What the MMO Industry Needs!

A top 5 of my opinions!

1. More non-fantasy based games that don’t suck (here’s hoping to CO, STO and SWTOR!)
2. Different subscription strategies.
3. Developers and publishers that quit focusing on the number of subs WoW has, but focus on the things WoW got right and improve upon them.  You aren’t going to be WoW, so don’t try.  Just try to make a game that has improvements and you’ll get good numbers.
4. More games to come out for niche audiences (because hey, games like EVE seem to do pretty damn well!)
5. Ending market segmentation (screw this EU and US as two continents that obviously are unable to play games together stuff.)

Manic Mondays

So while I am at a loss about exactly what I need to talk about today (and will probably post a topic later on today), it’s been a roller coaster weekend for sure.  Losing my job on Wednesday due to layoffs, and then hearing my grandpa had a heart attack on Saturday night to now getting word that I a company I app’d for has interest?  Definitely a situation of down-down-up, but definitely the news about my grandpa is worse than being laid off.

Improving the Tome of Knowledge

Warhammer Online’s Tome of Knowledge is a great start for future MMOs to build upon, it really is.  However, in the development of a new MMO that would include such a feature, I would also have to take a look at what Lord of  the Rings Online did with their Trait System and also factor in WoW’s Achievement System as well.

And there is one rule in the development of such a system:  A Celebration of the Player.  That’s what any Tome should be, it should celebrate what a player has accomplished while playing your game.  It should reward the player for playing the game, and more importantly it should never feel like a grind.

One part of WARs Tome that I do not personally care for is the “Kill 100,000 of X”.  Really?  A hundred thousand?  Again… really?  I barely want to press on to kill a THOUSAND of something, much less killing a hundred thousand, or worse, a million.  Both numbers are simply astronomical in terms of what casual players want to do in your game.

So without further a-do, here are five things that I would include in a tome-system that I would develop:

1. The Tome should be Account Based – This isn’t to say all unlocks should be account-based, but the actual tome itself should be.  If you have spent 2 years on different characters playing the game, why isn’t everything you’ve done counted as an achievement by the player?  The player has done these things.  THE PLAYER.  The Player wants to feel like they have accomplished a lot in your game.  If the player is someone who is constantly hopping between 4 or 5 alternate characters, than they may feel like they aren’t truly accomplishing much.
2. Progress Bars are a Requirement – Lord of the Rings Online gets this right.  Warhammer Online does not.  If you are working towards and achievement to say, “Dance Naked on a Mailbox 500 times” (Night Elf being the prerequisite of course), there should be a bar that ticks upwards each time you do this.  Guess-work isn’t fun.  No one wants to do things and not see that they worked TOWARDS a goal.  We all like to see that we have done something with our playtime.
3. Rewards should be worthwhile!  While titles and accessory items are cool and most times worthwhile, it should not be all that a player can achieve in the tome.  One aspect I truly enjoyed in LOTRO is the system where when you use an ability a certain number of times you get a trait you can slot to add other effects to the ability.  Why isn’t this done more often?  It makes SO MUCH SENSE.  If a wizard casts Fireball 500 times, don’t you think they will have uncovered some secrets behind casting the spell to make their fireball a bit better than a Wizard who has only casted 120 Fireballs?  Or are we going to flat out say that a Fireball is a Fireball is a Fireball? 
4. The Tome needs to celebrate player achievements more – It should be something that truly tells the story of what you have accomplished in game.  Did you level up on 4-10-2011?  There should be a notation of where you were when you leveled and what you killed (or what quest you completed) to level up.  Does this turn it into a scrapbook?  Sure, I guess one can say that, but again it’s about THE PLAYER.
5. Player’s Accomplishments need to be accessible! – The Bragging system in WAR is a great start.  This lets players see what people have done (only if they’ve set brags though!) in the Tome.  From here, what I would say something people can look into doing is adding the Tome to the Web.  Or allow players to print a snapshot of what they’ve done to post on the interwebs in some fashion.  People like showing off, it’s just the nature of the beast, so why not give them the opportunity to do so with as little effort as possible on their end?

These are five places where I would start.  And I may go into some detail later on, but I wanted to lay down what I thought would be a solid foundation for future posts.  Let me go ahead and finish this posting by saying:

Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992 ran of a slogan:  “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”  I’d like to think that from here on out the focus of game design should be:  “It’s About the Player’s Experience, Silly!”  Players WANT to enjoy an MMORPG.  They want to have fun and they want to feel like the designers had them in mind when crafting a game.  I think a journal or tome system accomplishes that very well.

The question then is- How do we celebrate the players experiences in our game in the best way possible?

WAR Patch 1.2 Preview

So Mark Jacobs posted up a preview of Patch 1.2 for Warhammer Online on the Herald (source!), here’s a breakdown of how I feel about the patch:

1) Bugs: I’m certainly not going to list 500 bugs/issues here, but the list is rather lengthy and right now bug fixes alone are coming in at about 16 pages of notes.

Good thing!  Bug fixes are always a very good thing, of course.

2) New Careers: Two new careers have been added, the Slayer and the Choppa.  For those that got a look at the Choppa during Beta, you’ll see some changes and improvements but the Slayer is all new and ready to take the field for the first time.

I know a few people personally who were holding up on playing WAR until the Choppa released, so this should bring in some more subscriptions hopefully.  The Slayer does look pretty sick.  Raging dwarf with a mohawk who wants to die gloriously?  Always awesome.

3) Combat and Careers Adjustments: Lots and lots of bug fixes, adjustments and tweaks to all careers. This Balance patch focuses on addressing a number of global issues identified by the players that have been affecting the overall feel and balance of the game. This includes items such as Resistance stacking, Disorient effects, and Damage Absorb shields. In addition to these more global changes, we continue to work on each individual career addressing many of the more significant balance concerns and bugs brought up by the community.  This includes a focus on the following careers; Witch Elf, Witch Hunter, Chosen, Knight, Black Orc, and Swordmaster.

All I am going to say here is:  Nerf Witch Elf plzkthx.  Or maybe not, career adjustments should be pretty solid hopefully.  I know I was pretty disappointed with the last career patch that totally messed up my Sorc, my 40 Sorc that I simply deleted because it was too painful to play. :/  But any nerfs to CC is good.  I hate CC.  I really hate CC.

4) Realm vs Realm: RvR is introducing several great changes including the new Open RvR Rallying Cry, Zone Domination System, and Siege Weapon Improvements and more!

WTB 3rd Realm ala DAoC?  While impossible to do, it’s still a pipe-dream.  Zone Domination System should ease up the Tier 4 campaign, but IMO the biggest change would be bringing back the missing 4 capital cities and balancing the Tier 4 campaign the way it should have been.  Taking a Fort would be simpler if the other realm is working on the fort of another pairing at the same time.  Also would make the central zones more key for the campaign rather than everyone waiting to defend the Fort Lord.

5) Items: Itemization improvements and fixes for Gunbad, Bastion Stair, Lost Vale, Fortress Raid Rewards, City Invasion Rewards, and more!

Better items are always good.  People love the purpz. 

6) Crafting System Improvements:  Overall improvements to the system with Apothecary being the focus of this patch.  New ingredients, improved interfaces and more.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.  The Crafting system overhaul should be very attractive to players who enjoy the crafting portion of online gaming.  Right now all Apothecary can really do is aid in health potion making, or some minor buff pots, and Talisman Making?  Very costly on the pocketbook (or should I say gold pouch?).

7) Public Quests: Easy PQs for Tiers two, three, and four! This completes our first pass at the Easy PQ system and we will continue to review and tweak the system as necessary. As we have already done for Tier One, we have gone through the PQs in each Tier and made sure that at least one per chapter can be completed by 1-3 people.

This is good, the easy PQ system was a good change for Tier 1.  But what would be better?  Dynamic PQs that adjust loot rates and difficulty based on the number of active participants.

8) New Live Event: The Bitter Rivals event will be launching with this version as the official kick off for the anticipated introduction of the Slayer and Choppa!

9) New Scenario: The Twisting Tower Scenario will be making a special preview appearance!

10) User Interface: Lots of UI improvements for both old and new systems! These improvements cover everything from crafting to RvR.

11) Mail: Send multiple items attached to each mail! Easily one of our most requested features by the players.

Meh at the Live Event.  Meh to new scenarios… WAR needs less scenarios (especially in Tiers 3 & 4), not more.  UI changes will probably get the modding community in a frizz again, but it’s to be expected and the Mail change should keep people from using ZMailMod which created more problems than it actually helped according to some horror stories I’ve heard.

12) Client Stability: Continued improvements to the client in the areas of stability performance and visual quality.  Improvements to an MMO’s client, just like the server, are ongoing and these will continue now and in the future to be one of our priorities.

Don’t think WoW has had too many client stability patches, but overall a better playing experience for players is always a Good Thing.

Overall I think 1.2 is looking like a solid patch.  I’m guessing 1.3 is the Tomb Kings/Darkness Falls 2 patch by the looks of things.

Changing Class

Why is it that since Final Fantasy XI came out, no other major MMO has gone the route of a job system?  Sure, FF11 is far from perfect, but letting players adjust what roles they can play all while keeping the progress made on one character is a solid design choice, I feel.  Especially if games pick up on the Tome of Knowledge/Achievement idea that Warhammer and WoW have gone down.

Why create new characters to play each class?  Why worry about guilding your alt?  Why worry about mailing your toon stuff?  Just bank things from your main class, swap jobs and go level up that career.  Sure, you have to put restrictions on WHERE people can swap jobs (you don’t want people swapping in the middle of a raid– or do you!?), but people should be able to go to a trainer and say, “Sure, I’m a Warrior right now, but I really think being a Bard is for me right now.” and change to Bard.

It’s about options people, options.

RPGers like being able to craft a character with different options.  And say I just spent 30 minutes crafting the look of my Dwarf only to decide that eh… I don’t want to be a Druid right now, let me play a Ranger.  Changing of the class just saves me from spending time at character creation screen.  I change class, pick things up, and go!

There will still be an economy as people pass gear around the AH/Vaults for people to pick up/buy when they hop to a new career to test things out.

I plan on going into class structure more in-depth later on but for now I needed to vent about that!

Madcap Introduction

So I figured I would kick this shindig off by throwing out a solid first post!

My first topic of conversation is going to be about tokens, and why they make sense in a world of end-game instances.

First, let’s use the Dark Promise chestpiece from Warhammer Online as an example.  This item drops off N’kari, the last boss of Lost Vale (WARDB Link: http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=421010#dropped-by).  This is basically the best chest piece you can get form PvE dungeon crawling until you PvE raid the King (Tchar’zanek in this case as this is from a Shadow Warrior).

Interestingly enough, the drop rate is listed as .66% but I have a feeling the raw data is flawed because it’s collecting from Order and Destruction, but players tend to take things like this as they are posted (which is one problem I have with database sites).

Lets look at the overall picture.  Basically if you are an Order player you have a 1 in 11 chance of having your class chest piece drop because N’Kari only drops one chest piece.  This is about a 9% chance for you to get your chestpiece each time you run Lost Vale.  So lets say you do 11 runs and on the 11th you get your chest piece.

Let’s say the dungeon has a 5-day reset timer.

55 days to get one piece of gear, and that’s not factoring in bad luck as the loot dropping is random.

To me, what makes infinitely more sense is to base this off tokens.  If this piece required 5 N’Kari kills, it would take the player 25 days to achieve this reward.  This is a more guaranteed way a player can work and progress towards a goal without worrying about drop rates and hoping that he is the only member of his class to show up at that dungeon. 

So far I haven’t heard too many negatives towards token systems, I personally feel the catch is to create a system that rewards the player for success in a dungeon, but doesn’t just throw loot at the player (when it comes to set pieces anyway, bosses should still drop other good items players can roll on, or use DKP on, or whatever).