http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained

The success of this campaign will have tremendous ramifications on future MMO projects. I encourage you to support it.

I have fond memories of DAoC; it's the first graphical MMO I played seriously that I wasn't working on. I stopped playing it because I bought this little game called Meridian 59.

Anyway, let me keep this short (for me): this campaign needs to succeed. MMO players and MMO devs need a higher profile success in MMOs. We need to show that a smaller game can generate enough risk. We need someone experienced like Mark Jacobs who has shown he can deliver a game limited in scope to pull this off. We need an antidote to the repeated failures we've seen.

Speaking as someone who has dealt with investors when trying to fund an MMO, the success of this campaign will be an important signal that MMOs aren't dead, especially at the lower end. If you care about MMOs, go support this. Even if you hate RvR and Mark Jacobs kicked your puppy, go toss in $5 to show there's support for small-scale MMOs. Your support will make a lot of difference not only to this game, but to (my) other similar games in the future.

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

We all need Camelot Unchained to succeed

One of the biggest problems is how we design the game to allow interaction with other people.

A multiplayer foundation

Early online game developers realized that there were some things that online games wouldn't be able to do as well as single player games. Online games usually had worse graphics, less complex gameplay, and less focus on the player as a unique hero. But, most early online game developers realized that being able to play with others is an amazing advantage. Being able to play with (or against) other players, particularly a larger number of other players, was something that single-player games couldn't match.

We see this even beyond MMOs. One reason why DOOM took the world by storm is because you could jump in and shoot at your friends. It was amazing. MMOs came along and upped the ante by allowing more players. But, even playing in a text MUD with a few dozen other people was amazing; as I've said before, the ability for some Midwestern college kid to play a game with people half way around the globe is a big reason why I make online games.

The social fabric

Even though a lot of MUDs let you solo pretty easily, early MMOs focused a lot on the multiplayer aspect. You could fight M59's monsters fairly easily alone, but the PvP elements meant that there was strength in numbers; joining a good guild helped protect you. UO followed the tradition of MUDs in that it didn't force you together, but it also had open PvP, so it was best to stick with some friends lest you become prey. EQ doubled-down on the multiplayer despite largely eschewing PvP; the PvE design made it so you couldn't really progress unless you played in a group (or played a few specific classes extremely well).

The big advantage of multiplayer is what MMO developers call the "social fabric" that bound the players together beyond the game. While playing an MMO, you meet people and get to know them; "Fandalor, the Sorcerer of Light" becomes "Bob, who works IT support and plays the game from work, the lucky bastard." Making a personal connection is part of the "Socializer" motivation Bartle's wrote about. For people who are Socializers, the game stops being just about the gameplay and becomes about hanging out with the cool people you know in the game; similar to how people will go down to the corner bar to hang out, not necessarily because they want to drink, but because that's where the people they know hang out.

For developers, the social fabric is vital. Even if an MMO had the depth of gameplay of a single-player game, and honestly many early MMOs didn't, there are few single-player games that can entertain a player for hundreds if not thousands of hours. The social elements kept players interested past the time when the core game mechanics were no longer fresh. A common refrain in EQ was, "The gameplay doesn't excite me anymore, but I'm still playing because my friends are there."

Social overhead

There were a few problems with the grouping requirement. First, it meant you might have to take a lot of time to find a group. It was common for some EQ players to spend significant playtime just looking for a group then traveling. People who didn't have a whole lot playtime felt this cut into their limited time.

The second, related, problem is that social interaction created social obligations. If someone complains about having spent 2 hours finding a group, you might feel like an ass if you break the group up early. At the higher end of gameplay, raiding created new requirements, structure, and obligations. Especially for people in key roles like main tank, there is a strong sense of obligation to not disappoint the rest of the raid group.

These two problems, which I like to call "social overhead", lead people to complain that social interaction requires too much time.

The attempted solution

WoW was a landmark, where it allowed you to solo the game and reduced social obligation. In fact, the way some game and quest mechanics worked often made it less efficient to play in a group with friends. Given the tremendous success of WoW, this particular lesson was taken to heart. (The lesson that having a decade-strong game and business brand people loved was largely ignored because it wasn't so easily replicated.)

Of course, technology and techniques advance. Today, MMOs are no longer firmly behind the curve. Games like Guild Wars 2 rival the graphical splendor of contemporary single-player games. MMOs don't need to rely on multiplayer, and the focus has shifted to providing solo content. The problem is that this has exacerbated the "content problem", where MMOs have to release a steady stream of content in order to keep players.

But, this brings us to the original problem: MMOs aren't sticky anymore. People have noticed solo play just isn't as engaging. We see people trying out a game for a few months then leaving, a class of people called "MMO Tourists". I think this shows why MMOs are stumbling, because now people are treating them like single-player games: something you play for a few months then set aside in order to find new experiences in another game.

Moving forward, not back

Let me address a common accusation: I'm not merely advocating a return to the "forced grouping" of older games. What I want to do is investigate new ways to encourage grouping in modern MMOs. I think it should be obvious that the current development path of MMOs has failed. I'm not merely trying to recapture the "glory days" of the older games with all their associated flaws, but looking at how modern games can reincorporate a multiplayer focus to bring back some of what people truly enjoyed about games.

In other words, no accusing me of nostalgia here. I want to move things forward in MMOs.

I firmly believe that modern games can support the type of gameplay I'm talking about here. In GW2, I had a glimpse of what could be: I was running the Fractals of the Mist (FotM) dungeon as a beginner with a PUG. One person dropped part way through the first of three dungeons, but the rest of us decided to press on. FotM is pretty brutal, and running it short was going to be tough. We persevered and conquered the three dungeons we needed to get a reward. After that, we added each other to our friends lists. But, I never talked to those people afterwards; I never ran into them again since they were on other servers, and I didn't run FotM all that often.

A possible solution

I firmly believe that MMOs need to focus back to the multiplayer foundation. I'm going to pick on GW2 a bit here since it's a game I've played a lot recently. There are also just a lot of great illustrations in this game about how partial solutions don't quite work.

The first step is to stop punishing grouping, as I've written before. This is a necessary but insufficient step: GW2 has all but eliminated the need for formal groups in the game when playing content in the open world, yet the social fabric doesn't feel stronger than in other modern MMOs.

The next step is to have content that requires a group and encourages that group to stick together. This shouldn't just be small spots of content in a sea of solo content, because these "group events" feel like annoyances rather than opportunities. Also, if you just make groups required for small bits of content, there's little motivation to stick with a group and make friends.

This group content needs to involve a smaller community where people will run into each other often. In the original EQ, you would run into the same people who played at the same time and were about the same level as you, leading to friendships. As I said, my FotM experiences in GW2 didn't result in a stronger social fabric because I never needed to rely on those other people anymore. A positive example from GW2 is the WvW zones. When I tried my hand at some WvW, I got 2 separate guild invites. I began to run into the same people I recognized, particularly other commanders that I recognized from previous forays. The problem with WvW is that it feels separated from the main game, outside gear makes a difference, and scaling a low level character up doesn't quite put you on equal footing.

Finally, I think we need to take the emphasis off of single-player gameplay. Note, this doesn't mean that solo gameplay has to be eliminated. The reality is that sometimes you just want to do something in a game by yourself; maybe you had a bad day and don't want to deal with other players, maybe your friends are getting on later and you don't want to get involved in anything, whatever. But, the solo gameplay must be an alternative rather than the focus. Finding the right mix is going to be one of the most difficult parts of this type of design.

The patient doesn't want the medicine

The biggest challenge here will be to convince players that this is in their best interests. As I said above, the problems of social overhead have lead people to believe that social interaction takes too much time. I think this is backwards, though; the social connections in MMOs meant the players often chose to spend more time in the game because they enjoyed it. As far as I know, the most active players are still playing as many hours per week as before, just that they aren't staying as long in a particular game.

The other issue is that WoW was the first game for a lot of people. These players might not see the advantage that a focus on grouping confers. They got into WoW's social fabric just fine, thanks, not realizing that the elements they loved in WoW can't easily be duplicated in other games. Convincing people who were new to MMOs with WoW might require a different approach.

I think a good way to accomplish this is to purposefully have a more niche focus. For example, I think Camelot Unchained will do eventually very well because it is focused on an team vs. team niche, like GW2's WvW gameplay. It won't attract the breadth of players, but those who do play will find it easier to group together to fight the enemy. A more niche game will mean people will run into the same other people. I predict that the game will not be plagued with "MMO Tourists" like other games have been.

MMOs need to change

I realize the focus on grouping isn't a perfect solution. There are people who really just don't have the time to pour into a game that requires a lot of social activity. The good news is that current MMOs serve those needs fine if this is the case. But, for the rest of us, we want a game that sweeps us off our feet again, where we meet great new people and make real friendships.

What do you think? Do you fear social overhead in a game that strongly encourages grouping? Do you think that fear is unfounded? Do you find yourself wishing for an experience like you might have had in older games? Do you think the social fabric was a big part of those experiences?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

M is for multiplayer

Unfortunately, the contract information is still under NDA so I can't be explicit here, but we'll share the details with qualified applicants. I hope you understand that I'm not prone to hyperbole, but let me say this is an incredibly exciting in terms of professional opportunity and personal satisfaction of doing something highly original.

Job title: AI programmer
Location: San Diego, CA
Salary: $70k + share options + relocation incentives

Job description

We have an immediate need for 2 AI engineers for large, fully-funded, AAA MMORPG project to push the envelope in AI for games. You would be an employee of Storybricks with cool people (and me). However, the work would be performed with the client company. We'd love to have someone able to start in the next 4 weeks or less.

If you love games, particularly MMORPGs, this is truly a once in a decade opportunity.

Preferred skills

5+ programming experience C/C++
Experience with game AI
MMO AI experience helpful but not necessary
Pathfinding/steering behaviors on open world dynamic navmesh helpful but not necessary
Some knowledge of utility systems would help

Other details

This is a full-time, on-site position. Due to the structure of the contract, we can't consider part-time or remote work at this time.

We can only accept US citizens or green card holders as we cannot sponsor visas for candidates. Again, due to the contract and time frame it's not an option.

How to apply

If you're interested or have questions, send me an email to brian@storybricks.com or apply directly at https://angel.co/l/cacmE

Thanks!

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Work with Storybricks

You can listen to the podcast at: http://epicslantpress.com/blog/2013/04/08/game-on-esp-edition-02-brian-green/

A few more thoughts after the jump.

I didn't get to talk more about how I really liked the character creation of the new World of Darkness games, even if I wasn't fond of the mechanics changes or the settings. I thought the idea of taking a human then applying a "supernatural template" to it was pretty cool. I think this is one of the reasons why the new WoD games work well together.

Also, there's some positive activity on Axes & Anvils that came in just today. Not sure I'll see the physical books I ordered, but I might get some good .pdf files out of it. :)

If you have questions, post them below! :)

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Podcast interview on Epic Slant

Someone requested this, saying it let them send the posts directly to their mobile phone. Figured it might be of interest to a few other people as well.

Also, I'm using this post to test if it works properly. ;)

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Subscribe to posts by email

But wait! It's even more exciting than you might possibly imagine. This is the mega-Kickstarter game campaign! I've gathered every major developer who has run a game-focused Kickstarter campaign and I've gotten them to join force into one, ultimate campaign!

Read on for information about the project and the tiers!

What are we going to do? It came to me while I was showering the other day: create the ultimate game that makes every other game, past; present; and future, obsolete. It's going to be an RPG, FPS, RTS, beat-em-up, shmup, puzzle-focused casual sim action-adventure game with elements of fighting games, platforming, strategy, tactics, and collectable card games. It'll be a fully-featured PvP/PvE MMO, and you'll be able to run your own server, AND there will be an extensive single-player campaign with thousands of hours of hand-crafted content. It will be 100% DRM free and available only through Steam. It will feature player-created content with an innovative "make great content" button built right into the editor; an innovation so obvious, you'll wonder why people didn't create it before!

What makes this project truly unique is the creative vision. One creative vision is awesome, so a few dozen should be amazing! Here's the current lineup of star talent:

Lord British will lend his flair for the original and visionary to guide the programming team!

Notch will contribute his amazing business insight to picking a name!

Mark Jacobs has advised us how to run the HR department!

Raph Koster is willing to lend a hand in marketing and promotion!

Peter Molyneux will help us in defining a reasonable scope for the project!

Tim Schafer offered us advice on how to live off food tossed out by restaurants until the Kickstarter campaign completes!

And many more! People added as I make them up!

For all this amazingness, we're setting our goal at $829. Not that we can do anything with that little, but it's a low figure and you'll be more willing to support a project that has met its goal. Also, our mean family m members said we couldn't make a game and we want to prove them wrong!

Reward tiers

Q: What do you call a KS campaign with only one reward tier? A: PRE-ORDERS! But, pre-orders are so "brick and mortar". This is the digital crowdfunded future, baby!

Let's look at what you can spend your money to get.

$1: Read our bloviating! Thanks for your buck, now you get to read whatever spammy updates we send out!

$5: Less derision. We'll spam you, but we'll be a bit less condescending as we hit the "send" button.

$7: Cool person's club! Yeah, still nothing but spam, but it the tier name sounds cooler.

$10: Crippleware. We'll give you the game, but you'll only really get about 10% of it because we're going to charge you more later! 1% discount on the full version later.

$20: Amazing version! A copy of the game and a Lamborghini.

$30: Tabletop module. We'll give you a crippleware version and a copy of a tabletop module that has almost nothing to do with the game, but hey, it bulks up our numbers to impress investors!

$50: "Full"* version of the game. Digital only. * NOTE: "Full" version may not actually include the entire game. Will include a Lamborghini on a roll of 8-12 on 2d6.

$125: Physical version! We'll ship a CD to with the full version of the game on it. It'll be outdated before we print the first CD, and require a 10 GB patch to play anyway!

$150: COLLECTOR'S EDITION! Physical version of the game, plus a cloth map like the ones that used to come with the $60 retail boxes!

$200: ULTRA COLLECTOR'S EDITION! Physical copy of the game, plus a cheap plastic tchotchke that will break after you touch it! (Map not included, may be included as an add-on detailed below.)

$1,000: MEGA ULTRA COLLECTOR'S EDITION! Very pretty sealed packaging with rocks inside. Opening the package would actually destroy the value, so why bother to put anything besides rocks inside?

$2,500: The version you actually want. This has all the features we pimp above, and has a decent selection of bonuses. Get ready to eat Ramen for the rest of the year!

$10,000: Blow and hookers edition. No, you don't get the blow and hookers. That's what we're spending your money on if you pledge at this level.

Add-ons

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE... STUFF YOU CAN BUY! WE LOVE MONEY!

Add-on $10: Get the Android version. But, you'll just pirate it anyway, won't you?

Add-on $20: Get a second Lamborghini!

Add-on $70: A cloth map, like the ones that came in the $60 retail boxes of yesteryear!

Add-on $100: Mark Jacobs will apologize for making Albion overpowered at DAoC's launch.

Add-on $120: Dear friend We sell you fastest in-game gold! Safe and reliable! Best price guaranteed! xcsja325

Add-on $500: Get the official iPhone app that is basically a copy of our website only 2 months out-of-date!

Add-on $1,000: Kickstarter insurance! An innovative system were we will refund your money when... er, IF we somehow don't deliver. Only good for COLLECTOR'S EDITION tiers and below. Insurance is non-refundable.

Add-on $2,500: Raph Koster apologizes to you personally for making you grind all those professions to unlock the Jedi class.

Add-on $3,000: Texture upgrade pack that makes the game look like it was released 10 years ago instead of during the 8-bit era!

Add-on $10,000: Psychochild will make a non-committal apology for adding faction loss to M59 without admitting to any wrongdoing.

Add-on $1,000,000,000: Lord British will apologize for calling you a lazy designer. Even though you really are kinda lazy.

Stretch Goals

You are so not ready for this awesomeness!

$1,000 - We get drunk on well drinks!

$5,000 - We get totally hammered on brand-name liquors!

$7,000 - We'll build and release a tech demo that really should be something a few programmers bang out over a week, but we expect you to pay for.

$10,000 - We include Twitter integration, but really we'll include it anyway.

$100,000 - We'll develop a Mac OS X version. JUST KIDDING! Macs suck for gaming, and nobody cares how thin your laptop is. Get a real computer.

$1,000,000 - We might actually start working on a game rather than drinking ourselves stupid. Stupider.

$10,000,000 - Honestly, we'll take the money and run at this point.

Risks

What risks? If we run out of money we just come back and ask for more. Or, if we want to be sneaky, we set up a ponzi scheme where we run a second KS campaign before the first game is even completed! We can't foresee anything possibly going wrong!

Crowdfunding is the future!

The beautiful thing about crowdfunding is that it gives power back to the users. You might be a washed-up has-been of a business person who bankrupted a previous company and was forced to sell it to a publisher who sucked it dry, but that doesn't matter if you know how to tickle a gamer's nostalgia. Even if your last hit game was decade or two ago, or you've ruined your reputation with game publishers so badly that they wouldn't want to work with you on a guaranteed success, there's a bunch of people out with more money than sense who think you're "sticking it to the man" by running a Kickstarter campaign.

Gods bless our customers, a new one born every minute.

I hope you're as excited about our project as we are! After all, it's not like we're going to invest any of our own money into this sinking ship, right? ;)

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Exciting news: the mega-Kickstarter campaign!

Let's take a look at one particular aspect: how much of the game should be new, compared to how much should be familiar to your players.

Mixing the old and the new

It's been a rule of thumb that you generally want to mix the old and the new together when creating a new work. The old is tired and boring, but the new can be too alienating to players.

Recent I read an excerpt from a book on junk food that drove home why a mix of old and new tends to work:

"So I started asking soldiers how frequently they would like to eat this or that, trying to figure out which products they would find boring," Moskowitz said. The answers he got were inconsistent. "They liked flavorful foods like turkey tetrazzini, but only at first; they quickly grew tired of them. On the other hand, mundane foods like white bread would never get them too excited, but they could eat lots and lots of it without feeling they’d had enough."

This contradiction is known as "sensory-specific satiety." In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more.

The interesting lesson for game design is that while people are much more likely to pick up something novel, they are likely to get tired of it faster. On the other hand, people tend to be able to continue with something that doesn't overload the senses. In food, this is the preference turkey tetrazzini but being able to eat white bread endlessly. In games, this means that innovative indie title will probably grate on you after a short period of time, while you can keep playing the latest clone or sequel until 4 AM in the morning, if you decide to play it in the first place.

(As an aside, I realize the pitfalls of pointing to a book about how junk food manufacturers manipulate tastes when discussing game design. Armchair Designer has already covered the comparison between the two in some depth. But, to repeat what I said in a comment on that site: game developers are generally more interested in developing a fun experience than trying to "addict" you. And while I'll agree that play is as basic a need as eating, I think modern games and modern (junk) food have a LOT of vital differences to take into consideration before trying to damn the game industry by association. This is largely beyond the scope of this article, although that quote does really illustrate the point.)

But, with "sensory-specific satiety" in mind, let's think about what the right mix is for a game.

Too much new

Time to revisit our old friend, innovation. What happens if you focus too much on the new? You fail. As I wrote in that post, innovation and polish are diametrically opposed to each other, so you can't create a game that is mostly new gameplay mechanics and perfect them. That intriguing new mechanic attracts people, but it can't retain them. And, you want that retention to spread good word-of-mouth recommendations to other people. This is especially true for MMOs, where you also need people to stick around and build your critical mass of users.

It can be tricky to determine what's really "new", though. There's a danger where someone immersed in a field (like game designers tend to be for games) forgets that not everyone has the same depth of experience. What can seem like old hat for us can be a bolt from the blue to someone else. We designers can get bogged down and feel jaded when our experiences set us too far apart from the average person. Sometimes even recombining existing elements can feel like a whole new thing that is greater than the sum of the parts. But, this newness can overwhelm the player, making them feel "sated" and tired of the game quicker.

Of course, not everyone reacts the same way. Some people will be interested in sticking with a product that is truly "innovative', creating a core audience. But, if you're relying on having a large audience for your game, you're going to be limited if you focus purely on new elements to the exclusion of old, familiar elements.

From a business point of view, thought, you want the new parts to offer should be something that isn't easily duplicated by others. Larger companies tend to be terrible at true innovation, but they will be only too happy to copy what you're doing and throw more resources behind it if you're doing something interesting. Again, innovating carries risk, and proving that your innovation works is the hard part.

Too much old

If you rely too heavily on just copying older works, then you're just cloning rather than designing a game. Depending on how recently your "inspiration" was created, you might at best be tagged as unoriginal or at worst get accused as ripping off another game developer.

The value of the old is that you have something that you can polish, because you can analyze what has come before. Further, this is the comforting part that keeps people coming back. Players know what to expect, and they will keep playing in order to master it or just to "pop virtual bubble wrap" in a way that feels comfortable to them. The old is established for a reason, and trying to compete directly with another company at something they're already doing is probably not a great way to attract people; existing fans will stay with your competitor, while people bored with the old will give your work a pass.

Again, these reactions aren't universal to every person. Some people might have their curiosity piqued by the old familiar; nostalgia has a certain lasting appeal (especially, it seems, on Kickstarter). And, as I wrote in the linked post, cloning works for many reasons, so sometimes people don't need the allure of the new.

Getting the mix right

So, you're a designer and you realize that you need some of the old when you're doing something new. This makes sense since Everything is a Remix, meaning that every work tends to have a bit of what came before it incorporated into the work. You start with the old, then hopefully express something new as well.

Keep in mind that presentation matters. There is the risk of what feels like "bait and switch" if you focus so much on the new that the old is a surprise. Let's take a look at Guild Wars 2 (GW2), and some of the current feeling about the game. The original Guild Wars was a rather innovative game. It was easy to get to max level, and players spent most of their time getting small upgrades or earning titles. GW2 had an infamous "manifesto" where they talked about how they were going to do bold things and not follow in the footsteps of other MMOs. This is the novel taste that piqued the audience's interest.

However, even though they were excited about the game, some people aren't happy with the new focus. Having to "grind" for new tier of gear doesn't feel like it's keeping with the original promises from GW2's manifesto. Other fans are beginning to question the entire direction the game is heading, arguing that the game seems to be painting itself into a corner in how it can continue to develop and still pretend to be unique.

Yet, for all the cautious pessimism, these two fans are still playing. I think at least one small part of it is that there's still some intriguing tastes to sample yet in the game. Or, perhaps the old familiar patterns are establishing themselves in a game that is more optimized and streamlined, and people are secretly happy to fall into those patterns once again.

We could also look at the example of WoW to see a game that got the balance just right. Take the old, established formula from EverQuest and other DIKU-derived games, build upon an established and beloved franchise like Warcraft, but then add in a focus on the ability to play solo and streamlined questing. You can perhaps see why the game did so well; they offered something a little different and appealing while sticking to a familiar core.

No single right answer

In the end, there's no universal measure of what mix you need. You can't easily determine that X% needs to be original and Y% should feel familiar without being derivative. It's hard to draw the line where the familiar becomes derivative, as that tends to be a matter of personal taste.

What do you think? How much new do you want to see, and how much do you like the old, comfortable, familiar at the core of the new experience? Do you think you have more tolerance or less patience for novelty than others do?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

The old, spiced with the new

Anyway, I've got a post I want to write, but at this pace it might take me a few weeks. So, let me solicit questions from you all and have an open thread here. Post what you want to post about. Ask me a question, get my feedback, or just rant about something you don't have space to put anywhere else. Standard caveat applies, anything truly offensive will probably get deleted. But, you'll have to be in excessive bad taste to get to that point.

So... what's on your mind? :)

Also, there's a separate thread over on Google+.

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

Ask me anything/open thread

And, to answer the burning question: Dragon. You may congratulate or boo me in the comments section. ;)

A more substantial review beyond the jump.

A history shrouded in mystery

I played The Secret World (TSW) in beta. I wanted to see how they would push MMOs forward after the building expectation. The game eschewed the standard fantasy setting, ditched the usual level and class systems, and focused on telling an interesting story woven from conspiracy theories. I enjoyed the beta, although I was disappointed that the much ballyhooed "investigation quests" were disabled. Ultimately, like a lot of other people I guess, I decided that the wasn't quite engrossing enough to buy and subscribe to the game.

But, without a subscription and a ludicrously cheap purchase price, I could resist no longer.

A secret handshake shows the way

Ah, the classic decision faced in any new MMO: what character type do I want to play?

The visual customization of your character is good. Obviously, in a game set in the modern world, you're limited to human characters. There's a good bit of choice, although the organization of the options leaves a bit to be desired. You can create a fairly unique looking character, perhaps even one that looks vaguely like you.

Gameplay choices are more complex. Funcom decided to get rid of levels (kinda) and classes (although they kept the trinity). So, you don't have the all the familiar tropes to rely on.

There are nine weapon types in TSW. Three melee weapons, three firearms, and three types of magic. Without existing tropes, the first step is to learn what the different weapons do. For example, Assault Rifles do damage but also have some healing type abilities through "leeching" abilities. Each weapon has two tiers of abilities: an inner circle of two groups representing the "basic" abilities of the weapon, and an outer circle with six more expensive groups of abilities. The outer tier abilities are not necessarily more powerful, but they tend to be useful in more specific situations. For example, the outer circle Blade ability Grass Cutter does slightly less damage the base blade ability Delicate Strike. However, if the target is "Afflicted" (has a DoT from another ability), then Grass Cutter does about 20% or so more damage.

But, you have to choose carefully. You can wield only 2 weapons at a time, and only get 7 active abilities (typical hotbar abilities as in other games) and 7 passives (buffs that affect your character or enhance skills). Part of creating a smart build is picking the abilities that mesh well together. But, what do you want to do in a game with such free-form character advancement?

Each weapon type builds a resource: firearm resources build up on a target like combo points for Rogues in WoW, magic builds up resources from 0, and melee weapons build up resources that also increase when out of combat (like mana in other games). Some abilities increase resources, many for both weapons you have equipped. Other abilities consume resources, either taking a set amount or consuming all resources to do a variable effect. So, you tend to have an ebb and flow of building resources, then consuming those resources with other abilities.

Even though the game is technically classless, it does have the trinity of roles. For example, Blade skills do damage and "increase survivability". If you take a lot of the "survivability" skills (and focus on equipment with defensive stats), you'll have a tank-type character. In fact, when people look for groups they explicitly ask for healer, tank, and DPS characters. The potentially interesting thing is that you can swap between roles fairly easily if you have the appropriate skills and equipment. You don't even have to re-spec, just adjust your equipment and skills when not in combat and you're good to go.

Growing to unknown levels of power

So, how does your character grow? Even without explicit character levels, your equipment has quality levels (QL) that range from 0 to 10. Higher QL has higher bonuses and you need to higher skill levels with that type of equipment to equip higher quality levels. So, the game has a relative power level that is used for gameplay calculations. Advancing a skill also gives you some minor bonuses associated that skill. For weapons, you have 2 sub-categories and the highest is used for your overall skill level with that weapon; for example, Blades have Damage (which gives you an ability that does bonus damage on every other hit) and Survivability (which lets you regain some lost health sometimes when you get hit).

So, how do you get all these wonderful abilities and skill levels? Buying them with points! How do you get ability points and skill points? Gaining xp! You gain xp from killing monsters, but as with most modern games you get more xp if you complete quests. (At least the first time, repeating a quest seems to give less xp.)

Quest come in four flavors: main story quests that take you through a whole setting, dungeon quests that you complete in dungeon areas, main quests (includes the investigation quests) that you get from NPCs, and side quests that you usually pick up along the way doing other quests. Except for three side quests, you can only do one of each other type of quest at a time. To be honest, this feels like a way to just stretching out the content by keeping you from doing a bunch of quests all at one time. There also doesn't seem to be quite enough side quests. All the main quests have voice over introductions, where your silent character lets the quest-giving NPC either give a monologue or interact with other NPCs nearby while giving you some hint or background on what you're about to do.

Of course, the voiceovers are incredibly limiting to adding content; as we saw with SW:tOR, it's hard to keep adding the content that players of this type of MMO consume at such a rapid pace when there's the expectation that it needs to have voice acting along with it.

A character's hidden talents

I did a bit of research on recommended builds. I saw a lot of references to Blades and Assault Rifle builds, so I went with those weapons. I didn't follow any particular builds, just used those two weapons and figured out how they worked. I spent my ability points unlocking the inner tier of abilities for all weapon types; I figured I would want to try out the different abilities after a bit.

Currently I'm in the third zone in the game, the Blue Mountains area. I've done all the quests in the first two zones at least once, at least the ones I could find. :) I've run the first two dungeons twice as well. My current build works very well for me. Perhaps too well, in that when I tried a few other weapons I just couldn't get into them, even before I started buying the outer tier skills. Other weapons lacked the punch or survivability I've come to enjoy with the Blade/AR build. Although, I think I'd still like to try to create a tanking build for future dungeon runs.

I have the same problem I encountered in Guild Wars 2: I've kind of optimized my selection based on my playstyle, and the limited number of skills feels limiting to me. I like having abilities that I don't use every fight, that I save for those special "oh shit" situations.

A big potential downside of the character advancement system is that it seems to make alts largely unnecessary. Why build a new character and have to grind through the same old quests when you could do the same thing on your original character and get those abilities eventually, anyway? The limited number of quests means that you aren't getting much in the way of new experiences. The only difference between the factions seem to be flavor text after finishing a quest, a few quests you participate in as you level up, and some cosmetic options. Whereas I have an army of alts in DDO and GW2, I only see myself really playing one character in TSW.

The obscured path to the future

Some other thoughts about the game.

A lot of people weren't fond of the combat in TSW. It does seem a bit awkward, still relying on some of the hotbar combat tropes in other games, while seemingly encouraging a more mobile mindset that GW2 seemed to streamline a bit later. I think TSW's combat is fine so far, but I've read warnings that the next two major areas, Egypt and Transylvania, are MUCH harder in turn. We'll see if I can persist.

A gameplay element that I particularly like are the bits of lore. These are orange squares located around the world; some are hidden while others are out in the open. These open up bits of text that tell you about the world. Although, as much as I'm not fond of GW2 putting every location to find on the map, I do wish there were hints about where the locations of the lore are. If there's some item of lore I'm missing, I either have to spend time wandering around trying to find it, or read a site that tells me exactly where the lore is found (because, hey, achievers like to read lore too.) I wish there were a more happy medium.

Overall, I like the story; it's actually pretty good, and I don't just mean "good for a game". The heavy reliance on voice acting means that there's going to be a finite amount of content I'll be able to consume before it degenerates to grinding to fill out the skills on my character sheet, though.

In the transition from subscription to free-to-play, I worry that TSW seems to be giving away a bit too much. Keeping in mind that I tend to be a cheap bastard, I haven't seen much I'm particularly interested in spending money on past my $10 investment to buy the game. They do give you a few perks for subscribing but a big one, a reusable xp boost, doesn't quite work the way the game is set up. You can use the xp boost to double monster xp for 1 hour, reusable every 16 hours. But, that includes time spent in voiceovers, or just listening to dialog options with NPCs. After I pop the boost then sit in an otherwise entertaining quest introduction, I feel like I'm wasting a resource. I've had to change my perspective to see it as a bonus rather than a feature, which means that subscribing might not be worthwhile. And, given that I'm not all that fussed with cosmetic options, that won't be a source of income from me. The only thing that might be interesting is some of the "DLC" stories they've introduced after launch. As I've written before, I think DDO does free-to-play right.

There's also a system of auxiliary weapons I haven't figured out yet. Rocket launchers, chainsaws, and quantum bracers sound interesting, and I assume there some high level feature I haven't stumbled across yet.

Overall, I'm enjoying TSW. I made my home (you can group with anyone on any server, but you have a home) on a role-playing server, so I might dive into that a bit more later after I've explored the world a bit more. :)

With a lot of new mechanics to explore, I'm still figuring out things on a design level. I'll probably do another post in the future with some design analysis. But, I'm interested to hear what you think. Is TSW intriguing to you? Or did you let it pass you by? If you play it, what builds have you found to your liking?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

That moblin was wrong: it’s not really a secret

Let's take a look at how something fun devolves into a grind.

Does GW2 have grind?

I started thinking about this topic again when GW2 fanatic Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats posted about dynamic events in the game. He lamented the lack of variety, particularly as he was completing the daily quests that require 5 events be completed per day. I made a comment observing that it is interesting to see how fast "something that changes the nature of the game/" has become "something optimized and ground out for achievement".

The comment got Ravious thinking and he wrote a followup post examining the grinding aspects of daily quests in GW2. He writes that he primarily plays the way he wants, but then at the end of his session he finds a way to complete his daily quest requirements. I recognized this, as I often do the same thing in the game.

And, while the daily quests might not feel quite like a grind yet, it probably will in the future. Let's take a look at a few other things that have turned from fun into a grind.

Grinding through history

Let's go to the grandaddy of the DIKU-inspired MMOs: EverQuest. When it launched, it created a sensation. People loved it. A lot of people who had not had experience with online games descended into the nascent world of Norrath and had fun with the world. The sheer breadth of the world was awe-inspiring, even to some people who had experience with online games. Few people worried about having to "grind", because everything was new and interesting. People were fumbling around, and they had fun because it was so different than previous experiences.

But, as time went on, the novelty wore off. Instead of going around adventuring, people tried to figure out the best way to accomplish their goals. They'd go to places to get the most experience per hour. Players would go camp certain locations to get gear they wanted (sometimes to sell for real money on eBay). Eventually the fun of exploring around an area was optimized into a series of specific actions, and after that we see people complaining about "the grind".

Later, you have World of Warcraft. In WoW, they introduced a new innovation: the quest log! Instead of just mindlessly killing critters, NPCs in town would direct you to places to accomplish little tasks. In fact, killing monsters was a terribly inefficient way to level. But, again, we see that people wanted to optimize the process, and Blizzard was willing to help players do so. The most notable expression of this was QuestHelper, which allowed players to figure out the optimal path to complete a quest without having to explore the zone; this system of showing where quest objectives were located was later was incorporated into the game client itself.

What makes a grind

As I've written before, the core of the grind is repetition. But, as I wrote in that article: all games are repetition. The grind settles in when you're done learning the game's patterns and everything is just an exercise in executing a known plan. Especially when you just want to get the goal and know how to get there, but all that remains is the hours of activity that you've come to see as a grind.

But, there's a step in between: optimization. Efficiency is the enemy of fun, especially in an Achiever-focused game. Optimizing means learning about the game and figuring out the best way to do things. But, so once you know the best way to do things, you get bored. Any activity that you know how to do well and that has a predictable outcome is going to be seen as a grind. The problem is that Achievers will generally seek to optimize their play, so they eternally make the game less fun for themselves.

Daily events

So, perhaps you can see why I'm concerned about the optimization of dynamic events that Ravious talked about. Since camping monsters and directed questing have now become grinds, the dynamic events in GW2 were supposed to be the next evolution. But, if they're becoming optimized just a few months after launch, to the point where people are asking for more updates, this bodes poorly for them being a viable system for other games to adopt, as it seems to have the same flaw as other methods that rely on hand-crafted content.

It's also interesting to note that ArenaNet has said they're going to be changing how the dailies work in the game. Instead of having a static list, you'll be able to choose from different options that will change during the day. This should hold off on players optimizing the game exactly for at least a little while. Will it hold in the long term? I'm not sure.

How to avoid the grind

In the spirit of trying to be helpful, let me brainstorm a few ways that ArenaNet could make the dynamic events avoid feeling like a grind in short order. As always, these are made without knowledge of how their particular system is set up, and they could be irrelevant or damn near impossible to implement.

1. Keep letting players just play. One very popular philosophy that ArenaNet has articulated is that players should be able to just play the way they want. GW2's daily quests are nice, because you get rewarded for doing what you'd probably already do anyway. It just takes a bit of extra effort to do a bit more at the end of your session. Trying to force players to go out of their way to do new events will probably not be very popular, even if it would make things harder to optimize in the short term.
2. Make events more varied. Adding more events is the easiest way. Putting some effort into creating "template" events where details could be filled in with nearby elements might be nice. For example, the event where you escort a girl back home is pretty neat. Take this basic template and apply it to other locations. Of course, this is hard given that GW2 so heavily relies on voice acting for a lot of the events, particularly this one with the little girl's cries.
3. Make events less predictable. Throw a curve ball every once in a while. Maybe have an event happen in different places instead of the same place all the time. Or have what seems like the same event, but with a different goal; sometimes you don't want to kill the broodmother drake, maybe this time you have to lure it off the path. Instead of having only one event follow up for a success/failure, maybe add in a few variations so that people doing an event more than once don't feel it becoming rote. Again, templates might work well here if the events could pull in other information from the surrounding area.
4. Let events have more success conditions. One thing I like about hearts is that you often have multiple things you can do to fill up the meter. You can often kill stuff, but you can also maybe collect items, or clean up graffiti, etc. Maybe have some events where there are a few different ways to accomplish the goal.
5. Improve existing events. It's frustrating when you get an escort event and you fail because this particularly one won't let you revive the escort, like the others. One in particular happened to me last night as I was finishing up Fireheart Rise: I got a bit ahead of the escort and got trapped in a wall when the ceiling collapsed. Enemies surrounded the escort and killed it, making me fail the quest. Sucks when the environment causes you to fail instead of your own actions.
6. Have solo solutions to group events. It's really unfortunate when you have a group event happen in what feels like an empty zone. Bosses intended for groups will eat you alive if you get too close. Solo events seem to scale up nicely when multiple people show up, why not let group events scale down if only one person is in the immediate area? A few events do this already, where you can go trigger some NPCs to help you. A few more clever things like this would be nice. This would allow more players to experience more events.

So, what are your thoughts? How do you think that ArenaNet could do to make dynamic events feel less like something to optimize and therefore feel like a grind? What about avoiding grinding in general?

Post copyright Brian 'Psychochild' Green. Visit the post to participate in the comments:

When fun becomes a grind