State of Sente

I have been a bit quiet in terms of blogging lately, which mainly a matter of a bit less game-related time, so most of that time go to playing rather than blogging.

The main game at the moment is Champions Online – great fun and a nice place to handle my altoholic tendencies. A bit of time is also spent in Fallen Earth, I do like the post-apocalyptic setting and I enjoy playing it every now and then. It fulfills a different type of game activity from Champions and they complement each other nice, I think.

I have been in a bit of a “fantasy rut” for a while now and I have very little interest in any current or new fantasy MMOs. For me the specific mechanics and features of a game may be a primary motivator, but rather the setting and how it has been used. I am a little bit surprised but also relieved that this may be the case – if the mechanics were all that mattered I think it would be very easy to lose the enjoyment of playing these games.

City of Heroes/Villlains has not seen much play either. It has been very much about the people for a long time there and with most in-game friends gone or in other games, there is little on the team-play part that keeps me around. Creating Mission Architect story arcs is still a very enjoyable solo experience, but I have been a bit discouraged by the lack of people playing the missions I have created and some of the things Paragon Studios has done here lately. When the Going Rogue expansion releases it will likely be more play, but right now I have a rather low attendance in the Rogue Isles and Paragon City.

One activity that has increased lately has nothing to do with games – mentalism. I have been a magic enthusiast and occasional hobby magician for more than 30 years. Over the years my interested has shifted a bit more towards mentalism, at least when it comes to performing. It is a branch related to entertainment through magic, but still a bit different. It is on the borderline on exploring our own inherent capabilities as well as taking a bit extra step to provide entertainment miracles. It is that border area of what is a real capability and what might not be, plus a high degree of audience participation that makes it such an interesting area.

It requires a lot of time to become really good (practice, practice, practice), although it is more a matter of sleight of mind rather than more traditional magic entertainment, which may be a bit more sleight of hand.

So, still around but remains to be seen how much blogging it will be in the near future.

Freedom to screw up

We always seem to want more and better options for MMOs that we play. More skills or powers, more levels etc. Sometimes we complain about the somewhat rigid DIKU-like model many MMOs are in. But are people prepared to get what they want?

This September has been a bit extraordinary in that there has been multiple interesting MMO releases in the same month; Champions Online and Fallen Earth. Both games provide the option to develop your characters pretty much any way you want. No fixed classes/professions or skill sets – you can be whatever you want from what is offered.

But for choices to be meaningful there must be good and bad choices (given some context) – if every choice would lead to an equally good result, then why make the choices at all? And if the results are just spread between good and better, will that not just trivialise the context for that choice?

Power and characteristic choices will make a difference in Champions Online

As an example, in Champions Online there is pretty much complete freedom to mix and match any powers available, as well as control the character attributes. No class or archtetype restrictions and no inherent capbilities.  What you choose is what you get. So there has been occasions where people have made choices that gives them trouble in combat – more troble than others. This could be a bad choice of powers and characteristics for combat in the game.

This is as it should be – it must be possible to screw up. If there were no bad choices here then combat would be trivial for those that make the better choices – which in the end would bore most people. But it must also be possible to correct mistakes with a reasonable amount of effort. Experimentation should be encouraged.

However, this reasoning also only works well if you actually care about the result of a choice. But there may be cases where you just want something. Taking Champions as an example again, if you do not care about making a superhero that handles combat great and only want something that matches a concept – then the choices may be in the way. You just want something “good enough”. In that case the choice becomes an obstacle.

Fallen Earth also offers a lot of freedom in building your character

In time I think games with plenty of freedom of choice such as Champions Online and Fallen Earth will have various guides on fan sites, both for mix/max:ers and those that just want “good enough”. But now in the early days for both games, I think you probably need to have at least a reasonable amount interest in comtrolling the improvement of your character and experimenting with that.

Personally I am not a mix/max:er and concept is more important. But I do like to tinker and learn about improvement for my character, so choices still matter. And I love that I have enough freedom that my concepts do not have to fit in some predefined class/archetype structure. I have made good and bad choices, but I think at least I have learned from my mistakes and my understanding improves. That in itself makes the game experience quite rewarding.

Does bug reporting bug you?

Many MMO players have probably at some point reported a bug in an MMOG, or perhaps wanted to report a bug.

Unfortunately many MMOs seem to have quite rudimentary issue/bug reporting systems – at least when it comes to in-game support. There is maybe a /bug command which is not documented, if one is lucky there is actually a button or a menu option somewhere. If that one is triggered then there may be some categorisation options and a text field to describe the problem in.

And that’s it.

Categories for bug reporting

So I was very preasantly surprised when I was going to report a bug in Champions Online. There was a button for it, clearly marked “report a bug” in the help dialog window. It did provide some categories (good start) and then came the surprise – they actually provided an online bug tracking system!

Bug tracking system

Not only did it provide a list of my missions (including all completed ones) which I could select froma drop-down box, but it also provides a browse and search functionality for reported issues. I can search and see if others have reported the same. If that is the case, I can press a button to say “me too” essentially. Or you can add more info to the issue. The view also shows the status of various issues, if they are in progress or have been resolved. If your issue is not there, you can simply create a new one.

On top of that, you also have a separate dialog where you can keep track of your issues and see the status of those, update them or close them.

View for your own reported issues

Great job Cryptic! I hope more MMOs will try to incorporate this type of functionality.

The only constant is change

In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

- Douglas Adams

Sometimes we never seem to be able to be satisfied or even accept the changes that are happening in the MMOs. In one MMO forum I read a few threads, which basically had this theme:

• A somewhat recent game feature A had been introduced, a fairly original feature also.
• Feature A is available to most players. Some like it, some dislike it, others may be indifferent
• Some players start to post threads that feature A must be removed from the game, or nerfed significantly, because it is ruining the game. More specifically, the players complaing says that they cannot now play the game the way they used to and find teams for that, because too many are playing feature A.
• It was better in the older days and people should play the game it was supposed to be played then.

So in this case the complaint is essentially that there is too much content/features available and the playerbase is perceived to be too spread out by some people.

People who like to play the game the way it was before feature A want to preserve that and get rid of feature A. People who like to play feature A want to keep it of course and some were not happy with the options available before feature A.

The way I see it is that games like MMOs really have to change and renew themselves regularly – it costs too much and is too much effort to get a “perfect” feature set right from start. Truly fixed gameplay is more something to consider for less persistent game environments and games without the first one or two Ms in MMOs.

For MMOs I do think that the only constant in the games is change itself.

Outside the Great Firewall

Today I came back from my visit to China and Beijing, which means that I can start write in the blog again and start read a number of the blogs I usually read. Blogs and in particular well-known blog sites seems to be among the internet content that gets filtered out.

Besides the content blocking and a few other reminders that the country is not really a democracy, the trip there was a great one. The people, the history and the speed of development there are quite fantastic. I might write few things about it later, although it will not have anything to do with gaming.

I can definitely consider going back to China again at some point, but for now I am also glad to be back home.

Heading to the Middle Kingdom

It is vacation time, so I will take a break from blogging and gaming here and head off to China and Beijing for roughly two weeks. Half of the time will be sightseeing in Beijing and surroundings, the other half will be attending FISM 2009 (only attending, not competing).

It is my 4th FISM conference, but my first time to China. So I am really looking forward to some pieces of the Middle Kingdom and its capital, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and of course general life in Beijing. And there will of course be lots of good magic and inspiration on the conference.

So happy gaming until next time!

I don’t care about the loot

Recently I had a look at a SciFi MMO that just started its open beta. Not a big-name game, but I was curious about the setting and played around with it a little bit. It was fairly ok from the first view, although not spectacular.

But what really made me a bit sad was reading about the game on the web site. There was really no info on backstory, why people were in this setting in the first place and what perhaps could be the motivations. The only information was around, game mechanics – the kind of units you can play, type of weapons, different skills and different areas. There was no mentioning why certain areas were there.

For the mobs there were descriptions of normal, elite and boss mobs and that there were better loot and reards from bosses etc. Perhaps not all info was listed, but certainly a substantial amount.

This pretty much killed my interest. If the creators of the game just describes the game in the form of mechanics and items, why should I bother? There is not really and story or background that fills a prominent spot here. With a lot of the info in place already directly on the web site there is perhaps not much to find out and discover on your own. I can of course just ignore the info on the web site, but if this is the type of info that developers want a new player to find and look at, it is probably not a game for me.

Short cuts

I decided to just put up a post with various small notes and items all blended together.

NCSoft has announced that they are selling additional slots for Mission Architect story arcs. I would buy more slots, even though I think they are a bit pricey. But they are not available yet as far as I can see. They do not seem to have put much effort into the already defined venues of allowing people to get more story arcs slots – Developer’s Choice and Hall of Fame. The latter is depending on player votes though, but they (NCSoft/Paragon Studios) do set the rules and conditions.

Reading some forums for MMOs that are in the pure micro transaction payment model, I find some parts a bit fascinating. While the type of discussions are pretty similar to any MMO forum, the games that comparisions are made with can be quite different from when you read a subscription-based MMO forum. It is almost as if there are two quite distinct groups of MMO players which only on occasion play the same games.

What is better, story or social interaction? Looking at a few of Western MMOs they have in some cases a large focus on trying to provide some interesting combat and a related story. But the mechanics and systems in place for social interactions (guilds/clans, friend lists, party search, community oriented activities etc) are in many cases more weak. Some Eastern MMOs have more grindy and boring combat and stories in comparision, but at least some have more developed mechanics for social interactions in comparision. Is that a result of more PvP focused gameplay or more general focus on social interaction?

In City of Heroes/Villains one of my heroes (Tsu Hon, martial arts/regen scrapper) is getting close to max level. I have not played much of the high level hero-side content, but decided to follow a few of the regular story arcs there. Some of the missions provided by contacts Tina and Unai have some real head-banging qualities – I would really like to bang my head against the wall rather than play those missions. It was a relief to be able to head to Architect Entertainment for some alternative missions.

I recently reactivated an EVE Online account of mine. I have two and this time I managed to remember what my first account was. It had been deactivated January 2nd, 2004. In my mailbox I had some unread emails from late summer/autumn of 2003, my character seemed to be member of a company I did not recall joining. I have not actually started playing yet, not sure if I am going to do something with my old character or just keep him in retirement.

Virtual pubs and virtual casinos

Melf_Himself made a good post about reward gameplay. Playing an MMO is a bit like going to a pub in my view. You go there to relax and enjoy yourself, socialise and chat with friends, perhaps play some dart or pool – and most likely drink something.

Spending time in the pub is not something I expect to get some particular reward from. And if it is not particularly enjoyable I might just head off to a different place or do something different. There is not really much pressure from the pub that I should do otherwise. They will of course want me as a customer, but they are very much just providing the facilities for people to enjoy themselves in some way, as long as they do not harass other customers too much.

A casino is a slighty different entertainment facility. There is a more focused set of activities you can do, much centered around the prospect of winning money. Also, the casino will gladly try to condition you to stay within the premises in various ways, in order to keep you gambling. The casino will happily keep you there to just sit by the slot machines all day if needed, doing the same thing over and over.

I would really like for the MMOs to be my virtual pubs, but some are putting in slot machines in the facilities and try to keep people around, enticing them with the prospect of loot.  Some seem more like virtual casinos, some are somewhere in between. And many are successful in getting people to the casino-like parts. I think this is unfortunate, but who’s fault is it? The virtual casino-like facilities, or the people that buy into that entertainment en masse (not just the occasional gamble)?

In either case I do hope that the attitude could be more pub-like. There can always be more pubs, but there can certainly be too many casinos.

Quest design – fixing the symptoms?

Summary: Blogger read interesting article about MMO quest design, but do not agree with that the right conclusions has been drawn from player behaviour analysis. Discuss among yourselves.

Through Wandering Goblin I found an interesting article @ MMORPG.com by Sanya Weathers about quest design in MMOs. 

In that article she mentions that it used to be that MMO designers thought that players really wanted story content, as they did in single-player RPGs, but once they started measuring player behaviour, they noticed that people skipped long texts and just went on with the the task, so that they could progress to the “real” content (“end game”, “elder game” or something similar presumably). Hence game designers now tend to put in short and basic missions/quests, i.e. the all too familiar “kill ten rats” and its relatives.