The roles we play, part 2

One other thing:

"Once per hour, players and NPCs might band together to fight off the invaders. You could man the cannons and aim them manually or co-ordinate rows of artillery archers. You could place magic mines and then detonate them as enemies run over them or run around the battlefield healing fallen NPC comrades. Maybe you just fight wave after wave of the invaders as they land and then kill their captains."

What do you do for the rest of the hour?

What do you do if all the cannons are manned?

If someone else is controlling all of the archers?

What if you fail to detonate the mines / heal enough NPCs? Do you lose something important like a quest hub? If so, how do you know how many NPCs to spawn such that there are enough when there are 150+ players in the zone and not an overwhelming number when, nine months later, there are 4 players in the zone?

What about the players who just got a new ability this level and want to learn how to use it by, say, killing a bunch of enemies?

If you've answered all of those questions with an elegant system, the next question comes up: Is this something that you can do in a reasonable timeframe in every single zone? Can you make enough changes to it that it doesn't feel like the same rehashed mechanic over and over again yet is stable enough to support millions of players trying to break it every single day?

Great article!

For me, the breakdown of RP in MMO's comes from 2 sources.

The first is mechanics always takes precadence over RP. The storytellers come up with a generic story, with no hooks into any specific personality, race, or trait. They hand it to devs who implement it into the game mechanics, again sterile of any specificity. The end state is a story mission that can be done by anyone, it doesn't matter who you are or why you're there. There are no hooks, no personal motivations for any player to do a thing. In Wow, I got the achievement for having all quests done. To do this, I did all of the low-lvl racial quests, and each one addressed me as if I was a member of that race. So here I am, an Elf, doing Draenai quests as if I were a Draenai, and the game doesn't care. There's no attachement, no reason to do them at all other that the mechanics of advancement. Missions = exp = advancement.

The second is the complete lack of change in the world by the players. Your character may "grow", but the world does not. In the example above, regarding the invasion, what if you don't do it at all? What happens? Does the invasion actually occur? So if I log in or not, do the quest or not, succeed or fail, in an hour it will be there for me to do again. Beowulf slew the dragon. He did this once. He did not do it every hour on the hour, or every 7 days with his 39 friends. The game doesn't need you there, you are no zero value to the game. Anything you do now will be done again in an hour by you or someone else.

Not everyone enjoys RP'ing, but many who don't RP don't because there's no drive to do so, no reason, no point, no encouragement.

Honestly, the biggest obstacle to RP is RPr's themselves. I was on duty as a guide in old EQ when I encountered this dark elf who proclaimed she was the high priest of Lloth (the D&D dark elven goddess). I explained that, as a tier'dal, not a Drow, Innoruuk was more than likely her diety. She got all uppity about how she RP'd how she wanted to and don't be an RP nazi, so I left her alone.

I've seen that same story told so many times it's not funny. I play a barbarian, who is savage and rude, but the second I'm rude to a human player, they /report me and a GM scolds me for RP'ing. I'm an Alliance, you're a Horde, we're hated enemies, I kill you and then teabag you. You /report me and a GM scolds me.

I'd love to see more RP, but it's such a vague concept that even the devs blow off trying to support it.

This is an awesome piece, very well written! I would love to read more articles like this daily.

Althought the notion of "fun" seem to be a noble concept, I suspect that it can't serve as a purpose for gamedesign unless you perhaps keep things (all too) simple.

If you have a lot of ideas, then I think one can design around that for this or that to be fun, but to set out "funness" as a goal seem too easy to me.

A big problem is likely the differing notions of the fun factor of players. And I suspect it is a bad idea to mix "incompatible" features. Like people will never experience certain options because, some players can't stand walking along a road for more than just a little while.

tamrielo you seem to have a lot of nerd rage there 0_o

I think this is a good article, we should be more involved in our roles. It would add to the fun, the very reason you keep citing.

Sure, i could get a kill list and run around pressing buttons to make spread sheets fight but im certain i and the vast majority of people would be happier if that simple mission was delivered to me in a more compelling way. If your not of the same mind then thats fine, everyone has their own tastes, maybe i'll step into your world and try the adventures of Mr Bland on kill list island.

Misson Giver: "Kill 10 nondescript and motivationless thing, they have XP you need"
Mr Bland: "Ok, i will do this"

I wonder if perhaps my above comment about "ideology" get misunderstood. I should have written about using ideology as in how it it thought to work, rather than it being this or that, as if it was something concrete and specific. I was thinking that this way, there could be game features keeping players happy with their blissful ignorance.

I must confess I have been reading about Zizek, who, when talking about how ideology works, like to point out someone apparantly said one time "They do not know it, but they are doing it".

It might be about something simple like naming your avatar in a certain way.

lolinternet

I just have to say before I leave work soon that I've had a fantastic time debating with you guys, especially Brendan and tamrielo. Massively has become my favorite website because of these articles and the contributions and comments of the readers. Please PLEASE keep posting articles like these! It's great to speak with like-minded individuals on game design and how to improve the genre overall!

@Descender

Whoops, this became a long text.

I agree that it would be nice to get to immerse oneself, and not feel things is lacklustre, however I really don't think that roles will offer the suitable player options, unless the game itself is limited to those options dictated by this or that role. And then I would probably find it too simplistic, and lack interesting pacing.

I refuse to believe that a player's sense of immersion, totally reside in an ideal, as if that ideal was unique and something to be called a "role", and something to be relevant at all times.

If you spent your life doing racedriving, and was said to work in the entertainment industry this way, and felt you had a role in life doing this, what would be odd is to claim to still get to be a racedriver and speeddriving when traveling around down-town. I can see a "role" being a part of it all, but to perchance insist on it being a single feature to be played out anytime, anywhere, seem restrictive to game design.

If one were an archer in a game, one might take pride in doing something special, but to insist that one were to necessarity excell by virtue of specialization, would imo seem silly, as if in melee one should still benefit by specialization, yet perhaps not die easily because one had this "need" to play out the specialization. One can then imagine a "need" for "balancing" where each type of specialization sort of. But sort of, then you get (explained very simplisticly) an archer doing 100 damage, and a knight doing 100 damage, and a mage doing 100 damage. "Value" to the gameplay would (perhaps) not add much to the game other than the specialization (roles) features, which seem boring.

In eve, where hitpoints for the various faction battleships sort of are the same, different looks but there is this notion of "balance" that is abit cheap imo. There used to be a difference with this one stealthbomber, having only two launchers, but then it was "brought inline" with other stealth bombers with three launchers. The four damage types are sort of fluff with no unique difference.

People (some players) also like to point out that there should (always) be a counter to stuff, which might sound fair, but it also sounds abit cheap imo. So far there is no real counter to the cloaking device which may or may not be ok, depending on the circumstantial game mechanics. Simply adding a "role" to counter a cloaking device, would imo seem cheap, and probably do nothing for a compelling experience of game mechanics, if it was simply to be about fitting a pure anti-cloak module.

By doing something, I also think that any notion of "role" is not a part of that "doing". I am not saying that one can't perceive oneself to have/play a certain role, but to design a game around a set of perceived roles seem limiting, and prone to "balancing" issues that probably exclude other factors that would pace the game by adding other "non-role" factors with player options.

I recall writing on the AoC forums a year before release, pointing out how "meh" it would be if combat with magic were to be as common as melee attacks. They ended up with both mixing a bunch of magic casting with "magical" feats for melee class'es (which I think is void of chamr and is boring). I suggested that magic could be limited but perhaps more powerful, mabye due to timing, initiative, guild composition or other factors like environment modifiers.

I suppose you insist that players should be told what to do, as if that is done by telling them that they have a specific "role" to play, and also, that the game mechanics should be tailored around something something that can be said to be specifically suited for one role or another.

I just think the concept of "roles" is flawed, as it sort of seem limiting to me. People would ask for balancing, but perhaps scream at any notion of changing the core workings of the game.

I can't argue against the concept that a "role" can/should mean something in particular, but I sort of see limitations and problems with this, and think that it makes for a simplistic gameplay, where game mechanics in general can't be that complex or perhaps can't evolve, because there is this demand that things is kept static or just to be "balanced" around somewhat fake concepts that are not that compelling (or at least compelling to certain players).

Hehe, I think alot can be done by designing a game that does NOT cater to the desires of all gamers.

Having said this, I do not think that say creating a medieval simulator would be a success by virtue of being realistic, still there would probably be features that would be interesting, features that did not rely on the instant action of combat.

Sry, if I missed my point here. I can't be bothered to do a whole rewrite.

But the problem is, how do you balance story with the fact that there are hordes of people playing with just "a few friends" in a game that's supposed to be massively multilayer. The story in MMO's has to, has to be inexorably linked to player interactions.

The reason MMO's fall short in this area is because there are hordes of people, who disagree with each other. How are designers supposed to create a coherent storyline when half the population doesn't want to play along? In a single player RPG it's easy to direct a player's actions so that they 'have' to play along, even if the don't care. In an MMO there's too much freedom - freedom by design - but freedom that people are using the disconnect from the world, and the story.

People have to agree to participate in the storyline in an MMO. The closer you get to controlling the game so that the player 'has' to participate, the closer you're getting to a single player game you're calling an MMO.

And as I just said..."playing with a few friends" can be part of the problem. You're playing with the rest of the world. A few friends play on multipayer games, not massively multiplayer. This idea that people have of disconnecting from the community as a whole, and ignoring other players, is a huge part of the problem. MMO's aren't about you and your friends. That's cliquish and self-centered, IMO. You can't just deny the community outside of your friends, and expect to be able to immerse yourself in the storyline. Sure, designers have failed to implement good story features on occasion, but that's BECAUSE people just want to mess around. 'fun first, decent story/game second' is the trend.

The only thing I've heard of a MMORPG (rather than a MSORPG) trying, maybe poorly, to fix this is STO. When you enter an episode, or an instanced area, you're automatically grouped. That way you work together, like star fleet officers would really do. However, you can turn it off, and I'm sure plenty of people will do that, since really, they'd rather be alone in their mmo, or play with a few friends in their mmo.

The problem, it seems to me, is the mentality that everyone should be able to do everything a game offers. Taking the running example of the invasion, what would happen if the invaders did wipe out the quest hub in the area, never to return as it is? I'd be willing to be that the forums would light up with how the game was "blocking" players from content. This has happened with WoW - raids are now more casual (I personally think this was a good move, but that topic has to do with a design failure that I see in WoW other then "dumbing down the game".)

Personally, I think there is an answer out there. Although some people don't consider Guild Wars to be an MMO, one of it's features is something that could help hugely in this case - districts. Basically, they work at it's most basic point like a free server transfer, accepting that every server is setup exaclty the same. The solution I'd propose is simple - why do they have to be?

Say for example, in on the European server, players overcome the invaders and save cliffside town. The server has an altered hub of quests which focus on the repair of the town. On the American server however, the invasion goes through, and players end up getting another set to repel the invaders from the town. The quests will probably still be basic - gather or kill quests, but players then have an actual impact on the world. PLayers don't like the quests? allow players to hop across to the other server. Yes, players will have different playing times due to lag, but they still can experiance both outcomes withoutmuch hassal. Of course, the achilles' heel in this all is that it requires a more complicated server structure, with transfers being easy.

Who knows, Arenanet might be doing something like this for GW2. It's not a completely optimal solution, but it's the best my amature designer brain can come up with :P

Thanks for reading,

PassingS

well, technically they are different to phases..but not by much. a district was used in towns, basically to divide players between a number of physical servers in the same realm - so for example, there may be 10 american districts of 100 people each, to keep the lag down, the WoW phase is an instruction to not show certain characters/NPC's/objects when an area is called by the client.

I'm tempted to start writing out responces to some of these articles as blogs. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with as a whole system Descender :)

Thanks for writing this article Brendan. I find myself fleshing out the character of my World of Warcraft Warlock despite the limitations and banalities of its presentation and story. I don't role play in any sort of cliched, pejorative sense but I try to inhabit both a narrative and class based role.

However, I did find the following to be a rather strong conclusion:

"I can't speak for everyone but I know I don't play MMOs to perform mundane tasks or solely to play with interesting game mechanics. I play them to get away from reality and take part in fantastic events and stories alongside a few friends. I don't play because I like to kill orcs, I play because the orcs are advancing and we absolutely have to stop them."

I approach World of Warcraft in what I take to be a schizophrenic manner. I play the game at times as a sport, raiding at a high level and concentrating on nothing but helping the "team" succeed. At other times I collect pets, mounts, and other novelties simply to satisfy an itch for uncommon achievements. While I do question on occasion, it is only mostly then that I ever couch my activity as taking part in a narrative in the sense you suggest above. My sense is that a lot of casual players do this as well. Sometimes they're questing, other times they're grinding, and still other times they might be running dungeons with friends. Each of these activities is somewhat separate, connected only by their inclusion within the same game, but not necessarily narrative, world.