IN CHARACTER

Open PvP via randomized Points of Interest

2011-02-28T20:15:00.005+01:00

None of the games I know of has gotten open world PvP "right". Large scale PvP usually leads to zerging of enemy players through organized, prioritized, and focussed damage on targets. Clear objective-driven open world PvP areas like WoW's Lake Wintergrasp or Grim Batol result in larger scale battles in certain time intervals and a temporary zone lockdown. Anything else is pretty much "gank & spank". So, how to get it "right"?

Well, juggling around with the new secondary profession in WoW Cataclysm, Archaeology, brought me to a pretty interesting idea that could be worthwhile investigating development-wise. Here's a brief rundown on how the, for a potential open world PvP solution, relevant part of WoW's archaeology works:

On a per user basis, users are exclusively assigned certain spots (small areas close to ruins, skeletons, excavations, etc.) within the game world where they can dig for artifact fragments.
After digging up fragments three times, the spot disappears and a new "random" exclusive digsite is made available to the user somewhere else within the game world.
At all times, there are 3 digsites per continent available for each user.

Here's my rough concept for a potentially intriguing open world PvP system, assuming a 2-faction setup like "Orcs vs. Humans" or "Guardians vs. Defilers":

1 up to 5 players per faction can group up for an artifact (PvP) quest.
Two equal-size and equal level (range) groups, one per faction, are assigned one random digsite within the game world.
The first of both teams that has acquired, e.g., 5 artifact fragments can claim the artifact, and thus a reward (loot, gold, resources, whatever is valuable within the game world).
Artifact fragments can be acquired by digging them up or by looting them from killed enemy players.
Only members of both groups can loot artifact fragments from enemy players or by digging them up, however there are no more than 5 fragments per digsite at a time.
Basically, as soon as a team's player has at least acquired one artifact fragment, the other team will need to engage in open PvP with the other team in order to be able to claim the reward.
As soon as either of both teams has claimed a digsite reward, a new "randomly" selected spot is made available as a new digsite for both teams unless one team's group is disbanded (in which case the remaining team can queue up for yet another artifact quest).

To prevent domination via bringing "friends" for fast artifact acquisition, the system could only allow users of both groups to damage each other and make them immune to enemy player damage as soon as they enter the zone the artifact site is located in.

This could result in small-scale team vs. team battles at randomized locations throughout the whole game world, and actually provide a potentially endless meta game with a constant flow of ongoing and recurrent small-scale battles within the game. It would constantly re-use existing content while providing participating users clear objectives and rewards. It might also enhance community building and social interaction, as coordinated teams will likely be more effective than random pick-up groups.

Resolving Goldfarming through Concealed Validated Auctions

2009-12-17T15:23:00.003+01:00

Introduction to the problem

The exchange of goods is an integral part of any social system. People buy goods to satisfy their personal needs, to honor their traditions, or to strengthen their social bonds. People sell produced goods to make a living, to pay their monthly bills, or to make profit. Community members can obtain wealth through adherence to the overarching system's ruleset, through contribution to the ongoing persistence of the system, and through the accumulation of commonly agreed-to status indicators, e.g. the amount of children, land ownership, crop seeds, or money. The same applies for online world societies.

Online world users, however, can as well take a shortcut. They can have others obtain those status indicators for them in exchange for surplus acquired through their regular day-to-day job. If used in ways that are not intended by the game developers and not under the control of the game operators, this so called real money trade (RMT) threatens the integrity of the affected online world systems. RMT contractors accumulate money used in the real world by exploiting resources provided within online worlds. That way, the system-internal online world economies are flooded with easily obtainable goods and commodities. The values of rather common goods are highly deflated. Uncommon commodities become highly inflated as users seek to reduce their losses through obtaining rare goods.

This so-called MUDflation causes frustration for both the users and the operators of online worlds. The efforts and commitments of the users to the integrity and well-being of the online world system are devalued, which reduces the overall systemic quality and social stability of the online worlds. The operators of online worlds have to invest substantial funds into combating real money trade while simultaneously facing the challenge of users leaving their online worlds due to RMT-based frustration. Their costs increase while their revenues decrease. Under careful calculations based on previous research by Prof. Edward Castranova, the annual losses caused by RMT add up to at least $300 mio., but very likely significantly more. Obviously, a way to resolve that issue has to be found.

Approaching the solution

One way to approach the problem is via the analysis of the process performed throughout an RMT transaction. Each real money trade transaction consists of two transactions, one per system involved. First, the buyer transmits the agreed-to amount of money to the seller, e.g. via credit card payment, and provides info on his virtual identity, e.g. the name of the buyer's avatar. Second, the seller transfers the acquired virtual commodities to the buyer via means provided by and within the online world, e.g. via a trade window or a PO box. Game operators may try to resolve the issue of RMT by not allowing any trading at all between avatars within their online world. As stated above, however, the exchange of goods is a vital subsystem of any society. Taking it out of the online world would greatly reduce the amount of social interactions performed.

The problematic interaction is the verifiable exchange of goods between two specific online world users. If there is a way to verify a transaction within an online world, both buyer and seller of an RMT service can track the completion of an ex ante agreed-to and paid-for exchange of goods. Thus, there must not be any exception to the following described mechanism. It has to apply to all transactions. Else, the exception, e.g. an allowed direct exchange of "cute glade flowers", will become the norm, glade flowers will become the new inofficial currency, and users will start complaining about RMT glade flower farmers.

Several identifiers can be used to verify a transaction: location, price, name, and time. Detaching transactions from this trade information could provide means to enable trading within online worlds, but disable trading between two parties involved in RMT. This full concealment of all transaction identifiers could be achieved via the following mechanism.

The proposed solution: secret auctioning

All avatar-to-avatar transactions are performed and mediated via a trade platform that establishes the exchange of goods between designated trade partners. To conceal the time identifier for transactions, all trade is performed after the expiry of a trade cycle, e.g. with a duration of 24 hours per cycle. At the beginning of each trade cycle, all goods put up for sale before the initiation of the trade cycle are listed on the trade platform. Additional amounts of commodities that were already listed at cycle initiation may be added at any time while the trade cycle lasts. New commodities will be listed at the initiation of the next cycle.

The actual amount of offers placed is kept undisclosed, as well as any information regarding the demanded price and the identity of the seller. Users can determine which commodities are listed for sale at trade cycle initiation, but cannot identify prices, seller identity, or available amount. Suppliers may modify their price at any time while the trade cycle lasts. They may not, however, offer the same commodity for different prices, e.g. one shoulder armor for 10 gold, one for 7.5 gold, and one for 5 gold pieces. This similarly applies to buyers: if they are interested in buying a commodity available on the trade platform, they can place one secret bid per commodity, and modify it anytime while the trade cycle lasts. That way, both suppliers and bidders reveal their actual individual willingness-to-pay or willingness-to-be-paid-for. All information that might lead to the identification of the buyer or seller, e.g. price, name, or time of bid / offer placed, is kept secret.

During the trade cycle, involved users reveal their individual willingness-to-pay or willingness-to-be-paid-for to the trade platform and deposit the according items or funds. The price information can be used by the platform at the end of a trade cycle to aggregate supply and demand and to determine the market equilibrium for each commodity, based on full market information, which is only available to the automated transaction mediator.

So far, however, this would not prevent certain RMT-related transactions where a user would offer a commodity of very low value which the RMT seller would then buy for a very large amount of online world money, which would effectively establish a real money trade transaction. This issue can be addressed via a transaction validation procedure.

Increasing economic stability through a transaction validation procedure

Computer-controlled shopkeepers, so-called NPC vendors, provide according means to validate transactions. Acting as buyer machines, they usually pay rather unsatisfying prices to the users, based on a formula that determines the base value of each commodity. This formula greatly varies from online world to online world, and can be based on various factors like i.e. rarity, commodity properties, or avatar requirements. Via that formula, computer-controlled vendors effectively establish a minimum price for each commodity. There is no need to keep this minimum price information undisclosed to the participants of the platform-mediated trade. It provides an anchor, a minimum relative orientation for the initial evaluation of each offered commodity.

Based on the trade data input by the users, the supply and demand curve and the market equilibrium for every single commodity can be determined. In addition, NPC shopkeepers establish a minimum price for each commodity via the general base value formula. Based on that information, a range of valid transactions can be identified.

The intersection of the minimum commodity price and the supply curve (p_min = S, x_min) is declared the minimum valid price. The intersection of the demand curve and the minimum amount of performed transactions (p_max = x_min, D) is declared the maximum valid price. That way, all offers and bids between the minimum valid price / maximum valid bid and the market equilibrium are declared valid. All remaining offers and bids are declared invalid. The according suppliers and bidders are refunded their items and funds. Valid bids are sorted in descending, and valid offers sorted in ascending order.

Suppliers with low validated prices have, in relative comparison to the other trade participants for the according commodity, proven their commitment to the integrity and well-being of the online world's economy. This similarly applies to bidders with a relatively high willingness-to-pay. They did more than they were required to and are thus rewarded accordingly: the lowest validated supplier is served first to the highest valid bid and so on, until a transaction cannot be established any longer due to missing commodities or bids.

A trade cycle ends. All validated transactions are performed, all invalidated offers and bids are refunded to the according users. No-one knows who bought what from whom but also, no-one is worse off than before participating in trade. All bidders and suppliers are either refunded their deposit, get what they wanted for the price they were willing to pay (bidders), or get even more than they asked for (suppliers). The Pareto-criterion is met. Due to first degree price discrimination, the welfare within the range of validated transactions is maximized (economists like this). A new trade cycle begins. All market power and information obtained during the last trade cycle is reset, while all market experience is kept. Effectively, a non-discriminatory black market is installed.

Conclusion and criticism

By applying the above described mechanism, online world users can still exchange goods between each other, maintain and nurture an integral part of their day-to-day interactions, and work to achieve goals related to this subsystem of the online world community. As a trade-off, users would have to wait until the end of a trade cycle before they may receive their goods. Immediate needs could no longer be met. In addition, this mechanism would prevent any form of materialistic gifting. According social interactions would need to be replaced, e.g. by shared collaborative activities, which might actually prove beneficial to the online world's society.

The goal of the mechanism is achieved. Illegitimate or unintended RMT transactions are effectively eliminated: when this mechanism is used, there is no way for suppliers and customers of RMT services to verify the delivery of goods within the online world agreed-to and paid-for outside it. The economy of the online world is kept unbiased from interests external to the online world. The integrity of the online world's economic system is preserved. Meanwhile, trading becomes a game, based on secret bids and educated guesses.

author's bio: Jan Pontzen, Dipl.-Kfm. (German equivalent to MBA), graduated in Media Economics at Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany, in March 2009. The full master thesis that this article is based on can be downloaded here. Jan is currently working as an Assistant Product Manager at Acony, a Germany-based games developer that is readying up Parabellum, a free-to-play tactical MMOFPS, for open beta.

Capture the Egg v1.0 release

2009-06-11T21:16:00.000+02:00

Times of peace are hard times for true heroes and adventurers. No greater cause to join, no tales of their heroic deeds, no princess to save and rescue. In times of peace, true heroes become mercenaries for any cause. They help farmers getting rid of the wolves that feast on their cattle. They brawl with other adventurers to get a stake of the money that was bet on them. They fulfill any task, any opportunity, that helps to pay the tavern bills and their maidens.

The greater the risk, the better the wage. One of those high risk, high wage opportunities for true heroes lies beyond the cold and harsh valleys of Icewind Gorge. There, the frostwyrms reside to hatch their eggs within their temples. Powder scratched off the frostwyrm eggshells is a top quality ingredient that skilled craftsmen like Gizz the Alchemist and the dwarven engineers Ulf & Grim pay a high price for.

You, adventurer, want to earn a wage that keeps your oven warm and your maiden fed throughout the winter? Then come to Icewind Gorge and earn your reward! Join Gizz's or Ulf & Grim's band of mercenaries. Gather eggshell powder from the frostwyrm eggs. Of those that try to stand in your way, let none survive. A freshly brewn keg of beer and a beautiful maiden are waiting for you.

We are very happy to announce the release of Capture the Egg, a fast action team vs. team RPG map for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. This map features intense team vs. team PvP action with some of most unique and compelling classes you'll have ever played on the Battle.net and far beyond. Each class has individual class mechanics with abilities specifically tailored to each heroe's playstyle.

Capture the Egg features

intense team vs. team PvP action
king of the hill ruleset
unique, high-quality, and compelling classes
individual and playstyle-tailored class mechanics
detailed player statistics scoreboard

Download links for "Capture the Egg" v1.0:

CtE release "soon"

2009-05-19T17:38:00.004+02:00

After a lengthier job-related break on the "Capture the Egg" Warcraft III mod project, Tzirrit and I got back to this uncut diamond a few weeks ago. I am happy to announce that the diamond is now approaching its final polish and that we will release version 1.0 of "Capture the Egg" "soon", meaning when we feel it is ready to be released to the public (which actually really is "soon").

"Capture the Egg" will feature intense King of the Hill ruleset Team PvP action with some of the best RPG classes you'll have ever played on the Battle.net and far beyond. Feel free to check out the class sneak peak for the Protector, the Thunderer, the Crusader, and the Berserker on the project website. Additional unique, compelling, and exceptional quality classes are planned for post-release patches.

I'm officially smart

2009-05-19T17:15:00.006+02:00

Just graduated, well actually about a month ago. I am now a "Diplom-Kaufmann", the German equivalent to the Master of Business Administration.

The topic of my thesis: "The Development of a Price Control Mechanism for MMORPGs", which you can download at db-thueringen (click on "[Dateien anzeigen]" to view the .pdf file).

Capture the Egg

2008-06-09T00:12:00.002+02:00

The Icewind Gorge is a menacing place. A place from which the living do not return. A place where the icy wind chills the breath of the incautious adventurer. Atop the peak of which the Icewind River emerges, Gmaug the Broodwatcher, keeper of the frostwyrm hatchlings, resides. Only during a short period in the winter, when the cold chill even partially freezes a dragon's wings, he returns to Icewind Peak from his flying patrols over the slumbering broodmothers, resting uneasily for a change towards a less chilling howl of the winds.

The moment scouts of the Goblin Henchmen and the Dwarven Merceneries have been waiting for months has come. A short timeframe has opened up to steal frostwyrm eggs from the slumbering Broodmothers, eggs of unmeasurable value to alchemists and nobles. Dispending messengers to the taverns in the south, they place large bountys on every frostwyrm egg being brought to them.

Despite the danger of angering the Broodwatcher, driven by the opportunity of great wealth and celebrity within their country, groups of mighty warriors gather at the Icewing Gorge to fight for the frostwyrm eggs. To bring their hero's journey to completion. To seek a fortunate ending for their adventurous lifes.

Prepare for battle, adventurers! The coldest time of winter in Icewind Gorge will soon have come. Tales will be told about your theft of the frostwyrm eggs. Tales of brave men that escaped the anger of Gmaug the Broodwatcher. Tales of wrathful screams of the Broodmothers, mourning the loss of their hatchlings. Tales of heroes. Heroes that captured an egg.

Capture the Egg - a Warcraft3 map project by Tzirrit and Tjuhl. Release 2008.

crowd control

2008-04-24T13:46:00.004+02:00

Crowd control (CC) is always a highly discussed topic in MMORPGs. Crowd control means that certain classes or roles have the opportunity to hinder enemies in their actions to get a strategic advantage over them for a limited amount of time. It is usually annoying for the affected, but simultaneously an opportunity to change the outcome of a fight. It thus increases the fun for all involved players, because it makes overall combat more spicy for all involved players... if done right.

I'd suggest the following approach: give all classes CC according to their role to allow every player to perform according to / consistent with their role.

Thus, we 1st have to determine what exactly the different roles' job is. In MMORPGs, we usually differentiate between Tanks, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, and Healers. The later can be distinguished in ranged healers and melee healers which should greatly affect their overall playstyle.

Tanks are heavily armored melee fighters. Their main purpose is to protect allies by soaking up and/or reducing overall damage. This can be accomplished by two means: single target protection and general protection. Single target protection is achieved by selecting an ally that is in need of protection (e.g. she is taking a heavy blow from enemies) and then performing actions that reduce the damage dealt to her by transfering it to the tank. General protection means giving enemies incentives to focus their attacks on the tank (of which the tank then mitigates a considerable amount through high armor / avoidance). Thus, concerning crowd control, a tank should be able to generally annoy enemies to turn their hatred towards him. How do you generally annoy enemies? 1St, they have to be annoyed, not taken out of combat. They have to actually be able to turn their hatred towards the tank. Consequently, a tank should slow down enemies, reduce damage afflicted to allies, block ranged attacks, and reduce overall enemy stats. This would lead to the following crowd control abilities:

PBAE and/or cone snare („Come to me!“)
PBAE and/or cone damage reduction to other targets than the tank („Hit me!“)
interception of ranged attacks („I'm your target!“)
interception of melee attackers („Stay with me!“)
damage transfer from a single ally to the tank („I'll take that punch!“)

Melee DPS classes are medium-armored melee fighters. Their main purpose is to inflict high damage to single targets in a short amount of time, close combat. They have to be very agile and able to close distances to enemy targets. When they are close to their target, they also have to be able to stay close to that target until their task is accomplished. For crowd control, that would lead to the following abilities:

anti-CC abilities to stay agile (desnare, break root) („You'll pay for that!“)
sprint to close distance gaps („Here I come!“)
short-time knockdowns, stuns („Hold still while I punch you!“)
interrupts („Don't do that, my turn!“)

Ranged DPS classes are fragile ranged damage dealers. Their role is to inflict high damage to multiple targets from a distance. While performing attacks, they usually have to stay in their current position. Due to their very low armor and fragility, they should try to stay away from enemies and continuously readjust their range. To stay away from threats, they have to be able to readjust the correct distance to them. If they fail to do that, they will die. Thus, the crowd control abilities should be as follows:

short-time single target root („Stay away from me!“)
short-time single target snare („Slow down there, let me finish that!“)

Healers are different. Their job is to keep allies alive by all means. Because of that ability, they are often the primary target for all enemies. If they are given direct crowd control abilities that put enemies out of combat, they would be too strong since they would have two means to greatly reduce damage: through healing allies and through taking enemies out of combat action. Thus, their crowd control abilities should be focussed on self-protection and recovery. To keep that consistent with their role, we should differentiate between melee healers and ranged healers here.

For ranged healers, the general class mechanics for ranged DPS apply: they need to stay away from enemies to fulfill their job. Concerning crowd control, they would then need the following:

pushbacks („Back to where you came from!“)
quick recovery from knockdowns, stuns, silence, and interrupts („Let me do my job!“)
emergency self-heals / self-protection („I'm not done yet!“)

Melee healers are designed for healing in the thick of things. They should not have to flee to stay effective. In general, they need a base mitigation that is similar to the base (!) mitigation of tanks. Similar to them, they need to be able to take a punch or two. This is because they are subject to several kinds of attacks at the same time: ranged and melee DPS focus damage, enemy tank annoyance, general ranged DPS AE damage. In comparison to melee DPS classes, they cannot be as mobile as them since they need to stay in range to many allies to get their heals through. Thus, they need a wide range of self-protection (because, again, direct crowd control would be too overpowered):

high mitigation / armor („I can take a few!“)
short-term damage immunity („Not now! Go to that other guy (tank)!“)
quick recovery from knockdowns, stuns, silence, and interrupts („Let me do my job!“)
high interruption resistance („That doesn't disturb me.“)
emergency self-heals / self-protection („I'm not done yet!“)

Why collision detection is NOT enough...

2008-03-27T20:08:00.001+01:00

... and why you, imho, ALSO need (rudimentary) line of sight.

let's talk about the tactical purpose of melee characters. They basically build a front line that

constructs a mobile wall for enemy players
lures the enemys attention to them
enables wounded players to back up a little bit to (get) heal(ed)

the later two are only possible when, in addition to collision detection, a line of sight mechanism is implemented.

by collision, you only hinder enemy movement and thus melee characters. to provide opportunities for retreat, you also need to encumber ranged characters. that's what line of sight would be for then: if there's an obstacle b/w the ranged damage dealer / source and the target, the effectiveness of ranged damage sources should be reduced according to the degree of encumbrance. e.g. if a melee character / obstacle is very close to (quite far away from) a ranged damage dealer, his/her damage and/or chance to hit is significantly (slightly) decreased. to simplify, this may only be applied to player-controlled enemy (non-friendly) players.

implementation of line of sight AND collision detection would, imho, open up lots of interesting and highly enjoyable opportunities concerning tactics and overall gameplay:

searching for weak spots in the enemy lines
setting up traps or "feints"
flanked attacks and other maneuvers (to break through to the injured / ranged etc.)
give incentives for melee players to move the front line closer to the enemy artillery :)
provide a more realistic feel of combat
etc.

line of sight would only apply to ranged attacks, since melee are already hindered in several ways:

they have to be within melee / weapon range
they have to overcome additional defense (parry, block) at frontal attacks
they need to find a way to attack from the side / from behind to unleash their fury... ;)
... while, simultaneously, trying to avoid turning their back / side to enemy players

also posted on the WarhammerAlliance forums.

WoW Burning Crusade

2008-02-09T01:20:00.000+01:00

You shouldn't talk badly about something unless you have a certain knowledge about it, right? Thus, I played World of Warcraft again for a while. In the end, I quit for the same reasons as some time ago – just with 10 levels more than before. Here's the story to it.

The plan was to level up a character for already existing battleground twinks (see previous post) to be able to farm the required ressources and get easy access to gold (daily quests) and ressources (especially dust, essences and shards for enchanting). I leveled up my melee shaman, Wûtz. And I was eager to get to know the new Burning Crusade content.

Well, I liked the design of the new dungeon bosses. After a few times however, you know the fights and strategies – and if at all, you only go there again to get a specific item. I liked the daily quests, but not due to their design but rather because it was a nice place to find alliance players to gank err... fight against. I liked the introduction of a token-based loot-table: you get tokens for killing bosses and may exchange them for ph4t l00t at a vendor. However for my playstyle there were actually only very few items I really needed: a totem, a trinket, and a cloak. For all other equipment slots, better gear could be obtained elsewhere and in a more fun way (which is PvP). The token system is a positive side effect to regular dungeon crawls. Concerning dungeon crawls: there is a heroic mode for every BC instance, where all mobs are lv70 and deal more damage / have more hp and sometimes even one or two other spells. Which sadly leads to the consequence that you need a certain group setup with a lot of crowd control to finish an instance in heroic mode. If you can't CC like me, you'll sometimes have a hard time to find a group...

Each new dungeon is linked to a specific fraction. The concept: continue killing monsters within the fraction's dungeons to get access to cool items and crafting recipes – or even to get acces to the heroic mode instances. In short: I haven't used a single item accessible through the fraction vendors and farming reputation for recipes or head/shoulder enchants very quickly gets annoying. Especially when you'd like to push your crafting skill but HAVE to farm fraction X to gain access to new recipes. After skill-level 350ish or so, you can only skill up by finding random world drop recipes (unlikely) or buy them in the auction house (expensive) or grind reputation (annoying over time). New fraction content: failed.

PvP introduced another battleground, Eye of the Storm, and the Arenas. Eye of the Storm is a mixture of the Warsong Gulch and the Arathi Basin. Basic strategy: capture three of four towers to get a regular point income, then go get the flag. Not a lot of difference to the other battlegrounds: mostly zerg-fests with uncooperative players – unless you brought a few friends with you.

The rather interesting BC addition I was eager to get to know was the Arena system. And that's where the hamster wheel begins again. When you found a team, your initial rating is 1500. If you want to get above that number, all team members need a minimum amount of resilience which can be found on PvP items. If you get into an arena with almost no resilience on, you are cannon fodder and in a clear competitive disadvantage to PvP-equipped players. You wanna get above 1500? Go farm the PvP arena season 1 set and the vindicator items which can be bought for honor points at PvP vendors. That hamsterwheel restarts at a rating of 1750. You wanna get above 1750? Get you ass kicked between 1650 to 1750 for 1-2 months to get your season (max) set, then try again. Oh and don't forget to farm gold in between to be able to afford the blue gems to socket your items with. Oh and don't even try to get above 1750 as a melee shaman in a 2on2 or 3on3 team – you'll spend most of your time within arenas watching you die without being able to do anything at all due to continuous crowd control. New PvP content: failed.

What made me quit playing WoW? Realizing I'd have to get my ass kicked for roughly two months to be competitive in PvP Arena again. And realizing I'd need to either farm 2,000 gold for my epic flight mount by grinding or or by completing quests to get the gold reward. No, thank you.

A new wave of Warhammer Online beta keys for Europe is approaching...

Why WoW is utterly broken

2007-10-17T20:13:00.000+02:00

Yes. I admit it: I started playing WoW again. I was convinced by Tzirrit – the plan sounded too reasonable: escape the WoW grindmill by leveling our chars to level 29 or 39. Outfit them with some nice low level instance and other equipment and enjoy the accessibility and coolness of WoW in the Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin PvP battlegrounds – while waiting for the release or beta test of Warhammer Online or Pirates of the Burning Sea.

My subscription will end in a few weeks. We both underestimated the stupidity of people. Our chars are now in the early 20s, the frustration hit at lv19 while trying out the 10-19 Warsong Gulch. My char was somewhat nice equipped, with some loot from Ragefire Chasm and the Wailing Caverns. With some more planning, there could also have been items from Shadowfang Keep, but well, we were planning for the lv29 or lv39 battlegrounds anyways. Warsong Gulch 10-19 was just for fun, but the fun quickly vanished like a rogue using sneak.

We 1st started with a warrior / paladin duo on the PvE shard Baelgun, but the server and PvP server cluster quickly made us change the server: the waiting line for lv10 WSG was 1-2 hours, and it didn't get any better at lv 20ish. Thus, we switched to the Blackmoore PvP server. And that was were the frustration really hit me: It turned out we were not the only ones with the idea to enjoy some low level PvP. Every (!) level range (10-19, 20-29, 30-39,...) PvP battleground is full of imba-twinks. Expect them to wear the best available equipment (blues or even world drop epics) for the concerning range, with the most powerful enchantments (+100 health, Zul-Gurub-Enchant, fiery weapon, crusader,...) with the worth of several 100 gold. Here's what happens when you encounter one of those: klick.

If you don't invest several hundred gold in your low level character, expect that you will have an item-based (not skill-based!) competitive disadvantage of several hundred or even thousand health/mana and quite a lot of DPS. Here are two profiles of those twinks: Imba-Rogue Âo, or Imba-Rogue Grimlitz. Same thing for higher levels.

Well, I don't have those 500g. And I will also not contact one of those Asdfjklm-Chars spamming the capital city chats to exchange virtual money for real money. Even if I get very good equipment for the desired level range, I'll still won't have all those enchantments and rare world drop items and have several hundred health and several XXish DPS less than the main-char-financed twinks. I might still get some skill-based killing blows, but still get killed a lot due to crusader crits or just because that +20 stamina enchantment ate all of my burst damage.

I knew that WoW = money/time >>> skill. I had hoped this was not the case for everything /quit WoW, /uninstall.

About a button...

2007-09-10T20:56:00.000+02:00

„So here is a bothersome question.

In order of importance for a button on the screen how do you rate...

The design of the button
The position of the button on the screen
The action that button will do
Feedback that the button is available
Feedback that the button has been activated
Feedback on cooldown (assume it has a cooldown)

It's been bothering me for a while.“ - P. Barnett, creative director of EAMythic.

Not very bothersome imho. They are all equally and utterly important. Let me explain why, from an MMO design standpoint of view.

The design of the button
Very important for players that are new to the game and thus tremendously important for the game. They have not yet figured out how the controls are working. They still need to learn when to use which ability to play efficiently,... The design of the button is the safe anchor: it tells them by art design what the ability generally does („Hm, a sword with guts on it – it's probably a close-combat damage ability!“). After a while, they'll have learned the buttons use and the action which is activated by it – and will mostly only use it's visual design to rearrange their individual keybinding-defined hotbar.

The position of the button on the screen
Again, very important for players that are new to the game and thus tremendously important for the game. If they can't klick on it as fast as other buttons, they will probably use it less often because they think it is not important. In general, you have to differentiate between standard attacks (e.g. fireball) and situational attacks (e.g. a counter-attack after parrying). The standard attacks should be arranged close together, due to tradition and 'WoW standard' preferably at the bottom of the screen. Situational attacks should pop up close to the character model when available to give feedback of „You did X, now do something cool out of it!“ and to provide easy attainable and instant gratification. Later in the game, they won't care too much about the (standard attack) button positions anymore since they'll mostly be using their keyboard for activation.

The action that button will do
The available actions define your character. They provide meaningful choices and reward correct decisions in a way that can decide between victory or defeat. Every single action should have a significant impact on the situation that causes its activation. Utterly important.

Feedback that the button is available
The player will require standard attacks to be accessible at all times and that situational attack buttons pop up and textually & visually notify the player as soon as they are available. If that's not the case, it's bad feedback design. A design flaw that should immediately be taken care of. Tu sum up: it's more than important – it's a gameplay requirement.

Feedback that the button has been activated
There are two kinds of feedback: the button feedback (e.g. it greys out until the cooldown is finished) and the screen feedback (e.g. a special attack animation that is being performed by the character). A button has to react immediately upon activation. Everything else will confuse the player, cause unintentioned double-activation and thus frustration due to unwillingly performed actions. Again: more than important – it's a gameplay requirement.

Feedback on cooldown (assume it has a cooldown)
Another gameplay requirement, this time for the opportunity to strategically plan in advance. Which ability do I want to activate next? Are there cooldown-related dependancies („When I slow him now I could fire my ranged ability a second time to finish him off.“)?

sneak preview: PotBS

2007-09-10T01:08:00.000+02:00

Pirates of the Burning Sea preview - sounds awesome.

However, I don't see where the acclaimed 'next generation' is. It rather sounds like a thoughtful combination of many nice and interesting game / MMO features. In a good way. Even though the game was delayed several times, now being five years in development.

That's probably the advantage of boing funded by multi-millionaires, not being dependant on a solely profit-oriented new economy investor.

thoughts on Tabula Rasa

2007-09-09T12:00:00.000+02:00

Well, the NDA on Tabula Rasa is lifted. So... what is TR? TR is a sci-fi based MMO-shooter. The setting: an alien race, the Bane, almost extinguished mankind - and several other races on other planets. The humans main allies are the somewhat shamanistic Eloh who teach the survivors the use of logos, some sort of language which letters (logos) you can find spread around the different planets. Futuristic human and Bane (an alien race that almost terminated humanity and several other planets / races, the main enemy) structures, weapons, dropships etc.

With the combination of firearms and logo abilities, you fight the Bane, the animals corrupted by the Bane, and other enemies in mostly medium-sized quest-driven (instanced) zones and small very story-driven instances.

Your main source of damage are your firearms. There are three basic weapons (pistols, rifles, shotguns) and one specific firearm per career tree option (however, most of those career tree weapons use way to much ammo to be efficient). You have to target your enemy FPS style. However, it's not completely FPS-style, you rather get a bonus on your hit chance and I think also damage when you correctly aim at your target. The upside: it's different. The downside: it's kinda hard to control what you are shooting at because the interface displays all health/armor bars of the direction you are looking at.

Additionally, you can use logo abilities that you can learn and improve by spending training points. Speaking of character advancement: all players start with the same class. At lv5, you can choose b/w soldier (damage-oriented) or specialist (support-oriented). There are other career choices at lv15 and lv30. Each lv-up, you get 2 training points for skills and 3 attribute points. Increasing a skill by one rank costs previous rank +1 training points. So to skill up to rank 5, you have to spend 1+2+3+4+5=15 of 100 available training points. That means you can max out not more than six abilities of which two or three are passive and not active-use.

The problem (currently?) is: there are some skills that are way superior compared to other choices, e.g. 'firearms' greatly increases damage of all three basic weapons (pistols, shotguns, rifles) vs. an armor type that increases your run speed by up to 5%. So differentiation b/w characters actually starts at lv15 or so, from lv1-14 they somewhat all feel the same because of certain "must-have" skills (lv5 firearms, lv3 tools for medi-kits + rez / lv3-5 rage, lv3-5 lightning --> 15+6+6=30 of 100 training points are somewhat pre-defined).

Due to the lack of character difference in early levels, there are also no different roles or something like 'control of the enemy'. When you group, there are (almost) no synergies, instead of one player it's several players shooting at (many) health bars. That enhances egoistic behavior, plus you can just overrun enemies with your combined firepower without the use of any tactical planning. So you basically see a lot of comparably large bars. Quite confusing. Because of that, it's also quite hard to control or focus or assist mobs / enemies, instead of "I control the situation" you rather have the impression of shooting at bars until there are none to shoot at any more.

Only at lv15, the basic archetypes / roles start to flesh out: commandos = heavily armored brutes, rangers = stealthed damage dealers, sappers = use of mechanical and explosive support, biotechnichian = healer. I playtested a biotechnichian and it was pretty senseless: the most effective tool for healing were still the armor repair and heal discs I already acquired as a specialist. At lv30, those archetypes flesh out even more - I hope in a better and more unique way... However, you don't get the impression of making meaningful choices in the early levels which makes it quite hard to delve into the TR world in the beginning due to the lack of personification / identification b/w the player and the character.

The crafting also doesn't contribute to character individualization: you can loot crafting recipes to enhance your weapons / armor, craft colors to customize your character appearance or tools like medikits and ammunition. However, as soon as you use one of those recipes, it's gone forever - you don't learn it, you have to find a new one to craft it again. Not very achiever-friendly and rather tedious. Plus, the weapon enhancements are quite costly and it's way easier to find new and better weapons then improve your current one for tons of credits / gold.

In short: there are some new and nice elements / ideas (FPS style fighting, logo language, career choices), but they could have executed them a lot better / more appealing. Destination Games has one more month to fix those issues. If they don't, I'd guess TR aka Destination Games will have the destination of being Sigil'ed: famous person + crappy game design = epic failure.

Collecting tester feedback

2007-09-02T21:36:00.000+02:00

While scanning through the Tabula Rasa closed beta test forums today, I kinda noticed that approx. 97% of player feedback is absolutely useless.

Beta test means: the key elements are implemented in the game and the testers are now asked to provide feedback about those elements, find bugs, and come up with suggestions and ideas of how those key elements should be combined to make the game fun and appealing. This process is iterative, meaning the developers continuously add more features like more races, more classes, secondary features, and improved key features. However, the key features are not and just cannot be subject to change since they define the core gameplay aspects of the game. Or, to say it frankly: devs will probably ignore (maybe even cry about) suggestions that would cause shipment delay of several months to implement. Really, they are just not interested in things that would require implementation or even extinction of the key elements that are already in the game because all those key elements are connected in many different ways. Well, I think you got the point. The question is: how to get qualitative and valuable tester feedback?

There's even one more challenge to keep in mind: only a very very small part of the beta testers participates in official testing-related feedback mechanisms (e.g. beta forums) at all.

Many games seem to use basic empiric and mandatory evaluations to collect feedback, e.g. whenever you complete a quest or level up, you have to answer a few questions like „did you like that quest?“ or „do you think your current equipment if ok for your level?“. This method may provide general gameplay happiness feedback, but won't really help in collecting broad qualitative feedback about the different key elements of the game.

Preselection of beta testers? Nigh impossible if you have 50k+ beta signups. And the applicants might've just copied well-written texts from somewhere else. Game exterior feedback collection? Only a small percentage of beta testers will even use it. So basically you need ingame-collected qualitative feedback. How do you get that? Well, I'd say by making your QA employees secretly interview the beta testers ingame. Tell them to found guilds and continuously form groups and then chat / talk to them about the game – within the game / current build without ever revealing their actual position within the company. [This of course would only work for multiplayer games.]

MMOGs = social

2007-08-31T00:11:00.000+02:00

Surprise, surprise...

75% have met new friends in MMOs.
50% of them have met those friends in person.
40% preferred discussing sensitive issues with VL-friends.
10% have developed physical relationships.

The last one's ratio is a lot better than any online partnership website.

"Please help me - I'm a geek?!" Nah, sorry. I think I'm fine.

G|C Leipzig 2007

2007-08-30T23:48:00.000+02:00

There was the Leipzig Games Convention several days ago. I attended it.
There was a WAR beta key contest / lottery. I won a key and I am eagerly waiting for it being send to me.
--> check out my GC coverage on my GuildCafe blog

Barnett Interview

2007-08-04T00:08:00.000+02:00

Epic interview. No marketing-based interview where it's all about telling what great product you'll be delivering to the people. Nothing but a game designer enthusiastically talking about what he is doing.

Speaking about WAR... Freakin' aweseome movie!

character customization in WAR

2007-08-01T11:59:00.000+02:00

Q: Why is this a smart move?

Lance Robertson: We are going to have a lot of changeable faces, for certain races like the Greenskins. There is really going to be a lot of variety.

What we really want to concentrate on though for the customization of your character in general is more your silhouette so to speak. I’ve got spikes on my shoulders or I have trophies hanging off of my body that shows pretty much how much of a badass I am. Our artists call it the 20 Foot Rule. We really want to make it so that the guy from 20 feet away is obviously different from the other guy in terms of their race, career, and how high a rank they are.

A: 1st of all, it saves workload. Make ONE model, not 3,000 different customization combinations where you have to check at each one of them if the animations are alright, if some equipment causes certain illustration errors etc., so basically a lot less required QA and manpower ressources.

2nd, it provides time for dynamic character customization: you can't only read in your tome of knowledge, what badass you are, you can also determine it by just looking at yourself. You become a walking trophy collection, bragging about your achievements and heartily inviting enemy players to give a damn about (trying to kill) you.

And 3rd... Well c'mon, who cares wether your nose is 2 inches long or what your exact skin color is when you are covered in full armor and helmet anyway?

just a short WoW rant #4

2007-07-22T23:53:00.000+02:00

Comment on this picture: "Seriously: What must Rob Pardo think when he sees an image like this?"

I know what he thinks: "Paying customers. Yay!"

"Get a life!"

2007-07-17T20:52:00.000+02:00

what can you do in real life? you can stick to the rules. you can live according to the overall conditioning principles of society (don't steal, don't scare old people,...). you can experience things within the vicinity that you already know or may have experienced in another way at a similar place. you can meet people that mostly try to get along, but not people that stick to their own individual and interesting personality.
well ok... you might also journey to another country on the other side of the world, or join an interesting community that fits to your needs. but let's be honest: the later two are rather a rarity than a common occasion.

what can you do in virtual life? you can go kill a dragon - or virtual people you don't like. you can make your own rules. you can do things you could never accomplish alone in the real world, like crafting a nice peace of armor or brew a potion that makes you stronger (forget about spinache!). you can meet fellows and achieve something together in a collaborative struggle.

the next time people tell you to "get a life", tell them to try out YOURS. ;)

WTB Gold?

2007-07-05T14:05:00.000+02:00

"We never believed in the ancient prophecies... like fools we clung to our old hatreds, and fought as we had for generations. Until the day the sky rained gnomes."

It is raining gnomes. Everywhere! This is just impressive, hilarious, very creative and perfectly executed concerning synchronisation. My earnest respect for that!

How do they do this? A player who used to play on a private server assumes the following:

They use a program that hooks into the World of Warcraft client and modifies the memory address that handles player location. They then alter their location to be at specific point and drop from the sky.

Anyway: "Our gnomes will blot out the sun!" *rofl*

WAR vs. AoC

2007-07-04T00:22:00.000+02:00

If you say "Lets go smack my bitch up!" in Warhammer Online, you are going to be banned.

If you say "Lets go smack my bitch up!" in Age of Conan, you are probably going to a tavern.

E-penis++

2007-06-27T00:24:00.000+02:00

Playing virtual god anyone? ;-)

Lad: You play World of Warcraft?
Randy: Well, I have a level 65, but I've never been to MC as I'm not in a raid guild.
Me: I've pugged it a few times. I have three 70s, a 60 and a 20-something.
Lad: I have two 70s. Hey, I think it's really great that people of all ages play WoW.
Me: Well, we have been playing this kind of game for a while...
(Randy glances at me with an "are you going to do it?" look).
Me: What was World of Warcraft based on? What game did the developers look at and think, "we can do that, only better"?
Lad: Er, was it called EverQuest?
Me: That's right. Do you know what EverQuest was based on?
Lad: No, but I think there was some guy at IU who gave a talk...
Me: EverQuest was based on DikuMUD, which was a textual world developed at the Datalogisk Institut Kobenhavns Universitet in Denmark. DikuMUD was based on AberMUD, written at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. AberMUD was based on MUD, written at the University of Essex in England. MUD wasn't based on anything. I co-wrote it.
Lad: You wrote it?
Me: The first graphical virtual world was Habitat, written in 1985 by — who wrote Habitat, Randy?
Randy: Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar.
Me: We've been writing and playing these games since before you were born.

Designers don't like farmers

2007-06-27T00:14:00.000+02:00

I told you so. :-)

Having worked with designers, I know they hate farmers more than a lot of players do, because the farmers are finding and exploiting design weaknesses in products they've worked on for years. Some people would say, "Hey, tough luck. If your design is weak, it's your own fault."

Source

Btw: interesting Escapist issue this time.

/who Warhammer Online?

2007-06-24T20:33:00.000+02:00

www.bullseye-games.com?

2007-06-23T13:23:00.000+02:00

Some of you might have noticed that this blog may now also be reached via www.Bullseye-Games.com.

What's this all about? See, I have been thinking about working in the computer games industry since err... well since a very long time, maybe even since I played a computer game ('Mission Elevator' on an Amstrad Schneider CPC) for the 1st time, 12 years ago.

But over the years, I learned that the working conditions in the computer game industry are not very well – crunchtime 12 hour work shifts for several months short before launch, financial and contentual dependancy on your publisher (if you have one) or a run only millimeters away from the financial abyss (if you're an independent game developer).

Thus, when I started college, I joined the students radio to work as a journalist to look for other career options. I worked together with fellow students that kept praising the content of private radios, that generic 'the best hits from the 80s, 90s and today!', those constantly grinning moderator-entertainers who like themselves more then their listeners... So I applied for an internship at the WDR, the largest public radio station in Germany, hoping to find journalistic quality and an overall vision of how to spread information. Actually, I did. But I also found very discouraging bureaucratic structures, very slowly working windmills, hierarchy pyramids, and very few space for personal development and personal contribution...

So what IS Bullseye Games? It's back to the roots. It's a project, an idea, that buzzes through my head since my internship at the WDR, which has been two years ago. It's the understanding that if I really want to work in a company that fits my personal expectations and needs... Well then I probably have to found it by myself.

I know it is risky, that there will be downsides like long working hours and a huge responsibility. But from my 'leadership experience' (editor-in-chief at the students radio for a year, founder and leader of a non-guilded 'World of Warcraft' raid), I think I also got the impression of the advantages: a lot of personal freedom, advancement and independency. And the opportunity to change and greatly contribute to a self-made community. I hope this dream, this idea of 'Bullseye Games', will come true some day.

Southfury Banks v0.6 released!

2007-06-22T16:26:00.000+02:00

The battle for the Southfury River begins! Up to five players fight side-by-side to defeat the other faction's general and to take over the control of the riverside.

The core feature of 'Southfury Banks' are the player-controlled units. These can be upgraded to mighty warriors, stealthy rogues or bright druids, greatly supporting each other.

Together, they fight against the opponent players, seek control of flag points or summon a mighty creature to help them vanquish the enemy general and his officers. At dawn, they try to recover - until the drums of war thunder once again for the battle of 'Southfury Banks'.

Fight against enemy players in team-based PvP skirmishes.
Obtain Tomes to upgrade your unit up to one of six unique classes.
Tomes are dropped by killed players or can be bought at Horde Sages / Alliance Librarians.
Capture neutral or enemy flags to get additional spawn points and income.
Kill the enemy faction's officers to destroy your enemy's towers and to kill their general more easily.
Hand in Flasks of Mojo (Horde) / Arcane Crystals (Alliance) at your main base to summon a mighty NPC.
Make life harder for enemies by upgrading your faction guards or reviving Sages (Horde) / Librarians (Alliance).

Mary can NOT be butchered.

EA Mythic hires ex-Sigil employees

2007-06-21T22:59:00.000+02:00

Do you remember that epic failure? Well, apparently some of the ex-Sigil workers have found a new job position:

We also picked up a few ex-vanguard people here at EA-Mythic central, they are all good people, they have to be to get passed our recruiter bulldog and the interviews we have here. ... At first they looked a little like deer in head lights. It can be quite daunting entering our place and seeing people smile, laugh, be joyous and basically loving their jobs. But we have a great team of people and we are making them feel at home.

They are being immersed in the whole Warhammer-ness of our project and the way we do things around here. I told them to wear their sigil t-shirts with pride. They worked hard, they tried, I know that this time it didn't work out but that's not reason to hide what you have been doing with your life. To use a phrase from GW HQ. "The Emperor will not judge you by your medals, he will judge you by your scars."

That's cool. I hope they hired some of the crafting coders since the Vanguard crafting system put some innovation into that section of virtual worlds.

Plus, by reading WAR newsletters and several interviews it appears that EA Mythic employees are treated better than EA used to (or still does?).

just a short WoW rant #3

2007-06-21T16:00:00.000+02:00

WoW - Version 2.1.2 patch notes

change: "Druids in Swift Flight form can no longer loot herb nodes."
reason: several Tauren players complained about being called 'honey-beef'.

just a short WoW rant #2

2007-06-20T00:47:00.000+02:00

Omg, they cut off the basement of the pyramid. *lol*

... a few of the attunements have turned out to cause unnecessary stress on guilds either doing the content or attempting to do the content.

Yeah. Very surprising indeed... *rolleyes*

The life of a gold farmer

2007-06-19T00:05:00.000+02:00

Long article, but very interesting to read. To sum up: being a gold farmer in China means you earn as lot cash as you did before in your hometown. With some differences... (1) You are constantly killed by players who think the visible supply is the problem – and not the anonymous demand. (2) If you are killed by other characters, you actually earn less money since you are paid by every 100g you farm. (3) You do 100% repetitive boring actions for 12 hours per day, then leave the sweatshop to pick up some food and then fall asleep right away. (4) You dream of a better life, of saving money, marrying a nice woman – but keep going through the grind treadmill, not going any step further towards a better life. (5) You were better of back home – if there weren't those official and unofficial institutions who made you leave your home base by their actions.

But well, at least you are working in a somewhat safe and vastly growing industry. Your position is safe. So basically you've got a stupid, very repetitive and machinimous job, but at least a safe one. Yay...

The next time you meet a china farmer... Will you still gank him or will you rather think about promoting accusation on the demand, and not on the supply?

Age of Conan update

2007-06-16T11:58:00.000+02:00

Some interesting news about Age of Conan were revealed in this AoC developer interview:

First of all, every guild with more than 30 members may build its own guild village (guild bank, crafting places, guild hall,...). Solo players won't be able to construct a house. I like this decision since it enhances community building which is vital for MMOs. Plus, it provides the players with community individualization - the possibility 'to return home', to have a place where you can easily find your friends - or foes. ;-)

Second, they'll introduce (Roleplay-)FFA-PvP-Servers ("RPvP"). "because in Hyboria (Conan's world) there is no Role Playing without being able to kill someone." Exactly. No more carebear-RP à la 'uh but we're on the same side / fraction - you CAN'T kill me, this would be SO MEAN! And an Orc is not SUPPOSED TO kill an orc!' If someone argues that way in Conan, you can just stuck a sword into him to prove he is wrong. Yay.

They are not yet sure about the PvP rewards. There'll be PvP-only rewards called 'blood coins', but what I like even more is the consideration of implementing item looting, be it everything, one item, or back-pack items.

Shameless playerkilling will punished by putting the PKer in jail where he has to do a repetitive quest to get out. This is a somewhat nice idea since you can't just log onto another character and wait for your main to finish his imprisonment... still, it's repetitive and one-dimensional - no opportunities to form bonds, to found thieves / assassins guilds or to bully cell inmates? It's good to require actions from the player to get out of jail, but there should still be different actions available. But well, this somewhat continues the rather boring design philosophy of the AoC-quests... And there are other things where AoC really excels compared to other MMOs (combat system, magic system, crafting career, PvP sieges, guild enhancement,...).

„randomness“ of drops

2007-06-11T21:01:00.000+02:00

In this forum post, the WoW GM Issuntril is quoted to confirm that item drops in World of Warcraft are not random. Which items are going to drop is rather determined by „many variables“.

First of all: this is not surprising at all. The „random“ outcome of any roll in a software-based environment must always be calculated with a formula. A computer program is never random, it can only try to simulate randomness.

The interesting thing about drop calculation is another issue, namely the economical one. Since the variables of an item drop can be influenced by the game developer, the playtime of a player can artificially be increased, e.g. by decreasing class item drop chances for the players in an instanced dungeon. Or by increasing drop chances of very rare items the larger the sum of playtime of all players is to enhance „hardcore gaming“.

Economically this would make „sense“: the more time it takes a player to complete a specific goal (e.g. completing an item set), the more subscription fees the player will (have to) pay. One more reason why item boni suck.

WoW - anti-spam

2007-06-04T10:04:00.000+02:00

With the new WoW patch, Blizzard introduced a feature to report spamming for gold farming services. Players are already complaining about the largely increasing number of random (raid) group invites. The spam report feature only works with mails and public chat, spam in consensual and private chats can't be reported.

As I said: if you want to prevent gold farming, don't implement the mechanics that support this... „feature“. To kill the Hydra, don't cut of its head, tear out its heart.

just a short WoW rant

2007-05-29T23:58:00.000+02:00

/who World of Warcraft

Carrot on a Stick
Binds when picked up
Trinket..................Miscellaneous
Equip: Increases mount speed by 3%.

gold farming

2007-05-22T17:09:00.000+02:00

Well this is interesting. The table in the middle claims that another reason for the demise of Sigil was their bug-handling concerning gold farmers. While Sigil started with a zero tolerance strategy, it states that as they couldn't get rid of a dupe-bug (cloning items by a caused zone crash oder zone server reboot), prices for gold farming services were minimal, and the game and crafting economy collapsed.

Blizzard is now even considering to sue gold farmers (y'know, they don't like them Chinese, only them Koreans).

So yeah, gold farmers are evil. Nothing new. What about a different approach?

What the gold farmers do is exploiting existing game mechanics, nothing more. If a MMO publisher wants to avoid gold farming, it has to make sure it doesn't implement the according mechanics. Or introducing mechanics that make it hard for gold farmers to do their job.

Starcraft II

2007-05-19T12:41:00.000+02:00

So... it's, surprise, surprise: Starcraft II.

I won't comment on the title but rather talk about certain decisions Blizzard made. And there are PROs and CONs.

PROs
First of all, they continue a successful brand and develop their own IP further – nothing you can really blame them for. It has worked before, the setting, units, and characters are recognizable,... Second, Blizzard will provide tools that enable the players to customize their UI, which was already a smart move on World of Warcraft: it enhances sub-communities, learning (scripting languages, UI design,...), and adds additional player-driven game-depth. They are re-using code, e.g. the Protoss stalker will be able to blink (Warden spell from Warcraft III). It'll be released when it's „fun, balanced, and polished“. They'll overhaul battle.net for an even better multiplayer experience. Multiple cinematics incoming, yay. Starcraft II will be PC-only, no more console experiments [1]. The engine will be very scalable so that the game runs on a wide range of computer systems.

CONs
Starcraft II will be a „fast paced real-time strategy game“ and „fast-paced“ results in stress and strive for perfection when you want to be successful on battle.net. It's about being quick, not necessarily being smart / strategic / tactical. The description of the Protoss units sounds tactically promising, though. Ingame-ads might be introduced – at least the techniques for it seem to be implemented. The Protoss look like the Draenei [1]. No new race, just new units and abilities. Overall, I haven't found anything new yet, nothing innovative. Which again is nothing new since I don't know of any innovation that Blizzard introduced.

[1] thought contributed by Tzirrit

Ex-Sigil Interview on F13

2007-05-16T22:25:00.000+02:00

Epic interview. This explains just about everything concerning what went wrong with Vanguard / what can go wrong concerning MMO / game development.

In short: during the Microsoft years, they handed over fake demos to their investor. As the investor (Microsoft) found out, they got out ASAP. Management was apparently quite... unsensitive regarding funding („Oh well we'll get it done and financed somehow...“). So was SOE. When they took over, they just put some money in. They weren't really involved, meaning they seemingly didn't really care to find out why Sigil was looking for new funding midst in development. This may be due to Brad McQuaid being „one hell of a salesman...“.

The producer thought WoW was a bummer – he didn't really KNOW it though cause he never played it. McQuaid didn't communicate important (any?) news to his colleagues. Overall, every decision maker behaved like an arrogant monarch, didn't really care about the opinions of those who were actually making the game, and didn't dare to help in any kind. For example they didn't see a need for a scripting language tool even though everybody demanded it thus severly hindering game development. And resulting in 9+ months crunch mode.

Problems were ignored. Not fixed. Because the one in charge was „one hell of a salesman...“ and „passionate“, but not rational and realistic, he didn't even know about the actual state of the game. When he played the beta, he realized what was going on – and ran away like prey. And the new management was scared to make decisions.

After all this mis-management, people were told to gather at the parking lot after work by email (!) – and then emotionless told that they were all fired, with some having the chance to be re-hired by SOE. Brad McQuaid wasn't there.

Right now, Vanguard has around 90,000 subscriptions and sold 200,000 copies of the game. That is 6,000,000€ out of sales and about 1,100,1000€ / month. The development of Vanguard cost Microsoft about $30,000,000, I'd suggest Sigil probably paid round about $10,000,000.

Well, let's end with a legendary quote:

f13.net: How was QA treated through the course of development?

Ex-Sigil: QA?

f13.net: QA.

Ex-Sigil: QA was one person up until about November... ONE.

f13.net: What.

Ex-Sigil: 100% serious.

f13.net: What? How? This is an MMOG.

Ex-Sigil: Vanguard had one internal tester for probably 95% of the design cycle.

I have been wii'd

2007-05-16T20:03:00.000+02:00

I just played "wii-sports" on the Nintendo Wii console. Wii has one main weakness. Which is that the avatar's actions aren't predictable.

Example: if I, the player, physically imitate a backhand, I demand from the game that it executes a backhand. In my play, many of my actions weren't performed as I demanded.

Nice idea but the programm code lacks in precise execution of the players actions.

Still a nice idea in my head to play tennis in a large living room, with two TVs and two players each in front of a screen bashing an invisible tennis ball. ;-)

Google...

2007-05-15T01:11:00.000+02:00

... playing THE virtual sage again. Now aiming for user data of MMO players.

This is scary.

Barbie MMO

2007-05-12T17:51:00.000+02:00

Cool. Can I kill other player characters by throwing pink fleece balls at 'em?

No? Damn...

Hellgate: London

2007-05-12T12:50:00.000+02:00

Did you like Diablo II? Remember the retarded search for inventory space, mules, and places to store your Gems and Runes? Well, the designers from the Flagship Studios found a solution! In their upcoming title, Hellgate: London, for only 9.95$ per month you can buy additional stash space!

You like socialising and communicating with other players in a social network environment? Go found a guild, it only costs you 9.95 HLM [Hellgate London Monnies] per month!

You like PvP, hardcore difficulty, or roleplay? Count to ten, spare some cents for soda and send the rest to Flagship!

You like your personal e-penis? Great, then transfer nine-ninety-five to get access to uber elite items. But don't forget to pay regularly or your rares will be frozen.

No. There are NO 2nd class players.

Oops, pardon me. My mistake. It's just "new content", nothing more. My bad.

Funcom

2007-05-11T15:10:00.001+02:00

I'm starting to like these guys.

First of all, there's Age of Conan which looks and sounds great. A game I'm really looking forward to. I like the barbarian setting, the combat style and the PvP Features (Sieges!).

And then there was this interesting marketing campaign for their lately announced follow-up MMO on Age of Conan, 'the Secret World'. And yet another promising setting (real-world conspiracy theories).

Plus, they are using the AoC-Engine for 'the secret world' which is smart from an organisational point of view, using the powerful in-house engine a second time.

$econd Life

2007-05-09T23:46:00.000+02:00

"Your World. Your Imagination."?

Something is missing... Let's see... 144,510 players had a positive monthly Linden dollar flow, 302,665 spent money ingame (April 2007). Thus, at least 158,155 players lost money within the last month playing Second Life.

"Your world. Your Imagination. Your Moneys."

Thank you. $incerely your$,
Linden Re$earch, Inc.

Impatience

2007-05-08T22:48:00.000+02:00

"Mummy? I wanna know it NOW!"

Alright then. They are developing a game that will be hard to enter...

... but easy to hamster.

Happy Now? Great. Then get the hell back to business!

Sanya Weathers leaves WAR

2007-05-08T00:30:00.000+02:00

So what's that all about this woman leaving WAR?

She's pregnant - with an orc. Happy now?

Great. Then get back to f***in' business.

the hamster and the tomb

2007-05-02T14:18:00.000+02:00

More rants incoming:

I have to correct myself: WoW is not a hamster wheel, it's a hamster pyramid.
Vanguard - R.I.P.. (additional info)
Err... is that "next-gen MMO" the one you are planning to relaunch? A short hint for those who are considering to apply: you cannot set sail with a boat that doesn't have a mast.
you better always stay in character.

Sometimes it just doesn't need that many words...

some light in the darkness?

2007-04-14T11:33:00.000+02:00

For a short time, there was hope. In a recent forum post, Blizzard announced to adjust the way elixirs and buff potions work.

"In an upcoming patch we will be changing the way elixirs function, allowing a player to only have two elixirs on them at any one time. The change will allow you to use one offensive elixir, and one defensive elixir. All elixirs will be set into one of these two categories."

The short glint of a candle in the cold and retarded farming grind. A deadly backstab into the spine of the WoW farming lemmings. And the loss of an e-penis:

Blizzard even admits the buff elixir system forced the players to farm:

"In many cases this resulted in the spectrum of elixirs being necessary for dungeon and raid attempts as they were balanced to be more difficult. ...

The need for herbs and materials, and thus the strain on a guild or individual alchemist to collect these items is lowered substantially, ..."

A late insight, but an insight at least? Not necessarily. Mana, health, and resistance potions will stay the way they are. And even though the change 'removes the need to design and balance encounters around the potential use of all possible elixirs' it does NOT remove the need to design encounters to maintain the item grind hamster wheel.

another McQuaid

2007-04-09T00:20:00.000+02:00

That guy is funny:

"I think if we had got the message out that Vanguard was not just another EQ with all of its time sinks, tedium, leveling times, necessary raiding, need for contiguous time commitments, and somehow got that message clearly and strongly through we would have launched more strongly."

Source

Ok, let's see...

no time sinks - wrong. Long-lasting travel times and journeys, farming hours for crafting,...
no tedium - wrong, bashing on many different but soulless mobs to gain a level is tedious.
no leveling times - wrong. Leveling takes comparably long in Vanguard.
no necessary raiding - wrong. That'll come as soon as enough players have reached lv50 and when they demand more and new content.
no need for contiguous time commitments - wrong. It's even three meaningless grinds: adventuring, crafting and diplomacy.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Mr McQuaid, you fail.

Meaning

2007-04-08T18:39:00.000+02:00

The dynamic world embodies the concepts that will become the future of MMORPGs. As the Internet and gaming communities continue to grow, gamers are taking an increasing interest in plugging the community itself into the game world in such a way that everyone can experience a world that follows one rule: what you do means something. Meaning is what everyone searches for in everything they do and is exactly where the spirit of all these details becomes apparent. Meaning enthralls and grabs us. It holds us to our seats and doesn’t let go. For thousands of years mankind has used the ideas of conflict and emotional attachment in stories to move us and compel us.

Great article. *clap*

Sigil - planless

2007-04-07T11:15:00.000+02:00

A recent forum post of former Sigil-worker Kendrick sheds light on some of the things that went wrong in the development process of Vanguard.

1st, Sigil planned a way too large game world:

The world size at launch WAS cut down dramatically.

Plan A was to ship with Thestra, Qalia, Kojan (a much larger Kojan) as "starter" islands, 3 "intermediate" islands about 75% of the size of the starters, and one huge "advanced" continent 4x as big as a starter, and quite a few small theme islands, with a level cap of 100 on release. The starter continents would have contained 1-30 content, intermediates 30-70, the advanced 70-100, and the theme islands would vary. [...]

Plan D is what you see now, with a downsized Kojan, and that started around 2005.

They planned to implement the quadruple (!) size of a current world. A world that is so large right now that you often feel lost in the middle of nowhere. Not until 2005, three years after the start of the development, they discovered the weight they took on their shoulder might be a little too much. And switched to the somehow doable current version of the landmass.

2nd, their staffing was unbalanced:

For the entire time I was with Sigil, the Art department was the largest department by far. It was only at later stages, after a goodly bit of the world had been constructed, that they ramped up designer staffing.

This may explain why many classes appear generic and superficial, why several class-race combinations lack of game world background. Why interracial and cultural conncetions are missing,...

3rd, Sigil exploited their art workers:

And almost the entire time I was there, the Art department was in crunch mode, furiously trying to build as much of the world as they could, at the same time having to go back and rework things as engine tech and building methodology evolved.

Four long years of crunch mode. Four years work-weeks of 60+ hours. This is madness?! *looks angry* This is [Sparta] Sigil!

When do companies finally learn that demaning 'the extra mile' every day does not lead to better results? Art is a creative job. If you don't give your workers some time to regenerate and to develop new ideas, the creeps and characters they design become soulless digital things you just bash on.

4th, content overload and lacking gameplay / code depth:

It was still easier to tweak geometry and apply new shaders than it was to just throw out already built work, btw.

The oft-cited "redesign(s) of the game" last year were almost entirely gameplay and code, both much easier to do than reworking art assets that had taken nearly 5 years to construct.

Art content can easily be added. It's 'just' feeding the databases. Gameplay is what matters. What makes the people play the game.

5th, too much self-esteem, over-estimation of their ressources:

Do it better than they (Blizzard) did, and do it bigger, while still retaining what we liked about EQ1.

Translation: produce a wonder. You CAN make it better than Blizzard - but then you'll have to make it smaller if you want to get done within 3-4 years. Or you make it bigger but similar in design. But you can't make both.

6th, quantity but quality in staffing:

Polish does need help, partly because the content designers there need more experience under their belts (and they're getting it...the hard way), and partly because things were rushed. Bugs happen, especially in a rushed environment, but they're doing a fair job of squashing those.

Translation: we hired tons of content designers - still they had no idea what they were doing. Maybe instead of teaching it to them "the hard way" they should've down-sized the content mass and give the experienced designers some time to share hints and tips?

7th, hardware requirements:

From my point of view, that's Vanguard's biggest shortcoming. Poor performance is real for many. Gameplay decisions, art style, etc, are subjective, some like it, some don't. But it's hard to decide if you like it or not if you simply can't run the game.

Exactly. When you release a game, you better make sure a lot of people can play it. Especially MMORPGs where a lot of marketing and information is spread by word-of-mouth. If the word spreads but not the game because the people don't want to or cannot afford a new computer system, you won't be able to refinance your development investments. Brad McQuaid, the producer of Vanguard, said they developed Vanguard 'for the long term'. As soon as players' hardware catches up, they would buy the game. Well, when I get a new computer system, I want to play the latest releases to test my new power horse on high details.

When the players have catched up to Vanguard hardware-wise, Vanguard will have to compete with Age of Conan or Warhammer. And that competition, I'd say, will be won by the later two due to overall better game design.

the never-ending grind?

2007-03-24T12:49:00.000+01:00

In many MMOs players spend a lot of their time grinding. Meaning: stupid and repetitive killing of monsters without influencing the virtual world at all to gain experience, faction points, reagents, gold, and so on. That's because the actions of a players are and have to be limited and because there isn't really a difference to the normal „real life grind“ (earn money to live, repeat certain actions daily / weekly / monthly).

But what about the escapism? Don't we log in virtual worlds to escape from the daily real life grind? So why do we accept grinding in virtual worlds? Economists say this is due to the 'homo oeconomicus' – the benefit is greater than the cost. But are we really benefit- or even profit-oriented in virtual worlds? The other model is the 'homo sociologicus' – we repeat actions to take care of our character (we farm health potion ingredients to increase our survivability in cooperative battles).

Overall, it's all about gratification: we grind to increase our character's abilities and skills, to fill some bar to it's end to gain access to the ultimate abilities of our character. We are rewarded, but the reward is fleeting. This lacks in long-term motivation, though. And this is what makes players stick to a game, to continue paying their monthly fees. Thus, games should provide long-term motivation, put an intrinsic meaning in every action of the players. And not provide another time sink.

self-portrayal...

2007-03-08T21:33:00.000+01:00

... but data mining, please.

It all began with players sharing their WoW character profiles with each, comparing their virtual e-penis. Anything below purple was 'em casual gamers. You're only something in Azeroth if you wear the best items available on the instance and PvP market.

This has now been automized. The development studios themselves provide websites where players profiles are automatically updated and published. It links the players to their virtual properties like houses, guild achievements, items, or professions. The Vanguard character side even creates automated blog entries when a character discovers something for the 1st time and so on.

What matters is not the player but the property he owns. Players care less about the personality of the character and care more about the players possessions. A part of the desired escapism is reversed.

„You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank, you're not the car you drive, you're not the contents of your wallet, you're not your fucking khakis. You are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world.“

Instead of data mining the players, the developers should rather provide web space for the players to portray their characters. To freely express their experiences, their game-related views but properties and virtual monnies.