Spellborn Chronicles - one to watch

Reading the FAQ for Spellborn Chronicles, and I'm obviously intrigued...

Here's a new twist on death penalties - provide a survival bonus instead:

We intend to put a system in place which rewards good play and not dying. This system will provide benefits over time for those who play in a skilled manner and who are capable of surviving. A short period of time will provide minor benefits, while a longer period of time will provide greater benefits. In general it will be quite desirable to survive and to be cautious, as the benefits gained will be noticeable.

Five factions, sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing, and a hint of environment impact:

In addition, TCoS is a world which a rich storyline, ripe with opportunities to live inside an evolving world. Players interested in making a difference will find themselves at home in the struggle to forward their High House. Those wishing to take up arms for their cause will be able to make an impact on their environment. While members of other Houses may be friendly in general, all bets are off once Houses come into conflict. This mix of cooperation and competition makes for a complex, yet exhilarating combination. No longer are you stuck with being "good" or "evil" . . . you will be a member of one of five differing factions all working together yet apart in order to bring peace to your civilization.

Windows only though, I suspect.

what kind of name is Fggfdfggrdgf anyway?

Here I am in AV, trailing the O zerg pack so I bear left when crossing the Field of Strife. This way I can run slap bang into any laggard Alliance passing west of Balinda. I spot a warrior, all alone and trailing his pack, I ride right up and Wing Clip. He stays mounted but is slowed, I stay right on his tail, repeating Wing Clip and Raptor Strike, working a pattern of running just wide enough to get off an Arcane Shot and side-stepping back in to Wing Clip again. It took a while but down he went.

I mount up, and ride on. About the time I reach Stormpike Graveyard I get a tell from a someone named named Fggfdfggrdgf - "WHAT THE *^% ARE U DOING!?! IF YOU LEAVE ALLIANCE O ALONE WE GET A FASTER GAME AND MORE HONOR, YUO *%#!"

Guess I hurt someone's feelings there.

Leveraging Cognitive Bias in Social Design

Now here's an interesting slide deck presentation on Leveraging Cognitive Bias in Social Design. I mention this because, obviously MMOGs are inherently social environments, and rational behaviour isn't actually the norm, despite the vocal domination of the min/maxers and others.

They've listed a few sample cognitive effects that bias behaviour...

• Lake Wobegon effect
• Self serving bias
• Optimism bias
• Not invented here
• Hindsight bias
• Prediction bias

.. and they later mention a few more in the presentation (eg. Loss Aversion). I would also add the bystander effect as something to consider when designing.

Add yours to the list =)

quests with alternative objectives?

The typical quest mechanic I've seen is (1) get the quest which states the objective, (2) do some activity resulting in (3) completing the objective, and (4) hand in the quest.

As a thought experiment, imagine an MMOG with a quest engine which allows for multiple alternative objectives. For example, the quest set up might be "The red hill ogres keep raiding our vineyard and stealing our wine. Do something", where "something" is (a) kill the ogres, (b) kill the dragon camping their beer stash, (c) open trade with the ogres, offering wine in exchange for furs, (d) help the dragon find its mate, thus scaring the ogres out of the red hills for good, (e) help the ogres raid the dwarven brewery instead (they prefer beer, y’see), or (e) simply steal the wine back again.

The typical MMOG quest engine system would offer just one of those as the quest objective (although the RP crowd might do something with the rest). You could implement the alternatives as additional separate quests, but that would just be a hack (and confusing when doing one quest invalidates the others, and irritating if you pick one objective and then find out on the way there it would be easier to do one of the others because [eg] you just found help). Much more interesting would be you pick the one quest, and then head off to confront the ogres ... and whichever objective you manage to accomplish first marks the quest as complete.

In the quest UI I don't believe I'd list the specific objectives necessary to complete the quest, certainly not in the TL:DR bullet point summary. I'd like to think that clever players would figure out what some of the options could be, knowing full well most players aren't that clever.

I know that traditional quests with an ambiguous unstated objective are usually regarded as a content development bug by players ... but mostly arising from the frustration of trying to guess just what exactly is the One True Objective to complete the quest. However, offering multiple alternative objections might ameliorate that, especially if the players are re-trained to expect the possibility of alternative objectives (instead of giving up at first glance).

Naturally, in a static content game the various approaches will all soon be discovered and documented in some online wiki, and the wisdom of the crowd will be applied to determine the optimal solution. The next step in this thought experiment is to consider what basic game mechanics and plumbing would be necessary for such a quest with alternative objectives to arise dynamically.

MMOG design anti-patterns?

Some quick background, lifting from Wikipedia:

A design pattern is a formal way of documenting a solution to a design problem in a particular field of expertise. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander in the field of architecture, and has been adapted for various other disciplines, including computer science.

A pattern must explain why a particular situation causes problems, and why the proposed solution is considered a good one.

Alexander describes common design problems as arising from "conflicting forces" -- such as the conflict between wanting a room to be sunny and wanting it not to overheat on summer afternoons. A pattern would not tell the designer how many windows to put in the room; instead, it would propose a set of values to guide the designer toward a decision that is best for their particular application.

In software engineering, an anti-pattern is a design pattern that appears obvious but is ineffective or far from optimal in practice. [...] Some repeated pattern of action, process or structure that initially appears to be beneficial, but ultimately produces more bad consequences than beneficial results

I've cross posted this to the Nerfbat forums, where there is already a healthy discussion, mostly focused on whether crafting interdependency is an anti-pattern. What other MMOG design anti-patterns have you become aware of?

Ding

Exalted with Zandalar Tribe.

'nuff said.

As an alchemist, this now means I can craft Living Action Potions, which turn out to be very handy in PvP. They don't share a cooldown with the PvP trinket, giving me an extra escape mechanism. It's also not the same as the trinket, being useless against mind control and polymorph, for example .. but it does confer immunity to stun and movement impairments for 5 secs.

I'm a lvl 70 hunter with Kara+ gear, so taking on the trash mobs in this 60's raid instance so getting to exalted was challenging. I had to pull out all my hunter tricks to take on 4 packs, and learned a couple of tricks along the way.

One trick good hunters should know is that when casting Scare Beast, its not only not necessary to keep your target selected, but detrimental to do so: once you're done casting an auto-shot might go off, hitting your now scared beast, and breaking said scare effect. Instead, the non-huntard will target the one beast they want to scare, begin casting, and in the 1.5 seconds they have now select the next beast they will unleash DPS onto. Not only do you avoid breaking your fear, but you don't waste time acquiring your next target.

Another tweak I picked up was to put
/stopattack
/startattack
into my macros for Steady Shot, Multi-Shot, and Arcane Shot. Although it does cause my gun to make lots of superfluous cocking sounds, it doesn't appear to reset the auto-shot timer .. and importantly it clears any lingering Raptor Strike from blocking my auto-shot. When you're taking on a pack of elite mobs, you need every point of DPS.

hindering the grinding of professions?

A thought offered for debate...

Given the mostly negative impact that grinding/power-leveling professions in WoW have, what might be done to alleviate, hinder, or prevent that activity? (Not necessarily in WoW itself, but in some hypothetical game design).

Previously, I've proposed a textured skill tree system, one where you could fast track your the scope of your profession at the cost of expertise in crafting each individual item.

Another idea to throw on the table today: put a cap or diminishing returns on how many skill ups occur in a given time period. This could be explained in-game as “learning new skills is taxing on the mind and body, the harder you study the more you will need to rest”. Grinding 10 skill points will still be as easy as before, but grinding the next 10 might be difficult or impossible that same day .. or as easy as the first 10 if you wait until the next day.

If a diminishing returns model is used there will inevitably be that one crazy fool that will grind out 10,000 swords for that last skill point (where he could wait 24 hours, grind one sword, and 100% chance get that same point). Most min/maxers wouldn't do that because, by definition, they use a cost/benefits analysis approach in all that they do. Just in case someone does though the game could be designed to give some kind of debilitating debuff - plenty of real world examples to draw from here (headline: gamer dies of exhaustion after playing non-stop for 72 hours).

I'm led to understand that something like this was implemented on the Siege Perilous and Mugen shards of UO - anyone got experience with that?

variable quest rewards for variable performance?

I'm back, fresh from another bombing run through the dead scar. As a daily, I can just about do this one with my eyes shut ... as it is I end up killing off a few extra just for the heck of it. Which got me thinking - how come I don't get extra gold for overkills?

Now, this has got me thinking even further - I can't think of a single quest in WoW which doesn't have a variable reward depending on skill - no wonder players strive to optimise their effort rather than improve their skill. Actually, there are two that come to mind: the Dire Maul tribute run, and the Zul'Aman timed event .. both provide more rewards depending on how you go about them, and a highly skilled (or more likely a highly geared) team will reap more rewards for their efforts.

Seriously though .. can you imagine the deep psychological effect of a wholesale changing of quest rewards to a system depending on skill-based accomplishment?

going wide on horizontal expansions

Lots of chatter on horizontal expansion lately.

• Horizontal Skills or Vertical Levels
• Horizontal Expansions
• Horizontal Expansions to Vertical Games
• The Endgame Philosophy
• MMOG Expansions and Trading Card Games
• Expanding the expansions….

I've started a poll over at nerfbat forums...

design challenge: specialist guilds?

In most MMOGs, a guild is more a company of adventurers, a band of brothers, (usually) united in some purpose (usually raiding, often social, sometimes RP).

But rarely specialised by skill. Where's the Potters Guild, the Enchanters Guild, the Guild of Tailors, the Warriors Regiment, the Thieves Guild of Old Town, the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union?

Set aside for the moment of whether this would be a good idea, game-wise, for an MMOG. What game mechanics would you design to encourage a proliferation of specialist guilds?

My first thoughts are three-fold:

1. A hierarchical tree of additional benefits unlocked by specialisation (eg. think WoW talents, but for guilds).
2. A rationing of resources used to unlock these additional benefits (ie. more benefits than what points can buy), with various feedback mechanisms to encourage focussed spending.
   
3. And support for inter-guild support/collaboration/alliances.

Points (1) and (2) work together of course. Feedback mechanisms could include compounding buffs, tiered talents/abilities, or unlocked content such as guild quests. Point (3) would be necessary because if you don't the pressure will be huge to go for a mediocre but self-reliant hybrid guild.

The principle of unlocked benefits could be applied in many ways: through specialised guild bank tabs, guild wise auras, specialist NPCs, and more.

Guild Bank tabs could be specialised for different purposes, with discounts for additional tabs of the same type. For example: instead of paying 500G for the first tab and 1000G for the second tab, the bank could be designed such that the guild could select their first tab to be specialised (eg. enchanting) and thus get a discount (pay only 400G), and the second enchanting tab would only be 750G .. vs some guild buying a generic bank tab for 500G, and then an enchanting specialised tab for 900G. Buying one of each kind should be expensive, buying all generics/multipurpose should be outrageously priced, and buying all of the same type should be really affordable.

Guild wide auras could be things like all members of a guild specialising in alchemy could have an increased chance of bonus procs on crafting, all members of a warriors guild have 20% off all repair costs and some kind of bonus in melee.

What game design elements can you think of to push a game world in this direction?

player driven pvp policies

The guards on the Isle of Quel'danas are severe in punishing pvp within their territory, but they could be more severe in policing: they could punish all the participants of the pvp action - both attacker and attacked. The only way to remain safe would be to not flag at all. (Incidentally, this will also get rid of the asshats that flag and stand on top of the NPCs.)

Such a determined design would be immediately decried by players: some would say it's too harsh (and should be softened), some would say it's too carebear (and made even harsher), and some would say it was fine before so why change it. There's no satisfying the mob.

Consider though if the devs put their effort into designing self-balancing systems, where players can, through their influence and reputation with the local government, determine what the security policies are for the area. Some servers might drift towards a harsh anything-goes climate, while others would reflect a prevailing carebear attitude.

If the world was big enough to support multiple towns/villages acting as alternatives to each other, rather than the token civilisation centers along a linear progression path (a la WoW), then you might well have different policies evolving on the same server. One town might drift towards a carebear crafting utopia, while another might be a lawless den of iniquity, home of the quick and the dead.

Will simply flagging bring down the the wrath of the constabulary, or even entering town with your pvp flag already on? Maybe the guards will take action if you've recently done pvp outside of the town. On the other hand, maybe the local warlord is a sadist and hands out candy and gold to everyone that does pvp .. if you can stay alive long enough to talk to the NPC, that is.

As to game mechanics, consider if PvP deaths result in two tokens dropping – one into the killer's inventory, one into the dead player's inventory – either of which could be handed in to various NPCs to influence the local policy (or just trashed if the player doesn't care). Different NPCs, and different options at the same NPC, would determine which local policy gets voted on.

If each town/village had it's own reputation faction then your vote could also be weighted by your current faction standing, which would make it difficult for an outsider guild to zerg the vote.

Would such a design make open free-for-all pvp viable, or at least tolerable?

just let them win

Reality is stranger than fiction it seems: A soccer team advanced in a cup match by deliberately scoring against itself.

some hunter tips

Here's a small skill I've been developing just recently: while casting Fear Beast I select my next target in preparation for my next action - I don't wait until the casting is complete to change targets. Especially if I don't want my next auto-shot to break that fear.

When in WSG and you're on defense duty, and you have a cat pet: pop down into the tunnel, about where it has that side branch to the roof, tell your pet to stay, be aggressive, and also to prowl. Then high tail it back up the tunnel and park yourself in that little room, and select your pet as your target. Now, when your pet jumps on the next sneaky rogue coming up that tunnel you'll see your pet's target under his faceplate, and you can easily target them too. Commence fire. Laugh maniacally. Sometimes they come in via the ramp, and then take the tunnel on the way out. Hit intimidation but leave your pet parked and prowled, it's quite the nasty surprise.

tying skill to gear

It's an ancient debate: gear vs skill.

My idea: make it such that better gear provides value, but only in the hands of a skilled player. One way to do this is by making gear which has situational uses, instead of a simple +bonus that applies at all times.

Some ideas: instead of a helmet giving +25 magic resistance, make it provide +50 resistance for 30 seconds on use, with a 30 second cooldown. Instead of simply boots of swift striding (slight speed increase, some resistance to slows), make them boots of muck walking (some resistance to slows, roots, and snares, and extra speed when walking in watery terrain). A shield of spell reflection that only works on spells that hit you from the front/left. A cutlass of shredding, with damage bonuses against cloth wearers but no bonus vs plate. A two-handed mace which puts a debuff on the mob which causes extra damage from pets (note: hunters can't use maces, warlocks can't use two-handers, so this is also a team-play skill opportunity).

This could be extended to longer time frame strategic use, such as with resist gear sets, however it would be better to have lots of tactical time frame usage options .. otherwise the main skill that gets developed is how to read a website to look up what's the best gear to equip for a given dungeon. And that's no fun.

wresting control of a zone from mobs

Imagine if Halaa was controlled by NPC mobs instead of the other faction. Imagine if that basic design was extended to an entire zone. Lethal mobs would spawn constantly .. but only while certain locations remain uncaptured. If the number which has spawned exceeds a base level, they would group up and move to attack other locations. Locations deep within hostile controlled territory would have more terrible beasts and demons being spawned. Once an location is captured by players, mobs would no longer spawn from that location. Mobs would still travel to that location from other locations, putting it under constant threat.

Control of the zone would ebb and flow throughout the day and week - 3am would see it overrun by hostile NPC mobs, while during peak player hours more of the zone would be under player control.

There could even be more than npc faction in play here. In Nagrand, there are two ogre factions, some occult worshippers, the demons, and two factions of space mummies. Probably even more factions. Each NPC faction would have their preferred territory, but specific locations could well be in contention between more than one NPC faction. Some of these might well form temporary alliances, some might viciously fight each other given the right provocation. Players could thus factor this into their broader strategy - instead of fighting tooth and nail for objective A, they could go attack objective B (weaker due to fewer reinforcements?) .. and then stand back as many of the occupants of objective A issue forth to capture objective B. Now would be the time to strike at objective A, which they might now willingly retreat from.

Locations could include quest centers, grave yards, repairs, mines or other resource gathering locations, vendor centres, etc. The entire zone would have one final objective, being a major instance - the entrance to the instance would be guarded by elites that spawn from nearby locations, and opening the gate may even require the assistance of an NPC from another location .. thus you won't be able to just rush in on your fancy flying mount.

Logging off in the zone wouldn't be a safe thing to do. More exactly, logging back on wouldn't be safe .. you might find yourself totally surrounded by elite hostiles, where you were previously surrounded by friendly NPC guards. It would thus be sensible to have the base camps for Horde/Alliance being located on the edge of the zone.

This zone would be interesting for casuals who could enter the fray at any time to do their small part, perhaps doing a daily quest or two. It could also be designed to reward group efforts, with deeper locations controlled by an elite boss with massive loot drops - a guild group could thus conduct an hour long (or longer) campaign and thus be in position to be the ones to capture a strategic location and claim the loot.

(The backend infrastructure of WoW doesn't really support this style of design at all - they have very minimal server side status/AI going on at all. The zone-wide progress measures at the Isle of Quel'Danas is peanuts compared to this. More the pity.)

Zul'Gurub adventures

I'm in ZG, solo, taking out the trash.

Some trash mobs are just damn impossible to solo - the Gurubashi Axe Throwers specifically. Once they enrage into their Axe Flurry will target a random player and hit for a moderate amount but also knock you down and stun you. By the time you get back up another Axe will be thrown at a random player .. which if you're soloing the place means you. Again. And Again. Knock down, 500 dmg, stunned, get back up, knock down, repeat for 15 seconds. The fact they usually come in pairs is just rubbing salt into the wound.

The packs of adders and serpents on the other hand can be soloed. A four pack is borderline lethal to the pet, but if it survives long enough then it's a game of chain trapping and double trapping and scare beast and intimidation and 120 seconds of frantic excitement.

The crocs are easier - trap, misdirect, double trap, one down, scare beast, wing clip, kite, kill, trap, kill, kill. If there are five or six in the group there's a challenge, but otherwise.

Easiest of all would be the tigers and panthers. Snore. They are total pussy cats playing patty cake.

Only two more bijous until I'm revered with Zandalar, then the long grind starts to exalted. I sure hope that Living Action Potion is worth it. At the least, this has been a good test of hunter prowess .. I must remember to bring all my hunter pals in for fun and games.

types of leveling systems at word of shadow

Crimson Starfire has many interesting posts at his Word of Shadow blog, well worth reading would be my recommendation. I just added the following comment there to his post on Best RPG leveling systems:

I'd like to see an alternative "leveling" mechanism, one which leverages the MMO aspect of the game: your character himself doesn't level up, but all his actions (and actions of other players) contribute to the success of his village/clan/kingdom .. and as your community becomes stronger then additional powers become available.

For example, your village has recently secured some achievement (which you might have had some small part in), and all members of that village now have a specific boon available. The boon might be a character buff (eg. a bonus on resistance to some kind of magic), or might be availability from vendors of more powerful gear (eg. steel swords, instead of bronze).

That buff or boon would be permanent .. unless a rival clan comes along and causes a reversal in fortune. Or you seriously betray that community and become an outcast.

The communities should be elect to join, not invite to join (like guilds), and there should be hundreds (not two factions or eight races as in WoW). It should also be possible to increase your reputation with these communities, with higher standings according greater access to boons or access to more powerful boons.

This means you could, if you so choose, decide to abandon a losing community and join a stronger community .. but you'd lose access to all your previous boons and you'd need to work hard to gain access to the boons of your new hearthland.

If you choose to go renegade, outcast from all civilisation, then you'd better have some mad pvp skillz because your character will be effectively at the starter level once again .. and not aligned to any communities.

more honor for the underdogs

Sometimes, it is not your day to be victorious on the battlefield - your opponents have 4 capped AB or EotS, they have 2 flags to your zero, you are rapidly running out of reinforcements in AV.

Your backs are against the wall, the enemy arrogantly advances, the smell of your blood and a swift victory on the wind ... Now is the time for great courage, to die gloriously on the field, to make them struggle for every drop of your blood. Let the nubs and farmers hide in dark corners and their spider holes, lamenting with the womenfolk - the brave fight on for there is honor to be gained, the song of battle does call.

Thus: increase honor per kill for those on the losing side to encourage getting in there and at least making a last stand.

warlocks, mana, and health

(This is just a passing thought)

How cool would it be if warlock spells cost not just mana, but the same amount of health? Thus Curse of Agony might cost 100 mana and 100 health, and similarly for all other spells. Toss in a couple of talents to adjust the ratio involved (eg. 40%/60% or 60%/40%), and rebalance all the base mana costs to suit, and you've got an interesting game mechanic which sets the lock apart from other spell casters.

is there a MMO design wiki?

Is there a MMO wiki someplace, one which profiles all MMOs and their various game mechanics, without necessarily delving deep into the MMO specific content? Someplace where the differences between positive and negative reinforcement schedules are explained in MMO terms, where time honored terms like “Diku” are explained (especially the MMO mechanics aspect, for which that wikipedia page is full of fail).