TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

No game design is perfect. There are so many factors that go into the design of a video game, especially a massively-multiplayer role-playing game, that hitting on a perfect design from the start is nearly impossible. There are unforeseen elements that crop up from the interactions of dozens of game systems over a huge amount of game content. There are technical budget limitations that force designers to make decisions on how to evaluate whether to make game features simpler or cutting them entirely. As game implementation proceeds over the course of months and years, the initial game design may evolve into something quite different than original conception.

The initial game design is largely based on a game design vision, IP considerations, industry trends, and budget. The design process is shepherded by the creative officer of a company and the

respective design leads, with additional consideration by company directors, investors, publishers, marketers, etc. Decades worth of game design experience go into the initial game designs for a project as it goes through much iteration of conceptual design, analysis, and buyoff from all parties involved.

Subsequent design revisions are based on tech constraints, internal game play testing, and most importantly, player feedback. Implementation brings to light many complications involved in the initial design, and it is up to the game design leads to decide which ideas are integral to the game and which need to be discarded in favor of more lightweight and elegant solutions in order to still meet project budgets.

Despite all of the complications and dependencies, at the end of the day it's the user experience that matters. A gamer typically doesn't really care how or why a game gets created: they care about if a game is fun. "Fun" is a highly subjective term, but most game designers get into the industry because they like games and want to create a fun game experience for other gamers. In short, a game designer wants to provide the most fun game experience for the most players.

That's why listening to a game community is very important for game designers – especially during game implementation prior to launch. MMORPGs in particular are social games – they're all about playing a game for a considerable length of time while interacting with other gamers. It's part of a game designer's responsibility to listen to community feedback with regards to game design and consider the aggregate of their ideas when discussing revisions to the initial game design while staying true to the vision goals of the project.

Let's talk about archetypes with regards to evolving game designs in Champions Online. Earlier on in the design of Champions Online we discussed how archetypes such as Brick, Energy Projector, etc., filled certain roles in the Champions universe and how each archetype gained bonuses to powers typical of their role. Power selection wasn't restricted by archetype – archetypes just provided bonuses to certain types of powers. The idea was to break the "class" mold prevalent in so many other MMOs while still providing some guidance for players who were new to the superhero genre or new to gaming. However, when we discussed this briefly in one of the Cryptic Q&A sessions, the prevailing reaction by the community was strongly against any type of archetype bonuses whatsoever, no matter how small. Many people pointed to the "total customization" experience touted for Champions Online, and how making archetype distinctions effectively restricted power choice by creating optimum and non-optimum groupings of powers.

Collectively, the Champions Online community made us re-evaluate our initial game design with regards to archetypes. Considering our open power selection system, did we really need archetype bonuses? One of our vision goals was to provide a very flexible powers system to players that they can play with to their heart's content – why put impediments to this goal by adding in archetypes? We took the community feedback to heart and went back to the drawing board. We asked ourselves, would it be possible to create an open character creation system that still solved the same problems that character classes did? You'll need to stay tuned for the results!

In short: thank you for all your feedback to our game design articles. This is ultimately your game and we want to make sure we meet any reasonable expectations you might have. While it's impossible to please everyone, we'll do our best to review all your ideas and evolve the game design where we can.