cross faction language barriers

A passing thought: what if it were possible to understand what the enemy was saying, but you couldn't respond in their same language, and understanding the other factions language was an option (available via training or a quest, and a toggle-off setting even then).

Thus, cross-faction communication might be possible, while at the same time ameliorating the worst excesses of spiteful sledging.

Economy chains and item drains

Inflation usually occurs because more gold is coming into the player economy than which is leaving. Gold enters the economy by drops from mobs and from quest rewards. It leaves the economy through payments to NPCs - gear repairs, griffon taxis, basic consumables, training expenses, auction house deposits and fees, and obvious gold drains like Epic Flying skill and Cenarion War Hippogryphs. Players paying money to other players doesn't remove it from the economy, it simply shuffles it around.

So here I am, working my way to Exalted with the Cenarion Circle. Amongst other things, I'm buying various items off the AH and handing them in for Cenarion Logistic Badges .. and it got me thinking that this is also making inflation worse.

I'm removing items from the economy, but the gold I pay out simply gets shuffled to another player. Consequently, while the amount of gold available in the economy has remained the same (ie. not increased), my actions are contributing to making things to spend that gold on more scarce. Which of course means higher prices for those things (ie. inflation).

So, while gold drains should be designed into the game to combat inflation, any item drains should also be carefully and cautiously planned given their effect on the economy. This is particularly important if your game includes item breakage for purposes of stimulating an active crafting ecosystem (not a problem in WoW, but often considered theoretically).

This has also set me thinking that perhaps NPCs could be set up to sell many more items, things which are normally farmed by players and sold on the auction house, things which players need as quest hand ins. A really smart system would have NPCs selling items at a dynamic price competitively undercutting the auction house, but in relatively limited supply. It would have to be a limited supply, otherwise no one would ever buy off the auction house, not ever. Say maybe a max of 2-5 units available, spawning every hour or so.

Now, what will likely happen is that the limited supply would be bought and immediately flipped on to market for a modest margin – the players that actually needs the item for crafting/questing purposes would probably not get the chance to buy it from the NPC. Since there are so many items that would need to be supplied by NPCs like this there would need to be multiple NPCs, each selling (limited supplies of) different items. I would fully expect some players would simply ride around from NPC to NPC, buying up stocks as they spawn, keeping themselves busy that way, flipping the lot onto the market.

While some players will grumble at the NPC farming, they are actually performing a service – they are doing all the tedious running about and gathering and consolidating all the stock into one convenient market place. Only fair then that they extract a modest fee from this process.

The neat thing about this process is that while it is actually a gold drain, the players buying from the NPC would actually be making a profit, and everyone else is benefiting from suppressed inflation and increased supply. Much nicer than slugging all players with a repair tax, or 5,000 gold flying lessons, and so on – all sources of player angst and whines.

Also, if the quantity of the limited stocks that spawn is randomised, as well as the respawn timer, then it's easy to gently fudge the random number generator and thus adjust the supply as the economy demands. During times of peak demand for specific items an increase in supply will keep prices reasonable as well as drain more gold faster. Later, as the server population moves on to other activities, the supply of those items can be scaled back to reduce the surplus from the market. It should be a simple matter of tracking how many of the items are churned through the market and how many are being handed in for quests.

zones in contention?

Just a thought .. imagine if every zone in WoW that is "in contention" would only make PVE quests available if your faction controlled that zone at that time? No zone control, no PVE.

I predict huge raging world PVP battles, TM vs SS being the least of it, as it would be nigh impossible to level if you're locked out of the zone.

The mechanics would need to be carefully worked out of course, to compensate for realm population imbalances. The way I would do it would be by having a domination capture mechanic (like the Spirit Towers and Halaa) which would then result in a locked period. The locked period would run for X hours from the time of the capture, and after that it's available for recapture. This fixes the related population advantage problems with the Spirit Towers and Halaa - the former are on a scheduled timer so the population knows when to go there and dominate, and the latter has no lock out and thus will quickly be recaptured.

There are 30+ zones up for contention, so it would be difficult for a faction to dominate and control all of them at once. Nonetheless, it would be advisable to design in some bonus/advantage for the underdog factions - perhaps special new quests encouraging adventurers to go off to battle. Ideally, these should provide PVP oriented rewards - if one side is constantly the underdog, they will obtain advantages not available to the other faction, and the tables will turn. I think this PvP vs PvE teeter-totter balance would be key - dominating zones via PvP unlocks PvE content, being underdogs unlocks PvP content, and no vicious feedback loops of the dominant faction gaining ever more advantages.

Integrating this design into the current game would be messy of course – this is only a thought experiment after all. Perhaps only the quests in the major hubs would be locked out, and since these zones have a hub for each faction it's thus possible for three states to occur: alliance controls both hubs, horde controls both hubs, and each control one hub each. Controlling the enemy faction hub could also unlock additional quests. Ideally, those quests would be completely new content, and not simply re-skinned versions of the enemy faction quests.

Leveling an alt would be different each time, as which hubs are controlled as you level up could be different each time. At the least, you'd have additional PvP quests available. If your side controls the enemy faction base but not your own, that would make a very different journey.

Logging out in your local Inn wouldn't be safe though. Not sure what could be done there.

Update - some related posts:

• Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Do queues make Destruction more hardcore?
• Serial Ganker: The Tobold WAR challenge

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.

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.

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?

places above, below, between

I dream of a zone which is a vast forest, where you could not only travel about on the ground, but also climb into the arbosphere and follow an intricate maze of skyway paths. The tree level wouldn't simply be another flat level overlaid on the ground level, but a 3 dimensional space, one where paths criss-cross above and below each other, where shortcuts are available by carefully jumping down in just the right spot, where apparent dead ends reveal ladders that open up whole new opportunities. Mix into that the occasional high protuberance from the ground level such as a hill or building to further complicate the potentials.

Floating above the tree level there could also be a cloud level, where gas leviathans lazily drift from place to place, and you'd need to now take into account the fourth dimension: time. Once all that is happening, build in an underground level too. Tunnels, caverns, precarious paths along cliffs. Some tunnels would wind upwards, exiting on cliffs overlooking the tree level.

The underdeep evokes memories of Wailing Caverns, with it's interesting possibilities of different paths, of having to leap across a gap to get to the next area ... which is most unlike Karazhan - while that place has used the vertical dimension you can't do a whole lot with it. There are no short cuts I know of available, and unless you have a parachute cloak or some magic skill a wrong step would usually be fatal.

Different sub-zones or gateways would be controlled by different factions, necessitating careful balancing of reputations. Certain paths should be mutually exclusive, determined by which rivalrous faction you have reputation with.

An explorer's paradise.

why only one end to the game?

The game starts with different starting zones, based on your choice of race. Each is different and interesting, some are better than others, but eventually everyone converges into the same few zones, such as the Stranglethorn Hole. After that the game then progresses with some divergence and paths, but all eventually leading back to the same end-game series of instances, and eventually to Black Temple.

The design concept underlying all this is that all roads lead to Rome - a plethora of choices early on, narrowing as you go, and ultimately being funneled towards one end destination. This idea is all well and fine at first blush, but there are problems becoming very evident.

Problems like: the only way to add new content is by shifting the goals further down the road, resulting in an even longer leveling death-march; and then whatever was the previous end destination becomes obsoleted and henceforth completely skipped; end-game epic gear becoming obsoleted by the trash greens that drop in the expansion; and fewer and fewer choices of where to play just at the time when your character finally has lots of capabilities (spells, talents, skills, etc).

What if the game had multiple ending zones, each rivaling the other, each requiring the same massive investment of time and effort to gather necessary faction reputations, resistance gear, etc. Now, not only could you experience a totally different game by choosing a different starting zone, but you could experience a totally different game by choosing a different ending zone.

Importantly, pursuit of one particular ending zone should come at the opportunity cost of the other ending zones - the simplest means might be via different resistance sets, more complex means might involve rivalrous factions. The point being that you don't get everyone congregating in one end city/zone/instance, but instead are spread out over different places. It should still be possible to take your champion from one place and go explore the alternative end zones, but the success in that first place shouldn't result in easy success in the second place (due to gear etc). Some advantage, but not much .. the same way success in the PvP arenas doesn't result in being equally suited for success in PvE raiding (and vice versa).

This divergent-endings design could be further enhanced by introducing meaningful faction rivalries, such that it might be quicker to level an alt to take on different ending, rather than grind down the hatred your main accumulated with the faction in charge of the other end-game instance.

I can imagine entire guilds being formed around different end-games. Fellowship of the Mountain, Black Rock Raiders, Underdeep Underdogs, Southsea Buccaneers.

Each expansion of the game could introduce new end-zones and instances, but no raising of the level cap (by not raising the level cap, you don't further exacerbate the death-march grind required to reach the level cap). Introduce new talents and gear and potions and enchants which are tuned for that expansion, but all at the same level as what is already in the game.

This idea isn't without it's own problems of course: many players get precious about their one character, and after the hard struggle to topple Illidan they would want to take the same character into the content of the next expansion. Counter that by ensuring there is enough divergent paths through leveling content, with the barest crossovers and melting pots like Stranglethorn.

Changing the world by community ownership

Elsewhere there has been plenty of discussion of the impact of the game world via player or guild housing. Cool as the basic idea is, there are severe downsides due to players not always being logged in, clutter, and inactive players leaving behind abandoned structures, and so on.

Consider though if the world impact wasn't by a direct mechanism owned by players, but instead via communities which the players align themselves to, in a subtler sense of the word "ownership".

They could swear allegiance to some minor lord, do his bidding, and see that community slowly grow from their efforts and contributions. The central village might grow in size and capability, outposts may be established, which in turn grow, until eventually a mighty empire straddles the land.

As their reputation with that community builds they might even be afforded some input into governance, perhaps some voting rights, or able to petition the ruling council for more of a particular kind of activity vs another (more mining vs farming, or colony expansion, or raiding, or alliances).

In my mind this design has various advantages:

• the world can grow and change but in a manner not easily exploited by players (no rude words spelled out by the judicious placement of buildings, for example),
• although players invest a sense of ownership into these communities they don't truly own them, and thus have a small buffer against direct griefing,
• if the community the player has aligned themselves to is suffering horribly whether due to griefers or simply other larger/more organised communities, then the player can switch allegience and move on,
  
• since property isn't directly tied to individual players, when those players go inactive or awol it doesn't really matter .. there will be other players who will come along and pick up the slack,
• those players that build up influential reputation with that community don't get a lock on controlling that community .. whilst they might have more influence in decisions made, their participation isn't required for decisions to be made (compare this to guilds whose guild leader has gone awol, making it impossible to change various guild settings).

It's been said that "war is merely a continuation of politics by other means" .. so it would be meaningful to have politics in play, and the game be more than simply one toon blindly swinging a weapon at another toon. Heck, in some remote quarters peace might even break out, but I doubt it. Will there be players that don't care for all this non-combat PvP? Sure. However it's not necessary to participate in that in order to go do combat PvP. Some won't care why there is some big battle happening out west, they'll just go to where the fight is.

Tobold also wonders about impact PvP and the resulting discussion is interesting.

Update: found someone else with very similar ideas. I disagree that regular resets of the game are needed though - certainly there is the problem of positive feedback loops resulting in some faction or other dominating. What is needed there though is not some artificial game reset mechanism, but countervailing forces designed into the game. History is full of examples we can draw on - once empires get large, bad things start to happen. They succumb to internal bickering and sub-factions splinter off, they get fat and lazy and whomped by lean and mean barbarians, the oppressed minority factions draw from deep within to find a hero and spark a rebellion. Design in some dynamics that kick in at the extreme ends of the equilibrium which can result in the tables being turned, and things will get interesting.

more rival factions please

In WoW, there are a great number of factions you can build up reputation with. However, with the vast majority of these factions your reputation can only go in one direction: up.

There are three pairs of factions however which act as rivals to each other - as your reputation increases with one, it decreases with the other. These rivals are Aldor vs Scryer, Booty Bay vs Bloodsail Buccaneers, and Gelkis Centaurs vs Magram Centaurs.

Most players will by default build reputation with Booty Bay in preference to the Bloodsail. You'd have to go out of your way to do otherwise, given that Booty Bay is a major civilisation hub, full of vendors, quests, and travel opportunities. If you do choose to grind your Bloodsail rep you can eventually get a fancy pirate hat as a reward, so it's not entirely meaningless.

With Aldor/Scryer, different rewards await you at the higher reputation levels so choose wisely. Other than that there isn't much difference of note.

With Gelkis vs Magram, the rivalry is even more meaningless for players. You do have to build reputation to unlock some quests (not very many), but there are otherwise no other rewards for doing so.

All the other factions are not rivalrous, but generally have some rewards available for improved reputation.

...

What I'd like to see however is more meaningful consequences of building reputation with a given faction, and more faction rivalry. Instead of just some isolated pockets of territory being safe havens or enemy territory, have sufficient numbers of rival factions such that travelling cross country needs careful route planning. Have many different quests (and not simple mirror versions of the same quests) become unlocked according to faction reputation. Have certain resources more common in one faction territory, and other resources elsewhere - aligning yourself with the Goblin Mining Corporation might pit you against the Druidic Circle, but you will at least be able to travel safely in sub-zones rich in mining nodes (and not so safely in those sub-zones controlled by the Druidic Circle).

Not only will choices then be imbued with meaningful consequences, but you could then make different choices on your next character and thus experience a whole new range of adventures.

Agree/disagree?

crafting some amusement

First, consider a crafting system where the skill for each item is arranged into a multi-branching tree, rather like the tech-tree of Sid Meier's Civilisation games. In such a system there isn't the need to segregate crafting into separate professions, while the more advanced item skills would require learning related item skills and thus there would be "professions" as such. Some item skills are to produce items, and some are simply knowledge skills (to help pad out the tree).

Not all skills lead to dependent skills. Some skills are dependent on more than one skill, some dependencies have alternatives (eg. cannon might require skill in any one of rifle, shotgun, or pistol .. but not necessarily all three or any specific one).

Next, have each item skill be separately improved - apprentice, journeyman, expert, artisan, master. The items you craft could vary in their quality, depending on your skill level. A basic Sword of Striking might net you a +1 bonus at apprentice skill, +2 at journeyman skill, all the way up to +5 as a master. The level requirements to use the item would remain the same however, and thus you're not simply crafting a weapon for higher level toons but instead crafting a higher quality weapon for the same level.

While you are still apprentice skill, there's a strong chance your crafting attempt will fail, consuming the required materials but producing only grey junk. You would however have a strong chance of earning a skill point, learning from both your mistakes and your successes.

Once you have journeyman skill in an item you can reliably craft items without failure. As journeyman, this would also unlock any dependent skills, which you would need to find a trainer for. You could at this point then move on to dependent skills deeper into the skill tree, leaving your skill at this item at the journeyman level.

On the other hand, you could strive to become an expert in crafting that item. Again, the attempts might fail, but at least this time the failures wouldn't be total junk, just slightly degraded efficacy. Sometimes you'd fluke a slightly better quality result too.

As a master craftsman of an item you could also train others in that item skill too. Also, being master skill in an item can also result in discovering one or more of the dependent skills, instead of having to train in it. Interestingly, this means the game wouldn't need to provide trainers other than as necessary to kick-start the crafting ecology/economy. There could even be entire technology branches which remain undiscovered.

Producing the items using those skills can improve your skill rating in that skill item, so long as you are striving to produce the best quality you are capable of. Producing lower quality items won't result in any chance to improve that skill. To improve knowledge skills involves a studying activity instead of producing something and would involve material requirements. You might also gain a skill point in a knowledge skill when producing an item which is dependent on that knowledge skill.

Thus, you don't need to be fully proficient in every item skill to progress up the tree, and you can skill up in any item at a later time as desired. It's quite possible many players will just get to journeyman in many of their item skills, and only excel in the items they particularly care for. This leaves open opportunities to become the only master craftsman of a particular item, carving out a particular niche for yourself. As a master craftsman in some obscure item you might even discover a new branch of technology .. one which you'd keep secret the pre-requisites so as to maintain a monopoly.

...

The actual act of producing an item or studying a skill would be a mini game, one which affects the quality of the produced item, the chance of earning a skill point, and extent of wastage of materials (less wastage means you don't use up all required materials). There should be some way of automating the workflow administration of a production that involves sub-units (learning from the tedious and fiddly process of the engineering skill in WoW).

...

Inevitably, players will grind their production skilling in pursuit of earning skill points, producing a massive excess of stock which the market would not support. It would thus be useful to provide faction NPCs which accept turn-ins of various crafted goods in exchange for reputation, the same way there is a Cloth Quartermaster for each faction. After all, the town guards need to be equipped, don't they?

...

In addition to the skill points/levels per skill, keep track and display the average or recent trend of quality of items someone produces. A bit like maintaining a "high score" for skill in playing the production mini-game. Maintaining a high average might well also accrue bonus reputation with your faction, as a further reward. Remember though that producing high-quality items isn't a one-click grind, you'd have to work at it.

(I also have a followup post on random discovery of new crafting recipes)