by Jeff Woleslagle on Sep 19, 2007
by Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle
While we're waiting for Gods & Heroes, I thought we might take a look at quality development (and lack of quality) elsewhere in the industry.
Power to the People
Several fringe MMOs are allowing players to customize their playing experience. Ryzom Ring, an expansion building on Saga of Ryzom, allows players to literally build their zone to play with their friends, or upon evaluation by French developer Nevrax, player-designed areas can become part of the live game world. Horizons recently announced a project that allows players to access a public version of the game database and design quests based on the game’s live elements.
Power to the... Professionals
Despite these populist efforts, content design requires an enormous amount of skill and patience. Really compelling zones (or “regions”, as zoneless, dynamically loading games like Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft are more likely to call these distinct play-areas) are an MMORPGs lifeblood and demand immense amounts of cooperation at every level. Under the auspices of the administrators, the art, programming, and design teams must work in tandem so that not only does the zone stand on its own, it fits the rest of the game like a banana fits its peel.
The better the tools and more efficient the process, the more time and money developer has for internal polish before the beta community and the public form their first impressions. And, as the mottled success of the latest crop of MMOs shows, first impressions make or break MMOs these days – the community isn’t nearly as forbearing as in the olden days, when it was the rule (not the exception) for a recently released online game battled major bugs and server crashes for months before stabilizing.
But a game’s success starts with questions like this: what elements make an MMORPG game fun? What aspects make it frustrating? How do we integrate what we know with what we know we can do given the scarcity of our resources? What story arcs are we trying to present, and how do the minor and moderate conflicts (in other words, the stories told in individual zones through atmosphere and quests) fit into the major themes of the game? Is what we’re doing fun to play a second, third, or fourth time – because whether you’re playing an alt or just helping a friend through a quest or instance, gamers typically go through the content ad nauseum (at least the lower level stuff)? While the process starts with planning out the technical and conceptual requirements, content and zone design is where the rubber meets the road.
And now it's time for another good idea / bad idea...
In trying to pick out the best and worst designed zones or regions in my MMO playing experience, I’m find myself agog at the immense amount of work behind these games. I have a huge respect for any MMO design team; they’re catering to an unforgiving and extremely demanding market. The worst designs are often the most instructive, while the pure enjoyment garnered from the best efforts often blinds us to the genius at work behind the curtain.
Though my "best" pick is a World of Warcraft region, and my "worst" choice is EverQuest 2 - please don't construe this as comparing games. In fact, my second best pick is an EverQuest 2 zone, (Zek, the Orcish Wastes), and my second worst is Stranglethorn Vale from WoW, for much the same reasons as the best and worst mentioned below.
It was the best of zones...
My pick for best designed zone in any MMORPG, is World of Warcraft's The Barrens.WoW, from levels 1 to 35, is a shining example of directed play, and if you're any Horde race except Undead, from levels 10 through the low-to-mid 20s you'll find yourself swept into the Barrens . The zone is huge and airy; you have near perfect line of sight in any direction . Line of sight is important for solo player comfort; if you pull unwanted aggro, you feel safer running through an open area where you're confident you won't pull more aggro lurking unseen behind an obstacle. This also allows for something like straight line travel. This is not to say that Barrens doesn't boast it's share of pulse-quickening challenges. The overgrown oasis areas, the raptor nest, Northwatch Hold, the razormane settlements - all these areas require timing and courage to fight your way to your quest objectives (there's a ton of quests that start in the Barrens, over 170, some are mandatory, class-specific quests). For these, however, if you got in trouble - just run to the open savannah. Safety is never far off. If there's one overly frustrating area inside the zone, it's the Venture Co. humanoid-infested Sludge Fen. However, the overwhelming variety of other quests in The Barrens means that you can simply skip these Sludge Fen quests if you so choose. Outside of this area and perhaps the northeast part of the map, there's not a lot of wasted space; the region offers plenty of mobs that are often tied to quests, and once you've found your happy hunting ground, you won't spend much time moving between kills.
The Barrens also includes two low to mid level instances, these being the hugely popular Wailing Caverns and the much maligned Razorfen Kraul. These instances provide the best loot and experience for the level range, give newer players a taste of the high-level scene, but are by no means required for advancement. One of WoW's prevailing themes is a quantity of good choices, and the Barrens is a good example. If you want to solo, there's plenty to do. If you want to group, if your friends are on, why not make a Wailing Caverns run. If you want to sit at Crossroads and stink up the General chat, making fun of new players looking for Mankrik's wife, you can do that too. If you want to PvP, there's usually a battle raging around Crossroads, since Alliance level 60s often land at Ratchet looking for a little trouble.
Because the zone is so huge and, being a key destination many multi-region quests, The Barrens boasts not one but two Horde travel nodes. Between players in transit with nothing to do and the Stranglethorn Vale boat that arrives at Ratchet, The Barrens is a sociable place that has a reputation for chat antics. Chuck Norris imponderables aside, Barrens feels charged with life, and there's nothing sadder than a zone that looks and feels dead. Chat does offer the occasional safety net, you can get good advice on a Barrens quest every now and then. Finally, just like Barrens sucked you in, it spits you out to the west (Stonetalon Mts. for levels 17-27), to the north (Ashenvale Forest, 19-30), or to the south (Thousand Needles for levels 25-35).
To recap, The Barrens fits well into the flow of the game, offers high visibility and "shallow" dangerous areas- therefore a good comfort level for the level range, minimal wasted space and few wasted mobs, group content in the form of compartmentalized instances, a buzzing community, easy travel options, and transparent migration to the next set of leveling regions.
It was the worst of zones...
The worst zone I've played, in recent memory, is EverQuest 2's Nektulos Forest. A second tier zone that is the "evil" equivalent of Antonica's Thundering Steppes, Nektulos is a comparable second-tier zone to The Barrens, even though it's meant to cover a slightly higher level range. The nastiest thing about Nek is the frustratingly winding paths - paths which comprise the only way from point A to point B for much of the zone - since steep, insurmountable "shelves" of land frustrate your every attempt to connect A and B with a straight line. The atmosphere is necessarily oppressive, yes, but in the few areas where you can wend your way through the forest, there's literally danger behind every tree. And gods help you if you try to run away from an encounter as a low level player. The aggro plays hot potato with your bruised and beaten body as the unintuitive terrain necessarily slows you down.
Nektulos Forest, like The Barrens, offers two instances - Cauldron Hollow and Nektropos Castle. Cauldron Hollow used to require a lot of time and effort to get "keyed" for - things might have changed, but back then every member of the raid had to have a key (as opposed to one player with a key could admit all). Other than that, this was a pretty cool instance with some great looking mob models like Descendant of the Torig. Nektropos Castle, however, haunts me to this day. Though Nektropos was avoidable, it finished out two or three important "heritage" quests, so we piled in to the single group instance every time a call went up in the guild forum. The instance, while huge and ornate, was buggy as hell. Chasing a creepy lifesize ragdoll named Billy, who players had to kill seven times over the course of the quest, but who (invariably got stuck for hours on the 4th or 5th spawn) became something of a bad joke.
Nektropos wasn't the zone's only sour memory. Nektulos Forest was also the most difficult heat in the "J-Boots" quest spanning 7 different zones - it was essentially a race to touch a series of landmarks in sequence before time ran out. If time ran out, you had to run it again. Most zones have a few minutes of slack time, Nek had none. If you screwed up your line or experienced lag or fell off the half-destroyed bridge, you might as well head back to start and let time trickle down. I must've run the damn thing 12 times.
Other aspects of Nek were far less insidious but puzzling nonetheless. The fact that the two natural gathering spots- the dock and the Commonlands gate - inhabited a small semi-circle in the western part of the zone far away from the action. A door along the northwest wall of the zone, apparently to no where, with the Keeper standing around telling everyone- everyone- they're not worthy. An important Thexian Heritage Quest giver who gives a timed step- the group completes the run and, invariably, unlike any other quest giving NPC, double click doesn't mean talk to this guy, it means attack. Someone attacks him, and the time runs out as they try and shake the aggro to put the mob back in friendly quest rewarding form. The since-removed Enchanted Lands access quest that never seemed to put the entire group on the boat. The list goes on, but numerous bugs aside, Nek was not a fun place to play.