Friday, May 27, 2005
Guild Wars Verdict
It's good, not great.
A quick summary of the bad stuff (the good you can find in a lot of other places):
A quick summary of the bad stuff (the good you can find in a lot of other places):
- The loot is boring. It gets better after the first few levels, but it still hurts the game
- Skill acquisition isn't balanced. Ideally, you'd get skills in all categories at about the same pace. That way, you'd be able to play a different style all the way through the game. However, it seems that every class (not just 1 or 2) is given a bunch of useful skills in one category (e.g., fire magic for elementalists, healing for monks, blood magic for necros, etc.) and not many useful skills in other categories. As a result, everyone plays a fire elementalist for at least the first 10-15 levels (out of 20). Eventually, you round out your skill collection, but by then, you're so used to that one set of skills that there's no reason to change.
- Early-level PvP is dominated by "twinks". It is possible to use max damage weapons (the most powerful in the game) in the earliest arena (level 1-10). High level players simply find a weapon with low requirements and pass it on to their new low level character. New players are thus not only overmatched in playing skill, they are totally outclassed in equipment, too. There should have been a PvP arena at the beginning where new players aren't at such a disadvantage. There should be something that guides new players into PvP; as it is, they have to seek it out or stumble on it themselves. And it should not be so easy to equip the most powerful equipment in the game.
- The skill distribution problem mentioned earlier also hurts pre-20 PvP, because everyone uses the same builds.
- The warrior/wizard/healer/archer gameplay is tired. PvP consists of seeing whose healer dies the fastest. And good luck when you go up against a team of 8 healers.
- Calling targets for your teammates to attack is unnecessarily difficult, especially in PvP. In general, communication without a headset is primative compared to modern team-based games.
- Pathing sucks. Sometimes you'll try to use a "touch" skill that requires you to get next to someone. You'll start running automatically towards the person, but you'll often end up blocked by an obstacle that you should be able to run around easily, and the skill use will be halted with no visual feedback that you were interrupted.
- There's no collection of stats for PvP, beyond guild ranking stuff for end-game guild-only PvP. I'm sure plenty of people who play casually and do random PvP would love to have some sort of stats and recognition.
- The storyline is mediocre at best. There are plenty of cutscenes and such to advance it, but it is meandering and nonsensical at times.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Maximizing MMO content
So you have a game where people play 4+ hours a day, and you want to give them enough to keep them busy--and subscribed-- indefinitely (or for 1.32 years, or whatever your business model says).
You crunch some numbers and figure out that it takes you about $15,000 to add one quality hour's worth of content to your game. It would cost a lot more if you didn't have your game systems and tools already in place, or if you were making a game where every minute has to be engaging and polished, like Half-Life 2. But it's an online RPG, and consumer expectations and quality standards are lower.
Alright, so let's say that you're aiming to release (game or expansion, doesn't matter) with content that will keep players busy for 1 year. Your average player spends about 23 hours a week in the game, so:
23 hrs/wk * 52 weeks *$15,000/hr. = $17,940,000.
Remember, that approximation is for content alone, not interface, network, graphics, or other quite expensive pieces of the game.
Obviously, you'll never make a profit spending that kind of money on creating content. The problem gets even worse when you factor in the need to create different game experiences for different people/characters. Joe and Jerry both play a character from level 1 to level 50, and it takes them exactly a year to do so. Joe plays an evil rogue, and Jerry plays a paladin. I hate Jerry so much. And pretty much all of you who always play paladins, too. Loud-mouthed, sanctimonious, arrogant bastards in real life, the lot of you. Um, yes...so Joe needs rogue-specific quests, items, spells, trainers, guild halls, etc., and so does Jerry, that prick. Let's say that 10% (moneywise) of the content for each of them is unique: you'd push the price tag up to $19,500,000. Add in the rest of your classes, jobs, professions, races, alignments, etc., and your cost goes up far higher.
This was the problem that plagued Star Wars Galaxies: lots of breadth but not enough depth. You could take on one of a large number of professions, but most of them were not fun or useful because the content-creation money was spread too thin. Everquest ran into the same problem with its large number of starting cities and inadequate number of high-level hunting grounds.
So how do you create enough content for everyone without going broke?
Here are the possibilities:
- Get people to play less (or get people who play less)
- Get people to pay more
- Hire cheap foreign labor
- Limit variety that necessitates "duplicated" content
- Cheat
Obviously, forcing people to play less isn't going to work these days. Back when I was a young whipper-snapper, I played BBS door games. Look them up if you want to know what they are. Anyway, these games often had turn or time limits, forcing you to quit playing for the day at a certain point. I can't see the EQ2 forum-goers being too pleased with that idea, although it might be interesting to open a special-rules server that does something similar. Alternatively, you can design a game that's not meant to be played so much. Diminishing marginal returns on character advancement. No 6 hour raids. A gameplay experience so intense that you can't handle too much of it at a time (and can't play when half-asleep). You know, for the casual gamer.
People already are paying more. Monthly fees have gone up from $9.89 a month for EQ to around $15 for EQ2 and others. EQ Legends lifts some more from a few players' wallets, as do EQ2 Adventure Packs. Still, it's not nearly enough to fill the gap. I like the idea of paying more to get more, although I personally will be declining to get more for the time being.
Cheap foreign labor is rising in popularity among game publishers...pretty much linearly with foreign labor's competence and domestic labor's cost. I've heard that production of some of EQ2 art assets was outsourced to China, but I'm not certain. It wouldn't be surprising if true.
Limiting variety or scope can a great move if done wisely. If the variety doesn't give you much bang for the buck--that is, if adding 25 different starting locations and 99 different character classes costs a lot and doesn't significantly enhance an individual player's game experience--don't do it. This is a basic tenet of game design, but it is one often forgotten in RPG and MMORPG designs. Too often, these games are designed by some MUD/CRPG/stat geek who says, "Hmm...6 character attributes is good; 54 character attributes would be 9 times better!"
Yawn. This is all pretty standard stuff. It's the "cheating" methods that are the most interesting, at least in my opinion. What kind of tricks and shortcuts do developers have at their disposal? That topic is going to need its own entry.
You crunch some numbers and figure out that it takes you about $15,000 to add one quality hour's worth of content to your game. It would cost a lot more if you didn't have your game systems and tools already in place, or if you were making a game where every minute has to be engaging and polished, like Half-Life 2. But it's an online RPG, and consumer expectations and quality standards are lower.
Alright, so let's say that you're aiming to release (game or expansion, doesn't matter) with content that will keep players busy for 1 year. Your average player spends about 23 hours a week in the game, so:
23 hrs/wk * 52 weeks *$15,000/hr. = $17,940,000.
Remember, that approximation is for content alone, not interface, network, graphics, or other quite expensive pieces of the game.
Obviously, you'll never make a profit spending that kind of money on creating content. The problem gets even worse when you factor in the need to create different game experiences for different people/characters. Joe and Jerry both play a character from level 1 to level 50, and it takes them exactly a year to do so. Joe plays an evil rogue, and Jerry plays a paladin. I hate Jerry so much. And pretty much all of you who always play paladins, too. Loud-mouthed, sanctimonious, arrogant bastards in real life, the lot of you. Um, yes...so Joe needs rogue-specific quests, items, spells, trainers, guild halls, etc., and so does Jerry, that prick. Let's say that 10% (moneywise) of the content for each of them is unique: you'd push the price tag up to $19,500,000. Add in the rest of your classes, jobs, professions, races, alignments, etc., and your cost goes up far higher.
This was the problem that plagued Star Wars Galaxies: lots of breadth but not enough depth. You could take on one of a large number of professions, but most of them were not fun or useful because the content-creation money was spread too thin. Everquest ran into the same problem with its large number of starting cities and inadequate number of high-level hunting grounds.
So how do you create enough content for everyone without going broke?
Here are the possibilities:
- Get people to play less (or get people who play less)
- Get people to pay more
- Hire cheap foreign labor
- Limit variety that necessitates "duplicated" content
- Cheat
Obviously, forcing people to play less isn't going to work these days. Back when I was a young whipper-snapper, I played BBS door games. Look them up if you want to know what they are. Anyway, these games often had turn or time limits, forcing you to quit playing for the day at a certain point. I can't see the EQ2 forum-goers being too pleased with that idea, although it might be interesting to open a special-rules server that does something similar. Alternatively, you can design a game that's not meant to be played so much. Diminishing marginal returns on character advancement. No 6 hour raids. A gameplay experience so intense that you can't handle too much of it at a time (and can't play when half-asleep). You know, for the casual gamer.
People already are paying more. Monthly fees have gone up from $9.89 a month for EQ to around $15 for EQ2 and others. EQ Legends lifts some more from a few players' wallets, as do EQ2 Adventure Packs. Still, it's not nearly enough to fill the gap. I like the idea of paying more to get more, although I personally will be declining to get more for the time being.
Cheap foreign labor is rising in popularity among game publishers...pretty much linearly with foreign labor's competence and domestic labor's cost. I've heard that production of some of EQ2 art assets was outsourced to China, but I'm not certain. It wouldn't be surprising if true.
Limiting variety or scope can a great move if done wisely. If the variety doesn't give you much bang for the buck--that is, if adding 25 different starting locations and 99 different character classes costs a lot and doesn't significantly enhance an individual player's game experience--don't do it. This is a basic tenet of game design, but it is one often forgotten in RPG and MMORPG designs. Too often, these games are designed by some MUD/CRPG/stat geek who says, "Hmm...6 character attributes is good; 54 character attributes would be 9 times better!"
Yawn. This is all pretty standard stuff. It's the "cheating" methods that are the most interesting, at least in my opinion. What kind of tricks and shortcuts do developers have at their disposal? That topic is going to need its own entry.
Friday, May 20, 2005
E3 Letdown
I saw the EQ2 expansion, but not at SOE's booth. It was in a "Games for Windows" section, and one of the animators (a very nice guy) was demoing it. By demoing it, I mean running around the new city and using a flying carpet (which those 0.01% of players who will ever have one must love...). I didn't get to see any Ogres climbing walls, arena combat, or anything beyond what's already in the normal game, really. They were showing that stuff in the depths of the SOE booth, but only to people with media badges.
Game developers get completely screwed over when it comes to doing interesting stuff. We don't get invites to industry parties--that's for the people who don't actually make games, like vice presidents and external producers and marketing types. And the ever-pimply gaming media. We don't get to see cool stuff at E3 (except our own) behind closed doors. We don't get to have social lives or overtime pay. It's still not as bad as being a tester, though.
Anyway, SOE may pay lip service to blog-type sites such as this one, but the reality is that they won't waste their time if it's not going to get them a 2-page spread in some magazine or a glowing (or at least, vaguely positive) preview on a major gaming site.
I did see a fairly long trailer that SOE put together. It didn't really show any actual gameplay, just a long PvPish sequence with gnomes and trolls and dragons and such. These kinds of cut-scenes would be great for spicing up quests and other dynamic events in the game; having them as trailers doesn't add anything to the game itself. Seems like a no-brainer to add this kind of cinematic to the game, but I'm not the expert.
Vanguard looked like the same boring crap. Why do these games keep putting crafting in? It's not fun. Get rid of it and replace it with something that serves the same purpose but is fun. It's not that hard. It also has "a kobold warrior". Why is the "a" necessary? Can't you just label it "kobold warrior" and add the proper article (a, an, the) in the game text as necessary? It's not a big deal, but it is indicative of the disturbing unwillingness of MMO developers to re-think accepted MMO conventions (like crafting!).
There was a game from a company called Webzen. I didn't look at it, but I heard someone narrating gameplay as follows: "See what I'm doing? I'm drinking a health potion. That's something you don't see in a typical massively multiplayer game. This is an action game!" KOREAN MMO GO GO!!!!
Hold me.
There was another game in the same area that had its own theme song, which a Britney clone and her blonde friends came on stage and sang. I remembered its name thanks to the catchy chorus (the red bra and the bounciness therein may have helped a little). Conquer Online. Please note before you download it and max out your character that I know nothing at all about this game.
Game developers get completely screwed over when it comes to doing interesting stuff. We don't get invites to industry parties--that's for the people who don't actually make games, like vice presidents and external producers and marketing types. And the ever-pimply gaming media. We don't get to see cool stuff at E3 (except our own) behind closed doors. We don't get to have social lives or overtime pay. It's still not as bad as being a tester, though.
Anyway, SOE may pay lip service to blog-type sites such as this one, but the reality is that they won't waste their time if it's not going to get them a 2-page spread in some magazine or a glowing (or at least, vaguely positive) preview on a major gaming site.
I did see a fairly long trailer that SOE put together. It didn't really show any actual gameplay, just a long PvPish sequence with gnomes and trolls and dragons and such. These kinds of cut-scenes would be great for spicing up quests and other dynamic events in the game; having them as trailers doesn't add anything to the game itself. Seems like a no-brainer to add this kind of cinematic to the game, but I'm not the expert.
Vanguard looked like the same boring crap. Why do these games keep putting crafting in? It's not fun. Get rid of it and replace it with something that serves the same purpose but is fun. It's not that hard. It also has "a kobold warrior". Why is the "a" necessary? Can't you just label it "kobold warrior" and add the proper article (a, an, the) in the game text as necessary? It's not a big deal, but it is indicative of the disturbing unwillingness of MMO developers to re-think accepted MMO conventions (like crafting!).
There was a game from a company called Webzen. I didn't look at it, but I heard someone narrating gameplay as follows: "See what I'm doing? I'm drinking a health potion. That's something you don't see in a typical massively multiplayer game. This is an action game!" KOREAN MMO GO GO!!!!
Hold me.
There was another game in the same area that had its own theme song, which a Britney clone and her blonde friends came on stage and sang. I remembered its name thanks to the catchy chorus (the red bra and the bounciness therein may have helped a little). Conquer Online. Please note before you download it and max out your character that I know nothing at all about this game.
Monday, May 09, 2005
EQ2 Expansion - Who'da Thunk?
Here's the press release.
A couple things caught my attention:
Players of all classes can collect new creatures and pit them against each other in special arenas in the newly discovered city of Maj’Dul.
and
Arena champions: Take the form of new exotic creatures, or fight as yourself, in battles for glory against other creatures or players.
Sounds familiar...
Overall, though, it sounds like the same old typical boring crap. Take a look at the list of key features and see if any of these things aside from arena combat sound even remotely interesting:
Key Features
A couple things caught my attention:
Players of all classes can collect new creatures and pit them against each other in special arenas in the newly discovered city of Maj’Dul.
and
Arena champions: Take the form of new exotic creatures, or fight as yourself, in battles for glory against other creatures or players.
Sounds familiar...
Overall, though, it sounds like the same old typical boring crap. Take a look at the list of key features and see if any of these things aside from arena combat sound even remotely interesting:
Key Features
- Arena champions: Take the form of new exotic creatures, or fight as yourself, in battles for glory against other creatures or players.
- New movement: Search for treasure and find adventure in new areas by climbing up and down walls for the first time in an MMO.
- Voice-over emotes: Express yourself in a battle or expand your social circle with new voice emotes.
- Guild vaults: Share the loot of a hard won battle with the rest of your guild members.
- Level range increase: Now play up to level 60!
- New land: Discover over a dozen new zones and epic encounters.
- New creatures: Test your combat skills in battles with over 40 new fearsome creatures.
It's really depressing. At least the idea of wall-climing ogres has potential comedy value. I'll be taking a look at it when I go to E3 next week (unless, like they did with EQ2, they hide it in shame), but my expectations are very low.
The same press release mentioned the second adventure pack, which is $8 instead of the $5 they charged for the first one. It's worth it, though, because this one "leads players through a series of event-based zones by using moveable planks, crates, and barrels." No word on whether the gravity gun will be a quest reward or a loot item.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Station Exchange news
Here's the result of the in-game EQ2 poll that asked how people felt about Station Exchange. It is surprising that 1 out of 4 people wants to make use of it. I thought the number would be smaller.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Guild Wars Retail, or, How Not To Resist Temptation
So I went to EB at the local mall to see what was new and exciting. Surfing the web just doesn't give me the same feeling, and the internet doesn't have a food court offering the delicious Super Chicken Bowl Combo, or the 50-foot long picture of a woman in underwear that graces the entrance of the upcoming Victoria's Secret store.
I went inside and asked about Guild Wars. "We just sold out 5 minutes ago," the clerk told me.
Of course, now that I couldn't get it, I had to have it. I drove to the local Best Buy, and they had dozens of copies, so I picked one up and made a mental note not to go to EB when I wanted a game (they also didn't cover PSP pre-orders, got my EQ2 DVD version in late and wouldn't give me a CD version instead, charge the highest prices of any store out there, and rip people off on trade-ins).
The game is pretty dry for quite a while. It's only when you're around level 10 or so (the cap is 20) that it starts to get fun. It's a cross between Diablo and Magic: the Gathering. And maybe a little bit of Shadowbane. Like Magic (which I played for a couple months with people at work and enjoyed, wasn't in love with it), it's not very fun until you have a bunch of options at your disposal. You earn powers by doing quests, mostly, and you can swap them out in town for what amounts to an 8-card deck in Magic (except you can use most of these powers over and over instead of discarding them). This system allows you to try out lots of different combinations, and they make a huge difference in how you play your character. That's certainly a refreshing change from MMOs (Guild Wars is a persistent-character online game, but not massively multiplayer.)
Although there is plenty of "co-op" content, it seems like the game is designed for PvP arena battles. I haven't done much of this yet, but what little I did was fun. There's a lot of strategy and teamwork needed to be successful, and fights are always "fair"--that is, both sides are prepared for the fight, and no one is doomed to failure because their stats aren't good enough.
Downsides: the loot system is below par (but this also keeps PvP more competitive), and the levels are restrictive in where they let you go (no jumping, always have to follow obvious paths, no interaction with environment, no hidden places or other secrets, etc.). The environments look very nice, though.
I'll probably post more about this game once I've had a chance to get to level 20 and see how it plays then.
I went inside and asked about Guild Wars. "We just sold out 5 minutes ago," the clerk told me.
Of course, now that I couldn't get it, I had to have it. I drove to the local Best Buy, and they had dozens of copies, so I picked one up and made a mental note not to go to EB when I wanted a game (they also didn't cover PSP pre-orders, got my EQ2 DVD version in late and wouldn't give me a CD version instead, charge the highest prices of any store out there, and rip people off on trade-ins).
The game is pretty dry for quite a while. It's only when you're around level 10 or so (the cap is 20) that it starts to get fun. It's a cross between Diablo and Magic: the Gathering. And maybe a little bit of Shadowbane. Like Magic (which I played for a couple months with people at work and enjoyed, wasn't in love with it), it's not very fun until you have a bunch of options at your disposal. You earn powers by doing quests, mostly, and you can swap them out in town for what amounts to an 8-card deck in Magic (except you can use most of these powers over and over instead of discarding them). This system allows you to try out lots of different combinations, and they make a huge difference in how you play your character. That's certainly a refreshing change from MMOs (Guild Wars is a persistent-character online game, but not massively multiplayer.)
Although there is plenty of "co-op" content, it seems like the game is designed for PvP arena battles. I haven't done much of this yet, but what little I did was fun. There's a lot of strategy and teamwork needed to be successful, and fights are always "fair"--that is, both sides are prepared for the fight, and no one is doomed to failure because their stats aren't good enough.
Downsides: the loot system is below par (but this also keeps PvP more competitive), and the levels are restrictive in where they let you go (no jumping, always have to follow obvious paths, no interaction with environment, no hidden places or other secrets, etc.). The environments look very nice, though.
I'll probably post more about this game once I've had a chance to get to level 20 and see how it plays then.
