Slashdot Mirror
Ask City of Heroes Lead Designer Jack Emmert
Massively Multiplayer games have grown increasingly popular in the last few
years, and one of the hottest products out there today is NCSoft and Cryptic
Studios' City of Heroes. City of
Heroes is currently hovering around the 180,000 player population mark,
with a European launch for the game coming up fast. The lead designer of the
online super hero game is Jack Emmert, veteran of the video game and
roleplaying game industries. He has written gaming supplements for Deadlands and All Flesh Must Be Eaten, reads
several dozen comics a month, and saves the world on a regular basis. Jack has
kindly agreed to answer questions from Slashdot readers about game design,
massive games, and what it's like to be a superhero, so go
ahead and let em' fly. One question per post, please, but as many questions as
you'd like. We'll forward the best on to Jack to answer and post his responses
when we've got them.
I'd like to know how they designed the game without ever thinking about end game content. I played this game for all of a month before I realized that once I made it to 50, there was going to be nothing for me to do. After reading the game boards, I found I was not alone and that lots of other people had reached the level cap only to find they'd wasted their time.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
(This comes from someone who has never played an MMPORG, as I've got enough subscription-based services to take care of, like electricity, food, web access, and smokes.)
Duping seems to be the bane of many online role playing games. (Credit duping, item duping, etc.) What steps have you taken in CoH to avoid this problem?
I recall reading a couple of years ago that you didn't want CoH to use a class system. But with "archetypes" that define the powersets available to a character, that's essentially what happened. What made you feel this system was necessary, rather than a more freeform system where players could simply choose their powersets from all those available in the game?
I bet the reason is the same as it is with just about every other game. The cost of a Macintosh port and support would be more then the money made from the Macintosh market.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
That said, it's still a somewhat valid question if you tweak it a little: Since CoH has a few features built in to level playingfields and generally feels a little more slanted towards the casual player than other MMORPGs, why didn't it include a system like the one in WoW where it encourages players to go out and get some air/sleep/food?
I'm an active COH player and an ex-everquest player. I must first give you kudos for making a really polished, fun game. It's really a great take on the MMORPG.
The game has a bus-load of fun ideas. The badge system is great. The costume system and character creation are amazing. Technically, the game is top notch- great mapmaking, great animation, etc...
One of the best ideas is simplicity. Starting players don't have to worry about complicated inventory systems. They just go out there and start kicking butt. Kicking butt is not to difficult, because the player is quite a bit stronger versus the environment compared to previous MMORPGs.
But that simplicity becomes a drag in the later game. I've got 3 characters approaching the high end (mid 30s) and I'm starting to dislike the slow experience grind, with nothing to look forward to but a new ability every 3 levels.
Missions are fun, but they get a bit formulaic. With one huge exception, they offer uninteresting rewards and have cookie cutter goals. (The exception being the wonderful respec mission)
I'm sure it was a conscious design decision to have no inventory system, no armor, no weapons. And I think that's a great idea, at first. But by the time you're level 30 and you've played the game for a couple of months, you really start to want MORE. The enhancement system doesn't cut it. That's just a trip to the store every 5 levels. I'd like to get a cool piece of (origin specific) armor when I complete a task force.
Even baby steps in this direction would great. A way to distinguish myself (other than aesthetically) from other players would be nice. This could also give origins a chance to actually matter.
So the question in all of this is- why the aversion to traditional RPG elements, even at high levels? Is this going to change?
In the case of griefers, the reason there aren't police in CoH, is that they have a GOOD DESIGN.
Griefing in MMOs occurs because players exploit design flaws. If your design says that mean monsters will get mad at a player, then follow him across the level when he flees (despite an inability to catch up or hurt that player), and finally decide to attack people standing near the "zone entrance" when the person they were mad at before goes through it, you'll have a problem. (A worse problem if the monsters just attack whoever is closest, and can be simply led to another player). CoH does not have this problem (or a lot of the other problems) because the design of the game is better.
"Training" (described above) doesn't occur because monsters don't stay angry indefinitely, stop following once following becomes ridiculous, don't become angry at other players on a whim, and get killed before entering the "safe areas" around a zone entrance. (good design).
"Spawn Camping" doesn't really occur because most "quest items" are recovered from instanced dungeons. If me and player X both get the mission to "find an artifact" then we'll be sent to different instances of the mission so that we won't meet up at the artifact and have to argue over who brings it back to it's owner. I can still have somebody help me (players on a team enter the same instanced dungeon) but if I want to do it alone, nobody will be able to bother me. Some missions ask you to wander the streets and defeat X members of some group, but the number of criminals waiting to be defeated is so large that camping is uncommon in these instances as well. It's easier to find a new group to kill than it is to wait for the group you just killed to respawn.
"Kill Stealing" can occur to a small degree (experince is split based on damage done to the enemy), but usually doesn't. First, because the experience is split between every team who damaged it (teams split it evenly), it's really more like "kill sharing" than kill stealing. Second, the reasons to do this are less prevalent since there are TONS of "monsters" and they occur in a large enough variety of places that there's no "spawn camping" (see above). Third, if it's still a problem, instanced dungeons allow you to go to an area where other players cannot disrupt you (though you can still bring teammates along). So the design makes it range from impossible (when in dungeons) to very diffucult and not worthwhile (in the open areas of the city).
So, in general, griefing is not a problem in CoH. In fact, in playing I've been HELPED (in ways that don't steal experience) MUCH more frequently than anybody has ever tried to harm me. This is because CoH was designed well, and griefing is an exploit of design FLAWS.
A better question for Stateman would be, "What sort of steps did you take in designing the game to both predict and solve the kinds of problems that are typical in MMOs, such as griefers? In what ways is it easier to prevent these things in games than it is in real life?"
How long has EQ been out now? And how much of that endgame content was there in the first year?
Let X represent the percentage of your life lived. So level 100 is your death.
"Alas," you exclaim, upon reaching the end of your life "I have reached level 100, and there was nothing more! My whole life was for naught!"
Can't the journey of the game be meaningful in and of itself? I grant that the endgame can be important in keeping players in the long term, but to make it seem like players were robbed and the entire experience up to level cap was meaningless without some kind of endgame seems a bit extreme.
$50 for the game, then $15 per month seems a little steep at first, but compare it to anything else. Lets say you play 2 hours a day, that's 60 hours per month. If you want 60 hours of playtime per month on normal games, you will have to buy 2 - 3 FPS, or 1 - 2 decent RPG's. That's $50 - $150 to go that route. Or you can go to the movies once a night at $10 a pop, that's $300 (even renting a movie at $3 each is $90).
Sure, shelling out $50, then an additional $15/mo seems like quite a bit, but you get more than your moneys worth. Good feture updates that add at least 2 new zones every 2 - 3 months, multiple character slots (the ability to creat approx 100 differant toons), and LIVE people to play with. Oh, and you dont have to pay for the updates like you do with some games. I have about 250 hours on my main, and 5 or 6 alts with at least 10 hours on each. Now assuming I've been playing for 4 months, I have payed a total of $95 for 300+ hours of entertainment. Please tell me where I can get a better deal than that? =]
This game also would take ALOT longer than a month to see most of the content. It has very good story driven missions. Each contact has a long storyarc (3 - 4 hours at least) that you can go through, there are task forces (7) and trials (4) that require large groups and take 3 - 9 hours. So even if you did get the game and work your character up to level 50, doing all missions, you'd spend 300+ hours playing.
Hi Jack,
One of the things that originally attracted me to CoH was the more action-geared combat. As I'm sure you know, a good deal of games in your selected genre involve basically initiating an attack, and pressing a key at an interval or not at all. Magic is "fun" by letting you do different attacks instead of just one.
My point is, you guys have carved a niche that is not so much action it's a FPS (Planetside), but has not made combat so dull it could all be done on pen and paper with relative ease (FFXI, EQ, etc). CoH does a great job mixing things like proper positioning with powers and great teamplay.
Where do you see this going in the future? If I may be so coy to coin your game as a "Massively Multiplayer Platformer", do you agree with this assertion, and (heh) without violating any contracts, do you think it has room to allow for expansive gameplay beyond what CoH offers?