Loading... What's Right With This Game?

Welcome to the 867th Edition of Loading...

If you aren't reading this in your e-mail, you could be. Sign up. Are you looking for gaming news? Look no further for all of the headlines. General industry news, right down to game specific and forum thread feeds are all yours as part of Ten Ton Hammer's news syndication program. Enjoy!

Daily Column

Loading... putting the 'fun' in dysfunctional.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

World of Warcraft - 200 BPM
Age of Conan - 134 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 81 BPM
EverQuest II - 68 BPM
EVE Online - 45 BPM
Guild Wars - 43 BPM
Lineage 2 - 38 BPM
Dungeon Runners - 37 BPM
Vanguard - 37 BPM
Warhammer Online - 34 BPM

I'm on the road for the rest of the week, but I'll be back Monday. Cody and Phil will be filling in (see what I did there?) while I'm gone. You might even get some compelling content for a change!

$1.38 billion could
finance some tasty games.

It's official! ActiLizzard has been formed. Activision shareholders have given their blessing to the Vivendi / Activision merger. What does this mean to you, the MMOG fanatic? Currently, nothing. One has to wonder however what this means down the road. Make no mistake, this company will make an almost unbelievable amount of profit. One industry pundit has predicted that the new company would make $1.38 billion in profit for its first year.

Blizzard once said that they could make a MMOG for $50 million in three years, so even without Activision they make more money than they can apparently spend. Where will the extra MMOG derived money go? Will it be used to prop up other Activision franchises? Will it be used to create such blockbusters as Call of GuitarCraft? Will it be used to create more photos of Jessica Chobot licking hardware? Either way, most of you are probably OK with it.

According to Digital Spy, World of Warcraft Battle Chest is back on top of the PC sales charts, decapitating Age of Conan, while sending the still kicking corpse to the #8 spot. Notably absent in the list is Warhammer Online, which was having a grand old time pushing preorders.

Now on to something more educational. Scott Hartsman, who is not notable enough for Wikipedia to include on their site has posted a very long, very entertaining conversation between himself and a Fires of Heaven guild member. Scott and Qhue (The FoH member) put forth some very educational and entertaining opinions.

Here is my "I have 20 minutes to think about this" opinion on some of their main points.

"Have a 1-20 experience which is largely a solo story-based introduction to the game and gaming concepts. At the end of which you have a portion of ‘endgame’ content. Be that grouping dungeons that need to be progressed through or PVP activities etc which continue to grow the character but which put a stop to traditional leveling for a time" --Qhue

We can just call the 1-20 part a tutorial, though I do feel, strongly, that the learning should be done in-game and not in some out of the way corner of the world where there is no interaction with other players. Forcing players to group in order to progress or to take that step even further, forcing players to complete dungeons, quests, etc. in order to start leveling again is a bad idea. For many players, the Achievers as Mr. Bartle calls them, leveling is their fun. If you force them into channels that don't provide entertainment they will vanish, reappearing in another game that doesn't provide such a rigid course. We all know how much players love attunement systems.

"That’s not to say you shouldn’t find more ways to keep people engaged at the high end. You very much should. It’s more that you can’t have a one-size-fits-all endgame, nor should you try to get to one." --Scott Hartsman

Hooray! Hoorah! The term endgame is itself a problem, but changing that common term to something more elegant like Elder Game isn't going to happen. The level cap isn't the end of the game. It's the start as far as I am concerned. You use those intermediate levels to learn how to play the game, make friends, find out your friends are jerks and make new friends. By the level cap you are sitting in a comfortable world that you can now explore with people that you are comfortable with.

If you are entertained by PvP then you will find yourself with like-minded individuals. The same goes for PvE, roleplaying, etc. Most players already feel the need to get to the level cap so they can see the cool stuff. Let them get there and get on with it. How many hours are spent creating content for the intermediate levels that players never experience?

"Dungeon/Raid events - Many more of them are puzzles moreso than they are classic MMO-style “fights.” Netherspite is not a fight, it’s a puzzle. Chess doesn’t need explanation. Al’ar is a choreography minigame. Vashj is an exercise in chaos management, via both serial and parallel minigames, Zul’jin is a series of minigames (one alters the parts of your class you “can” play, a couple add an environmental awareness requirement). And so on." --Scott Hartsman

So, what if... more of the time currently spent making transitory zones was spent making Elder Game content? Could we actually have encounters that changed so much each time we attempted them that they would almost be games in of themselves? What if a developer could create dozens of these encounters? Would this make the pursuit of the Elder Game gear as much fun as receiving the gear itself? Would the journey be as entertaining as the destination? Done right, I think that it could, but it's a logistical problem.

"All that says is: “You can’t go after a WoW audience without at least meeting the WoW level of endgame expectation,” which is nearly impossible for any new retail sub based MMO at this point." --Scott Hartsman

I often say this in our internal Ten Ton Hammer meetings and I often say this when talking to developers, expectations are what need to be managed. If you can manage the expectations of the playerbase (the community) then you have a bright future. Players build their expectations based on many external variables that are out of the control of the developer. That said, a development team that communicates well with its playerbase is going to curb most of the irrational expectations and build on the reasonable ones. You can't please everyone, but you can certainly make what you offer pleasing.

Some companies, like Mythic are getting bashed for not delivering enough information. Ironically, they are getting bashed by websites who have in the past had no qualms about leaking private information regarding other titles. It's a funny world isn't it?

"Funcom is an interesting beast. I’ve always really been pulling for them. Loved AO. Have friends who work there. Played EQ with a handful of really stellar people from there too. They’re really the kind of people that once you spend time with them, you just can’t help but hope that they do well." --Scott Hartsman

That pretty much sums up what Funcom is like. You would be hard pressed to find a nicer group of people in one place, though CCP gives them a run. It must be the Scandinavian influences. As a person who has to critique these games you find yourself rooting for the people that you like. It doesn't change your impression of the game though, your expectations. If the game isn't what you thought it would be then you become discouraged. It's as close as a reviewer can come to being a player again. It can be euphoric (for me EQ2 at launch) or it can be painful (Horizons).

"Well the only negative thing about the spoiling in this case is that it just hastens the consumption of the base “levelling” content. People rush to max level even faster and then have nothing to do."--Qhue

"This is why making classes with divergent playstyle is so important - A lot of your retention comes in terms of replay value." --Scott Hartsman

Has any game done this better than Everquest? The classes were unique which lead to the need to group which...wait a minute here.

Read the whole article . It's as entertaining as you are going to find anywhere and you might even learn something. Worst case scenario is that you disagree and do some thinking about game development on your own.

Do tell. The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

--
[A big thanks to Karen Hertzberg for putting together the links and Real World News.]

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

Blizzard Worldwide Invitational '08