New Technique To Help Develop MMORPG Content?

ShipLives writes "Researchers have developed a new method that can predict MMORPG player behavior. The tool could be used by the game industry to develop new game content, or to help steer players to the parts of a game they will enjoy most. I don't think it should replace user feedback, but it's a pretty cool data-driven approach. Ideally, it could help developers make good decisions about new games/expansions."

Comments

They needed a research group...

[Immostlyharmless]

To determine that people tend to do things in order, and that achievements generally build on one another? What sense would it make to run around doing achievements at random? Apparently 20% people do, but....as for the rest of us, apparently we think methodically, this is news?

User feedback is overrated

[artor3]

Asking users what they think is generally a bad approach to game development. People don't really know what they want. Your questions are likely to be leading (you are not a professional pollster). They might lie about what they found to be difficult if they're embarrassed about losing, or alternatively they might demand that everything get simplified because they want to win, not realizing that it wouldn't be fun if it were too easy. And in competitive games, forget about it. Every class/weapon/tactic that kills them must be nerfed, whatever they like to use must be buffed.

It's far more effective to simply watch them play the game, without speaking to them at all, and see what frustrates them, what confuses them, what they enjoy, and so on.

Unfortunately, the method in TFA(bstract) seems to just evaluate player behavior based on what achievements they have. That will, apparently, tell you what aspects of the game they like best, but it's not going to help much with the small stuff. I suspect Blizzard is already gathering that data anyway.

Re:User feedback is overrated

[Rei]

But then you come to the balance between enjoyment and grief. Sure, you may take enjoyment from raiding a rival faction's cities, but at the same time, if someone raided your city and took your stuff that you had worked hard to accomplish, the shoe is on a totally different foot. The classic PK/Non-PK dilemma. It works for some, but most people get more frustrated with the loss than they feel the reward of the victory, especially when it happens multiple times in a row.

You're right about the "amusement park with security guards" aspect, however. The MMORPG addiction equation is about making the player feel that they're accomplishing something through their actions, the human delayed gratification response. "If I just do this now, I'll get X, which will let me do Y!" But then you get X, and there's a brand new X to get, then another, then another, etc -- and "Y" is usually just a means to get a different X anyway. But that doesn't mean that games need to be construed so narrowly, only toward that specific reward mechanism.

Another way to reward players is to let them feel that they're really having an impact in changing their world -- that they've modified something that others will experience in a durable manner. This could be anything -- tunnelling an underground palace, permanently wiping out a kingdom of orcs, inventing a new type of attack or spell that can be taught to other players, etc, etc -- the possibilities are endless. The ability to point to something concrete and say, "I did that!", is the same reward mechanism that drives the FOSS movement (among countless other endeavors of humanity ;) ). Making gaming world be able to be durably modified is often more difficult to code than "amusement park" style games, but is a worthwhile endeavor. Weaknesses to this system are that if making change in the world is too easy, it has no meaning.

Most games have some degree of involving a third powerful human reward mechanism: social interaction. But they can do way more. Look at how many people Facebook has sucked in. Ostensibly social interaction may be a secondary, tertiary, or whatnot purpose of the game, way below "saving the galaxy from aliens" or "keeping the zombies from overrunning the countryside". But it really isn't, and developers shouldn't treat it that way. The social networking aspects in the game should be well thought out and well developed. You want it so that when they disconnect from the game for several days, they feel disconnected. Note that the social interaction aspect is generally not something that will keep people in the game on its own; it simply amplifies the feeling of needing to return and helps make experiences within the game feel more meaningful.

There are a variety of other human reward mechanisms which can be exploited in various degrees, but usually only the first reward mechanism is stressed.

Re:User feedback is overrated

[AdamWeeden]

Another way to reward players is to let them feel that they're really having an impact in changing their world -- that they've modified something that others will experience in a durable manner.

This is one thing that always brings me back to A Tale In The Desert. It's not the prettiest game in the world, and can definitely be awkward at times, but it's unique in it's mutability. For those unfamiliar, every aspect of the game is democratic. Don't like something? Then write a law and attempt to convince others to pass it. For example: a resource that is needed for certain recipes is cactus sap. To get this cactus sap you have to cut the cactus and wait for it to come out after a few minutes. Common courtesy is that, when done, you cut the cactus for the next person to make their time shorter. Someone decided there ought to be a law that when you collect sap, you auto cut the cactus. This saves you clicks (1 click to cut and collect vs. 2) and it means there will always be sap for the next person. Everyone loved the idea, it was passed into law, and the developer implemented it. It's a beautiful system.

Re:User feedback is overrated

[_xeno_]

Asking users what they think is generally a bad approach to game development.

If you want a great example of this, look at Final Fantasy XIV.

Now, you might think with the game being as big a failure as that one, that they should be listening to fans and closely as it's obvious that the developers have absolutely no clue what makes a good game. You'd be wrong, because the only people answering are the people still playing.

They added a feature to mark which enemies "aggro" (attack you without provocation). Now, you might be thinking "doesn't just about every MMO do this?" or "didn't FFXII do that?" and you'd be right.

The fans revolted anyway. Apparently it "ruined their immersion" so the feature was dutifully patched out. Well, disabled by default, but apparently the only way to reenable it is a text command that's only documented in the patch notes for that one specific patch.

Listening to the fans still playing FFXIV is going to doom that game. Well, it's already doomed after failing to fix any of the core issues (other than leveling not working) in eight months. But even more doomed, thanks to moronic input from the idiots still playing.

The most boring life...

[c0lo]

... to be granted with all you wish for.

How long 'til what I wanted yesterday no longer represent an interest today?

Re:The most boring life...

[alostpacket]

How long 'til what I wanted yesterday no longer represent an interest today?

Uh, one day? :)

"no clear link" ?

[Ixokai]

"For example, an achievement dealing with a character’s prowess in unarmed combat is highly correlated to the achievement badge associated with world travel – even though there is no clear link between the two badges to the outside observer."

Am I the only one who sees a really clear link between those two things? I did both back when I played wow -- for the same reason. I was achievement farming, for no real reason except it was something to pass the time doing waiting for a raid or PVP queue to pop.

Neither are things I ever even would have thought to bother with, except suddenly they presented a checklist of Things To Do, so I went and mindlessly did them.

I don't play WoW anymore, but back when I was -- I have a pretty clear memory of my guildies, and I swear, everyone who would have gone and gotten one of those were the people who I bet went and got the other, later. They weren't, of course, the sane* people who mostly ignored ToDo List of Boredom (except the raid ones, because you got a kickass mount out of it).

* no I wasn't sane.

Eliminate Players

[GeekDork]

Really, the most annoying part of a mumorpuger is the "community" that forms like an accretion disk around the game itself, usually a bunch of pushy whining kids who won't ever be satisfied, will always feel underpowered with their favourite in-game character, and threaten to leave to other games for years instead of packing up and leaving.

If there was a technology to eliminate actual players from those games, it would improve the communities a lot. We are finally getting closer to a point where it becomes possible. Exciting times.

Predictive

[alphatel]

Since a fair portion of all players are bots, what will the pattern show?
Players have a desire to perform repetitive tasks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Players seem to enjoy movement in a cross-stitch pattern, picking herbs, mining, and skinning hides
Players are more predictable than the predictive model predicts.

Re:Well ...

[Requiem18th]

If only it didn't map so well to real life...
ITT: Goto X to kill Ys to collect Zs.

- Get to the office to kill hours of your life hunting bugs.

Bad game design means the "content" doesn't matter

[Targon]

When you design a game with stats and grinding as the key to keeping players going, that is when developers get locked into needing new content to keep the players interested. Many single player games have a fairly large world, but because everything is STATIC, and does not really change, other than introducing new NPCs or doing the occasional update, you end up with a pretty boring game WORLD, where expanding on the world is the source of keeping things interesting.

If the game world were more dynamic, with a true economy and world that evolves over time, where NPC thieves look around the game world for things to steal, or just to survive, and where all NPCs actually live their lives, with or without player involvement, THEN you get a more interesting environment. Humans that are monitoring the world so that players can't "game the system" would of course be needed, but AI needs to become the center of a solid MMO, and letting the world evolve.

If you play a character, and you travel to a town, every NPC would have a history and story that has evolved from interaction with other NPCs as well as interaction with the players. Once you get THAT sort of situation down, the game world itself provides the changes to content, and developers can focus on larger events, such as earthquakes, floods, or other natural disasters. Underground cave complexes could open up to add more monsters to the world, but in general, people should find entertainment just in wandering and exploring the world, because it SHOULD be large enough where it would take players a long time just to go from one end of the world to the others.

Feedback Is For Sissies

[umbrellasd]

Incorporating feedback is the death of creativity. The uniqueness of the artist's perspective and expression is greatness. The ability to produce what other's want isn't art; it's business. This trend of monitoring user behavior is nothing more than marketing to maximize profit. The singularly amazing game experiences will always be the uncompromising vision of those with the courage to make a statement and public opinion be damned. Giving people what they want is foolish. Giving people what they need is wise. Knowing the difference is genius. I'd have to say Blizzard's work is the epitome of this problem. Deplorably average in every way and catering to the profit line without taking risks; watered down, derivative (a hodge-podge of cultural homages and recycled tripe--Warcraft I, II, III, etc.)

Fuck that.