Open PvP via randomized Points of Interest

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.

Collecting tester feedback

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.]

/who Warhammer Online?

www.bullseye-games.com?

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!

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

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?).

Starcraft II

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

I have been wii'd

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. ;-)

Funcom

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.

Sanya Weathers leaves WAR

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.

Sigil - planless

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.