The Digital Continuum: Player abuse, redemption and revolution
Filed under: Game mechanics, Opinion, The Digital Continuum
Lets go back about ten years or so to the original EverQuest. Now it isn't my intention to pick on any one game, I just happen to be more familiar with it than Ultima Online or Meridian 59. For the sake of immersion let me assume the role of a 1999 copy of EverQuest that you happen to be playing on your gaming machine back in the last year of the last century.You just died in EverQuest. How dare you die! Since you had the nerve to be defeated in combat, you'll now be required to run from your binding point -- which could potentially be very far away -- to your dead body, which contains all of your equipment and bags that just happen to hold all of your inventory. If you fail to do this, then you lose all of these items. Oh but you've already lost some experience and possibly de-leveled if you happened to have recently leveled up.
Hey! Why are you logging out? So what if you think you'd rather play Half-Life right now, this is the game you're paying for monthly. Don't you think you'd better get the most out of it? Hah! See? I knew you were only bluffing. All right, now get to running, noob.
This is just one example of game mechanics that generally punished players back in 1999 and while some people still have no problems with this type of game design -- although you could argue that it's an incredibly niche crowd nowadays -- World of Warcraft has proven that many prefer a less hostile massively multiplayer online game.
As time has gone on and the MMO market has grown, developers have come up with different ways to lower the level of punishment given out to players. Quest-givers have floating icons over their heads where before they had no such designation. The grinding malaise has been eased through the addition of more quests. Other in-game activities such as crafting and PvP have been improved upon through iterations and innovations. EA Mythic's Realm vs Realm being one example of PvP innovations while the streamlining of the crafting system in World of Warcraft the perfect example of improvement through iteration.Another big change happened with the removal of experience loss on death. Many new games have done away with experience loss over the past four or five years. Fun shouldn't have to be found in running for a corpse or re-leveling your previously leveled character. It should be found in fighting epic battles or adventuring and crafting in interesting and new ways. Obviously developers have begun to feel similarly over the years or perhaps they're just realizing that players don't want to put up with it anymore.
Game features like drawn-out grinding or immense, repetitive raiding in World of Warcraft have been rightfully criticized, but Wrath of the Lich King has proven that Blizzard is already figuring out some solutions to these problems. Gone are the days of prolonged, huge raids being the main attraction in Azeroth. Now, everyone can expect to have some fun with both 10-man and 25-man versions available for every instance in the upcoming expansion pack. This means the hardcore can keep playing how they've been, but smaller groups of friends can also experience the fun of Azeroth's best instanced content. Blizzard has also promised to ease the pain sometimes associated with grinding, but hasn't detailed exactly how they plan to do that just yet.
Some would say that these improvements make MMOs too easy and thus less fun or entertaining. The argument goes that creating a game that everyone wants to and can play also makes said game dumbed-down. This isn't true and one key reason is Blizzard's own mantra of "simple-yet-deep" design. Well that and polish, but we all know about that one. In fact, I would argue that the opposite has occurred. Making MMOs easier and friendlier to play has increased the amount of fun and entertainment that can be pried from the deepest bowels of its content. This change in design direction has seen players being redeemed by the genre.Example: In the time of EverQuest when in-game maps weren't exactly great, resourceful players would map out areas and instances around Norrath. These players were known among the community for all of their hard work and effort into making the game easier and more enjoyable for other players. That hasn't really changed with the newer MMOs though. Especially if you look at the mod scene in a game like World of Warcraft where there are tons of useful mods for specific classes, raiding, gathering resources and all sorts of other tasks. There's even a mod that will vend all of your grey (worthless) items with one click of a button.
My point is that making these games friendlier to players doesn't ruin what makes them so much fun: their communities. In fact, the communities in newer games seem to be thriving and it's not just World of Warcraft, either. Games like Lord of the Rings Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, City of Heroes and of course the current version of EverQuest all have very strong communities. Some may be larger -- or much larger -- than others, but they all share the same re-occurring theme: strong communities.
I honestly think it's pretty hard to say most MMOs punish players nowadays. Well, with the exception of certain players. Even more than that, many upcoming MMOs seem to be giving players a revolution of sorts. Warhammer Online has the super-friendly and ultra-fun-looking Public Quest system that allows everyone involved a fair shake at some cool loot that promises to always be tailored for their actual class. The Agency is developing a crafting system that's automated in a sense but also interacts with you and your surroundings as well. Champions Online is aiming at even more character customization, an even more active combat system and of course the mysterious Omega System which is purportedly going to do something big for soloing players. Could the soloing system be a revolution of sorts for MMOs? Could be, but what's important is that Cryptic is trying.I'm glad to see these changes coming and while EverQuest was one of the first games to contain a complete package of features, it certainly wasn't the final word on MMO design. The future looks bright and I'm just glad that corpse runs, experience loss and endless spawn grinding have largely become things of the past.
_thumbnail.jpg "Aion Beta: Asmodian Ascension Quest")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Vincent J. Murphy said on 3:48PM 7-05-2008
Of course, now, dying in an MMO has absolutely no meaning. I recall my wife going on intense, difficult corpse runs in Everquest and getting totally frantic about it, then, when she'd finally get her corpse, there was just a great sense of accomplishment.
These days, it's just clicky, clicky, repair, perhaps some experience debt or diminished abilities for 5 minutes, then you are back to whacking rats.
Not that corpse runs should evil, punitive things, but without consequences to your actions, it's a lot easier to just barrel into situations and not care.
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rutilus_semita said on 9:13PM 7-05-2008
Well I guess your wife can keep playing Everquest since she enjoys corpse runs, reverse dinging, forced grouping, and feeling weaker in comparison to mobs every time you level up. As far as death being meaningless in games it may come as a surprise to you that it's.a.game and if I want stress I'll go to work and, you know, work.
Sounds like you and your wife are easily amused if a corpse run gives you a sense of accomplishment. Maybe you could also clean the lint filter in your dryer, dig some hair out of your bathtub drain, and get the oil changed in your car since menial tasks seem to make you giddy. The fact that you WANT to pay to do some menial tasks for "fun" means you should come to my house and pay me and I'll let you mow my lawn, paint the house, and take out the neighbors trash or something. In the meantime I'll play a game designed to let me unwind from having a real life and not waste my time with poorly implemented game ideas designed to create a false sense of accomplishment from failing. If you really want to punish yourself though you can always smash your thumb with a hammer in RL when you die in a MMO if you really feed the need for more consequences to your actions.
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Vincent J. Murphy said on 1:02PM 7-06-2008
Wow. Nice uncalled for hostility. You must be a WoW player. And you've reminded me why I shouldn't even bother with web sites like this.
kknd2 said on 10:04PM 7-05-2008
if you like meaningful (or painful) death, EVE Online sits out there as the most potentaly painful system that i have seen. seriusly, i had to stop playing because the game became too damn serius...
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Kasuro said on 12:22AM 7-06-2008
After a hard day at work, running around doing meaningless, repetitive tasks for relatively little gain, I love nothing more than to come home and log into WoW to do meaningless, repetitive tasks for relatively little gain.
Corpse runs or not, repetiveness and meniality are the name of the game in most MMOs by design.
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rocknerd said on 6:18AM 7-06-2008
i agree. F crazy death penalties. i remember leveling one time in FF11 and i was so excited, i just hit 20, i bought all new gear, sold all my old shit and was on my way out to the appropriate lv 20 area which i dont recall the name of. when all of a sudden a tought ass little lv 18 goblin (yeah, thats right 2 levels lower, lol) came and kicked my ass all the way back to lv 19... :-/
i was auto un-equipped from all my new gear and had no money. so i had to fist fight lv 1-10 enemies just to level back to 20 and re-equip, super LAME.
and even tho im done with WoW i must thank blizz for creating the 1st MMO that really just kicked down time to the curb. remember everything before? like DAoC, sitting around at least 1 min between every fight if not more? yup, again, lame. i remeber how much i loved the quick paced feeling of WoW, now every MMO has adapted to that and i am so thankful for it! it was crazy, cause at first it felt too fast, just cause it was new. but once we were used to it, every game from here on out better have it.
the next big thing that needs taken care of? we need to now kick the refinement process of crafting to the curb too!!! why do we need to smelt 100 ore into 50 ingots and watch the bar, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over.... TERRIBLE!!! that needs to be a one time fill up whether its 3,000 ingots being made or just one!
MMOs will continue to evolve and as they do i think they will become more refined because of all the human touch it experiences on a daily basis and i will look forward to it.
Reply
rocknerd said on 6:19AM 7-06-2008
i agree. F crazy death penalties. i remember leveling one time in FF11 and i was so excited, i just hit 20, i bought all new gear, sold all my old shit and was on my way out to the appropriate lv 20 area which i dont recall the name of. when all of a sudden a tought ass little lv 18 goblin (yeah, thats right 2 levels lower, lol) came and kicked my ass all the way back to lv 19... :-/
i was auto un-equipped from all my new gear and had no money. so i had to fist fight lv 1-10 enemies just to level back to 20 and re-equip, super LAME.
and even tho im done with WoW i must thank blizz for creating the 1st MMO that really just kicked down time to the curb. remember everything before? like DAoC, sitting around at least 1 min between every fight if not more? yup, again, lame. i remeber how much i loved the quick paced feeling of WoW, now every MMO has adapted to that and i am so thankful for it! it was crazy, cause at first it felt too fast, just cause it was new. but once we were used to it, every game from here on out better have it.
the next big thing that needs taken care of? we need to now kick the refinement process of crafting to the curb too!!! why do we need to smelt 100 ore into 50 ingots and watch the bar, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over, fill up, start over.... TERRIBLE!!! that needs to be a one time fill up whether its 3,000 ingots being made or just one!
MMOs will continue to evolve and as they do i think they will become more refined because of all the human touch it experiences on a daily basis and i will look forward to it.
Reply
The Claw said on 5:30PM 7-06-2008
Oh go play some Diablo 2 hardcore and you'll never complain about any MMO's death penalty ever again.
It's pretty clear that developer's have to find the happy median where death stings, but doesn't make you hate the game. If the consequences are too mild (as they seem to be in most recent games), as Vincent said above, "it's a lot easier to just barrel into situations and not care."
Do you REALLY think it makes for a better game for people not to care if they live or die? It's a game, it's supposed to be fun, but games are also supposed to inspire a competitive sense in us, and make us want to "win".
The flipside of course is the D2 hardcore level of penalty. When I first played hardcore, I thought I'd found the holy grail of gaming, the adrenaline rush of getting out of a sticky situation with the merest whisker of health left was greater than anything I'd ever played before. But after a while, I came to realise that the caution the playstyle demanded was sucking all the joy out of the game. Diablo is all about barrelling into an army of monsters for the sheer joy of mindless slaughter. Playing hardcore was more about inching forward and making sure never to bite off more than I could chew.
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