Bartle to MMOG Players - Newbs! 336
Gamasutra (registration required) has begun running an excellent column called "Soapbox". The first article up on the site is penned by Richard Bartle, one of the gents who created MUD1. Why Virtual Worlds are Designed by Newbies [non-reg alternate] is a great look at the lessons of past games and the foibles of designing a new one. From the article: "Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted "survival of the not-quite-fittest" form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed."
Oh, the horror of bad gaming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, the horror of bad gaming (Score:5, Funny)
God, I'm getting smarter and healthier...
...says the individual reading MUD articles on Slashdot.
Re:Oh, the horror of bad gaming (Score:2)
Re:Oh, the horror of bad gaming (Score:3, Funny)
Ha, me too! I was playing Star Wars Galaxies 30 hours a week, but that got boring...
Now, I'm thinking of going to law school to fill the empty hours. I've also been lifting weights, and am even thinking about talking to a girl sometime in the next few weeks (if the opportunity presents itself).
Re:Oh, the horror of bad gaming (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a minute (Score:3, Funny)
Regisitration Required. Slashdot Sucks. (Score:4, Informative)
How lame...Why on earth do "we" even bother reading slashdot anymore. The editors might as well be (un)trained monkeys.
Use:
Username: slashdot@mailinator.com
Password: slashdot
article linky [gamasutra.com]
bugmenot login generator [bugmenot.com]
Feel free to hijack this thread to complain about how slashdot is going to the dogs these days... I remember the good ol' days when they used to run real live interesting tech stories...not some
Re:Regisitration Required. Slashdot Sucks. (Score:2, Troll)
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041103/bart
But I might be wrong, as I already logged in on the site with that usr/pwd you posted.
Re:Regisitration Required. Slashdot Sucks. (Score:2, Informative)
turning off javascript
Re:Regisitration Required. Slashdot Sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Regisitration Required. Slashdot Sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Newbies are usually lost (Score:5, Insightful)
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don't like.
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
Point #4: Many players will think some poor design choices are good.
iCLOD Virtual City [iclod.com] is based (remotely) on a real city. It is turn-based and time-based so that players won't be affected by different time zones and there are enough objectives to keep everybody occupied.
But like the article stated, it's pretty hard to keep everyone happy because they all want something in the virtual world to suit their abilities to win.
Additionally, newbies are always lost in the first instance they arrive in the city, so it requires a lot of tutorials and guides to get them settle in in order to introduce the real depth of the game to them.
Re:Newbies are usually lost (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Newbies are usually lost (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, no kidding. I just tried iCLOD.
Okay. Links on the side of the screen. Let's see what they do.
"Clicking this link costs $5 and uses 5 minutes of time."
Fuck. Wasn't even useful. Let's try this one.
"Clicking this link costs $10 and uses 10 minutes of time."
Fuck! Okay, okay, $10 isn't much and neither is 10 minutes. Let's see what I can do.
Hey, I could get a job here! This one looks neat.
Except it's midnight and it won't let me. Bah. Well, I can get a cup of coffee.
Except, surprise, it's midnight and it won't let me. Grrr. Maybe I should go find a place to sleep. I don't see one here. I'll go explore.
Nope. None here.
Or here.
Or here.
"Superior room". I can't afford that. Let's keep looking.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no (note: there should be about 20 no's here.)
Ah, a hostel! That'll do. Except, wait, I have to be female apparently. Fuck. Keep looking.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no . .
Ah, a Standard Room. Okay. Better than nothing. Eight hours, gone. Plus three hours spent looking for a place to sleep.
Now I can get a job. I wonder if there were any good jobs that I missed. Well, there's this nice database of places I've visited, that . . . has no job info. What am I supposed to do, write down job stats on a piece of paper? Fuck it, I'll just take the first job I can.
Eight more hours gone.
Woo. I've almost paid for my room. I haven't paid for it entirely. I haven't paid for the $15 of misclicks. I haven't paid for the $60 of upkeep I apparently get every day. And I've still got five hours for the day. I can't sleep, I can't work, and all the interesting places to "play" seem to be closed. Even if I could afford them, and, at this rate, I can't.
This "game" sucks.
Re:Newbies are usually lost (Score:3, Informative)
Quickstart Tutorials are useful.
It says how to get a free room for the first night on the first page.
Re:Newbies are usually lost (Score:3, Insightful)
Premature? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my opinion.
The "newbies" are paying the bills. (Score:4, Interesting)
PS: Is it just me or is Slashdot REALY slow today?
Re:The "newbies" are paying the bills. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's November 3rd. Anything special going on right now?
Article Text (Score:4, Informative)
[Author's note: What I'm calling virtual worlds, you might call MMORPGs or MMOGs or (if you're a real old-timer) MUDs. Macro replace with your preference accordingly. Got that? Then I'll begin...]
Introduction
Virtual worlds are being designed by know-nothing newbies, and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it. I don't mean newbie designers, I mean newbie players - first timers. They're dictating design through a twisted survival of the not-quite-fittest form of natural selection that will lead to a long-term decay in quality, guaranteed. If you think some of today's offerings are garbage, just you wait...
Yeah, yeah, you want some justification for this assertion. Even though I'm in Soapbox mode, I can see that, so I will explain - only not just yet. First, I'm going to make four general points that I can string together to build my case. Bear with me on this...
The Newbie Stream
Here's a quote from Victorian author Charles Dickens:
OK, so maybe he didn't actually write that last line.
What Dickens was actually saying is that, so long as you don't lose more than you gain, things are good. In our particular case, we're not talking olde English money, we're talking newbies, although ultimately, the two amount to one and the same thing.
Now I'm sorry to be the bringer of bad news, people, but here goes anyway: even for the most compelling of virtual worlds, players will eventually leave. Don't blame me, I didn't invent reality.
If oldbies leave, newbies are needed to replace them. The newbies must arrive at the same rate (or better) that the oldbies leave; otherwise, the population of the virtual world will decline until eventually no-one will be left to play it.
Point #1: Virtual worlds live or die by their ability to attract newbies
Newbie Preconceptions
Another quote, this time from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams:
Well, maybe if you're an Iowa corn farmer who hears voices inside your head telling you to construct a baseball stadium, but otherwise...
A virtual world can be fully functioning and free of bugs, but still be pretty well devoid of players. There are plenty of non-gameplay reasons why this could happen, but I'm going to focus on the most basic: lack of appeal. Some virtual worlds just aren't attractive to newbies. There are some wonderfully original, joyous virtual worlds out there. They're exquisitely balanced, rich in depth, abundant in breadth, alive with subtleties, and full of wise, interesting, fun people who engender an atmosphere of mystique and marvel without compare. Newbies would love these virtual worlds, but they're not going to play them.
Why not? Because they're all text. Newbies don't do text.
Newbies come to virtual worlds with a set of preconceptions acquired from other virtual worlds; or, failing that, from other computer games; or, failing that, from gut instinct. They will not consider virtual worlds that confront these expectations if there are others around that don't.
Put another way, if a virtual world has a feature that offends newbies, the developers will have to remove that feature or they won't get any newbies. This is irrespective of what the oldbies think: they may adore a feature, but if newbies don't like it then (under point #1) eventually there won't be anyone left to adore it.
Point #2: Newbies won't play a virtual world that has a major feature they don
Re:Article Text (LOL) (Score:3, Insightful)
his main point seems to be a fairly articulate position that features in virtual worlds are not selected on good long time design merits, but rather on short term individual wants.
I have quite a bit of experience of this sort of world evolution from the rubber sword wielding Live Action Role Play communities in England. As most of them started very small and grew in dribs and drabs, it is fair to say the systems owe more to evolution than overall design.
To take the
Re:Article Text (LOL) (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't buy this. There is certainly achievement without risk. In real life, when I complete a project, even a small one, I feel acheivement. What did I risk? Nothing. It was inevitable that I would finish, and I knew how long it would take, but I feel achievement all the same. In games, it's the same, only more fun along the way. If I reach some kind of milestone, risky or not, I feel achievement.
people choose what is good for them, not what is good for the
nevertheless, (Score:3, Funny)
Registration on Gamasutra (Score:3, Informative)
user: numlocked@gmail.com
pass: 78b9602a
Re:Registration on Gamasutra (Score:2)
Having said this, I wish he'd put this article up elsewhere, because it's a really, really good insight into why most of the MMOGs have been slowly degrading in quality. Not in graphics or sound, but in playability and overall fun.
Gotta love MMOGs (Score:5, Insightful)
$160 video card
17 inch monitor
512mb + of ram
Screamin' Soundcard
Highspeed cable modem
Telnet client
Conenction to MUD that's been running since 1990... CHECK?!
The implications are correct, the best games have been around for years, designed and maintained by old hands... and they're text-based.
Hmmm maybe we need elite MUDs (Score:2)
i.e. "MUD for oldbies. By oldbies".
_OR_ the MUD could have different "esoteric" levels, where people in the inner circles would be able to play with different rules than the newbies.
Re:Hmmm maybe we need elite MUDs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmmm maybe we need elite MUDs (Score:2)
Re:Gotta love MMOGs (Score:2)
Also, it could have A/V for things where figuring out what you see/hear is part of the challenge:
"In the distance, you hear a sound you can't easily identify. {sound plays}"
"Some strange characters are written on the wall: {image of strange characters}"
Re:Gotta love MMOGs (Score:3, Interesting)
How to start with MUDs? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think part of the problem with MUDs is that there's a larger learning curve than for getting into Everquest or FFXI. So, would some MUD veterans like to give some suggestions on how to reach MUD enlightenment?
Mud Recomendation (Score:4, Funny)
http://mud.astrakan.hig.se/index2.html
Cyberpunk type mud... old and established and has an automated tour guide if a live one is not available.
If you want a head start on the mud experience, start spending 14+hrs a day at the computer, ignore friends and family, and leave your phone off the hook (flashback to dial-up days) so nobody can reach you.
If you are a student, drop all your classes as well. They get in the way of real mudding excellence.
Posted anonymous, cause somebody at
Re:Mud Recomendation (Score:2)
Re:How to start with MUDs? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. Don't.
Re:How to start with MUDs? (Score:3, Informative)
To play these effectively (as a new player) you will need a MUD client. These are just a modified telent terminal. Zmud is popular for windows users, Powwow, Tintin, and others are good on a Linux system.
Once you get in, start reading things. Most MUDs support intuitive commands like "west" to go west, or "Say" to say something, or "Chat"
Re:How to start with MUDs? (Score:3, Informative)
You can go to www.mudconnector.com [mudconnector.com] and search for a MUD with features you might like. Personally, I'm partial to Discworld [atuin.net].
Re:How to start with MUDs? (Score:3, Informative)
The good (and bad) thing about most MUDS out there is that they are all based off the same worlds and engines, so a lot of the knowledge is transferable from one MUD to the next. But the good ones go out of their way to make theirs unique.
If you want top quality, there are pay to play MUDS like Gemstone III and Dragonrealms (both by Simutronics, and no I don't work for them).
Revisionist history (Score:4, Informative)
Grammatical correction (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah! Lets blame the users! Thats the ticket! (Score:5, Insightful)
Get real.
Many MMORPGs succeed. There are just many more that will not. This is not the fault of the players. What this ranter totally missed out on is the fact that players are no longer accepting excuses.
Look at Horizons, look at AC2, or look at original AO. Simply put, if you try to pull one over on the users you will get caught and they will punish you for it. Funcom made right, Turbine and Artifact Entertainment never did, those two deluded themselves into believing they were right and the players were the issue.
We no longer have to accept half-assed attempts because we have so many more choices. We are also seeing some big names getting ready to debut in this arena (well FF is already out) and it will prove that games that are developed by professionals (read: they don't have a preconception that they are godly - and they have expereience in writing WORKING software) can and will succeed.
Blaming the users, hell I am surprised he doesn't work for the Themis group.
While I am on MY soapbox. Here is one other thing that kills game, designers holding discussion sites hostage. This happens extensively on VN (IGN) boards as Turbine requires VN mods to remove messages that criticize Turbine or its people. Its good to know mods who can pass along policies, it provided a better insight into the reasons behind my problems with VN and those of others who went through similar abuse.
Combine with fake interviews where developers require questions to be preapproved, IRC chats that only cover inane questions, and you have many of the issues that cause games to fail.
In other words, its not the players, it never was.
Re:Yeah! Lets blame the users! Thats the ticket! (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a look at SWG or any other sony MMO game, they're released when they still have a long way to go to get out of beta and there are enough MMO's out now to where we as players don't have to put up with half baked MMO games.
It isn't the players! And you don't have to be a 20 year MUD vetran to make one. SEE: WoW
Re:Yeah! Lets blame the users! Thats the ticket! (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny you mention SWG, as that's where I picked up opinons that completely agree with what was in the article.
Take the Jedi Problem, for instance. The SWG timeline is in a place where there should be almost no Jedi. If there are any around, they're in hiding from the Empire. However, players want to be a Jedi (point #1 from the article), for various reasons, so the developers made it possible to become one. Obviously, in keeping with this area of the Star Wars timeline, Jedi numbers should at least be kep
Re:Yeah! Lets blame the users! Thats the ticket! (Score:5, Insightful)
But I don't think the user is being blamed here; at least, that's not what I got from the article. It seemed more to me that the problem is that the game developers must respond in sometimes less-than-ideal ways to cope with market pressures. These pressures do come from the users, but it's not their fault. They're just consumers.
He suggests several ways of reacting in a way that is beneficial for the game as a whole, also; something no MMORPG has been good at (yet).
I played EQ for about four years before recently quitting; and many of the symptoms of decay Mr. Bartle enumerates are easy enough to see, at least in my experience with that game.
Death (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Death (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Death (Score:2)
Re:Death (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death (Score:4, Interesting)
Instancing- I like instancing. The worst thing about MMOs is the people (also the best thing- funny that). Its nice to be able to ignore the random jerks for a while. Its also a good solution to the problem of limitation of certain resources (good hunting spots, etc). Instancing is long term good, it lowers frustration levels which will make me play the game more.
Teleport- I play with my guild. I find the game orders of magnitude more fun that way. WHile I sometimes enjoy playing with new people, most of the time I don't wish to. I need some way of rapidly getting to join them. If its going to take me an hour, thats not fun. If its not fun, I'll go play another game. THis is long term good, it keeps people in the game.
Basicly- Bartle's opinions is not the end all be all of design. Players ask for these features (or don't in the case of perma-death) because the vast majority of people like them. If Bartle doesn't, he can keep playing the games that don't have them. His loss.
Re:Death (Score:2, Insightful)
But what if you didn't have to replay anything when you die? You're assuming you have to replay stuff because that's what you're used to. You fall under his point #3, and hence support his argument. The same can be said about your comments on instancing a
Re:Death (Score:2)
In a 'leveling-grind' MMORPG system, yeah permadeath would suck flat-out. But in some games it COULD work. Games like Planetside or Guild Wars could do it. For example, in Planetside everytime you started a new character you would get two certificates to start off your character. Well, if you had only ten lives before your character permadied I'd say it fit the context of the storyline, and it's make players more aggressive and more teamwork orientated (instead
Re:Death (Score:2)
I got started on some of the MUDs this guy was talking about. One of the most frustrating things was that there were ways to die that weren't your fault, like playing a mage when there is a sud
Re:Death (Score:4, Insightful)
Bartlesign (Score:5, Informative)
It'll be interesting to see how Roma Victor [roma-victor.com] turns out since he's apparently involved in that, among other things.
Actually.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Highly competetive games, especially shooters, are always being outdated by newer games and technology. Why frag (or be fragged by,) someone in Quake II when you could frag someone in Unreal Tournament 2004.
At the same time, in order to be a top player in any of those games, you must have devoted a large amount of time to being good at it. Natural coordination and skill not with standing.
However, in these "newb" MMOG's that are less competetive, and allow for less dedicated or skillful players to still perform and play with the others, the designer's guarantee a player base which will migrate less easily. Thus, in the long run, increasing their revenue.
The aforementioned decay in quality is a side effect of this shift. But if you're not a power gamer, this decay might not be easily perceived for some time.
Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:5, Interesting)
But you're not going to have any impact in a non-instanced world either.
You interact with people in the instanced universe the same way as you do with the rest of your groupmates when you're doing something grouped in a non-instanced universe.
The only difference is that when you and your groupmates/guildmates decide to Whack the Foozle of Bigness, you actually get to whack the foozle, rather than stand in line for six hours waiting for your turn to camp the spawn. (Or worse, stand in line for six hours, only to find that you've had your chance to WtFoB stolen by the group standing in line behind you.)
No disrespect intended, Bartle -- but you're wrong on this point. Maybe you're right for a game with 500 players, but spawn-camping doesn't scale. By the time you've got 5000 players in a world, instancing isn't a noob-friendly thing, it's a veteran-friendly thing.
Where's the sense of achievement? It's in the loot, badge, bio entry, or shared experience that says "We whacked the Biggest Foozle In The Game" Not in "We camped the spawn for three days before getting a chance to whack it."
If a game sucks so hard that the only sense of accomplishment for veterans comes from having the patience to camp the spawn for three days, rather than actually doing the goddamn quest, then that game sucks.
And if any MMORPG developer is put off by the corollary to "We whacked the biggest foozle in the game" (which is "...so far, and now the Developers have to give us something new to do"), well, tough. If you want me to pay you $10/month for a year, then by God, you'd better give me a $120 worth of new foozles to whack over the course of that year.
Whacking bigger foozles is boring? Hire a writer to make it interesting. Single-player RPGs can give me 20 hours of enjoyment for $50. Most of that cost is sunk into developing the engine, not writing the story. If you're a MMORPG developer, hire a friggin' writer. Soap Opera writers write banal stories that seem to be able to draw in viewers for periods of time measured in decades. Why have MMORPG developers (who have access to better tools and far more interesting universes) failed to achieve "soap opera" level of literary ability?
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's really the key here that I think Bartle missed.
Respawning monsters/areas and instanced areas are both bad solution to what is a instrinsically difficult problem: Players consume content far, far, far faster than developers can possibly create it.
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:2)
It's harder than you think. Creating good content cannot be done algorithmically (not yet, anyway). It requires sentience. You can randomly generate certain kinds of content, which extends things... but the limits of the random generation reveal themselves after a while. Which means that in order to have a large quantity of good content, it all has to be crafted by hand. That takes time,
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the solution is to invent a massive AI, but to figure out a way to leverage the creativity of the player base.
For example, let's imagine a dungeon hack type game wherein the ultimate goal is to own your own dungeon. Players roll up characters and send them off into other player's dungeons to get slaughtered or come away with treasure (which they can use as a nest egg for their own dungeon, or to improve their characters.)
As a dungeon master, your goal would be to aquire hero corpses from as many different players as possible. You'd have to seed your dungeon with bait, come up with fair challenges, deck the halls with interesting decor, and advertise the existance of your deathtrap (perhaps via treasure maps).
Fair dungeons (with a good risk vs. reward) that change often would naturally generate the most dead heros. Too easy, and you lose your treasure stake without killing any adventurers. Too hard, and players just won't visit.
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a fun game, but I don't recall the name.
Re:Instancing is n00b-friendly? (Score:3, Interesting)
In sequestered instancing, you are litterally in your own little zone, with maybe a select few people. The world doesn't exist while there.
However, in event instancing, the instancing occurs in the world itself, where everyone and anyone can be. You approach a trigger, or a point to kick off the event, and reguardless of who was there previously, as long as you meet the criteria set (ie: you can't tr
Why MUDs win (Score:5, Insightful)
responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
We controlled our own expansion sprinkled constructive input from players. Players did not dictate our design. Of course, we were "free" to play so nothing was owed to the players. This is perhaps the key difference - not having to catering paying customers. So, while I agree partially with Bartle, I disagree that there is nothing we can do about it... make your MMOG games free. :)
Thus spake MUSH veteran... (Score:5, Interesting)
What does that mean? That means there are no real barriers for any n00b wishing to try his hand at MU* administration - if you want it, you can do it. And then, everything comes down to creativity, imagination - and lots of patience. I've seen great MU*s created by a handful of newbies - they were sufficiently down-to-earth to create a small gameworld to start with, paying attention to playability and setting. And then there were others (i.e. me) who decided they want to turn their fave P'n'P RPG into a MUSH (I tried creating Paranoia MUSH, followed by HOL. Disasters both, to boot.) However, as opposed to (semi)professional graphic MMORPG designers who frequently are not too familiar with RP concepts, most of people trying their hands at MUSHes do have at least some amount of tabletop roleplaying experience.
And I've digressed and started losing my thread. Anyway, my ponit (if only I can remember it):
Experience does not a RPer make - although it does improve one. There are people who've been MMORPGing for years, and they're still as clueless as they were in the beginning. And then there are newbies who will give you some truly great RPing experiences. Contrary to the featured article's statement, newbie-created MMORPGs don't necessarily repulse players - to the contrary, they're often refreshingly new and original, and a newbie is far more likely to accept creative input than someone who considers himself a badass old gamer. And then there is the matter of evolution - old and experienced players have, frequently, set-in-stone ideas of how setting and gamesystem should look - they had years of playing to develop their preferences. Newbies, however, are not so adamant. As a consequence of that, newbie-run MMORPG is far more likely to evolve through player input, changing into something closer to players' wishes, even if glitchy, whereas veteran-staffed MMORPG might posess a very detailed setting and glitch-free gaming system - but be a far cry from what players actually want.
--
*MUSH = Multi User Shared Hallucination (more RP-oriented offspring of MUDs)
Hypocrisy, much? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Permanent Death. Okay, the author is convinced that permanent death is better. I'd like to see an example of a permanent-death game that did better than one that didn't have it? He can theorize all he likes that it's better for game design, but the simple fact is that nothing has yet shown that it in fact is.
2) Instancing. Again, the author is convinced that instancing is evil. A lot of people might agree. However, "instancing" is a very, very big concept. One can argue that the separate servers in mmorpgs are all "Instances", but that's hardly something most people would call particularly harmful. There's a whole range of instancing from one-person-per-instance to hundreds-per-instance.
The author never manages to show that he's doing anything more than what he accuses newbies of, since while he claims that there are things that are long-term-bad that he likes, he doesn't actually back up such assertions. Then, as above, his examples are ridiculously under-supported.
Re:Hypocrisy, much? (Score:2)
Re:Features (Score:3, Informative)
I still think, when it becomes feasible that perma-death is a 'better way.' But there's no chance I'd want it in todays MMORP
If we could moderate the article... (Score:5, Interesting)
The entire article tries to take on a position of authority on the subject, but provides no concrete proof for any of its assumptions, and it makes many assumptions, and only manages to come across as elitist.
For example, the author describes permadeath:
Nevermind the fact that in a modern, treadmill-driven MMO, adding permadeath would also lead to in-game cowardice (because no one wants to lose the character they spent the past 6 months building up), much grief (because no one wants to die to the lowbie mob that aggroed them while they had a lag spike), and makes the assumption that players need to have their characters forcibly changed so they don't grow board and leave (many people actually like their characters, and grow attached to them over the bazillion hours they spend playing them).
What's even more absurd is the assumption that killing off a player's character and forcing him to play the same content over repeatedly is somehow preferable to one, constantly growing character.
Here's a hint: if people want to replay the same content from a different point of view, they can make a new character without having their old one killed off.
No doubt, there's some truth to his points, but the way it's presented, the author comes across as a troll.
Re:If we could moderate the article... (Score:3, Interesting)
Along that line, I like the way FFXI allows you to switch your class, effectively changing back to an earlier level. You get the benefits of a new character (minus the ability to change your race, for obvious reasons), on your existing character, without having to pay extra for another character or having to lose your current character. It's like
Re:If we could moderate the article... (Score:2)
What he is saying is that all MMOGs suffer from a conflict between what features would actually improve gameplay and the features that their players demand. The article is abou
Re:If we could moderate the article... (Score:2)
Leave out facts, make a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or teleporting. Sure, encouraging people to make new friends is nice but the main problem is that spending hours running from one point on the map to another just plain out isn't fun. Instancing is important because virtual worlds have an extreme overpopulation of adventurers and there just can't be enough dungeons for everybody (and even if, people would restrict themselves to two or three that give the best "loot").
Fun and world integrity don't always go hand in hand and instead of looking at things from a global perspective, try to look at how the player perceives the world because a bad perception will result in a bad reaction. Make sure the downtimes are short and the players have fun, fun should be the first goal of any game.
Many MMOs tend to neglect the beginning, pretty much telling you to work until you are someone. That's a harsh welcome. Why should I spend days to reach an adequate level in an MMO when there are games available that allow you to jump in and play? A game must be fun from t=0 if it wants to attract newbies.
Instancing bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the one hand, he says that Instancing is an example of a short term good, long term bad design decision.
On the other hand, if you disagree with him on this, then it's clear that you're one of those players who can't recognise a bad design feature. Yet he fails to satisfactorily explain why Instancing is actually a bad design decision.
Nice argument there, Bartle.
I personally think Instancing is a good thing all round, if it's used wisely. City of Heroes does a good job there, and I can think of ways it could have been used effectively by other MMORPGs (Star Wars Galaxies spring to mind).
Sounds Just Like Government or Business (Score:2)
Re:Sounds Just Like Government or Business (Score:2)
Well, the corporation I work for has laid off >20,000 people this year. We are told this is being done in the best long-term interests of the corporation.
Of course, it is a matter of opinion as to whether 20,000 people is considered to be "minor". I guess it would depend on the number of stock options you have, and what the strike price is!
Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Permanent Death
I disagree that it is a given that this is a naturally good thing. I do agree that there are some players who prefer to play this way, and while I'm not one of them, I can understand how that could be a thrilling experience. I, on the other hand, am looking to enjoy myself and experience the content. He claims that by adding permanent death content would be more replayable because we'd see it through the eyes of man characters instead of uber-character. Like I said, I think there's a case to be made for a permanent death option, but please, this is not it. It's precisely because I don't want to repeat the same damn content over and over that I don't want permanent death to be a fact of life. He overlooks the simplest answer of all: have both options available, a la Diablo II's Hardcore Mode. Mark these players out as special somehow too, so we can marvel at their Hardcore-ness if need be. I don't mind. But don't prevent me from seeing the cooler upper-level spells and areas because you think non-permanent death removes your eliteness.
2. Instances
I'm not sure what he was smoking on this one. Instances are fine. I've been playing WoW for three months and I've rarely ever gone into an instance with the same people even twice. I meet random people and head in. Instances prevent a far, far worse concern that he completely ignores, namely the camping of quest-integral mobs and items. Because yeah, it's FUN to hang around at the end of a dungeon for 8 hours for that rare boss spawn. Just ask old-time EQ players.
Even his arguments against make little sense: that it will fence players off from each other. Moronic. Again, in WoW, there is maybe one, sometimes two such instances in a zone. Instances probably make up, what, 4% of the game's area? You spend maybe 5% of your total playing time in one? And this fences you off? Or, we could let everyone camp mobs, and a fun dungeon experience could be ruined by group of asshats spamming "You are teh sux0r" and corpse camping you. Yeah, that's fun. His four points about newbies may be true. I can see some truth in his argument. But he still can't use that to prove which features are inherently good or bad. That's ridiculous. Of course, since I'm disagreeing with him, I'm almost certainly a 'newb'. Well, he can think what he wants, just like I will think what I want.
Re:Bah (Score:2, Interesting)
I do believe there are ways to do this. For a couple of years I've had an idea for a game that foregoes levelling and loot mongering. But.. it would have per
Re:Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe he's really objecting to 'Replaying the same content again', which makes him fall under Bartle's #3:
Point #3: Players judge all virtual worlds as a reflection of the one they first got into.
In many games, PM would lead to replaying content, but that doesn't make PM an inherently bad thing. Actually, most of the posts so far that object to Bartle seem to fall under #3. They object to PD, no teleportation, and no instances because they imagine what it would do to the games they know, not what it would mean for a New And Better Game (tm). And that would make that New And Better Game fail, which is Bartle's point.
Virtual emulates real! (Score:2)
Alrighty, it already happens in America, what else is new?
Getting People to play Muds (Score:3, Interesting)
The real issue is Implementors and how they react to the inevitable whining by the players. No matter what you do, players will complain about something.
Here are the reactions from implementors:
1. Ignore the Whining
2. Attack the whining player back
3. Carefully consider the players complain and act or
4. Ignore everyone and do it your own way.
I mention these because A combination of 3 and 4 are the most effective way of creating and maintaining a game.
Now lets delve into the truth of reality.. and fantasy. No matter how great your graphics are they cannot compare to the ability of the mind(imagination). Text based games are much more "graphical" than any true graphical game due to the amazing brain. It will take many decades before graphics can come even close to matching the brain in processing.
What does this mean overall? It means that you should find a Good text based game with Implementors willing to listen and come up with original ideas.
I recommend The Mage's Lair at www.mageslair.net port 7060 as it has been around many years.. and yes.. like the article said it does not lead to many muds as people tend to stay around.
Spend money or play a better type game in Muds.
You Really See This In Long Running MMOGs (Score:5, Insightful)
In the beginning the imfamous idea foisted by the creators was called "The Vision". It was basically a creedo of how they thought the game should behave in form and function. It wasn't perfect (for instance non-magic classes were left devoid of any extra skills) but it was a solid framework to start from.
But as time moved on, these people who created "The Vision" left to do other things and this was slowly dismantled. Each expansion that has come afterwards seems to have gotten more haphazard with adding features. Things are added to the game by designers who have little knowledge of the hsitory of the game (or possibly don't care) which turns the game into a hodpodge of skills and monsters that don't grow with time.
Although showing its age and probably on its last legs, Everquest at this point is shaken ever expansion due to this effect. Designers only seem to know or care about their current creation instead of creating a solid and sound system that will stand the test of time.
It isn't so much that MMOGs are designed by Newbs. They are designed by people who probably aren't going to be working on the same project a year from now.
one solution I have found.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The main example I know of is a game I play eve-online [eve-online.com]..
Basically it is real-time skills with levels, each level of each skill is progressive in taking a longer amount of time.
Some users choose miner/builder skills and go that route, other go solid fighting. But you do cap-out and because the times are progressively longer to train everyone at a certain point reach the same level (basically, but in their respective/specialized fields..)
After playing some of the others like Lineage and EQ etc.. I think this way is better..
For some skills at huge level they can take days and days to train up (in many cases as long to train up the all the prior levels in that skill).. The game does not require constant play to stay competetive which for me as a programmer is beautiful because I get obsessive over games but still need to maintain a real life.
A new player can come in and be competetive (except actual player skill) with an oldtimer within four months.. Which in other games with players years old is just not even remotely possible..
Anyway, good game
Re:one solution I have found.. (Score:2)
Re:one solution I have found.. (Score:2)
One of the keys of the game is get into a corporation and help there... The player owned corporations have to be able to offer stuff to newbies or they don't ever grow.. I am in "Eye of God" corp which is an excellent smallish democratic corp.
One of my favorite things about eo is the player-run market with buy orders and sell orders etc..
Anyway, right now I am training up all my electronic warfare skills so I can cloak and roam around CA space without fear of being podded.. Though, would kind of like an
brand brand brand umbrella brand (Score:2)
Hmmm..
PAD> CALL 0000 4960 0000 1
[2653,2653]
MIST
Ahhhh..
If newbies had this they'd be very happy with all the long-term good inovations.. as long as they didn't get instantly killed by an arc
Tragedy of the Commons (Score:3, Interesting)
Player death is a good example - I can see how it would make the game world better, however the idea of continually accreting power is incredibly seductive. Of course, the root problem may be the huge range of powel levels in these games, if I have to play for months just to get to a stage I can challenge any interesting monsters I'm certainly not going to accept player death.
That's Kind of the Point, Isn't It? (Score:4, Insightful)
Likewise with instancing, if instead of letting a party kill a monster in their own space on the server, simply design the content so that the resources don't need to be campped. Come up with some completely different solution.
The arguments I've seen against perma-death and for instancing all seem to assume that a game that chooses to implement these features differently from the mainstream would still make the same fundamental design mistakes that require you to spend 2 years of mind-numbing tedium to build up a character. If you can have fun with the character right off the bat, and camping resources were effectively impossible, then perma-death becomes a lot more acceptable and instancing becomes unnecessary.
Saw this first hand (Score:5, Interesting)
And it no longer "felt" like Drakkar. Old-time players left in droves. Players who had been dedicated to this game, building characters for YEARS, left in disgust. The Drakkar community now had quick turnover, rude players, no social structure... everything that made it a great game was gone. Yes, there were more subscriptions, yes it might have been making money, but the game itself started to suck. Now, people start and might play for six months, then get bored. New players are the only thing keeping subscriptions up, and as the graphics and engine become more dated and bloated, the game will undoubtedly die. If it had kept its original flavor, I have a feeling the old-time dedicated players, such as myself, would have stayed with it for many years to come, and while not profiting, the game would have survived as an example of the really cool communities that can develop on the internet. Now, it's just another example of a big pile of filth thrown out there to milk a percieved cash cow. Shame, really... it was a great game, once.
This applies to all on-line communities (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh the irony... (Score:2, Insightful)
My experience with MUDs Circa 1995 (Score:5, Funny)
Old Timer> Okay, well it's pretty simple. Just follow me.
> (Old Timer) Exits.
Me> Where did he go? How do I follow him? This sucks.
Argument by assertion (Score:3, Insightful)
I like teleportation because I really don't want to waste my real time spending a half hour running across a massive continent to get somewhere (maybe the first time, okay) just because you really want me to have to see the trees that you placed out there and you want to slow down my consumption of content with another useless treadmill.
The funny thing is that I mostly agree with his 1-4 premises, but then he just uses those to justify lazy designer/implementer decisions. If I read him correctly, City of Heroes sucks horribly (and just happens to be fun as hell) and Star Wars Galaxies really is a much better game (that just happens to be a tedious grind).
Let's not forget what I want here. I want long term gratification through increased skills and bling bling, but more importantly small chunks of immediate gratification. I don't have time to devote eight hours a day to an MMORPG. If you insist on making my hour of play unfun because of your silly ideas of how I should be playing, I will indeed cancel my subscription.
"But your paradigm doesn't fit my paradigm!" (Score:3, Insightful)
This article looks like nothing more than whining from the old guard. Bartle talks about "a virtual world" as if there is some set idea of what this thing should be, and that there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
Bullshit. There are as many kinds of players as there are individual people on the Earth. Bartle thinks that everyone wants to play the same kind of game that he does, and he's embarassingly incorrect.
For example, perma-death. Bartle argues that it is a poor design decision, and that people who have gotten attached to their characters are only attached because of the game's poor design. Bartle has obviously never heard of The Sims.
Many people play online games
There is also an interesting (and dangerous) psychological aspect to permanent death. Virtual avatars are a way in which people express themselves. A player may build up a character to specifically match some aspect (or desired aspect) of his or her real life. For example, someone might role-play a flirtatious character because he (or she) feels socially rejected in the real world. What do you think the effect is when that character dies in a permenant and irrevocable way?
Perma-death is just one example, of course. But Bartle doesn't back up any of his claims with anything more than "that's not the way I think it should be done." Just because
And comparing the sales figures for The Sime to the total subscription count of every MMORPG / MUD in existance, I think that Bartle is strictly in the minority. I'm sure that he's capable of designing an
A solution is shorter planned lifecycle. (Score:3, Insightful)
OF COURSE this is going to lose to newbies as the people in it the longest get bored and technology marches on making the engine seem dated. The traditional response to this is "expansions" to try and milk the existing infrastructure for more than it's worth by providing something for people who have already done everything they care to do in the original game.
If MMOs had a 1-2 year lifecycle target (about the development time for a major game these days) instead of these 5 year business plans, you wouldn't need to worry about getting newbies in while retaining the veterans and constant grief/nerf patches and confusing expansions. You would just say "Look, here's the game. It has a scripted timetable and is designed to play through month X of year Y, after which we will phase out support for a new game." Now this will obviously draw heat from "Well what if I didn't get on when the game started and now it's half over it's not fair!" Well there's lots of competition in the market now. Some people want to jump onboard early to become major powers. Others don't care as much and just want a game that they know is stable and has good content, so they'll wait a bit. I'm sure there'd be enough to go around for everyone as this would create more games in the market at once.
People will go buy your new game if your old game was good. This is proven over and over. Gaming is becoming more like hollywood in that gamers are becoming sensitive to the names behind the product and following the ones they like. You don't need to design a game to last forever hoping to keep people, what you need to do is design another better game with the things people like and improve upon it. Then people will buy the new game.
Also, it's about time we need to see MMO games adopt more flexible pricing structures. If you're an addict with no job, school, or life, then $14.95/month is a pretty good deal for 1000 hours of play per month. If you're a "normal" person who can only play an hour a day and maybe 5 on the weekends, then it's not such a great deal. If you're someone who's gotten talked into trying it out by your friends and only want to log on for an hour on saturday to see what everyone's up to, then it sucks. We need to see things like price per game hour plans, or limited time per month plans. Things like $3.99/month for 3 hours/day max, or $4.95 for 50 hours of gameplay whenever you get around to it. Yes the unlimited pricing is good, but you'll attract a whole new class of people if you make the pricing more attractive for the casual gamers, AKA newbies. Also, trying to do this per game is taxing on people playing multiple games from the same studio. If I want to play everquest and starwars galaxies, I should only need to pay one monthly fee. It's pretty obvious I'm not going to be playing both at once, I'll haeve to split my time between them. MMO monthly fees should be company-wide. The price per game hour plans would negate this issue and make pricing fair for players of multiple MMOs.
Also, seeing MMOs take advantage of the tendancy of people to sell off their stuff would be interesting. Instead of banning ebay in the license agreement, why not embrace it and have your own in-game market where you take a percentage? Alot of people have money but not time. Right now they're at a huge disadvantage to those with time but not money. If I work full time and my friend doesn't, I can't keep up with him in game. If I could buy my way up then it wouldn't be as much of an issue. If people could sell their high powered characters and equipment then they could probably fund their entire experience with some effort and not have to pay monthly fees they might not be able to afford. Second Life does something like this now, and it seems to work.
Ugh - about justification for PD (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't work in a massively multiplayer setting, because:
In a P&P game, you're only playing for a few hours every week, and even those few hours are 10x slower than an MMORPG. If you speed it up to MMO speeds and consider that people play every day or every other day, you'd be dying at an incredible rate.
This doesn't even take into account the fact that in P&P games, you have a human controlling the other side, who can back off if they're leniant and don't want to wipe out an entire party - and can create an encounter to directly match your party strength from the start.
In a P&P game, the DM has the luxury of providing new content every time the group plays, whereas a MMORPG doesn't.
"It lets them play from other angles" is just plain designer railroading, forcing them to see the same content over and over again because, hell, you spent a lot of work on it! Everyone should see every nook and cranny of your work.
How about no? If I want to see it from other angles, I'll create multiple characters.
The 'default fiction' for real life is dying if you don't eat and drink in a few days. The 'default fiction' for the middle ages is that you die if you get any kind of major wound. These things aren't fun, which is the reason we play games.
While I agree that Player Death in MMORPG's at the moment leaves something to be desired, saying "These noobs have no idea, back in the day..." isn't a valid solution either.
Would the Real Gamers Please Step Forward (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. guaranteed. Just having newbies in and of themselves dictate design won't kill a MMORPG... The first and formost benefit I see in doing this is a more common sense-centric game. One that can easily accept new players as well as seasoned veterans... Unless, for some reason you consider yourself gaming's elite and shun growth in your MMOOMOROOMPG world. If that's the case, your an elitist primadonna and the game would probably be better without you anyway, especially if you've forgotten you were new once too.
Now if they were given carte blanc authority over the entire design, I would tend to agree that this would be a bad move. The developer's original vision tend to be key to the success in any game made, but simply getting noobs to help make the game? Personally, I'd take the opposite tact-- It means they want to make the game as approachable as possible for new members that continue to revitalize the game.
In moderation, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach and frankly, the writers of that story sound like jaded elitist gamer bitches.
Re:Subscription article link? (Score:2, Insightful)
Permanent Death
He lists all kinds of advantages of a Permanent Death world, and they are real and worht considering, but he conveniently ingores the downside: PD discourages risk-taking. Once people play a character long enough, they become invested in the success of that character, and want to keep playing it. Therefore, they will avoid any challenge which they are not certain to survive. Fantasy adventure
Re:Discrimination (Score:2)
So your post is (-1) Uninformed. Sentiment is 100% correct though.