A Conversation about MMOs

Had a conversation on Windows Messenger today, on MMOs and an article about them. Editing it slightly and reposting, because it's still worth reading.

Dramatis Personae:
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls: This is me. The quote come from Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Heinlein.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia. This is my friend and co founder of Awesome Games. Not sure where his statement comes from.

New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
also, interesting essay: http://www.wordaroundthenet.com/2008/09/5th-generation-massive.html
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
They're forgetting the Realm Online
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
where does that fit in?
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Just before Ultima Online;
it was a graphic MMO first.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
sure
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Naturally I'm now annoyed at the article, enough that I'll be arguing
ie, arguing against game balance is a very suspicious activity.
so arguing that they should make encounters that adjust to players is all fine and good, but in practice that's pretty hard to manage
any sliding scale like that is going to have places where it's easier and harder and more and less profitable. In an MMO, people are going to rapidly find the easier/more profitable nexus and just keep hitting that over and over
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure, but that'll happen no matter what you do
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Hold on a sec, it's peanut butter jelly time
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
that'll happen
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Right, so even in WoW as it stands and so forth there are dungeons that people hit and people skip. It's very easy to find a group for the Deadmines, but almost impossible to find one for Blackfathoms Deep
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
but as i understand it when you're off to the Deadmines you have a great time
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
What would happen with those dungeons is that you could easily find a three player group for X, but never a five or seven player group. the 25 man raids would only hit three dungeons anyways, since those are the ones with the best loot and everybody knows it.
Strath, Scholo, UBRS or LBRS, and even less of LBRS. Don't ask about Dire Maul, and heaven help you if you want to finish out BRD
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
So you're saying the 5/7 man dungeons are pretty much worthless?
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
No, that for that particular dungeon everybody will know which number is appropriate.
people will sign up for 3 man X, and 5 man Y but never 3 man Y or 5 man X
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
okay
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Never mind if people are right or wrong about what everybody knows, it's a cascade effect. Dire Maul had some really good drops, and there wasn't a better trinket for a Melee class than the one you get from the king in BRD, but people never ran them regardless.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure, i can see where that would happen.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
The other thing is, it's impossible to write an algorithm that will uniquely balance the dungeon for any given number of characters, levels. I mean, you could do it but it wouldn't work that well. You have to get designers in to fiddle with it, and test it, and so forth, for every iteration of every dungeon. That's a lot of work.
Oblivion had an algorithm that determined monster level and treasure types based on your character level. It had a lot of problems.
If you're an explorer type like me, you can go all over the game and dig through unique and interesting dungeons to find exactly the same crap in the chest, which isn't ever especially powerful for your level. And the only way to make the combat fun after a certain level is to manually adjust the game difficulty.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
sure
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
There's a lot of thrill in figuring out how to do something solo that's way more difficult than you should have been able to do, and if you manage it you should be rewarded appropriately. But all that means that it isn't a function of computer power that's slowing down different dungeon power levels, it's game designer time, which is a lot more expensive.
Quests that adapt to the player are a decent idea, except 1) Every single version of every single quest still has to go through design, development, creative, the whole thing, which means that multiple versions requires multiple amounts of design time and money. and 2) only so many quests are interesting. Pity the poor healing class who gets to spend fifty levels treating foot disease rather than skulking in shadows or beating down bandits.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Granted. On the other hand, presumably there's a certain amount of people that would prefer to do that rather than skulk in the shadows for 50 levels. I can't say the same for beating down bandits because that's always a good time
or being a bandit, also good.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Right. And I mean, it is fun being a healer, and there are people who went from level 14 to 60 in old Wow just healing in dungeons. But every group needs a healer, and less than 1 in 5 level that way. the rest of your player base are going to get royally bored to get to end game content for a guild that's going to dissolve in drama three weeks later.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Oh yeah, and you do have to balance for PvE too. I mean, if it's markedly easier to level as a hunter you'll end up with a surplus of hunters in the end game. you'll have the groups of three hunters waiting for a tank and a healer until kingdom come.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Though depending on how overpowered they are it might not matter, not sure if you saw the Noob comic on the subject.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
I probably did, don't remember it
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Basically one of the devs went to the boss and said they were getting complaints about hunters being OP because the devs played hunters, the boss said that's ridiculous and went back to playing his hunter, which was ridiculously powerful,
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Oh yeah, I remember that now.
But yeah, in the end most MMO tasks involve tanking, healing and killing stuff. I get that it's nice to have ways to differentiate between different classes that do those essentials, but there's only so much you can do. If a class can't do any of that then it's by and large useless. I'd argue that WoW does it all well enough already, that the classes are varied enough that you can tell the difference between them. A rogue is not a warrior is not a paladin is not a druid is not a priest. While there's certainly a lot of overlap between classes, and in the end they still do the same three essential tasks, the classes are differentiable by other characteristics. Rogues pick locks, stealth and pickpocket. Mages are the only ones who master Portal Magic, and nobody but druids shapeshift.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
And if she wants different characters, then limiting what sort of character can do what sort of profession isn't the way to go. "Oh, you're a warlock? Herbalism/Alchemy or Enchanting/Tailoring?"
It doesn't make much sense for a frail student of the arcane to be out there with a pickaxe mining copper, but it does help to individualize characters.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Yeah, true. It also leads back into what you already said, people are usually going to do what's best for them doesn't make much sense for a warlock to be mining, less use for it I'd think.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Well, mining and engineering is a decent choice for any character type. And so is MIning and Skinning, if you just want to sell your crap on the auction house. Doesn't make much for character definition that way. But to do what she wants, what you could do is make for difficult/complicated quests to allow you into certain branches of the profession. Makes a higher barrier to entry, and makes it more important for an individual to be in that particular branch.
Experience for everything has two pitfalls; either it's very easy to level up this way (rogue gets experience for stealthing past monsters. Set your rogue to auto run into a wall behind a particular guard, walk away and let your EXP tick up. Bingo progress quest!) or it's very pointless; exploration experience in WoW is nifty, but it's worth about one monster kill per area visited, which means that you don't
get any levels by wandering around. I'll grant you it's nice to have incentives to do stuff other than the scripted quests, but that and a thousand monster kills will get you a level.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
heh
Yeah, the exploration xp in Fallout III wasn't so bad though, it was enough to actively make me want to wander out of my way a time or two just to get a new location on the map.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Yeah, not saying it isn't a good thing, but most of the time you got that experience by killing things or turning in quests.
On to the economy section. ooh! fees and taxes. That'll be popular with the player base. I dunno, I mean it seems that money sinks aren't that hard to come by in the games. I mean in WoW they had repairs, Auction House fees, postage, gryphon fees, so on and so forth.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure. You can get around some of that if you really try though.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
First of all, you want a slowly inflating economy; people are happier when they're making money. That means of course that more money is going to be going into the system, but again in a free market there are things you can do about that.
Generally it just means that the price per unit of time farming changes, and stuff is about as expensive as it was previously.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Yeah, much as the continual adding of content happens.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Secondly, it's fine putting in money sinks, but you've got to convince your players that they're getting value out of it. Take the stuff in Uncle P's Antiques. You in no way get more meat out of the events than you spend to access them, but they provide unique content, which people are willing to pay to see. Just outright taxing them, or making different currencies that are worth different amounts is less fun, and currency exchanges also increase complexity without adding much gameplay value. Thirdly, I'm not convinced that gold farming is such a terrible thing. I mean yeah, it sucks when you have to farm the same thing they are, and you're a loser for having to pay real money for in game currency, but for the most part you can work around it. It distorts the amount of money in the economy, but there are always ways to make money off of the people who bought gold. Rugged Leather can be
farmed in almost every high level zone in Classic WoW, and it sells plenty well. Not worth as much as hanging out at Tyr's Hand, but plenty of gold per hour if you're just looking to buy that vanity money sink.
Honestly I think that KoL does it best with the Mr. As on sale for $10. If you want in game currency, you support the game itself to buy it, both by paying the devs and by supporting your local meat farmers.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
True. I might also buy that t-shirt: "Support your local gold farmer."
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Supply and demand, items selling better or worse to NPCs of an area based on availability would be a pretty cool mechanic. Not sure how easy it is to code.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Pretty sure the other half of that can't be too hard, the part about changing the quest requirements based on demand.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Well yeah, but that also leads to all sorts of screw. I mean, take her point further down about legless spiders. You spend half an hour getting spider legs and suddenly they ask for treant bark. Kill a score of treants and now they want lizard eggs. Suck Eggs long enough and now they want an amber ring from a local wizard. If the economy shifts enough you could never finish that quest.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
I would assume that the quest being given would stay the same
I'm using the Bounty Hunter Hunter as my example here
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
I mean, if they did it easier, like a contract is a contract and whatever you sign up for you finish, but then they have different sign ups at different times, that's fine.
Yeah, I didn't read it that way.
I do like the point about being able to make almost anything. And being able to make custom items, so long as the custom items are comparable in power to dungeon loot
Too much power and why are you going into that dungeon? Too little power and why bother?
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Yeah, that's a tough call.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
I did really like it in Diablo II where the monsters used essentially the same abilities as the player classes. These ghosts shoot chain lightning. The Fallen Shaman shoots firebolts. That sort of stuff.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
So when I played Runescape, you could pretty much master every skill available, if you were willing to put in the time or the money towards it. However IIRC generally the loot you could get from monsters was better than that which could be crafted, however last time I checked in they had some new loot that was a craftable drop.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
A craftable drop? As in you get it off of a monster but you can upgrade it by crafting?
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Well, no. One was a piece of ore that could be smithed, the other was a half of a shield that could be smithed. The other half shield was bought from a merchant in the place where you started the quest.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
OK. Still, a decent mechanic, without knowing the particulars.
Interesting idea about dynamically varying spawn density based on player population. The problem is your graphics engine. If a hundred players parade through snigland with their mounts and a dozen pieces of customized clothing each (customized clothing is also bad for this sort of stuff) then a bazillion lesser snigs spawn, players start raining down blizzards and firestorms on them because I don't care if I don't get much loot off of them, there's so many, bet I can crack 10,000 damage, and everybody's videocard crashes or the server overloads and goes down. They introduced a global LFG channel in WoW one patch. Somebody made a macro to display about a thousand messages on it a minute to everybody in the faction and it was enough to take the server down.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
I don't think you can really use that as a general example though
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
No, I'm just saying that the additional stress of a bazillion text messages being delivered was enough to bring the server down. WoW has very limited character design options and no armor dyes or anything just because they try to make the game accessible to older machines. You start changing that, you start running into problems
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure. But this is looking at what would be next in line for the new generation of games or to make it truly "role-playing" which I think was more the point of the essay.
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
the idea of a dynamic environment is interesting, not at all sure that it's easy to code. Early on in WoW development they had an idea for an alliance incursion into the Barrens, that would get further and further as patches progressed. WHat really happened is that the alliance was scared off by Barrens chat.
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
heh
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
Or rather they realized it's be pretty bad to take away the major early level horde leveling area. Still, I think that the 5th generation, as he terms it (I just realized it's a he, and I've been referring to it as she all along. Embarrassing), will include a much more interactive game world. The example with trees is nice, the example with weather effects is possible, but I'd really like to see actual war zones that change hands. Say the plaguelands in classic WoW, where one faction or the other controls the zone and their members can only accept and turn in quests in the area until the other faction manages to stage a comeback. Or stuff like that
New Zealand is kind of like the Canada of Australia says:
Sure
I tell you, the slide rule is the greatest invention since girls. says:
As I've been saying for a while, I'd really like to see MMOs that adapted the GM role for the world.