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A little research regarding the reasons that people play MUDs and Online games in particular could be beneficial to your game design.

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Agreed, but it could also be harmful as it can only deal with the reasons why people play CURRENT MUDs and Online games. I know that may sound a little arrogant (as in ''I don''t want to listen to what others have to say, because I know best'') but I am fairly familiar with those ''reasons'' having played online games for a few years now. I think I''ve learned more from the reasons why I''m NOT playing online games anymore than I''ve learned from the reasons why I did play.

The ''wolf'' concept breaks just about every established rule out there. No items, no levels, no experience, no skills, limited chat, no stats, no races, no classes, no ownership, no NPCs, no quests, etc. I can see you scratching your head, thinking "But... that means there''s nothing left!". I''m hoping to prove that a game doesn''t need all that in order to be fun. I let the design drive the design. Anything that''s not absolutely necessary and that doesn''t fit perfectly into the design will be excluded. (Of course, this means that if it turns out that some form of items, levels, classes, etc are needed, they''ll have to be included)

I''ll check out Raph''s site though (and have done so in the past).

You''re not talking about a game now, you''re talking about role-playing an animal.

Sorry, but while it may be an intriuing idea, it''s not realistic. Just as anti-matter bombs would be a great concept for raw destructive power, the fact that you would need rediculous amounts of power to keep the magnetic bottles intact and in a vacuum environment to avoid any matter infiltration means that they are impractical.

In other words: Neat idea, horrible (and I mean HORRIBLE) game.

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you''re talking about role-playing an animal.

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Well, I happen to believe that humans are just smart animals, so it''s no different to me than roleplaying humans, elves and dwarves.

The wolves will be semi-intelligent, so you''re talking about role-playing beings that are somewhere in between humans and wolves (the ones we know on Earth).

But yes, in short, it''s a life simulation of animalistic beings.

Don''t get me wrong... I’m not trying to dissuade you from designing this game – I’m merely trying to point out some simple facts.

First of all, the subject for the topic pretty much says it all. Communication is the key to a successful online game. If you remove or limit the ability of players to communicate with each other then you have basically impeded the growth of the games community. If you have limited communication why would the game need to be an online game in the first place? Wouldn’t this work as a single player game with some nice AI controlling the other wolves?

At last years GDC I sat in on a conference with Rich Vogel, Raph Koster and Gordon Walton. I believe it was Rich that provided the best analogy for online games. This is close to what he said – but not verbatim. First he asked the question, “How many of you know you next door neighbor?” Next he asked, “Ok, how about the neighbor across the street or behind you?” With the normal looking around the room to see how many hands were held up he followed with something along these lines; Don’t you remember when you were kids and you would get up in the summer and run across the street to play with your friends… what happen to those days? Unfortunately when you get older you no longer want to know the next door neighbor for fear of lack of privacy – yet we all want to be social. So, online games fill the void that the child in us has by letting us get to know people in our online games – socialization.

It’s late and I’m incoherent – one too many Killian’s (actually I only had one) but I think you get the ideal – removing the ability to communicate takes the player and the game further away from the socialization side of the triangle (you know about the triangle, right?). Thus, prohibiting players from forming groups and in the end limiting the length at which you will retain players.

Now, here’s the question – would you hurt the game by providing the game mechanics to allow people to communicate and form groups? How much is your game dependent on limited communication? And what about IRC, AIM, ICQ and all the other instant messengers that are available – wouldn’t you players resort to using these tools to communicate? Would the use of these tools destroy the game?

In our game we have concluded that we need to provide as many different methods of communication as we can – as we are going to have numerous levels of socialization ranging from groups to guilds to cities. The types range from mail messages to group chat and even in-game online message boards.

Anyway, keep designing and think about what impact limited communication will have on the game.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

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would you hurt the game by providing the game mechanics to allow people to communicate?

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I think it would, in that meetings between players will end up being just like meetings in any other MMO(RPG) game. Dewdspeak will kill any kind of atmosphere the game has tried to create for the community. Now, this doesn''t mean that players shouldn''t be able to talk dewdspeak with their friends in-game. That''s why the limited communication system disappears to make room for a full chat system (which will only be limited by hearing distance) over time.

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and form groups?

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I don''t really think that limited communication will have a real effect on the early formation of groups. In EQ, when I formed on-the-fly groups with strangers, it was just a matter of ''can I join you'' and then we''d collectively start bashing monsters for ep and loot. Grouping in my game will be for far different reasons, primarily for the ''safety in numbers'' rule of nature (which goes hand in hand with ''survival of the fittest''). Groups will be much more like the clans of FPS games, than like the guilds of MMORPG games. You''ll be able to play solo, but it''ll be tough to survive. There will be nobody to protect your young while you''re away hunting for food. Being part of a wolf pack comes with great benefits, but also with responsibilities. A benefit is that while you''re hunting, those of the pack that remain behind will protect your young. The responsibility that''s tied to that is that in turn when you stay behind, you are bound to protect the young of those that hunt.

As the groups will have a much deeper meaning, on-the-fly grouping will be much less common. People who join the game with friends will form a group with those friends. People who join the game without any friends will join a wolf pack, which will welcome them with open arms (safety in numbers).

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How much is your game dependent on limited communication?

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It''s dependent on it, in that it maintains the realism that the world tries to create. This realism needs to apply mainly to strangers, not to close friends. Without limited communication, it''d be hard to maintain realism, as even one encounter with a dewdspeaking wolf could destroy another player''s immersion.

Of course, one could provide players with the option to simply not show text chat from strangers (ignore all text chat). That way, those that want to use text chat can do so without spoiling it for the rest. But that will mean that the sounds of wolves communicating might disappear, as the motivation to use sounds is taken away. This might prove to be a good middle-ground solution though.

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And what about IRC, AIM, ICQ and all the other instant messengers that are available – wouldn’t you players resort to using these tools to communicate? Would the use of these tools destroy the game?

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This would create an effect similar to the option of letting players ignore text chat from strangers: it might lead to the disappearance of the wolf sounds. As there''s little that can be done against these extra-game communication methods though, it''s something to be considered.

The main goal of the limited communication is to ensure that those that want to immerse themselves in the world of the wolf can not have their immersion taken away in one encounter with a non-immersed player. There''s nothing wrong with free communication between friends.

Perhaps limited communication should just be an OPTION that players could choose, creating a more hardcore mode for them. It might give them some small reward (for example, their wolf might have a louder howl).

In order to maintain the amount of sound that is desired, text chat from wolves that did not choose limited communication could be converted to generel sounds. These sounds wouldn''t have the variety that the sounds of wolves that use limited communication would have. The varied sounds that can be used in the limited communication mode might actually be enough of a motivation for some players to use it.

There was an article in the most recent Game Developer magazine that I read that summed up rules for making games best. I'm pulling this from memory, since I don't have that article easily accessable right now.

A) Make games that are fun to play for the player.

B) Don't make a game with yourself as the target audience, or that will be your audience.

C) Don't make the game fun for the computer.

D) Don't make a game to be fun to program.

You've got probably well over a dozen MMOGs in development or already out right now. What you're talking about isn't a game, it's a boring graphical chat room with little actual chat. Your only skillup will be "You've gotten better at chat! (45)". That's not a game. That's a chore of learning a new language every day. All you will end up with is some (very) small groups of people who decide that they like this chat room style and fiddle around in it, but in reality they can do what you're offering much better in mIRC.

Here are my rules for game design:

1) Don't overestimate gamers. Make the game too hard to play and they'll find something easier to play and leave you high and dry.

2) Make lots of things to do. If they can't find something to do quickly and easily, they will go find something ELSE to do that is quick and easy.

3) Varying levels of difficulty. The quick and easy things are to get people hooked on the game. After a month or so they will want something more involved, make sure it's there or you'll just have a bunch of people who play for 1-3 months and quit.

4) If it's online, try to get rid of as many barriers to chat as possible while maintaining the integrity of the game. DAOC allowed one to have too little downtime and for me I never ended up chatting with other players much because I was too busy playing. It wasn't really an MMOG, it was a first person RPG with a lot of other real people in it, but they were largely irrelevant. Chat was too clumsy for the 2 months that I played it and I got tired and quit playing it. UO was too 'localized' and commonly I would have to set up locations and times to meet people if I wanted to play more with them. EQ I just add the person to my friends list and sent them a tell when we were online at the same time.


What you're talking about really is further from being a game than the Sims Online. At least there is stuff for you to do in that game. You get a job, open a business, get an apartment, have roommates, go out and flirt at a bar, etc... lots of stuff to do and it has varying levels of fun and difficulty. I haven't tried it, just to be honest, but I think that it looks like it wouldn't be a half bad game, if I had any time to actually play games anymore. Too busy spending time working on them

You have to make sure that there is some 'game' to your game and you have to eliminate barriers to communication. Sure, you want to put communications barriers in the game, cool. Don't make the game BE the communications barriers. I like the idea of having a 'common' language be difficult to understand between races (like a drunk player in Everquest). I like the idea of having NPCs take a bad attitude to you if you don't talk to them in their native language. Don't make the play aspect of the game be trying to figure out what they hell that other 'wolf-guy' is saying, particularly if it's "Hey, you from the midwest?" or something equally mundane and completely unrelated to the game. Give the players something to talk about other than "What the hell are you saying?".

I don't necessarily mind having a game with wolf-people, but put some game into it. Wolves are hunters, unless you're a fanatic vegan and want to prove that canines can live on vegetables (they can, many vets recommend giving your dog only 12-16 ounces of meat per week and the rest vegetables). I'm sorry but it's not a game if all the people in your world do is run around trying to figure out what each-other are saying. That's a chat room, a challenging one at that, but it's still just a chat room.

I don't want to be a jerk, but if you just want to make a graphical chat room where people can't chat until they've went through all the necessary butt sniffing and hackle raising, go find a forum that talks about graphical chat environments. Games are meant to be played and what you're suggesting is about as playable as making tacos is playable.

OK, just read your last post... so you want to make a PVP chat room... it just gets better. You want people to bust their butts trying to learn to communicate, but if they get frustrated, they just attack. You just targeted exclusive groups. Chatters and PKs. Great, you'll have only the most social and the most anti-social in your game. Tell you what, go get some lemon juice and baking soda, toss it all in your mouth and tape it shut real quick. That's just about as good an idea as trying to toss the highly social and the highly anti-social people together and forcing them to run around together. Yuck.

[edited by - solinear on February 12, 2003 12:03:04 AM]

SOLINEAR wrote:

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Don''t make the game BE the communications barriers.

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and

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I don''t necessarily mind having a game with wolf-people, but put some game into it. Wolves are hunters, unless you''re a fanatic vegan and want to prove that canines can live on vegetables

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Just to clarify...
Communication is only an aspect of the game, not THE game. The reason why I''ve deviced communication as described above is that it fits in perfectly with the realistic element of all other aspects of the game. Hunting, mating, sleeping, etc.

The design attempts to mimic ALL wolf activities, but adds in the element of (semi) intelligence, greatly expanding the realm of the wolf.

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DAOC allowed one to have too little downtime and for me I never ended up chatting with other players much because I was too busy playing.

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Wolf sound/body language communication is designed to function even while a player is busy playing. As you don''t have to type, but only have to press a button that is linked to a certain sound, it''ll be much easier to communicate while busy doing other things.

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particularly if it''s "Hey, you from the midwest?" or something equally mundane and completely unrelated to the game.

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The ''completely unrelated to the game'' is exactly why I want the limited communication: immersion. (note: making limited communication an option would give those players that want it true immersion, and would enable those that don''t care about it to have regular chat)

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You want people to bust their butts trying to learn to communicate, but if they get frustrated, they just attack.

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If they feel like it, yes. But they risk losing their character (permanent death). Note that ''busting their butts'' only applies to encounters with perfect strangers. The longer you hang out with another character, the easier communication becomes. Automatically. How long do you have to be around another wolf before communication becomes easier? Not sure yet.