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Role Playing (Games)

The Laws of Online World Design 64

Posted by Zonk from the make-sure-they-have-ground dept.
Next Gen has an article up republishing Raph Koster's seminal laws of Online World Design. The piece is one of the basic texts used to think about the way to put a MMOG together. From the article: "Design Rules - The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal : have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but making them ladders is better), make it easy to switch between paths of advancement (ideally, without having to start over), make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and visible and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help), ideally, make your game not have a sense of running out of significant milestones (try to make your ladder not feel finite) "
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The Laws of Online World Design

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  • Rule #2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @10:20PM (#13300566)
    "Design Rules - The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal : have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but making them ladders is better), make it easy to switch between paths of advancement (ideally, without having to start over), make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and visible and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help)...

    Rule #2: Ignore all of those useful insights when designing the Jedi class in SWG.

    • Re:Rule #2 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kris_J ( 10111 ) *
      Or when designing World of Warcraft. I mean, seriously, what does slaughtering hundreds critters have to do with my ability to tailor clothes, mine minerals or mix potions?

      • Or when designing World of Warcraft. I mean, seriously, what does slaughtering hundreds critters have to do with my ability to tailor clothes, mine minerals or mix potions?

        Nothing.

        What does earning 1000's of gold standing at the AH all day have to do with running instances at level 60? Not much. What does creating a new character that's a different class have to do with gaining reputation in the battlegrounds? They're all just different ways to play the same game with the same group of friends and

        • As the page points out, MMORPG's are much more expansive than single-player games. There isn't nearly as linear of a path chosen for you. There are many goals that can be pursued, and you pick the ones that are enjoyable for you. For some, power-leveling to 60 as fast as possible is fun. For others, enjoying every instance along the way is fun. For others, practicing tradeskills is fun.

          If you want a more linear game, then maybe single-player games would be more appropriate for you.

        • You miss the point. Professions in WoW typically max out at level 300, but you can't get above 150 unless your character level is at least 20, and you can't get above level 225 unless your character level is at least 35. Making clothes, or gold bars, or potions does not increase your character's level, just your character's skill at their profession. Only killing things and doing quests (usually the quests require killing things) increase your character's level. Thus, to be the ultimate tailor, you must
          • I know it doesn't make logical sense on the surface, but I don't this this limitation is arbitrary. If there were no limits based on level, you could make a handful of level 1 characters whose sole existences were just to produce. You send them the leather, cloth, herbs, metal you harvest with your main characters, and they churn out armor, potions, tailored robes. Without forcing you to actually invest time with them in also leveling up, this would soon lead to even more of a glut of player crafted item
            • I know it doesn't make logical sense on the surface, but I don't this this limitation is arbitrary. If there were no limits based on level, you could make a handful of level 1 characters whose sole existences were just to produce.

              So, your problem with this is that it too closely simulates the real world?

      • Killing critters doesn't have anything to do with mining, tailoring or making potions. That is why killing stuff does not increase your profession skills. :-)

  • A hot button for me. Since I just got slapped on the wrist by ESA for selling my WoW account on eBay, the one feature that I really want is being able to sell my account and its contents. I used to think that SOE is gay, but once I realized that I can retire for $400 I, like, totally re-evaluated my entire life.

  • Part of what's wrong with gaming today (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrunkenTerror ( 561616 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @10:56PM (#13300774) Homepage Journal
    FTA (emphasis theirs):

    Is it a game?
    It's a SERVICE. Not a game. It's a WORLD. Not a game. It's a COMMUNITY. Not a game. Anyone who says, "it's just a game" is missing the point.

    I think this is exactly the WRONG point of view to be promoting among devs. Heh, I guess I miss the author's point, but to me he describes exactly the mindset that has lead to all these so-called games that are really just FIFO inventory models.

    MMORPG's exhibit no required skill, they just present a time-sink that anyone with enough life-energy to click a mouse can participate in. Some make it to lvl 60 (or 100, or whatever the max is) quickly, others more slowly, and some never, but there is never any real test of gaming ability other than, "I'm more persistent at putting up with this repetative crap than you are, that's why I'm higher level."

    Pen and paper D&D at least had an element of outsmarting the other players and/or GM. To succeed you had to think, act, strategize, out-intellegence, and talk your way to a victory. This type of experience is sorely lacking from modern MMORPGS, in my experience. It's more an excercise in collecting the sparkly eq that the giant glowing snail drops and selling it to noobs. MMORPGs as we know them are not games, in the traditional sense of video games, or role-playing games. I would suggest that they are barely even games.
    • Online worlds encompass game worlds like EQ and WoW, social worlds like There.com and Habbo Hotel, user-created worlds like Second Life and Furcadia, educational worlds like MOOse Crossing and military training sims, research-oriented worlds like MediaMOO, and much more. Thinking that they are all games is exactly the point of this law.

      Online worlds are a PLATFORM first and foremost. Putting games in that platform is certainly one of the top things you can do, and if you do so, you had better make sure thos

      • In theory it sounds good (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Friday August 12, 2005 @04:30AM (#13302085) Journal
        "Online worlds are a PLATFORM first and foremost. Putting games in that platform is certainly one of the top things you can do, and if you do so, you had better make sure those games are fun, certainly. But it's also not that hard to make an online world that has a fun game in it and yet ignores the other factors of worldness, community, and service, and have a disaster on your hands--there's plenty of examples of that."

        But in practice there are plenty of examples to the opposite too.

        E.g., TSO comes to mind. It had a world, it was designed to be more of a community than any MMO ever made (there wasn't much else than social interaction in it anyway), and it was based on _the_ biggest franchise name in PC gaming history. (The Sims outsold all Warcraft games combined.) And it flopped. It peaked at about 35 times less players than WoW has, and again, WoW started from a less big franchise name.

        The problem: well, it was everything _except_ a game. The "game" part was about as exciting and fun as watching paint dry.

        E.g., to be nasty: UO. It _invented_ a genre (not to mention was based on the biggest RPG franchise name) and quickly ended up in third place. It peaked at about 1/14 as many players as WoW currently has, or 1/2 of what Everquest had without a franchise name or anything.

        And again, we're talking about inventing a genre. Look at what Wolfenstein 3D did for Id, to understand by contrast the _massive_ failure of UO.

        The problems were many, including, yes, an utter failure to even try being fun or balanced as a game. Gameplay was pretty much non-existent, whole skills were utterly useless (e.g., was there _any_ use for tinkering, except traps to kill newbies?) or conversely had 2/3 of the possible actions in the game under one single skill (ever seen even miners or sheepherds without magic skill in UO?), and so on.

        Oh yes, it concentrated on being a world and a platform instead. At all cost. Even if it meant alienating the players. _Years_ were spent into trying to justify why it's good and realistic for newbies to be pk-ed on sight, for example, while players were leaving en-masse to AC and EQ because of it. Or in various failed band-aid experiments which were _already_ proven not to work on MUDs. Had the world and platform ahead of what the players wanted for so long, that it just lost most of those players.

        "Online worlds encompass game worlds like EQ and WoW, social worlds like There.com and Habbo Hotel, user-created worlds like Second Life and Furcadia, educational worlds like MOOse Crossing and military training sims, research-oriented worlds like MediaMOO, and much more. Thinking that they are all games is exactly the point of this law."

        Heh. Compared to the population of even the worst MMO flop, a MUD is a spit in the bucket. Even if some of those are examples of "but look, you can make an online world even without much of a game", then the rightful second half of that phrase is "and be an utter and total flop, compared to worlds which _do_ have a game."

        We can learn a lot of valuable lessons about human interactions and such from MUDs, yes. But if we're talking about designing a world that's a _commercial_ _success_ on any reasonable scale, let's stick to the likes of EQ and WoW, please.

        Plus, it's a skewed comparison anyway to compare a world which has a 15$ per month price tag, to a MUD that works for free through Telnet. Something that requires people to reach into their wallet and _stull_ has 3000 times more players, well, I'd say it did something a _lot_ better than those research MOOs.

        Plus, if we are including free online worlds like MUDs and MOOs, and consider the genre as broad as to include pretty much anything online including those... then we also get plenty of games which are counter-examples to the "But it's also not that hard to make an online world that has a fun game in it and yet ignores the other factors of worldness, community, and service, and have a disaster on your hands" point. Th
        • Again, I think you are missing the point. I am not arguing against games, far from it. But even today, the largest, most successful virtual world is not WoW. It's Habbo Hotel. Let's not be blinkered by our personal preference for games; games kick ass, I wrote a whole book about how and why. But online worlds are not just games.
          • Well, ok, upon re-reading it all, I guess I can see your point.

            Still, just to nitpick of the choice of an example:

            Hmm... A quick trip to http://www.habbohotel.com/habbo/en/ [habbohotel.com] says "Habbos in the hotel: 5315". Doesn't look to me like that great an active population. I'm sure not only WoW, but even more minor players like CoH or AO can boast more players logged in at any given time. (At a wild guess, WoW only needs some 50 people or so on each server to beat that number.)

            I'm assuming that's not total active pop
    • As far as skill in MMORPG's goes, you should really give Guild Wars a look. The level cap is 20, and statistics are only a small portion of what determines if you win a battle or not.
    • PVP

      I assume you are reffering to WoW since you made a comment about lvl 60. Once you hit lvl 60 there is so much more you can do. MC and BWL runs to get epic gear. Then try to get rank 14 (which it is rummored only 5% of a server will ever get). Oh and did I mention you have to keep pvping to maintain your rank?
    • You couldn't be more correct. It is a time sink, and a psychologically addictive one at that.

      I present this [nickyee.com] essay that does a great job explaining how every single MMORPG out there today (they use EQ as an example, but it applies to all) is one big virtual Skinner Box. Once that idea sinks in a bit, it does kinda kill the fun of all MMORPGs for you because you see exactly what buttons they're pushing, and exactly how it is drawing you in and how ultimately there IS NO FRIGGIN POINT!

      That is why I find myse

    • To expand on the parent's thoughts which I wholeheartedly agree with.

      These MMORPGs are simply a grind based on an algorithm. Nothing more. Its because (and this is quite obvious) gaming hasn't progressed to the open universe that P&P RPG's can attain. Each successive "upgrade" in MMORPG's whether it is WoW or the next big jump are simply the result of two things: flashier graphics and a different advancement algorithm.

      When a truely interactive physical world in which every action has a reaction
  • The word 'Game' pretty much means it is Finite. The only way a game is not finite is if it is random. Even then, you will see paterns because the budget is too small and the workers are lacking sleep.

  • Bylaws vs. Rules of the Road (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Midnight Warrior ( 32619 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @11:37PM (#13300964) Homepage

    I have to admit, the article is quite enlightening. I am most interested in the object and economic systems. Fortunately, Mr. Koster was a little shy on the macro-scale things, instead focusing on software design issues like: usability, maintainability, and scalability.

    My own thoughts on the matter are entitled Virtual World Bylaws [christian.net] and are my own.

    Persistence means it never goes away was a very pertinent topic and one that I address in much more detail. Problems here include: trusting the system owners to do good backups, proving proper transfer of world objects between owners, and avoiding client-side corruption. The Never trust the client problem has a potential solution in my paper. It's not completely solved, but corruption of in-world objects is at least trivialized.

    He touches on in-game community, but has neglected the larger interoperability problem between games and vendors. Too many clients and connection methods. Game persistence lasts only as long as the operating system or game console are in use, which is absurd.

    The idea that really tickled me was the economy theorem that was so obvious I missed it. "Players will hate having this drain, but if you do not enforce ongoing expenditures, you will have Monty Haul syndrome, infinite accumulation of wealth, overall rise in the "standard of living" and capabilities of the average player." This methedology really need connected with the Attention is the currency of the future and you will see the solution to the small-time MMORPG player and the 30+hours a week gamer. Us small-timers walk in and get creamed because these full-timers are super heroes.

    Perchance, we ought to tie increased skill with increased responsibility, just like in real life. Level 30+ character, you must now lead larger missions. Short term players can now join the group, like showing up at the gym and playing a game of basketball with strangers. A couple of guys are there all the time and are either friendly or they aren't. Not friendly means no squads to go on more complex missions.

    • > I am most interested in the object and
      > economic systems.

      From your rules, you seem most interested in player *control* of the object and economic systems under a system that prevents unfairness. I don't think anyone can really argue that this is a *bad* thing.

      But what exactly does this add to the *game*? It seems like a political concept more than a game concept. It smacks of "workers' control of the means of production" - not that I find it socialist at all, but it's the same basic class of idea. I

  • Somethings are right for a change! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @11:42PM (#13300986) Journal
    Many of those things said are exactly correct, but they're also incredibly basic pieces of information.

    For example: His notion that macros will happen, so the solution is to not make any boring parts... I came up with this when I was the first person to create the drain health macro in Asheron's Call. Before me, there were no effective macros in Asheron's Call. But I made the drain health macro mainly to prove the point that the game should be not so easy that its tedious, and even had discussions with the devs. They chose to allow macroing for a year and a half, but never fixed parts of their game. I do have a soft spot for Turbine though, Asheron's Call was quality, Asheron's Call 2 was just an abuse fest, now I am waiting for DDO...

    Which brings me to my 2nd point. DDO will be an action oriented MMOG. Most MMOGS of the future will be action. Why? Because of the lessons learned from the macroing. A simple game is not fun. If you make it complex and highly dependent on whats going on VS clicking the same button over and over... Then you get a fun game. The future looks very bright for MMOGS. It will probably take 15-30 years before seriously awesome MMOGs come out where you'll want to play for a lifetime. But the nice thing is, until the ultimate MMOGS come out, we'll have some MMOGS that have some good points that will tide us over.
    • Yeah, a lot of the info on there is very basic. That would be because the article dates from 1998, and is mostly gathered from stuff predating that, such as games on the online services, MUDs, and Habitat. Players and developers both have gotten a bit more sophisticated since then--once upon a time some of this stuff was really eye-opening. ;)
  • He failed at the majority of them with SW:G

    Ok so it has multiple paths of advancement, but you have to essentially start over if you change the path you start out on.

    There are clearly defined milestones which come after you've wandered around killing enough random wildlife, you get a message saying you've earned enough XP for another skill box.

    And those milestones disappear once you've reached a master profession, thereby necessitating you to either run around and kill more wildlife or essentially
    • > He failed at the majority of them with SW:G

      True, but he knows that. (Most of these rules predate SW:G. I know mine do, and they're arranged roughly chronologically.)

      These laws are an ideal in progress. Nobody implements them perfectly. Some of them are contradictory. Others present problems with multiple solutions, all of them bad.

      One of Raph's biggest problems has always been that he needs approval from the management and cooperation from the design and development teams to make them happen. He's gott
  • Maybe I'm just a fanboy, but Guild Wars [guildwars.com] has an attribute system that you can completely switch at just about any moment, many milestones by reaching different towns and armors, and also a Guild PVP ladder. It's definitely worth checking out, even if you're a skeptic of MMO's.

    Oh yeah, it's FREE too.

    • Re:Guild Wars rant (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Cost me fifty damn dollars, mofo, which is how much EB is selling it for. So you'd better look up the word "free" before you go spouting it and all that crap. The only damn good game that is free is Nethack and it kind of sucks.
  • All MMO worlds are clones of one another with the same boring ass level grind.

    We don't need rules, we need someone with the balls to try something completely different. The only people playing today's MMOs are merely living in a dellusionary world where the misery invested waiting for King Orcfuck's Magic Dildo to drop will some day magically pay off and the game will become fun.

    • so.. whats your idea?
    • Try the free trial for A Tale in the Desert (atitd.net). Its not for everyone, but one thing its got going for it is that its genuinely different. There are no levels, violence, armor, or NPCs, but there are still plenty of goals, involving occupations, and subtler forms of PvP.

  • From the source (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anm ( 18575 ) on Friday August 12, 2005 @01:24AM (#13301485)
    This is a reprint of something that has been around forever. Here [legendmud.org] is the original posting at Raph's website [legendmud.org].

    Anm

  • You will NEVER have a solid unique identity for your problematic players. They essentially have complete anonymity because of the Internet. Even addresses, credit cards, and so on can be faked--and will be.

    While this is obviously a problem, doesn't a subscription system mostly limit this? If I'm a jerk, I get banned and have to pony up another fee, right? I guess I go away pretty quick (or make the company a lot of money).

    I don't play mainstream MMOG's (mangband is more my style), so I'm wondering w

  • How to design another MMORPG like the others? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mind Booster Noori ( 772408 ) on Friday August 12, 2005 @06:06AM (#13302358) Homepage
    When the article says
    The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal
    I can't stop on thinking "why the hell people still want to build goal-oriented games"?

    See, if the objective is (and it is, read previous /. articles on gaming) to create a Virtual World where people have to ability to do anything they want, games shouldn't have goals, but it's "citizens" (gamers, users, call them what you want) may have and must have the freedom to have their own goals.

    • Well said.

      Though I wonder without any goals, will people become very bored quickly?

      A good example I can think of is secondlife. There are no goals, and often times you stand there thinking, ok theres nothing to do besides chat.

      But secondlife is somewhat limited, as achieving any sort of goal you might want in the game requires lots of work and sometimes money to build what you want.

      I don't know, it is a fascinating idea. But doing it so it is not boring is difficult. Very difficult. Eh it hurts my head try
      • The perfect scenario is if it gets _as_ boring as life is, no more no less. Of course that a different world, with different phisics, history, society et al will make the relative "boredom" of life impossible to compare...
        • I think it should be noted that for all the freedom we have in life (ideally), we still have goals.

          These may be set by ourselves: "I'm going to learn to ski!"

          These may be decided for us: "Well, I need to eat or I'm going to die. I should find food."

          And they may change organically over time: "I need to do well in high school so I can get into a good college" changes to "I need to do well in college so I can get a good job" changes to "I need to get a better job so we can afford to live somewhere with a good
  • Whatever Raph says, just remember that he's the guy that took the Star Wars franchise and managed to make a crappy MMRPG out of it.

    His ego is even bigger than his gut.
  • Now that was an MMO world to live in! I saw the anime before ever even playing an MMO so that was what I thought things were really like, minus the whole VR bit.

    So I went out and bought FFXII. And CoH, and tried SWG, and CoH, and DOaC.

    Nothing was as good as the anime.

    Instead I went out and bought the soundtrack to the show and just listened to that. Much more fun in my opinion then the current crop of games out there.

    But one day we will have the intense immersive world that The World was in .hack//sign.
  • Because that is exactly how Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The lost age are made. If you have played them, you will know that they are two of the best RPGs ever made.
  • One of the biggest problems I've had with MMOs is the focus on "meaningful milestones" far apart instead of many more less significant ones closer together. As a casual gamer, I usually lose interest in these games in the higher levels, where your only milestones come from levels that are massively apart. I would like to see a game where, if it chose to have these massive levels, had sublevels as well, with smaller rewards. Unfortunately, most high level content and game design ignores the casual gamer c
    • The flaw there is that the casual gamer is never supposed to *get* to the high levels. The assumption is that casual gamers will play for a while, then quit. Meanwhile, the hardcore gamers get bored with frequent milestones, so they need to be moved farther apart.

      I've always thought it would be more productive to have a game with multiple unrelated objectives. Do away with the single measure of power, and let people figure out on their own what they want to do. In theory, the casual gamer will then settle i
    • I agree that high level milestones in MMOGs are spread too far apart, and here's why:

      In general, (which is to say in almost all cases), milestones are not skill based, but based on persistence and available free time. Now, I am a hardcore gamer, but I simply don't have the time it takes to achieve even what I would consider basic levels of usefullness. i.e. - I spent hours a day for months playing SWG and was still unable to face any sort of opponent that was remotely strong. After a while, crushing kitte
    • First we need to stop this trendy "I'm Casual" "I'm hardcore" bs. It is a stupid generality and there is no point for making "casual" content vs "hardcore" content.

      The idea is basic. If I spend more time on any game, theretically I will be better then you at it. If we are playing quake and I play 4 hours a day 7 days a week, and you play saturday and sunday for 8 hours each but cant during the week becuase of a job, I am going to have more time with the game and be more "on point" because I play frequently.
  • This guy lost all credibility with me when he put out the steaming pile that is SWG. If he had put out a good game, I might be more apt to listen to what he has to say.

    SWG was his chance to prove his 'design theory' in practice.

    Those who can, do. Those who can't write a crappy blog [legendmud.org] about it and promote their folk music [legendmud.org].
  • Macroing, botting, and automation No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world. Corollary: Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun. Seeing as people macro everything from dancing to crafting to grinding Jedi, makes you wonder what part of SWG is fun, eh?
    • writing the macros!
    • I thought that "law" was one of the most insightful comments I have heard on macroing. I agree with the author. Anything that is being macro'd by players should be replaced with a server-side NPC or server hosted player script (IE embrace the macroing). If replacing the macro'r with an NPC is nonsensical, IE combat related, than the game mechanic is a failure and needs to be replaced.
  • This is just a bunch of thoughts about things and is really just feelings devs got after the EQ age. It fails to even address the important issues that the current round of games are trying to address with various levels of failure. Let's throw out the soundbyte length 'laws' and bring around a discussion.
  • The article kind of takes on two different meanings as you go down the two branches. Are you trying to make money, or are you trying to create a game that does what it says it does?
    Case in point, SWG. The box said I'd get to live inside Star Wars. I wound up hacking at small frogs with a survival knife. Earth and Beyond felt more like Star Wars to me than that, in all honesty. Yet in comes the revenue, thank you Luca$' $tamp Of Approval$.
    Meanwhile any half-healthy MUX/MUSH can engross a player for mon

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