Character customization and advancement

It is arguable that the character is the single most important element to an MMO. I personally believe a game is mostly judged by how well it ties the player to the character he plays. The more empathy the player feels for his digital avatar the more he will enjoy the game experience.City of Heroes is a prime example of this idea; the game at best is an average game when looked at from a world, quest or game mechanic viewpoint. It still has a loyal following in my view almost solely on its excellent character creation process and how it ties the player to their character.The character creation process is very important. It is the first experience every player will confront. Character model assets are the hardest to get right and the worst to get wrong in a game. A beautiful world is wasted if the players do not feel like they are being properly represented within it. I believe this is one of the failures of EVE; the lack of being able to visually customize your avatar (ship).There are not a magical number of types of hair, nose, or lip models; or any other editable model component but it will be noticeable if there are not enough. There should be a wide variety of options. Many current generation games give the slider option to edit facial or body models but going from one extreme to the other has little noticeable difference. Body size and style should be widely editable as well. I think it is also important to add in models that are not of some physical ideal only. I think a great deal of flavor could be added by being able to make an “ugly” character.The clothing and item models need to be numerous and dyeable at a minimum in current games and with the addition of the costume mechanic added by EQ2 and LOTRO where what you wear is not tied to the items equipped for bonuses I believe this feature is becoming a new standard as well. One note on wearable items I feel needs to be mentioned is that the styles available in any certain game should remain true to the established lore of the game. I am not a fan of Christmas hats or other holiday items that do not fit the game universe. LOTRO has done well in this regard with their seasonal events tying into the lore itself but poorly in adding the pirate themed outfits recently.Players want two main things for their characters, first and foremost is to be able to distinguish them as individual and not a copy of another. Secondly they want their actions to matter within the game universe. I will comment of character actions in another post and focus on their individuality.Classes limit individuality be shoe-horning a character’s choices into a preset structure as well most class based games further limit player choice by making each character within a given class functionally the same. Guild Wars did about as well with a class system as has been done by giving a wide selection of individual skills and limiting the numbers that can be used at any one time.A skills only system I feel is too open by giving players too many choices it is difficult for players to define their roles as well as it becomes very hard for developers to balance a skills only system.I personally think a hybrid of the two may be the best answer. Classes help players know their purpose. I think each class should have a set of available attributes with a defined set of skills assigned to each. Give each player an option to assign values to the selected attributes that effect the entire set of skills also give the player skill points to assign to individual skills to personalize their character further. Assign a possible maximum allocation to each skill that shifts higher as the player advances.Also as a player advances and levels their character; not only would they gain health and power reserves but allow them to gain extra skill points to assign. In addition as skills reach a certain value allow that to open advanced skills as well.This system can be complex and opens the possibility for the players to make mistakes. I would allow players to respec their skill points at each level of advancement, this would give them the ability to change their selections but not do it whenever they choose. Perhaps allow characters to not respec points below a point if advanced skills have been opened with an allocation but allow those advanced points to be re-speced.I think that would allow for both a sense of direction to a character as well as a sense of individuality and accomplishment as any given character advances. With having multiples types of advancement options I would also suggest to have the individual levels advance fairly quickly each giving a very small increase in power and health with the larger skill points to come at greater intervals. To those that have pen and paper experience my notice I borrowed heavily from Dungeon and Dragons and several of the better current MMO offering, I really feel a combination of what has already been created could be the perfect fit if just all the right pieces were put together.

Some thoughts on World enviroments

My thoughts begin with the game environment overall. Mechanics and gameplay are crucial but are only a part of the whole. A MMO requires a strong IP, that almost goes without saying. The main failing I have seen is that having just the nuts and bolts of a world are not enough. Even in a Science Fiction or Fantasy setting there has to be a sense of permanence. I think that is why book driven IPs are so strong in the marketplace. The places within the game have backstory. An author can not write a compelling story without a believable framework to reference his story against I feel a good MMO IP has the same requirement.The cities and locations within a world have to have reasons why they are as they are, not only in the present game environment but they need to have plausible sustainability and a believable way they came into being. Too many game worlds have locations that would not last a day against the hordes of unfriendlies mere yards from where they sit. Permanent locations need to have a visible means to protect themselves. This could be shown through a mechanic as well. By having an occasional random mobs pathing have it come into the aggro range of a location’s defenses helps in two ways, the world emulates having a life of its own and NPC areas show the players they defend themselves. Cities or stations or whatever the central player hubs are in a game should be populated. A large city with no defenders on the walls and only a few quest givers standing around are one of the fastest ways to cut into the immersion factor of an area. I think large locations should be capable of defeating large player attacks let alone random mobs.Beyond locations, regions that claim to be semi-peaceful should be. Villages may not have defenses capable of protecting themselves alone per se but should have a means to accomplish that. I like the idea of regular patrols that would follow the main lines of trade throughout the regions as well as static caravans to represent the interaction between smaller villages and the main cities.Game worlds need to feel like they function without the direct interaction of the player characters. The players should be the foremost catalyst for change within the world but not the only one. Worlds should change but most change is can actually be circular. For example; have the static route caravans stop at predetermined spots daily for several hours and have vendor npcs available during and only during the stops. Almost like a floating rest camp with static locations where it will make camp. The random patrols mentioned earlier could follow roughly the same route. Providing the plausible extra defense force needed for the villages as well as caravan protection. I have fleshed out my ideas on resources for crafting and construction in an earlier post. I also emailed it to the guys over at Channel Massive as well and have to admit they has some good insights on the feasibility of some of my thoughts. The resource placement in the environment does need to be logical but perhaps without a cumbersome re-spawn mechanic. Although I do like the finite ore node idea representing veins in the mountains but also wood should only be forested areas, ore in mountainous areas, farming only available on cultivated fields. Maybe allow player housing to come with a bound cultivation field attached.I am eagerly awaiting the guild fortified town idea in AOC to see how many of my wanted items are going to be satisfied, So far it looks very promising.

Ideas on my “wish list”

Recently I commented on the coming trends to MMO design that seem to be driving the “next ” generation on games. In the later part of the comment I began to get a bit beyond the topic and wrote down some of the ideas I would like to see in the future.With the fact that I really write these for myself to keep my thoughts on MMOs in general basically to be able to look back to see how they change over time; I re-read it several times even posted it ino ther places to see if anyone would comment on it. As the week went by my thoughts on what I personally would like to see became more and more fleshed out. As presumpteous as it is I wanted to get my thoughts written down completely on the subject so I have decided to write a series of posts to get them all down as my own personal gauge on how any certain game is meeting my “ideals” I would like to see.I really don’t know how many posts it will total before it is done as think on it I am going to try to divide it into areas of game components. They will all refernece each other some as well and probably will not be intended to be read seperate from the other pieces.Well I read the paragraphs above and think to myself. “Who would really care about your thoughts on this, really.” Maybe no one but I have hit a level in my gaming life where no game is going ot meet all my needs. I am ok with that fact. The marketing of today’s AAA titles is becomes better and better. Having a complete set to reference against will be helpful for me.

Call of Duty 4

I had friend of mine the other day receive a free copy of Call of Duty 4 with his new video card. With the fact he already had the title, bonus for me he just wanted it to be used by someone. I always liked the Call of Duty series and this new one finally getting away from WWII I believe might be the best one to date. I can see how it might give gulf vets flashbacks as some have reported.

The single player mode on the game is the expected excellent level design and engaging missions but not anything truly innovative.  Although the SAS missions were all quite fun and I liked the plot changes throughout.  The multiplayer portion of this title is about the best I have seen in a FPS.

The challenges and ranks is just compelling enough to keep drawing you back in for just one more match. The maps are overall fairly well done some might be a little small for 32 man servers but you need a variety.

Pirates of the Smoldering lakes and Blank Tablets with no Pencil

Well with a month long hiatus out of the way I have several things to talk about. Two long posts in two days! I am going to call it a fluke for now.

  I was able to get in a few new game demos to see what they had to offer.  I guess I will go over the bad one first. I got into the beta for Pirates of the Burning Sea just prior to its launch; from the start this one was a painful experience. As many others did I got the key from Eurogamer then downloaded the huge three part installation from fileplanet. To my disappointment after installing, the game would not completely update. After several hours I finally had to delete it. During the process of attempting to get some information on my problem I did find the posting on an alternate installer on PoTBS’ website, a smaller initial download but a longer patch process. I downloaded it and let the patcher do its thing. This time success! I launch the game and built out a character and that process was pretty decent not great but not bad. The first half of the introduction was the avatar combat, I have read several places that this was the weak spot of the game so I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I was but not to the extent I was dreading.  The second half was the ship combat portion and contrary to most opinions out there I just didn’t like it. I at first brushed it off as maybe I was not getting the “feel” for it yet.

So the intro is completed and I’m off to the first town, running around it and the first two missions I picked up were enough to tell me I would not like the game but something else kept nagging me. Then it hit me -  the problem I had was  the whole experience felt like an updated MMO version of Age of Pirates which if any of you have played it knows that is not a good thing.

The crafting is supposed to be very in depth but for me the comparison to EVE on that front left me not looking forward to suffering the rest of the game to really look too deep with the time commitment to get into it.

There may be a good game here and I wanted to like this one but alas I was almost immediately turned off by it.

The other I played was the 3 day Demo of Tabula Rasa as this is a somewhat a dated post it was prior to the doom and gloom web rumors floating around about the title. It was fun for those three days, the character creation was somewhat bland and uninspiring compared to other titles but the game was fun stating off. Well the good is out of the way.

Now the not so good, by the end of the third day I could see the issue with the game while fun I could tell within a month or two I would be tried of the game sort of like a really cute new girlfriend that after the first few dates you realize she just doesn’t have that spark that will kindle any long term interest. I have to agree with everyone else their crafting system is useless which to me is a big negative.

The combat is fun and I liked the dropship spawning on the map as opposed to the standard magical pop up of mobs. The outpost attacks were really the best part of the whole experience but I am afraid it was just not enough.

Trends Emerging in the Next Generation of MMOs

Several trends for next generation MMO features have begun to emerge in most lists we have seen. The three that show the most promise I feel consist of the more interactive combat model, i.e. the evolution away from point and click; the ability of player factions to affect the game environment either through map control or semi-permanent environment changes and finally player-made content.

All three have been presented in various forms in prior games some very successfully. The interactive combat model from reports will be taking a huge leap forward with Age of Conan due to be released in May. EVE it can be argued has very successfully perfected the ability of player factions controlling territory and creating semi permanent environment content which also to me is player made content in the form of stations or in the case of Star Wars Galaxies the player made cities. Galaxies fault was in not allowing these structures to naturally decay leaving the infamous “ghost” towns on so many of their servers.

The player made content I feel has to have some limits to fit well within the MMO game. Though many don’t comment on this aspect but sadly most player-made content isn’t very good in my opinion. Games are fun because they have a set of limitations and shared rules. This to me is what makes them different from say Second Life which by most is admitted is interesting but not really a game at all.

I believe this next generation of games may see the first true innovation in the genre in quite a while. Any progress in these areas is to be encouraged; I for one would like to see even more. Many of us have our own ideas in these areas and I am looking for feedback on some of mine.

I really see the new combat mechanic in AOC to become a “must have” in future releases, as well as collision detection (where character models has mass and can physically block) both open up so many more tactical gameplay elements that they are hard to ignore. Collision detection has been successfully implemented in the past most notably in Guild Wars. The interactive elements of the enhancements help extend the enjoyment of the combat in-game.  The timer based wait and repeat the sequence in current combat mechanics are very repetitive and if the mechanic itself was more entertaining and required more player interaction that alone would reduce the amount of “grind” a player feels while playing through somewhat repetitive content. That is with us to stay because it has the long gameplay life to programming time required; the very definition of win-win to a developer.

I also believe the same principle could and should be applied to player crafting as well. I am intrigued by AOC’s approach to attempting to eliminate the crafting xxx to level grind by implementing a questing route we will have to see how successful it is but I believe it could be further enhanced with a change in the mechanics as well; applying the same non point and click features to creating items. It could also be enhanced by incorporating one of the other trends mentioned; semi-permanent environment changes such as forests that can be cut down that re-spawn in stages to reflect new growth even so far as if not allowed to re-spawn to full “health” or “age” they would produce less resources if harvested early. Stone or metals could have the same effect only have veins with a finite supply of material and have nodes randomly re-spawn to reflect new finds within any given terrain, such stone and ore nodes should only being found in mountainous areas or even dungeons, etc. One aspect of LOTRO I think was implemented very well was their farming mechanic although the crafting output itself was not implemented into the game overall very well. I thought it would have been much more attractive if they had made some foods have similar effects like health potions to increase their desirability. Also farming could be tied into the forest re-spawn as well by allowing players on a limited basis to convert a fully cut section of forest to be converted into a farmable field area. I say limited so this conversion would not be really permanent but only last while the field in being actively used. If the field was left unutilized for a set time the forest re-spawn would reset.  Possibly allow player made structures to increase output of these areas as well thus organically growing the content in a realistic manner. A granary could allow greater crop yield of adjacent fields, a smelter could increase the possible ore output or nearby nodes.

Some of the same principles could work for player structures as well. I think the guild structures proposed in the AOC are a good first step. Terrain in any one map could also be laid out in a way that could dictate where player-made structures could be constructed and would follow the same “degradation” as other non-upkept content.  For example stone towers, castles, or resource enhancement structures could have several levels or decay instead of complete wipe if upkeep is not maintained and the map would only have limited areas large enough to allow their construction. I also believe the upkeep would require monetary amounts of game currency as well as harvested materials. Taken one step further if the upkeep was not maintained, allow the structure to “degrade” to a ruin. At this point the ruin would not be usable by the players any longer but could become a random mob spawn point allowing to a limited extend for players to change the PVE encounters of a certain area.

The entire map would not have to be available for such player interaction you could have scripted NPC mechanics that accomplish the same routines in the new player areas and areas where the game lore dictated having permanent features that could maintain more concrete environments such as teams of wood cutters harvesting forests on static NPC mining the would reflect the presence of the permanent resource harvesting needed to maintain permanent NPC structures.

One flaw I see in current MMO world environment is the static nature of the NPC faction content. If the principles above were applied during development, the worlds would become more interactive and stay fresh. It could be taken so far and have NPC factions contesting certain areas of the map with either player controlled or other NPC controlled factions. If the same construction principles were applied to both the AI as well as players in these areas and we allow both to occupy constructed features of the map that would take the world one more step closer to a place that feels more immersive and editable to the players.