In a strict sense, MMORPGs are not really games. They're only partially games - or a collection of minigames set in a virtual world.
MMORPGs don't have an overall, singular, game ending goal. Yes, there might be an 'end level', but this is just where the (at least in principle) neverending 'endgame' begins. Instead, MMORPGs are a phenomenon/experience that strings together sessions of gameplay (i.e. 'mini'games with game mechanical subgoals - like gaining a level, group instances and PvP battlegrounds) in between non-game activities (grinding, socializing, customizing, etc.).
For most MMORPG players the non-game activities takes up a predominant large part of the online time. As a phenomenon MMORPGs can therefore better be descriped as 'play' or 'simulation' rather than 'game'. They are a hobby.
The focus of this blog is on the quality and workings of the gameplay elements, especially the combat mechanics.
mandag den 4. februar 2008
søndag den 27. januar 2008
On the merits of Mythos
A short review of Mythos - a MMORPG light
(note: Mythos was under development in closed beta by Flagship Studios when the company dissolved in August 2008 due to financial troubles. Mythos is currently in a limbo.)
Five-minute in-game movie
Description:
Mythos is an online, action role-playing experience. Gameplay-wise it closely resembles Diablo, including a top-down camera view (although you CAN play in a shoulder camera 3D perspective, but it's awkward), point-'n'-click real time combat, and dungeon crawling.
The core challenge is essentially a game of character development. Standard of any RPG, you choose a race, a class and go adventuring to earn levels, skills, achievements, crafting ingredients and gear. Each class have three very open, flexible and fully customisable skill trees.
Added are some mainstay MMO social features like group play, player-to-player trading, and shared cities and other hubs for vendors, questgivers, crafting, etc. Leaving public hubs behind, dungeons (and other quest areas) are instanced and randomly generated. This allows for complete scaleability of content to any group size you happen to bring to the party. And there's individual loot tables - so forget about DKP and need/greed system. If it drops, it is yours.
Overall Mythos doesn't boast a complex and challenging gameplay. It's best for short and cozy play sessions - although you CAN grind the nights away, if you're susceptive to this kind of addiction. It's a very casual-friendly type of light MMORPG with a high degree of replayability.
Summery:
The Good: Very accessible. 100% scaleable content/challenges. Flexible character customization. Quick and easy ‘jump in, jump out’ gameplay. Casual friendly. Low system requirements. It's free!
The Bad: Not as immersive as full-blown, 3D MMORPGs. Gameplay not deep enough to sustain long hours of play sessions - eventually gets repetitive. High level of 'cuteness'.
(note: Mythos was under development in closed beta by Flagship Studios when the company dissolved in August 2008 due to financial troubles. Mythos is currently in a limbo.)Five-minute in-game movie
Description:
Mythos is an online, action role-playing experience. Gameplay-wise it closely resembles Diablo, including a top-down camera view (although you CAN play in a shoulder camera 3D perspective, but it's awkward), point-'n'-click real time combat, and dungeon crawling.
The core challenge is essentially a game of character development. Standard of any RPG, you choose a race, a class and go adventuring to earn levels, skills, achievements, crafting ingredients and gear. Each class have three very open, flexible and fully customisable skill trees.
Added are some mainstay MMO social features like group play, player-to-player trading, and shared cities and other hubs for vendors, questgivers, crafting, etc. Leaving public hubs behind, dungeons (and other quest areas) are instanced and randomly generated. This allows for complete scaleability of content to any group size you happen to bring to the party. And there's individual loot tables - so forget about DKP and need/greed system. If it drops, it is yours.
Overall Mythos doesn't boast a complex and challenging gameplay. It's best for short and cozy play sessions - although you CAN grind the nights away, if you're susceptive to this kind of addiction. It's a very casual-friendly type of light MMORPG with a high degree of replayability.
Summery:
The Good: Very accessible. 100% scaleable content/challenges. Flexible character customization. Quick and easy ‘jump in, jump out’ gameplay. Casual friendly. Low system requirements. It's free!
The Bad: Not as immersive as full-blown, 3D MMORPGs. Gameplay not deep enough to sustain long hours of play sessions - eventually gets repetitive. High level of 'cuteness'.
tirsdag den 8. januar 2008
On the better MMORPG
"I want more from my monthly subscription fee than a highly social way of being bored."
Comment on a Zen of Design blog post by Justin Willcox — 6/2/2005
Basically, we play games for fun. We play MMORPGs for many other reasons. In all cases we spent huge amounts of time interacting with a limited set of core game mechanics. Players eventually 'burn out' on MMORPGs. They get bored. But why? Mostly it's because of the game mechanics.
In the following I'll look at the qualities and workings of these mechanics, and what is needed to make the gameplay of MMORPGs continuously fun, even when played over and over again.
First, let's zero in on the subject:
MMORPGs are not really games in a strict sense.
MMORPGs don't have an overall, singular, game ending goal. Yes, there might be an 'end level', but this is just where the (at least in principle) never ending 'endgame' begins. Instead, MMORPGs are virtual simulations that strings together sessions of 'mini'games with game mechanical subgoals (like group instances and PvP battlegrounds) - in between non-game activities (like grinding, socializing, customizing, etc). As a phenomenon MMORPGs can therefore be descriped as a mixture of 'play' and 'game'. They are a hobby.
For most MMORPG players interaction with the combat mechanics takes up a predominant large part of the online time - whether that be game or non-game activities. It follows that the combat mechanics are fundamental for the overall gameplay experience.
To illustrate what is needed of the game mechanics of MMORPGs to continue being fun and engaging, let's start at the most fundamental level and work our way up:
The slot machine
Imagine the simplest form of computer game possible:
The physical interface consist of a button on a wall. On one side of the button there's a LCD screen. The screen keeps track of points... for now it just shows a glowing zero.
That's it.
The rules are simple: Get as many points as possible.
By pushing the button, the sum of points grows. Each push adds one point.
Push alot of times, earn alot of points.
Push repeatedly as fast as possible, earn points as fast as possible.
Spend much time pushing the button, earn much points.
Push, earn point. Cause, effect. A simple reward system...
Is this even a game? Well, it's got rules, ever so simple interactivity and a kind of goal. What it's really missing though is challenge (besides the physical act of pushing a button repeatedly).
If nothing else, it's a rudimentary slot machine. It's a game of perserverance.
The thing is, this is the core gameplay structure of most current MMORPGs.
(Yes, there's is much more going on in a MMORPG. It's a lot more complex than a slot machine. There's the dynamics of other players and so on. But for the average gamer major parts of the time in MMORPGs is spent levelling/gearing up on solo-PvE content: You walk up to a monster, cycle through a standard sequence of abilities until the monster is dead. Rinse 'n' repeat.
In principle what is described above is the fundamental gameplay hidden at the center of standard MMORPGs.)
True game mechanically defined and dynamic challenge is missing from our rudimentary slot machine. To put it plainly: it's a 'grind'. Pushing the button on the wall a billion times, still leaves us with the exact same challenge of pushing a button. It takes a few pushes to figure out and master the gameplay... after that, the player is not getting any more skilled at pushing the button.
Instead of just assimilating points, a MMORPG rewards button pushing with levels, stats, gear: numerical values that don't alter the gameplay in any fundamental way .
This kind of gameplay is static. It might be addictive (as our brain is very susceptible to reward systems), but after a short while it stops being a challenge and becomes monotonous. To continue posing a challenge, the gameplay will have to change in response to the player actions. The game has to react. More on that later on, but first let's take a closer look at the nature of 'challenge'.
The Challenge
By definition, a challenge is a demanding or stimulating situation that are inbued with a sense of difficulty and victory. Gameplay wise, a challenge can be anything from sensomotoric to cognitive, from challenge of skills to challenge of wits.
Our slot machine-like game can certainly be a challenge in patience, but the important part of the above definition is stimulating and victory - a challenge poses something we can get better at, learn from, and in the end overcome.
Master the gameplay, beat the game. Learn. That's our challenge, when playing games. Games are more than a simple reward system. It's a challenging reward system we continuously learn from... that's what makes it fun.
No more to learn = no more fun.
Action - Reaction
To enable the challenge of our gameplay to change and develop as the game progresses, our gameplay must be dynamic and able to adapt. The rules and goals might be static, but some element of adaptation needs to be present.
Enter the feedback loop (the negative feedback loop, to be precise).
Let's get technical...
Consider a dynamic system: In a system where a transformation occurs, there are inputs and outputs. The inputs are the environment's influence on the system, and the outputs are the influence of the system on the environment. If the dynamics result in stabilization of the system, the system has a negative feedback loop.
Now, it's a long stretch, but put the player or AI of the game in place of that control center. The intelligence of both a game system and 'player system' controls the behaviour towards equlibrium (the optimal path in relation to a certain challenge). For each system the actions of the other system influence of the environment which in turn influences the systems. On a gameplay microlevel the dynamics could play out like this:
Now you, the player, are learning. Now you're adapting. Now you're having fun.
... more to come
“You encourage longevity by being bland, mostly! Dust is one of the simplest multiplayer maps ever made, and has been static for years and years now. It really puts the focus on the players, which are the only elements of the game that change every match.” He believes that complex maps can impose certain styles of play, thereby giving players less room to be creative. “It gets boring because everyone is just adopting the only strategy that works.
a relatively spatially simple map can be loaded with possibilities that reward experimentation and skill, and make it enduringly fun to play on.
Comment on a Zen of Design blog post by Justin Willcox — 6/2/2005
Basically, we play games for fun. We play MMORPGs for many other reasons. In all cases we spent huge amounts of time interacting with a limited set of core game mechanics. Players eventually 'burn out' on MMORPGs. They get bored. But why? Mostly it's because of the game mechanics.
In the following I'll look at the qualities and workings of these mechanics, and what is needed to make the gameplay of MMORPGs continuously fun, even when played over and over again.
First, let's zero in on the subject:
MMORPGs are not really games in a strict sense.
MMORPGs don't have an overall, singular, game ending goal. Yes, there might be an 'end level', but this is just where the (at least in principle) never ending 'endgame' begins. Instead, MMORPGs are virtual simulations that strings together sessions of 'mini'games with game mechanical subgoals (like group instances and PvP battlegrounds) - in between non-game activities (like grinding, socializing, customizing, etc). As a phenomenon MMORPGs can therefore be descriped as a mixture of 'play' and 'game'. They are a hobby.
For most MMORPG players interaction with the combat mechanics takes up a predominant large part of the online time - whether that be game or non-game activities. It follows that the combat mechanics are fundamental for the overall gameplay experience.
To illustrate what is needed of the game mechanics of MMORPGs to continue being fun and engaging, let's start at the most fundamental level and work our way up:
The slot machine
Imagine the simplest form of computer game possible:
The physical interface consist of a button on a wall. On one side of the button there's a LCD screen. The screen keeps track of points... for now it just shows a glowing zero.
That's it.
The rules are simple: Get as many points as possible.
By pushing the button, the sum of points grows. Each push adds one point.
Push alot of times, earn alot of points.
Push repeatedly as fast as possible, earn points as fast as possible.
Spend much time pushing the button, earn much points.
Push, earn point. Cause, effect. A simple reward system...
Is this even a game? Well, it's got rules, ever so simple interactivity and a kind of goal. What it's really missing though is challenge (besides the physical act of pushing a button repeatedly).
If nothing else, it's a rudimentary slot machine. It's a game of perserverance.
The thing is, this is the core gameplay structure of most current MMORPGs.
(Yes, there's is much more going on in a MMORPG. It's a lot more complex than a slot machine. There's the dynamics of other players and so on. But for the average gamer major parts of the time in MMORPGs is spent levelling/gearing up on solo-PvE content: You walk up to a monster, cycle through a standard sequence of abilities until the monster is dead. Rinse 'n' repeat.
In principle what is described above is the fundamental gameplay hidden at the center of standard MMORPGs.)
True game mechanically defined and dynamic challenge is missing from our rudimentary slot machine. To put it plainly: it's a 'grind'. Pushing the button on the wall a billion times, still leaves us with the exact same challenge of pushing a button. It takes a few pushes to figure out and master the gameplay... after that, the player is not getting any more skilled at pushing the button.
Instead of just assimilating points, a MMORPG rewards button pushing with levels, stats, gear: numerical values that don't alter the gameplay in any fundamental way .
This kind of gameplay is static. It might be addictive (as our brain is very susceptible to reward systems), but after a short while it stops being a challenge and becomes monotonous. To continue posing a challenge, the gameplay will have to change in response to the player actions. The game has to react. More on that later on, but first let's take a closer look at the nature of 'challenge'.
The Challenge
By definition, a challenge is a demanding or stimulating situation that are inbued with a sense of difficulty and victory. Gameplay wise, a challenge can be anything from sensomotoric to cognitive, from challenge of skills to challenge of wits.
Our slot machine-like game can certainly be a challenge in patience, but the important part of the above definition is stimulating and victory - a challenge poses something we can get better at, learn from, and in the end overcome.
Master the gameplay, beat the game. Learn. That's our challenge, when playing games. Games are more than a simple reward system. It's a challenging reward system we continuously learn from... that's what makes it fun.
No more to learn = no more fun.
Action - Reaction
To enable the challenge of our gameplay to change and develop as the game progresses, our gameplay must be dynamic and able to adapt. The rules and goals might be static, but some element of adaptation needs to be present.
Enter the feedback loop (the negative feedback loop, to be precise).
Let's get technical...
Consider a dynamic system: In a system where a transformation occurs, there are inputs and outputs. The inputs are the environment's influence on the system, and the outputs are the influence of the system on the environment. If the dynamics result in stabilization of the system, the system has a negative feedback loop.
A simple and practical example is a thermostat in a heated room. When the temperature reaches a certain upper limit the room heating is switched off so that the temperature begins to fall (heat diffuses out to the environment) . When the temperature drops to a lower limit, the heating is switched on again. Provided the limits are close to each other, a steady room temperature is maintained.The negative feedback mechanism reacts to outputs (temperature change) by responding with inputs that directs the system in the opposite direction and stabilize it. In other words, the feedback mechanism is a control center that stimulates the behaviour of the system towards equilibrium, towards a balance.
Now, it's a long stretch, but put the player or AI of the game in place of that control center. The intelligence of both a game system and 'player system' controls the behaviour towards equlibrium (the optimal path in relation to a certain challenge). For each system the actions of the other system influence of the environment which in turn influences the systems. On a gameplay microlevel the dynamics could play out like this:
Player takes on monster by hungering down using slow and hard-hitting attacks (weak defence, strong offense). Monster reacts by moving around fast and dodging (strong defence, weak offense), thereby lessening the effect of the attacks - and forcing the player to change tactics (e.g. tricking the monster into lowering its defences).In the simple reward system of the slot machine, the player is rewarded for simply repeating the same action over and over again - experienced as 'the grind' or the 'treadmill'. With the dynamics of a negative feedback loop, the player is rewarded for acting and reacting based on feedback - same goes for the opponent. This gameplay environment stimulates the adversaries to learn and adapt on the fly, and thereby constantly changing the challenge.
Now you, the player, are learning. Now you're adapting. Now you're having fun.
... more to come
“You encourage longevity by being bland, mostly! Dust is one of the simplest multiplayer maps ever made, and has been static for years and years now. It really puts the focus on the players, which are the only elements of the game that change every match.” He believes that complex maps can impose certain styles of play, thereby giving players less room to be creative. “It gets boring because everyone is just adopting the only strategy that works.
a relatively spatially simple map can be loaded with possibilities that reward experimentation and skill, and make it enduringly fun to play on.
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