Piercing the Veil On Bioware's MMOG

Ziff Davis' newly rebranded computer-games magazines, Games for Windows, is showing off some of its new content on the 1up hub site. They've got a fantastic interview with James Ohlen, the creative director at Bioware Austin, Rich Vogel, and Gordon Walton, co-studio directors. For the first time, they reveal some new details on Bioware's upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Game. They don't talk about the game's setting, unsurprisingly, but they do go into some depth on the thinking behind their game. From the article: "GFW: One of the big problems with MMO gameplay is repeating the same content, or same instance if you're specifically talking about WoW, over and over again ... JO: That's something we don't want to encourage. We want to encourage players to continue to make progress in their story, to do new quests, consume new content, constantly move forward. The grind is not attractive in any way. Going and killing the same dragon over and over again is not something I want to do. There are lots of different ways to encourage players to move forward. Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that."

Comments

Call me a pessimist, I guess

[Control Group]

Simply putting more weight on storytelling experience points is a good way to do that

Not really. Or rather, it may be "good" in the sense that it's better than other ways, but not "good" in the sense that it actually accomplishes what the designers intended it to.

I was a wiz (admin, sort of) on a MOO back in the day. It was MUD-like in that it had a coded stats/skills system, including combat (both player-vs-player and player-vs-aHaB). It was MOO/MUSH like in that it emphasized actual role play, rather than dungeon crawling. In some ways, it was about the best setup one could hope for: there was a significant cultural value put on role playing.

This didn't stop players from sparring up stats and twinking their way through the game. It didn't stop "the grind." When people complained about what was going on, various technical means were put in place to try and curtail repetitive stat building and encourage role play. None of them succeeded to any great extent.

Or rather, they succeeded fantastically well for the players that availed themselves of the new systems - but those are the players who would have been role playing anyway.

After going through three different stat/skill systems on that game, with each change meant to discourage the grind and encourage role play, and none being terribly effective, I came to the conclusion that if you build it, they will not necessarily come. The very existence of a stats/skills system, I believe, means that there will be people who just try to game it as fast as they can, to up their numbers. And if the stats/skills system means anything at all within the game, those players will have an advantage over players who don't want to spend the time doing that.

Hell, you see the same thing in small groups of table-top RPGers. There's often (almost always, IME) one guy at the table, even in a good group, whose sole focus is levelling up. In that sort of small community setting, with constant one-on-one interaction between the GM and the players, and when the GM is pretty much god (I don't care how many dice you have in sneak, you cannot sneak across the football field in broad daylight. Fine, roll your dice...oh, sorry, you failed. He saw you and you died), this can be dealt with. None of those factors obtain in an online game: you have many people (a "Massive" amount, one might say), there isn't enough staff to have constant interaction with a real person, and the staff that does exist has to follow a specific set of rules, lest there be widespread player bitching and general dissatisfaction.

I spent a good lot of time working up a stat/skill system that, I believe, would have helped alleviate the problem (partially by recognizing that people will grind, and incorporating that into the system). I stopped before even trying to push for its implementation for two reasons: first, because I ended up realizing that it probably wouldn't work as well as I hoped. And second, because most of the players I bounced it off of didn't like it - they wanted the grind.

*shrug*

I wish BioWare and their future player base the best of luck. I really hope it works out for them. But I really don't think it will.

Re:Call me a pessimist, I guess

[Reason58]

This idea is exactly how WoW was originally planned. Once players got wind of this there was so much outcry that Blizzard changed the system to one of positive reinforcement with an experience bonus for not playing as much, as opposed to a penalty for playing too much.

Re:Call me a pessimist, I guess

[NeutronCowboy]

Not quite true. What happened was that initially, Blizzard set the rested to 100% exp, and had a "tired" state, in which people would only gain 50% of the exp gained in the normal state. Massive outcry followed from what were indeed hardcore players. "No fair - people who play less are almost as high level as me with no life!" What did Blizzard do? It renamed the normal state to rested, and the tired state to normal. It also said that the rested state would gain twice as much experience as as the normal state. In essence, they changed two words in their system. The entire underlying system stayed absolutely the same. What happened next? There was peace. Amazing what a mere two words can do to the perception of fairness of hardcore grinders. Personally, I find WoW to be quite the grind as well - but at least you get enough exp from quests to make questing a better value than straight-up monster grinding. Other than that, I find it a fairly average RPG.

Article Summary

[Flame0001]

Article summary: Our game will be good. WoW was good, but ours will be better.

Dynamic quests system for a MMORPG

[sgant]

When playing EQ or EQ2 or World of Warcraft...you get quests. But these quests do NOTHING to change the world around you. You're doing the exact same quests that everyone else is doing and the talk on the channels is like "did anyone do the "Orc Chief" quest yet? I still need two more hammers before I'm done". That's not really RPG is it?

What about dynamic quest generations? Think about this. You start out, you make your character. And that's it. You don't go up to the "quest giving NPC" to get your first quest. You just start out with basic equipment and that's it. Along your travels, perhaps the very first NPC you meet, or perhaps not, THEY may come up to YOU and say something like "my little boy hasn't come home in almost 3 days! I'm really worried about him, he was playing down by the Cave that's just South of here, can you please help?" And WHAM you have a quest. You're ONLY quest by the way. No stacking of quests.

Now, YOU are the only one with that quest. No one else has the "little boy lost quest". You move out and perhaps see another player along the road or off to the side and you ask him if he can help you out...there-by sharing your quest with him. The cave itself can be an instanced cave that is generated for you and in there the quest gets longer and longer and longer, talking to different NPC's that continue on with the generated story, generating more to the story. Perhaps the boy WAS in the the cave, you find a Troll in there that you think ate him...but no, the Troll is really a nice guy that actually saw the little boy being taken away through the caves by a group of soldiers to another area beyond the cave. WHAM, you have more to follow. This quest can go on and on and on and actually span the world as you move through it! And only you and your party have this quest. At any point you can choose to bow out and let the other player or players you've picked up along the way continue it and you go along your merry way. Perhaps to pick back up with it days later with a group STILL on the SAME quest that started with you. Or you go somewhere else.

I know, a story generation engine would have to be built and tested beyond belief. But couldn't something like this actually work? So you feel that you're really part of the world? Sure, there can be quests that are static that everyone of a certain class has to complete. Like a Fighter's quest...more like a "test" to gain rank. That can always be the same because it's the standard test that all fighters must go through. But for a living, breathing world, wouldn't a dynamic quest/story system be much more immersive?

Is something like this do-able? Otherwise, the world never really changes. Maybe big, server wide changes can happen due to a first-time quest like opening a gate to a new expansion or something. But little things that change the world here and there are non-existent. In MMORPG's now, that guy that lost his hammer at the beginning of the Horde newbie area in WoW is ALWAYS lost. You create a new character, BAM he's got a lost hammer in the exact same spot that you go and fetch for him. 3 or 4 people are also there to pick up that same hammer...even though there is only one there, they all pick up a hammer and deliver it to the guy...but the hammer is still lost and the next person now goes to find it. Nothing changes. It's all the same. Wouldn't it be better if a player were to have killed an NPC and now someone has to track down that player?

Or worse, "quests" are given by the same people over and over with the "collect twelve beetle eyes" kind of thing. Or just "kill 10 wild dogs". Doesn't anyone else find this boring? How about a farmer wants you to kill this pack of dogs that's been killing his sheep. You don't know how many there are, but you go out, find the dogs (track them perhaps?) kill them and see that one has a collar on it with a name. These are not wild dogs you find out, but they actually belong to someone. You tell this to the farmer and he tells you that it's a notorious Thief that lives nearby that's

Re:Ultima Online?

[vertinox]

As much gamers complain about "the grind", you can't have a successful MMO without one grind or another.

I take it you never played Ultima Online back in the 1998-2000 era?

Sure, you would find yourself doing repetitive tasks like chopping wood, mining, crafting, or killing certain creatures, but in general it wasn't a very kill something rinse and repeat type of game.

Mostly because of the player interaction and virtual economy. That and it wasn't that hard to become a 7xGM (what you would call a level 60 character that is maxed out) with maybe 3-4 months worth of casual play. I'd dare say you could get to be 7xGM in 2 if you macroed and played hard core.

Being such a big fan of UO kept me from being able to get into any other MMOGs since I did not like the grind and level systems.

Take away the leveling and XP and replace it with a skill system and I think you have a good game.