content, or same instance if you're specifically talking about WoW, over and over again ... JO: That's something we don't want to encourage. We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward. Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that."
Call me a pessimist, I guess (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. Or rather, it may be "good" in the sense that it's better than other ways, but not "good" in the sense that it actually accomplishes what the designers intended it to.
I was a wiz (admin, sort of) on a MOO back in the day. It was MUD-like in that it had a coded stats/skills system, including combat (both player-vs-player and player-vs-aHaB). It was MOO/MUSH like in that it emphasized actual role play, rather than dungeon crawling. In some ways, it was about the best setup one could hope for: there was a significant cultural value put on role playing.
This didn't stop players from sparring up stats and twinking their way through the game. It didn't stop "the grind." When people complained about what was going on, various technical means were put in place to try and curtail repetitive stat building and encourage role play. None of them succeeded to any great extent.
Or rather, they succeeded fantastically well for the players that availed themselves of the new systems - but those are the players who would have been role playing anyway.
After going through three different stat/skill systems on that game, with each change meant to discourage the grind and encourage role play, and none being terribly effective, I came to the conclusion that if you build it, they will not necessarily come. The very existence of a stats/skills system, I believe, means that there will be people who just try to game it as fast as they can, to up their numbers. And if the stats/skills system means anything at all within the game, those players will have an advantage over players who don't want to spend the time doing that.
Hell, you see the same thing in small groups of table-top RPGers. There's often (almost always, IME) one guy at the table, even in a good group, whose sole focus is levelling up. In that sort of small community setting, with constant one-on-one interaction between the GM and the players, and when the GM is pretty much god (I don't care how many dice you have in sneak, you cannot sneak across the football field in broad daylight. Fine, roll your dice...oh, sorry, you failed. He saw you and you died), this can be dealt with. None of those factors obtain in an online game: you have many people (a "Massive" amount, one might say), there isn't enough staff to have constant interaction with a real person, and the staff that does exist has to follow a specific set of rules, lest there be widespread player bitching and general dissatisfaction.
I spent a good lot of time working up a stat/skill system that, I believe, would have helped alleviate the problem (partially by recognizing that people will grind, and incorporating that into the system). I stopped before even trying to push for its implementation for two reasons: first, because I ended up realizing that it probably wouldn't work as well as I hoped. And second, because most of the players I bounced it off of didn't like it - they wanted the grind.
*shrug*
I wish BioWare and their future player base the best of luck. I really hope it works out for them. But I really don't think it will.
Re:Ultima Online? (Score:4, Interesting)
I take it you never played Ultima Online back in the 1998-2000 era?
Sure, you would find yourself doing repetitive tasks like chopping wood, mining, crafting, or killing certain creatures, but in general it wasn't a very kill something rinse and repeat type of game.
Mostly because of the player interaction and virtual economy. That and it wasn't that hard to become a 7xGM (what you would call a level 60 character that is maxed out) with maybe 3-4 months worth of casual play. I'd dare say you could get to be 7xGM in 2 if you macroed and played hard core.
Being such a big fan of UO kept me from being able to get into any other MMOGs since I did not like the grind and level systems.
Take away the leveling and XP and replace it with a skill system and I think you have a good game.