Ah the question of balance. Getting good feedback here.

The team has had more than one discussion about that. We came up with 3 scenarios:

a) use beta and advertisement period to make the player-base as deep/numerous as possible. Shadowbane did have problems with the largest guilds "owning" servers...until they restarted recently and all the best guilds from various servers came to play together on the new one. Hopefully the server wipe from various stages of beta, along with the attraction of new players can serve the same purpose. Good point though. Large guilds could definitely dominate...makes ya wanna be a rebellious faction though doesnt it?

b) offer perks, weapons, etc for clan leaders who make their own independent clans

c) use our own dev team clan, with all the best weapons and equipment, along with the possible use of NPCs to attack large clans until they split apart and break off.

[edited by - Vanquish on December 1, 2003 11:20:50 AM]

quote:

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Original post by Vanquish
As for the complexity of the skills, I felt like a) this was the normal way things are done in most mmorpgs (EQ, Shadowbane) and b) thats part of what separates it from merely a FPS like Doom or HalfLife. Again, you may very well be right that the gameplay would be much better keeping the build and destroy qualities and losing the leveling xp grind. Let''s face it, no one likes that xp grind. We will definitely test it both ways.

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As intelligent as you are you must see yourself that "because others do it, I do it too" is a poor argument. Certainly for a designer who wants to be innovative.

Why do most mmorpg''s use these complex leveling systems? Because they are necesary to the game? Or because one designer took over the concept from another branche (Dungeons & Dragons peper game), it proved to be succesful and the others copied it? Will you be the one who proves that complex leveling systems are not only unnecesary but even a burden to a grand virtual world?

True, people who play mmorpg''s need a way to invest in their character and/or the world. Since the impact on the world is almost zero all the investment has to go to your character in todays mmorpgs. But then still the question remains. Do you need a complex leveling systems in order to be able to invest in your character?

Simple to understand and easy to read character investment could be for instance. You grow from eating. You start young and little and grow big from eating. You die, you lose your character you have to start from a young boy or girl again. The bigger you are, the stronger you are. No complex system here, not one visual track bar spoiling the interface but you have character investment. And everybody ingame can easily read how far you are evolved with your character.

So it''s not because todays mmorpg''s use those never ending, very demanding leveling systems that you should waste the time of your players with this too.

Tell me, why do you want these varied leveling systems in the game?

Point well taken.

I suppose my saying "others have it too" was more of a shorthand defense than a reason.


Why a leveling system:

First, I think differing levels of skill adds to the fun of the game. Having one character with a sniper skill of 25% and another character with a sniper skill of 125% makes the characters different and "real." If im going to hire one over the other to assassinate a guild leader, Im definitely going to take the guy with the 124%.

Now theres an argument on the other side of that which would go something like "but its an FPS game too. If they both have equal skills, then its the player who actually makes the difference not the gameskill restrictions." To that I would say, true - but a decision has to be made as to whether is this a twich game or a min/max game. Im trying to find a balance between the two. Perhaps it could come in the form of a highly balanced skill tree that wouldnt force players to choose certain skills at the expense of other skills so that no one player was too uber.

Second, I dont want everyone to have every skill right from the start. I personally feel that it feels like more of an achievement to spend time to get skills through playing, than to simply have the skills right off the bat. Hey, I totally understand that leveling can suck, and that perhaps there should be another way. I will do some soul searching..as well as pose the question to the team in our internal forum boards.

Perhaps there is a finite number of skill points that players could get all at the beginning say 1500, and they could configure them all at the start of play. This would make the game a lot more PvP oriented, but it would reduce the need for RPG/NPC combat. I mean who would play vs the NPCs when you have real people with more realistic reactions and methods?

I suppose there would still be weapon drops and item quests, as well as something to do when you arent PvPing.

Great discussion...We definitely DO want to be that group of which you speak...the ones on the bleeding edge, breaking out of the pre-existing molds...and proving what should be done to progress the genre.

I love being challenged! Keep this up.



[edited by - Vanquish on December 1, 2003 12:08:26 PM]

[edited by - Vanquish on December 1, 2003 12:10:45 PM]

I like the document in general.

Communication hacking is an awesome idea! Most excellent...

One thought: does the build/repair skill extend to combat at all? I would think that knowledge of armour and computers might aid one when attacking cyborgs, just as knowledge of medicine might help when attacking humans. Just a thought...

Okay I''ll leave the level issue aside for now and throw in some other things that botter me at this design. Take note that I might sound rude but do not take it personal. I attack ideas not people.

- Storyline. Just like a good fps doesn''t need a storyline at all, a good virtual world shouldn''t eather. Certainly not a static storyline. When you enter the world, depending on your situation, the situation of the world (which changes over time), the situation of your clan, the welcome story should be different. I would as gamedesigner not tell the story to the players but would make the world as interesting and challenging as possible so that the players tell the interesting stories to one another!! Fuck static storylines, they do not fit online worlds! The players should have the future of the world in their hand, not the storyline.

- Storyline, compared to other games with storylines, is not original. We''ve heard plenty of stories about the earth being collapsed and you are the survivor.

- Setting not original. Next to the tolkien fantasy, the future is the most used setting. The moment you enter the market you will have difficulty being noticed.

- Quest, Why quest in a multiplayer world? You have to put focus on pvp, meaning, the environment is not the goal but a means to an end. And the end are the other players.

Quests are a stupid way to try to incorporate adventure in a multiplayer world. Because quests are static. Once done it''s consumed. Since the players think they will get adventure from it and since they need it to level up they will all do it meaning you have to create LOTS of quests. Besides Quests are mostly dumb, actions clearly triggered by things you do, like crossing a line, and therefore break the suspention of disbelieve.

the same counts for:
-npc''s. Why would you want these? They are even more stupid then your dog or cat. They look human but aren''t human at all but robotic with whom you even can''t conversate. They are also very predictable in their behaviour. + they consume time to develop.


I think you should create your world as such that players can have a big impact on the world and the other players. Like building stuff but also being able to destroy stuff from others. Automaticaly you will get players who group together to help protect eachother. Give them the option to copulate for instance and have children who are new players. Give them the need to eat food otherwise they starve or child doens''t grow very well. etc etc.

As a gamedesigner of virtual worlds you should not lose your time and spoil your design with the creation of missions, quests or npc''s but with making sure that the players can make something of that world. That players and maybe the environment are a real challenge. The game has to be believable, challenging and social!

If you can sell it to a non-video gamer like your mom, you did a good job. What can your mom do in this game? Will she like it?

If you want to be able to discern a players skills, you could use badges, or medals or whatever. Instead of an experience grind killing rats in grannys celler, you would have to go about gaining the prerequisites for each badge.

For instance, accompany an experienced data hacker on a successful mission to get your hacker apprentice badge, that badge unlocks some meager skills that allow you to progress further into that field. Fumble your way through a fiew secured bulkheads using your newb hacker skills to finally get your security hacker badge.

This way "experience" is closely coupled with your activities, and badge pursuit makes for compelling side quests.

It is much easier to see the comparative skills between players by looking through their badges, than some stats, if they are good at something, they will have the badge.

[edited by - Gleno on December 2, 2003 1:38:00 AM]

Not unless you want everyone to laugh at you. There''s never been a good game made that didn''t sound silly on paper.

quote:

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Original post by MarcDM
- Storyline, compared to other games with storylines, is not original. We''ve heard plenty of stories about the earth being collapsed and you are the survivor.

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I''ve heard a lot of songs that only use the chords E, A, and B in them and yet they are original. Originality can exist with familiar ingrediants.

quote:

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Also by MarcDM
- Setting not original. Next to the tolkien fantasy, the future is the most used setting. The moment you enter the market you will have difficulty being noticed.

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Or look at it another way. The future is used often because there is a lot of interest in it.

quote:

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Also by MarcDM
- Quest, Why quest in a multiplayer world? You have to put focus on pvp, meaning, the environment is not the goal but a means to an end. And the end are the other players.

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I agree that the terms "guild" and "quest" don''t really fit (they come from fantasy genre). I would suggest using terms like "militia" and "mission". But words aside, it would be cool for commanders in the HQ''s RTS view to be able to issue missions to players (grouped into platoons or squads perhaps).

With such a system, the designer still must create missions but only as a means of testing the mission system that the players would use.

quote:

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Also by MarcDM
-npc''s. Why would you want these? They are even more stupid then your dog or cat. They look human but aren''t human at all but robotic with whom you even can''t conversate. They are also very predictable in their behaviour. + they consume time to develop.

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A lot of players like having "pets" as they are called in muds. Whether or not they are intelligent, they can be fun.

Dont worry, MarcDM I dont find you rude. Its good to hear ideas.

As far as the storyline and the setting, as one of the previous posters said - its not new, but it is well-loved. Im not changing either one. Such a backdrop can be very uniquely written for and crafted around. Let''s face it, imagination is great, but there are very few new worlds left to be created. They all come from a pre-established worldview: pre-historic, ancient, darkages, colonial, 1800s, a host of modern eras - 30s/40s/50s "mod"/ 60s/70s/80s/ modern/ near sci-fi/ farout scifi/ underwater....while the list is getting long, there is only a finite source of material i.e. human experience to draw from.

Post-apocalyptic is what we enjoy so thats what we are going with.


I use the terms guild and quest interchangably with clan and mission, although I revert to the former set so people more easily understand what I mean. I may decide that the readers are more intelligent than I am giving them credit for and change them all to the latter set.

Obviously NPCs ARE fun or people wouldnt play non-networked games. True, their intelligence needs a boost in the right direction, but we will definitely work on that.

I disagree that quests are not essential. The problem is with the current method of implementing quests. Our team will focus on making the PvP part first and if we are able to come up with new methods of questing with intriguing storylines that are crucial to making the game exciting...we will have them. It will probably have something to do with new types of interaction from PC mystery games or other games...to get beyond the kill, escort, collect & combine items, trade items method of questing that exists now.

As far as copulating players to create new players...this would be more trouble than its worth. I dont want to force players to game with people they dont like or that may quit the game. And forcing them to copulate to create new players on their own account seems...errr...strange to say the very least. And Im sure they would find a way around it anyway.

Concerning the "badges" idea. Its definitely something to think about. Its realistic in that you are learning a skill while it is being used by someone that has it mastered. It also adds to the communal nature of the game. You would need a method of starting a few people off with the skill then stopping others from getting it the same way - why else learn from a friend rather than do the quest. Anyway...something to think about.

Oh well...keep the thoughts coming. Not that I will necessarily stop everything the team is doing to change the whole game...but I am listening

I enjoyed the your design doc, but I''m confused on a few things. The main one is you will have combat affecting stats while controlling it in a FPS style. Will you be having the combat more RPG oriented, where you select your target and let the PC shoot, or will the skills augment your abilities, similar to UT 2003''s adrenaline system?

Also, I think having missions are a great idea. It sounds like you''re mixing a lot of elements of Planetside into your design. Planetside isn''t very fun when you can''t play without finding 20 other people to join up with you.

Since you are planning on PvP, perhaps you could have assasination missions, where your character must kill a character at the same level in another guild. They''re missions given by the PC, but purely between players.

Of course, if you''ve got 20+ people on your dev team, I''m sure you''ve got plenty of suggestions to work with. I have to say that your dev doc is well done, though, and I wish you luck on finishing it. I met the makers of www.atitd.com , two guys and an artist, so I don''t think that it is too ambitious, so long as you work hard at balancing the game.