You're fighting just as much over a very minor semantic defeat.
No, this is very obviously wrong. He's talking about competition. Game depth doesn't simply come from competition, so obviously his narrow definition doesn't work. The reason his definition is so narrow is BECAUSE he's talking about multiplayer competitive games, like fighting games. He's not talking about games that have non-combat mechanics.
But you're the one claiming they're the same. If you can claim they're the same, why can't I claim one is better than the other? If they're not comparable, how are you able to compare them? By the way, they are comparable.
Not true. You're assuming that because an officer is making a decision for many people, that somehow means those many people aren't making decisions on their own. That's obviously not the case. First of all, they may be doing something entirely unrelated when this decision is made. Second, the player has to make the decision to be in that corp, they have to make the decision to follow the order, they have to make combat decisions when following that order, etc.
Having consequences to your actions is an example of depth.
Again, not true. Many SC2 games are somewhat straightforward. There is some depth to SC2, of course. But the point I was making about SC2 is that its difficulty is not relative to its depth. It's much more difficult than it is deep, so your assertion that depth is how long it takes you to master a game is not true. For instance, I can know exactly what I'm *supposed* to do in SC2 and still not be able to physically do it perfectly or quickly. That's mechanical difficulty with almost no depth.
Europa Universalis 4. An incredibly deep game that takes almost no skill.
Once and for all, just please provide your definition of depth, because it's changed many times. I think at one point you said it's simply how long it takes to master a game. If that's the case, then yes piling on independent systems would make the game deeper, according to your definition. That's one of the reasons I don't agree with your definition.
And you're still hung up on the amount of decisions per unit of time in a game, and I have no idea why. You can make fewer decisions and have a deeper game, depending on the decisions you're making. That's always been the complaint about WoW. Sure there's a bunch of shit going on all over the place, but all of it is shallow. You're conveniently (and inaccurately) referring to depth as the number of decisions you make.
So you don't think WoW is more conducive to min/maxing than EVE? Just want to clarify.
I'm not fighting over a minor semantic defeat. I told you that your tiny nitpick is entirely correct (ie I'm not fighting the point, because meanwhile the clear intent of the guy's definition shows the nitpick to be irrelevant, and my point to be intact.)
Game depth doesn't change genre to genre. His definition is worded universally and works universally. There is nothing 'very obviously' wrong with it; in fact when you observe how people use the term in discussions you'll notice a trend (though you'll never admit it in this thread) that they're using it exactly according to Sirlin's definition.
Clearly the decisions in EVE are not "the same" as those found in WOW, just as the ones in tic-tac-toe are different from chess. For the 3rd or 4th time, decisions don't need analogs for us to compare game depth.
The officer decision obviously doesn't reduce the decisions of members to zero, and I never said it did. The thing I did point out is that that tier of decision -- which I might add is the place where all of EVE's high-tier strategy lies -- is exclusive to only a narrow subset of its players. The average player doesn't experience that depth, so the game is shallower than it would be if that tier of decision were more accessible.
Consequences to actions aren't necessarily depth. There are consequences to decisions in tic-tac-toe.
As for SC2, every vector of player skill is an example of depth. I wouldn't necessarily claim everything difficult is depth, because difficulty doesn't always describe skill-related things (when leveling is slow in a game players often call that "difficult" or "hard", even if the skill involved is exactly the same.)
Do you even have a concept of what skill is? You're claiming Europa Universalis 4 takes no skill. That's like saying chess takes no skill. Clearly someone who has a deep understanding of the game rules is going to do dramatically better than someone who doesn't. That's skill.
Skill is decision-making and execution as they relate to the game's goals. Not all games involve both elements (chess involves almost zero execution skill, since the physical act of moving pieces is trivial; so chess is almost solely about decision-making skill.)
Again, my definition of depth remains unchanged. Sirlin's definition is mine. Creating two systems that interact with one another will result in more depth than creating two independent systems. You'll still have increased depth with the independent system, but not by nearly as much. Effective game depth is a slightly different concept and sure it's fair to ask me to split it out as a separate concept for clarity's sake. EVE's main problem is effective game depth more than anything -- there are giant gaping holes of non-gameplay in a typical session where another game would continue to offer deep decision-making which are instead filled with non-gameplay in EVE, and that decreases the game's effective depth.
I come back to decisions/time because of effective game depth. This is why I also try to avoid describing depth tersely as "the time it takes to master a game." Although that's a quick and understandable way to cover the main jist of depth, it's severely flawed technically because players learn at different rates and because games can arbitrarily lengthen the time it takes to master them. For example if chess only let you make one move per year that wouldn't make chess any deeper as a game even though that limitation would make it basically impossible for a human to master chess. Which of course is why the decisions/time thing is important.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You're fighting just as much over a very minor semantic defeat.
No, this is very obviously wrong. He's talking about competition. Game depth doesn't simply come from competition, so obviously his narrow definition doesn't work. The reason his definition is so narrow is BECAUSE he's talking about multiplayer competitive games, like fighting games. He's not talking about games that have non-combat mechanics.
But you're the one claiming they're the same. If you can claim they're the same, why can't I claim one is better than the other? If they're not comparable, how are you able to compare them? By the way, they are comparable.
Not true. You're assuming that because an officer is making a decision for many people, that somehow means those many people aren't making decisions on their own. That's obviously not the case. First of all, they may be doing something entirely unrelated when this decision is made. Second, the player has to make the decision to be in that corp, they have to make the decision to follow the order, they have to make combat decisions when following that order, etc.
Having consequences to your actions is an example of depth.
Again, not true. Many SC2 games are somewhat straightforward. There is some depth to SC2, of course. But the point I was making about SC2 is that its difficulty is not relative to its depth. It's much more difficult than it is deep, so your assertion that depth is how long it takes you to master a game is not true. For instance, I can know exactly what I'm *supposed* to do in SC2 and still not be able to physically do it perfectly or quickly. That's mechanical difficulty with almost no depth.
Europa Universalis 4. An incredibly deep game that takes almost no skill.
Once and for all, just please provide your definition of depth, because it's changed many times. I think at one point you said it's simply how long it takes to master a game. If that's the case, then yes piling on independent systems would make the game deeper, according to your definition. That's one of the reasons I don't agree with your definition.
And you're still hung up on the amount of decisions per unit of time in a game, and I have no idea why. You can make fewer decisions and have a deeper game, depending on the decisions you're making. That's always been the complaint about WoW. Sure there's a bunch of shit going on all over the place, but all of it is shallow. You're conveniently (and inaccurately) referring to depth as the number of decisions you make.
So you don't think WoW is more conducive to min/maxing than EVE? Just want to clarify.
I'm not fighting over a minor semantic defeat. I told you that your tiny nitpick is entirely correct (ie I'm not fighting the point, because meanwhile the clear intent of the guy's definition shows the nitpick to be irrelevant, and my point to be intact.)
Game depth doesn't change genre to genre. His definition is worded universally and works universally. There is nothing 'very obviously' wrong with it; in fact when you observe how people use the term in discussions you'll notice a trend (though you'll never admit it in this thread) that they're using it exactly according to Sirlin's definition.
Clearly the decisions in EVE are not "the same" as those found in WOW, just as the ones in tic-tac-toe are different from chess. For the 3rd or 4th time, decisions don't need analogs for us to compare game depth.
The officer decision obviously doesn't reduce the decisions of members to zero, and I never said it did. The thing I did point out is that that tier of decision -- which I might add is the place where all of EVE's high-tier strategy lies -- is exclusive to only a narrow subset of its players. The average player doesn't experience that depth, so the game is shallower than it would be if that tier of decision were more accessible.
Consequences to actions aren't necessarily depth. There are consequences to decisions in tic-tac-toe.
As for SC2, every vector of player skill is an example of depth. I wouldn't necessarily claim everything difficult is depth, because difficulty doesn't always describe skill-related things (when leveling is slow in a game players often call that "difficult" or "hard", even if the skill involved is exactly the same.)
Do you even have a concept of what skill is? You're claiming Europa Universalis 4 takes no skill. That's like saying chess takes no skill. Clearly someone who has a deep understanding of the game rules is going to do dramatically better than someone who doesn't. That's skill.
Skill is decision-making and execution as they relate to the game's goals. Not all games involve both elements (chess involves almost zero execution skill, since the physical act of moving pieces is trivial; so chess is almost solely about decision-making skill.)
Again, my definition of depth remains unchanged. Sirlin's definition is mine. Creating two systems that interact with one another will result in more depth than creating two independent systems. You'll still have increased depth with the independent system, but not by nearly as much. Effective game depth is a slightly different concept and sure it's fair to ask me to split it out as a separate concept for clarity's sake. EVE's main problem is effective game depth more than anything -- there are giant gaping holes of non-gameplay in a typical session where another game would continue to offer deep decision-making which are instead filled with non-gameplay in EVE, and that decreases the game's effective depth.
I come back to decisions/time because of effective game depth. This is why I also try to avoid describing depth tersely as "the time it takes to master a game." Although that's a quick and understandable way to cover the main jist of depth, it's severely flawed technically because players learn at different rates and because games can arbitrarily lengthen the time it takes to master them. For example if chess only let you make one move per year that wouldn't make chess any deeper as a game even though that limitation would make it basically impossible for a human to master chess. Which of course is why the decisions/time thing is important.
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
You're fighting just as much over a very minor semantic defeat.
No, this is very obviously wrong. He's talking about competition. Game depth doesn't simply come from competition, so obviously his narrow definition doesn't work. The reason his definition is so narrow is BECAUSE he's talking about multiplayer competitive games, like fighting games. He's not talking about games that have non-combat mechanics.
But you're the one claiming they're the same. If you can claim they're the same, why can't I claim one is better than the other? If they're not comparable, how are you able to compare them? By the way, they are comparable.
Not true. You're assuming that because an officer is making a decision for many people, that somehow means those many people aren't making decisions on their own. That's obviously not the case. First of all, they may be doing something entirely unrelated when this decision is made. Second, the player has to make the decision to be in that corp, they have to make the decision to follow the order, they have to make combat decisions when following that order, etc.
Having consequences to your actions is an example of depth.
Again, not true. Many SC2 games are somewhat straightforward. There is some depth to SC2, of course. But the point I was making about SC2 is that its difficulty is not relative to its depth. It's much more difficult than it is deep, so your assertion that depth is how long it takes you to master a game is not true. For instance, I can know exactly what I'm *supposed* to do in SC2 and still not be able to physically do it perfectly or quickly. That's mechanical difficulty with almost no depth.
Europa Universalis 4. An incredibly deep game that takes almost no skill.
Once and for all, just please provide your definition of depth, because it's changed many times. I think at one point you said it's simply how long it takes to master a game. If that's the case, then yes piling on independent systems would make the game deeper, according to your definition. That's one of the reasons I don't agree with your definition.
And you're still hung up on the amount of decisions per unit of time in a game, and I have no idea why. You can make fewer decisions and have a deeper game, depending on the decisions you're making. That's always been the complaint about WoW. Sure there's a bunch of shit going on all over the place, but all of it is shallow. You're conveniently (and inaccurately) referring to depth as the number of decisions you make.
So you don't think WoW is more conducive to min/maxing than EVE? Just want to clarify.
I'm not fighting over a minor semantic defeat. I told you that your tiny nitpick is entirely correct (ie I'm not fighting the point, because meanwhile the clear intent of the guy's definition shows the nitpick to be irrelevant, and my point to be intact.)
Game depth doesn't change genre to genre. His definition is worded universally and works universally. There is nothing 'very obviously' wrong with it; in fact when you observe how people use the term in discussions you'll notice a trend (though you'll never admit it in this thread) that they're using it exactly according to Sirlin's definition.
His definition is specifically talking about strategy. He's talking about competitive games, because that's what he plays. If I'm playing an MMO with a heavy emphasis on crafting, am I employing strategies? No. Depth doesn't have to do with strategy.
All you're doing is giving up ground and making his definition more and more vague. What even IS it at this point? He says:
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point.
Clearly the decisions in EVE are not "the same" as those found in WOW, just as the ones in tic-tac-toe are different from chess. For the 3rd or 4th time, decisions don't need analogs for us to compare game depth.
But you claim they're of the same caliber. How can you claim that exactly? What measure are you using for "caliber"? How can you simultaneously say they're on the same level, while also saying you can't compare them?
The officer decision obviously doesn't reduce the decisions of members to zero, and I never said it did. The thing I did point out is that that tier of decision -- which I might add is the place where all of EVE's high-tier strategy lies -- is exclusive to only a narrow subset of its players. The average player doesn't experience that depth, so the game is shallower than it would be if that tier of decision were more accessible.
So what if it's exclusive to a small subset of the playerbase? Do you remember how this example started? You said the downtime or lack of decisions in a sandbox game AREN'T compensated for by having higher caliber decisions to make up for it. I totally understand that most of the people in EVE aren't making 5-figure $ decisions in EVE. It's an example of how sandbox games have tradeoffs. Yes, sometimes there isn't as much going on and your screen isn't flashing with numbers and explosions all the time, but they have more depth as you play them. There's a payoff.
Consequences to actions aren't necessarily depth. There are consequences to decisions in tic-tac-toe.
Consequence absolutely adds depth to the game. It is a feature of the game. Not only that, it is a feature of the game that permeates how the game is played. It exists underneath everything else in the game and dictates how the game is played. It is a PERFECT example of depth.
As for SC2, every vector of player skill is an example of depth. I wouldn't necessarily claim everything difficult is depth, because difficulty doesn't always describe skill-related things (when leveling is slow in a game players often call that "difficult" or "hard", even if the skill involved is exactly the same.)
If you're not claiming that everything difficulty-related is depth, then your definition of depth has failed. You said it's the difficulty in mastering the game. If a game is more difficult to master, that, to you, should mean more depth.
Again, if I'm playing terran in sc2 and I want to split my marines up as well as possible as quickly as possible, I will *never* achieve perfection in that task. Does this mean the game is infinitely deep? Of course, because difficulty isn't depth.
Do you even have a concept of what skill is? You're claiming Europa Universalis 4 takes no skill. That's like saying chess takes no skill. Clearly someone who has a deep understanding of the game rules is going to do dramatically better than someone who doesn't. That's skill.
Well, I'd differentiate between theory and skill. Knowing a lot about something isn't really skillful, but using that knowledge would be.
Again, my definition of depth remains unchanged. Sirlin's definition is mine. Creating two systems that interact with one another will result in more depth than creating two independent systems. You'll still have increased depth with the independent system, but not by nearly as much. Effective game depth is a slightly different concept and sure it's fair to ask me to split it out as a separate concept for clarity's sake. EVE's main problem is effective game depth more than anything -- there are giant gaping holes of non-gameplay in a typical session where another game would continue to offer deep decision-making which are instead filled with non-gameplay in EVE, and that decreases the game's effective depth.
....I'm not hearing a definition from you. Are you really claiming that this is your definition?
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Because it's a terrible one. As I showed above, it just boils down to a game's depth is how long it stays interesting. The problem is this doesn't even come close to jiving with your empirical examples. The fact that there is downtime in EVE and no downtime in WoW doesn't fit with that definition. It doesn't necessarily keep the game interesting. Having a lot of low-caliber decisions happening all the time seems way more like an example of a game that will get old real fast. On the other hand, a game like EVE that starts out slow but has enormous amounts of horizontal progression as well as social progression in the form of gaining influence in a corp means it's going to stay interesting for a lot longer. And indeed this seems to be the case. EVE players really seem to play for years and years.
I come back to decisions/time because of effective game depth. This is why I also try to avoid describing depth tersely as "the time it takes to master a game." Although that's a quick and understandable way to cover the main jist of depth, it's severely flawed technically because players learn at different rates and because games can arbitrarily lengthen the time it takes to master them. For example if chess only let you make one move per year that wouldn't make chess any deeper as a game even though that limitation would make it basically impossible for a human to master chess. Which of course is why the decisions/time thing is important.
decisions/time is a terrible way to define depth. To be honest, that seems like it would have a negative relationship with depth.
I loved tibias drop 10% exp (you could lose levels this way if you died enough which caused people to hunt people till they were level 1) and chance to drop something your wearing and always drop your backpack. but see the thing in that game is that you had time to call friends over sometimes to help you unless they were super high level and can drop you in one shot. which means you kite till your friends or their friends came. and you could train your skills without training your level so yuo could have super high skills with decent equipment and wreck unknowing higher levels.
I dont know how to post without quote so.. here it is..
I think open world pvp is a must in every mmorpg. I have play mmorpg like Guild War 2. Game is amazing but get boring without open world pvp.
i think every player that get killed in PVE wont drop any item. After they die, they will have 1 hour buff that wont get attacked by another player. But the buff can be remove if the player want to
Dead player should drop loot around 1 silver to rarely 1 gold. that is all
Player that kill other player will get red name and bounty that increase his gold drop. The red player names that has 10 gold bounty will be taking from his own gold.
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
False premise is false premise.
A typical chess game lasts 40 moves. Who do you think is experiencing more game depth: players playing multiple chess matches a day, or players playing one game over 40 years?
The premise here not only isn't false, but is truly the only meaningful way by which to measure game depth because it relates directly to how much depth players experience.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not sure why you discredit situations like "preying on pve players" or outnumbering your opponent. The fact that those things exist add to the depth of the game. You're arbitrarily narrowing the scope to "fair, competitive pvp."
No, I'm not. The point is, you don't need a good build to prey on PvE players therefore it gives a novice player the impression that the number of viable builds is higher than it actually is.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point.
[...]
At a point where you are dissing two professional game designers you'd better have some pretty fantastical arguments to explain why their definition is wrong and yours is right.
Every noteworthy game designer I've ever read or heard about has talked about depth along those same lines. The definition is universal, and can be applied to any game, to any activities within a game and in any genre.
What you've obviously done, is that you've decided "game A is deep" and modeled your definition around that premise. Needless to say this is the wrong way to approach this. And you're too invested in said game to see things clearly.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
These are games with PvP (full loot pvp) systems I preferred most
Das Tal
Runescape
Ultima
darkfall unholy wars shadowbane - dead -> shame diablo 2 (hardcore) - Played it for too long, for too hardcore now path of exile (hardcore) - Working on an account dayz - Got bored of Zombiesurvival... h1z1? Planetside;) fallout2238/fonline2/fonline:reloaded earthrise - Yeah still waiting... the repopulation - Yeah still waiting... eve online - Reminds me of Atari Asteroids, The EVE announced in '14 with fps element seems nice shores of hazeron neocron 2 - War of Conquest - Dead, simple squareclicking game where you'd sit on orbs 24/7 that paid out real-life cash with an international roster untill rebirth making the game politics heavy.
http://shardsonline.com/ (theyre at 211 percent of hteir kickstarter, lol) & Shrouds of the avatar/P2P - From their IRC though: There's no full loot pvp in the game, but there will be a little bit - like loot ransom, they want to make a ranking-system for pvp. they just added some of the first intended open pvp zones in the form of shardfalls.
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
False premise is false premise.
A typical chess game lasts 40 moves. Who do you think is experiencing more game depth: players playing multiple chess matches a day, or players playing one game over 40 years?
The premise here not only isn't false, but is truly the only meaningful way by which to measure game depth because it relates directly to how much depth players experience.
ROFL, really....
So if i play 1 game in 2 hours, suddenly chess has less depth than if i play 1 game in 15 minutes.
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point.
[...]
At a point where you are dissing two professional game designers you'd better have some pretty fantastical arguments to explain why their definition is wrong and yours is right.
Every noteworthy game designer I've ever read or heard about has talked about depth along those same lines. The definition is universal, and can be applied to any game, to any activities within a game and in any genre.
What you've obviously done, is that you've decided "game A is deep" and modeled your definition around that premise. Needless to say this is the wrong way to approach this. And you're too invested in said game to see things clearly.
Please, feel free to enlighten everyone how chess has less depth if you play 1 game in 2 hours than if you play 1 game in 15 minutes.
That premise is absurd and false.
When you figure that one out, you can start thinking on what actually makes chess deep.
Originally posted by nomotag Losing your equipment/loot when you die has never been appealing to me. I have played games like that and it's kind of bad on 3 fronts. There is the playing it safe aspect that means your always using the crappy stuff in case you lose it. Like I would own swords of super killing, but I wouldn't use them. Your not encouraged to take risks. Enemy 10 levels below me? All right lets get fighting. Dieing is basically a I quit moment. You just got stomped not all your cool stuff is gone you wasted the last 10 hours and your not getting them back.
The OP left out a poll choice...."Depends on the progression system & how gear dependent combat is in the game"
If you're playing an open world PvP MMO that has a item / gear based progression system, where the ability of a player to be effective in combat is more heavily influenced by stats provided by gear than the use of abilities & skills....then full loot will just not work. Again, if the game measures your progress by the gear you have....this likely means that value of items are high, and getting said items requires a significant amount of time & resources. Loosing a sword you spent 3 months farming / raiding to get in a cheesy PvP gank will make you /quit. (Think Lineage 2)
If you're playing an open world PvP MMO that has a skill / level based progression system, where the ability of a player to be effective in combat is more heavily influenced by your ability to effectively use your skills than the items you are wearing / using....then full loot isn't that big of a deal. Under a non-item dependent system....cost of said items are usually relatively cheap and do not take long to recoup. Loosing a bag full of regents, your armor or weapon you spent a few hours farming, in a PvP match will only set you back just enough to motivate you to not slack in PvP, but not to the point of quiting the game. (Think Ultima Online)
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
False premise is false premise.
A typical chess game lasts 40 moves. Who do you think is experiencing more game depth: players playing multiple chess matches a day, or players playing one game over 40 years?
The premise here not only isn't false, but is truly the only meaningful way by which to measure game depth because it relates directly to how much depth players experience.
ROFL, really....
So if i play 1 game in 2 hours, suddenly chess has less depth than if i play 1 game in 15 minutes.
Its getting to absurd levels of funny
Don't often agree with you but yeah, after reading through the thread, this truly is getting absurd.
I think it all boils down to handful of mmorpg.com members having some sort of odd inferiority complex over the fact that they really enjoy a shallow game; as if that was a representation of themselves and their intelligence level. I play shallow games and enjoy them, I also like to sink my teeth in something with more depth. EVE is hands down the most complex and deepest game I've ever experienced. I've been playing for almost a decade and a half. I love it. But guess what? I still play games like Combat Arms; it's a shallow game and I know it. Who gives a shit though, it's still fun.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I'm not sure why you discredit situations like "preying on pve players" or outnumbering your opponent. The fact that those things exist add to the depth of the game. You're arbitrarily narrowing the scope to "fair, competitive pvp."
No, I'm not. The point is, you don't need a good build to prey on PvE players therefore it gives a novice player the impression that the number of viable builds is higher than it actually is.
Viability means it can be used effectively. Just because the way it's being used effectively isn't fair, competitive fights doesn't mean it isn't viable. If the game offers multiple ways to play and that leads to more possible builds to use, then that's depth.
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point.
[...]
At a point where you are dissing two professional game designers you'd better have some pretty fantastical arguments to explain why their definition is wrong and yours is right.
Every noteworthy game designer I've ever read or heard about has talked about depth along those same lines. The definition is universal, and can be applied to any game, to any activities within a game and in any genre.
What you've obviously done, is that you've decided "game A is deep" and modeled your definition around that premise. Needless to say this is the wrong way to approach this. And you're too invested in said game to see things clearly.
Notice how you say nothing in this post. You don't actually take on any of the numerous arguments against this obviously false and flawed and narrow definition of the word depth.
His definition is wrong because depth isn't binary.
His definition is narrow because he talks only about strategy, and depth can encompass more than strategy.
Taking these two elements out of his position, what's left? Seriously, how can you find anything meaningful in that definition? The most generous and vague interpretation I can offer is: A game's depth is determined by how long it stays interesting. That's a much more reasonable and accurate thing to say, not that I would necessarily agree with it 100%. The problem is it doesn't jive with everything else he's saying. He consistently talks about downtime in EVE and the high amount of decisions/time in WoW. Those two things don't really fit with his definition of depth.
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
False premise is false premise.
A typical chess game lasts 40 moves. Who do you think is experiencing more game depth: players playing multiple chess matches a day, or players playing one game over 40 years?
The premise here not only isn't false, but is truly the only meaningful way by which to measure game depth because it relates directly to how much depth players experience.
ROFL, really....
So if i play 1 game in 2 hours, suddenly chess has less depth than if i play 1 game in 15 minutes.
Its getting to absurd levels of funny
Don't often agree with you but yeah, after reading through the thread, this truly is getting absurd.
I think it all boils down to handful of mmorpg.com members having some sort of odd inferiority complex over the fact that they really enjoy a shallow game; as if that was a representation of themselves and their intelligence level. I play shallow games and enjoy them, I also like to sink my teeth in something with more depth. EVE is hands down the most complex and deepest game I've ever experienced. I've been playing for almost a decade and a half. I love it. But guess what? I still play games like Combat Arms; it's a shallow game and I know it. Who gives a shit though, it's still fun.
I agree with this very much. There's nothing wrong with playing a shallow game. Just don't try to tell me it's something it's not. I'm by no means an expert at EVE, but I feel comfortable restating what you just said: it is by far the deepest and most complex game I've played. The more you play it, the more you realize how huge and sprawling and CONNECTED all of the systems are. That's not the feeling I get from playing any themepark really. Playing a themepark feels like I'm just playing through mass amounts of content. It doesn't feel deep, it just feels busy. There's a difference.
His definition is specifically talking about strategy. He's talking about competitive games, because that's what he plays. If I'm playing an MMO with a heavy emphasis on crafting, am I employing strategies? No. Depth doesn't have to do with strategy.
All you're doing is giving up ground and making his definition more and more vague. What even IS it at this point? He says:
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point..
But you claim they're of the same caliber. How can you claim that exactly? What measure are you using for "caliber"? How can you simultaneously say they're on the same level, while also saying you can't compare them?
So what if it's exclusive to a small subset of the playerbase? Do you remember how this example started? You said the downtime or lack of decisions in a sandbox game AREN'T compensated for by having higher caliber decisions to make up for it. I totally understand that most of the people in EVE aren't making 5-figure $ decisions in EVE. It's an example of how sandbox games have tradeoffs. Yes, sometimes there isn't as much going on and your screen isn't flashing with numbers and explosions all the time, but they have more depth as you play them. There's a payoff.
Consequence absolutely adds depth to the game. It is a feature of the game. Not only that, it is a feature of the game that permeates how the game is played. It exists underneath everything else in the game and dictates how the game is played. It is a PERFECT example of depth.
If you're not claiming that everything difficulty-related is depth, then your definition of depth has failed. You said it's the difficulty in mastering the game. If a game is more difficult to master, that, to you, should mean more depth.
Again, if I'm playing terran in sc2 and I want to split my marines up as well as possible as quickly as possible, I will *never* achieve perfection in that task. Does this mean the game is infinitely deep? Of course, because difficulty isn't depth.
Well, I'd differentiate between theory and skill. Knowing a lot about something isn't really skillful, but using that knowledge would be.
....I'm not hearing a definition from you. Are you really claiming that this is your definition?
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Because it's a terrible one. As I showed above, it just boils down to a game's depth is how long it stays interesting. The problem is this doesn't even come close to jiving with your empirical examples. The fact that there is downtime in EVE and no downtime in WoW doesn't fit with that definition. It doesn't necessarily keep the game interesting. Having a lot of low-caliber decisions happening all the time seems way more like an example of a game that will get old real fast. On the other hand, a game like EVE that starts out slow but has enormous amounts of horizontal progression as well as social progression in the form of gaining influence in a corp means it's going to stay interesting for a lot longer. And indeed this seems to be the case. EVE players really seem to play for years and years.
decisions/time is a terrible way to define depth. To be honest, that seems like it would have a negative relationship with depth.
By failing to understand basic concepts like strategy, you drag discussion down to a semantic level. Strategy is long-term planning; it's decision-making. So yes obviously if a crafting-heavy game isn't shallow it's going to involve strategy. When you observe a market which seems ripe for exploitation, the decision to exploit that market is a strategic decision. When you decide to specialize in one particular type of crafting, that's a strategic decision.
You quoted his definition (which doesn't mention competition) and then immediately implied competition was a critical part of his definition. It's not. His definition was about things being strategically interesting.
"Strategically" is the only other part of his definition I might clarify, since strategy refers to a specific subset of skill, and depth is related to all forms of skill. (Skill is decision-making and execution. Decision-making includes strategy and tactics. Execution is any skill involved executing those decisions (sometimes called "twitch skill" if it's a significant amount.))
Same caliber in terms of how much depth they create.
When decisions are exclusive to a subset of players that limits a game's effective game depth just as spending most of your time engaged in shallow systems limits effective depth. How is the importance of this confusing? If someone designed an MMO Chess game where one guild officer makes all the decisions, and players playing each piece make no decisions, then obviously the depth experienced by piece-players would be zero (they wouldn't even be playing a game) while the officer enjoys all the depth of a typical chess game. So it matters a lot whether players individually get to experience game depth.
Consequences don't add depth because they don't increase the skill involved. Depth is about skill. Skill occurs while you're engaging in the challenge. Consequence happens after the challenge. So it doesn't involve skill.
You can't cite a meaningless mistake players sometimes make and claim my definition has "failed" because of it. Obviously if something hasn't really increased the difficulty of mastering a game, it hasn't increased the game's depth. Players may still choose to call time-consuming things difficult ("leveling is hard in this game") but that has zero bearing on the fact that obviously only skill-related difficulties increase a game's depth.
An increase in decisions/time typically provides more opportunities for failure (thus making the game more difficult to master.) It won't always increase depth, because the more decisions exist within a game the more opportunity there is for an unbalanced decision to trump other decisions and reduce game depth, but quite frequently it results in greater game depth. Decisions with greater nuance have the potential to be worth many other decisions, so that's a factor as well. The average chess match is ~40 moves long, after all. But critically, the decisions are made almost as fast as you can make them (minus your opponent's move times of course, which is where the game becomes less enjoyable to play as an active real-time experience.) Other deep turn-based games like Civilization achieve it without multiplayer and allow non-stop decision-making as fast or slow as you want to make them (or they allow pausing like EU4, which is functionally identical.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
His definition is specifically talking about strategy. He's talking about competitive games, because that's what he plays. If I'm playing an MMO with a heavy emphasis on crafting, am I employing strategies? No. Depth doesn't have to do with strategy.
All you're doing is giving up ground and making his definition more and more vague. What even IS it at this point? He says:
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point..
But you claim they're of the same caliber. How can you claim that exactly? What measure are you using for "caliber"? How can you simultaneously say they're on the same level, while also saying you can't compare them?
So what if it's exclusive to a small subset of the playerbase? Do you remember how this example started? You said the downtime or lack of decisions in a sandbox game AREN'T compensated for by having higher caliber decisions to make up for it. I totally understand that most of the people in EVE aren't making 5-figure $ decisions in EVE. It's an example of how sandbox games have tradeoffs. Yes, sometimes there isn't as much going on and your screen isn't flashing with numbers and explosions all the time, but they have more depth as you play them. There's a payoff.
Consequence absolutely adds depth to the game. It is a feature of the game. Not only that, it is a feature of the game that permeates how the game is played. It exists underneath everything else in the game and dictates how the game is played. It is a PERFECT example of depth.
If you're not claiming that everything difficulty-related is depth, then your definition of depth has failed. You said it's the difficulty in mastering the game. If a game is more difficult to master, that, to you, should mean more depth.
Again, if I'm playing terran in sc2 and I want to split my marines up as well as possible as quickly as possible, I will *never* achieve perfection in that task. Does this mean the game is infinitely deep? Of course, because difficulty isn't depth.
Well, I'd differentiate between theory and skill. Knowing a lot about something isn't really skillful, but using that knowledge would be.
....I'm not hearing a definition from you. Are you really claiming that this is your definition?
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Because it's a terrible one. As I showed above, it just boils down to a game's depth is how long it stays interesting. The problem is this doesn't even come close to jiving with your empirical examples. The fact that there is downtime in EVE and no downtime in WoW doesn't fit with that definition. It doesn't necessarily keep the game interesting. Having a lot of low-caliber decisions happening all the time seems way more like an example of a game that will get old real fast. On the other hand, a game like EVE that starts out slow but has enormous amounts of horizontal progression as well as social progression in the form of gaining influence in a corp means it's going to stay interesting for a lot longer. And indeed this seems to be the case. EVE players really seem to play for years and years.
decisions/time is a terrible way to define depth. To be honest, that seems like it would have a negative relationship with depth.
By failing to understand basic concepts like strategy, you drag discussion down to a semantic level. Strategy is long-term planning; it's decision-making. So yes obviously if a crafting-heavy game isn't shallow it's going to involve strategy. When you observe a market which seems ripe for exploitation, the decision to exploit that market is a strategic decision. When you decide to specialize in one particular type of crafting, that's a strategic decision.
You quoted his definition (which doesn't mention competition) and then immediately implied competition was a critical part of his definition. It's not. His definition was about things being strategically interesting.
"Strategically" is the only other part of his definition I might clarify, since strategy refers to a specific subset of skill, and depth is related to all forms of skill. (Skill is decision-making and execution. Decision-making includes strategy and tactics. Execution is any skill involved executing those decisions (sometimes called "twitch skill" if it's a significant amount.))
I guess it's easy to not be wrong when you use extremely broad and generous definitions of words, the problem is by doing so you haven't said anything at all. Nobody would use the word strategy when it comes to any crafting system. Strategy in common usage implies some kind of uncertainty. You have a strategy, you have a plan, but it won't necessarily work out like that. When you talk about choosing one crafting profession over another or playing the market, this is all having to do with competing against other players. If I want to craft armor for myself, it would be highly unusual to call that a strategy, because strategy doesn't simply mean decision-making.
He didn't say the word competition, but it's obviously what he's talking about. He's a fighting game guy. That's the context here.
Same caliber in terms of how much depth they create.
So you say decisions in EVE and WoW are of the same depth, because they're of the same caliber. And then when I ask you to explain how you're quantifying the term caliber, you say it means it creates more depth. This is circular. If you can't tell me how you're comparing the decisions in WoW and the decisions in EVE, then why should anybody care about you declaring that they're of the same caliber?
When decisions are exclusive to a subset of players that limits a game's effective game depth just as spending most of your time engaged in shallow systems limits effective depth. How is the importance of this confusing? If someone designed an MMO Chess game where one guild officer makes all the decisions, and players playing each piece make no decisions, then obviously the depth experienced by piece-players would be zero (they wouldn't even be playing a game) while the officer enjoys all the depth of a typical chess game. So it matters a lot whether players individually get to experience game depth.
Having high level decisions doesn't diminish depth at all, it increases it. The problem with your logic here is it assumes that opening up this level of decision making to everybody else is possible, when obviously it isn't. How is a decision like that limiting the game's depth? People still make micro decisions for themselves, like in any other game. It's just that EVE has the ADDITIONAL layer of having large scale corporation actions.
And again you seem to have forgotten why this was brought up. Your initial point was twofold:
1. EVE and sandbox games have more downtime, fewer decisions/time.
2. When you do eventually have decisions to make, they're no more important or higher caliber than the decisions in WoW.
We've already established that sandbox games will tend to have fewer things going on at once. You don't have to point out that some of these decisions are limited to a small subset of the population at any one time. The point is that, yes there are probably fewer decisions/time in a sandbox, but the decisions that are being made are more important and higher caliber.
Consequences don't add depth because they don't increase the skill involved. Depth is about skill. Skill occurs while you're engaging in the challenge. Consequence happens after the challenge. So it doesn't involve skill.
Depth is not about skill. Consequence adds an entire layer of decision making to the game. How can you possibly say it ISN'T depth? If I want to go out and kill boars in WoW, I can do so with no consequence. I don't even have to think about it. Do I want to kill boar? Yes? Ok let's kill boar. In a game with consequences, it adds a layer of decision making. Do I want to risk my gear to kill boars? Well, what does a boar drop? Is the risk-reward worth it? Etc. I can't fathom how you can claim that consequences don't add depth to a game.
You can't cite a meaningless mistake players sometimes make and claim my definition has "failed" because of it. Obviously if something hasn't really increased the difficulty of mastering a game, it hasn't increased the game's depth. Players may still choose to call time-consuming things difficult ("leveling is hard in this game") but that has zero bearing on the fact that obviously only skill-related difficulties increase a game's depth.
You said that depth is how long it takes to master a game. So how can you also say that everything difficulty-related isn't also depth related?? If nobody will ever split their marines perfectly in SC2, how is SC2 not infinitely deep? Again, I'm asking you, WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF DEPTH? You can't just say it's the same as Sirlin's because we've already established that his wording is wrong. Please state for me YOUR definition of depth.
An increase in decisions/time typically provides more opportunities for failure (thus making the game more difficult to master.) It won't always increase depth, because the more decisions exist within a game the more opportunity there is for an unbalanced decision to trump other decisions and reduce game depth, but quite frequently it results in greater game depth. Decisions with greater nuance have the potential to be worth many other decisions, so that's a factor as well. The average chess match is ~40 moves long, after all. But critically, the decisions are made almost as fast as you can make them (minus your opponent's move times of course, which is where the game becomes less enjoyable to play as an active real-time experience.) Other deep turn-based games like Civilization achieve it without multiplayer and allow non-stop decision-making as fast or slow as you want to make them (or they allow pausing like EU4, which is functionally identical.)
First of all, failure isn't a normalized, universal term. Failure in a game like WoW is not the same as failure in a game like EVE or UO or Darkfall. So right off the bat, this is falling apart. A game like WoW may have more opportunities for failure, but that failure means less and easier to bounce back from.
Second, here is my problem with your argument:
"Decisions with greater nuance have the potential to be worth many other decisions, so that's a factor as well. "
That's a "factor"? No, that's the whole point, and you haven't ever factored it in. In fact, I distinctly remember you claiming quite vehemently that decisions in EVE are of the same caliber as decisions in WoW. So which is it? Are the decisions in EVE of the same caliber as the decisions in WoW? Or do you admit the "downtime" nature of sandbox games doesn't inherently make them more shallow, which is how this whole thing started?
Please, feel free to enlighten everyone how chess has less depth if you play 1 game in 2 hours than if you play 1 game in 15 minutes.
That premise is absurd and false.
When you figure that one out, you can start thinking on what actually makes chess deep.
You are right, your strawman sounds absurd. What Axehilt said though was, by playing more, you make more decisions; and thus you experience more of that depth.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Please, feel free to enlighten everyone how chess has less depth if you play 1 game in 2 hours than if you play 1 game in 15 minutes.
That premise is absurd and false.
When you figure that one out, you can start thinking on what actually makes chess deep.
You are right, your strawman sounds absurd. What Axehilt said though was, by playing more, you make more decisions; and thus you experience more of that depth.
In fact, chess is a perfect example of how depth can be quantified ... but expanding the possible chess moves into a decision tree and look into the future possibilities level by level.
By definition, then, depth in chess is the number of "look ahead" (or the levels in the tree) that the game has encountered. So if you play 1 game in 15 minutes, unless you consider as many levels as you play the same in 2hours, it would have a smaller measure of depth.
Given a person usually considers more possibilities (and hence levels in the tree) in 2 hours compared to 15 min ... the 2 hour version has more depth. QED.
I'm not sure why you discredit situations like "preying on pve players" or outnumbering your opponent. The fact that those things exist add to the depth of the game. You're arbitrarily narrowing the scope to "fair, competitive pvp."
No, I'm not. The point is, you don't need a good build to prey on PvE players therefore it gives a novice player the impression that the number of viable builds is higher than it actually is.
Viability means it can be used effectively. Just because the way it's being used effectively isn't fair, competitive fights doesn't mean it isn't viable. If the game offers multiple ways to play and that leads to more possible builds to use, then that's depth.
I already said, I am not narrowing the scope to only "fair" engagements.
Choices don't always increase depth. That's where balance comes in. Depth based on the subset of interesting and viable choices within all the possible ones. You add classes, races, skills and activities to your game, it doesn't automatically mean the game is deep. That is perhaps the most common mistake people make with game depth. It is not based on strictly the amount choices you can make.
A choice between shooting yourself in the head or not, is not really a choice at all, get it? -Crude, I know, but it should prove my point.
Even if chess has just 32 pieces on the board on two sides with 6 unique pieces, it is still incredibly deep. Magic the Gathering has over 13 thousand cards in it yet the metagame is such that tournaments are usually dominated by less than a dozen (first tier) deck builds with slight variations (my MTG playing friend assures me). At a time when balance was at an all time low, just 2-4 deck builds.
In Eve as in MTG, not every build is as viable as the next even if it gets the job done. You can beat newbies with pretty much anything. It doesn't mean what you're flying is any good. A knife is not as viable as a gun, even though one side outnumbers the other by 5 to 1. And both weapons are lethal.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
I'm not fighting over a minor semantic defeat. I told you that your tiny nitpick is entirely correct (ie I'm not fighting the point, because meanwhile the clear intent of the guy's definition shows the nitpick to be irrelevant, and my point to be intact.)
Game depth doesn't change genre to genre. His definition is worded universally and works universally. There is nothing 'very obviously' wrong with it; in fact when you observe how people use the term in discussions you'll notice a trend (though you'll never admit it in this thread) that they're using it exactly according to Sirlin's definition.
Clearly the decisions in EVE are not "the same" as those found in WOW, just as the ones in tic-tac-toe are different from chess. For the 3rd or 4th time, decisions don't need analogs for us to compare game depth.
The officer decision obviously doesn't reduce the decisions of members to zero, and I never said it did. The thing I did point out is that that tier of decision -- which I might add is the place where all of EVE's high-tier strategy lies -- is exclusive to only a narrow subset of its players. The average player doesn't experience that depth, so the game is shallower than it would be if that tier of decision were more accessible.
Consequences to actions aren't necessarily depth. There are consequences to decisions in tic-tac-toe.
As for SC2, every vector of player skill is an example of depth. I wouldn't necessarily claim everything difficult is depth, because difficulty doesn't always describe skill-related things (when leveling is slow in a game players often call that "difficult" or "hard", even if the skill involved is exactly the same.)
Do you even have a concept of what skill is? You're claiming Europa Universalis 4 takes no skill. That's like saying chess takes no skill. Clearly someone who has a deep understanding of the game rules is going to do dramatically better than someone who doesn't. That's skill.
Skill is decision-making and execution as they relate to the game's goals. Not all games involve both elements (chess involves almost zero execution skill, since the physical act of moving pieces is trivial; so chess is almost solely about decision-making skill.)
Again, my definition of depth remains unchanged. Sirlin's definition is mine. Creating two systems that interact with one another will result in more depth than creating two independent systems. You'll still have increased depth with the independent system, but not by nearly as much. Effective game depth is a slightly different concept and sure it's fair to ask me to split it out as a separate concept for clarity's sake. EVE's main problem is effective game depth more than anything -- there are giant gaping holes of non-gameplay in a typical session where another game would continue to offer deep decision-making which are instead filled with non-gameplay in EVE, and that decreases the game's effective depth.
I come back to decisions/time because of effective game depth. This is why I also try to avoid describing depth tersely as "the time it takes to master a game." Although that's a quick and understandable way to cover the main jist of depth, it's severely flawed technically because players learn at different rates and because games can arbitrarily lengthen the time it takes to master them. For example if chess only let you make one move per year that wouldn't make chess any deeper as a game even though that limitation would make it basically impossible for a human to master chess. Which of course is why the decisions/time thing is important.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
lol at "effective game depth"....any more gems like that incoming?
Its funny though, you see, making move once a year doesnt make chess any more deeper.
But you see, it doesnt make it any more SHALLOW either.
Chess has SAME depth whether you do 20 moves/minute or 1 a year. You know there were people from different countries playing chess over mail before invention of modern communications, right?
False premise is false premise.
His definition is specifically talking about strategy. He's talking about competitive games, because that's what he plays. If I'm playing an MMO with a heavy emphasis on crafting, am I employing strategies? No. Depth doesn't have to do with strategy.
All you're doing is giving up ground and making his definition more and more vague. What even IS it at this point? He says:
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Well we've already established that obviously depth isn't binary. Now we're saying that strategy doesn't have to mean competition. What are you left with? What's his definition of depth? What is YOURS? That a game remains interesting after some amount of time? What even is "interesting"? Different people will be interested in different things. His definition sucks, and yours is completely undefined at this point.
But you claim they're of the same caliber. How can you claim that exactly? What measure are you using for "caliber"? How can you simultaneously say they're on the same level, while also saying you can't compare them?
So what if it's exclusive to a small subset of the playerbase? Do you remember how this example started? You said the downtime or lack of decisions in a sandbox game AREN'T compensated for by having higher caliber decisions to make up for it. I totally understand that most of the people in EVE aren't making 5-figure $ decisions in EVE. It's an example of how sandbox games have tradeoffs. Yes, sometimes there isn't as much going on and your screen isn't flashing with numbers and explosions all the time, but they have more depth as you play them. There's a payoff.
Consequence absolutely adds depth to the game. It is a feature of the game. Not only that, it is a feature of the game that permeates how the game is played. It exists underneath everything else in the game and dictates how the game is played. It is a PERFECT example of depth.
If you're not claiming that everything difficulty-related is depth, then your definition of depth has failed. You said it's the difficulty in mastering the game. If a game is more difficult to master, that, to you, should mean more depth.
Again, if I'm playing terran in sc2 and I want to split my marines up as well as possible as quickly as possible, I will *never* achieve perfection in that task. Does this mean the game is infinitely deep? Of course, because difficulty isn't depth.
Well, I'd differentiate between theory and skill. Knowing a lot about something isn't really skillful, but using that knowledge would be.
....I'm not hearing a definition from you. Are you really claiming that this is your definition?
"A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries"
Because it's a terrible one. As I showed above, it just boils down to a game's depth is how long it stays interesting. The problem is this doesn't even come close to jiving with your empirical examples. The fact that there is downtime in EVE and no downtime in WoW doesn't fit with that definition. It doesn't necessarily keep the game interesting. Having a lot of low-caliber decisions happening all the time seems way more like an example of a game that will get old real fast. On the other hand, a game like EVE that starts out slow but has enormous amounts of horizontal progression as well as social progression in the form of gaining influence in a corp means it's going to stay interesting for a lot longer. And indeed this seems to be the case. EVE players really seem to play for years and years.
decisions/time is a terrible way to define depth. To be honest, that seems like it would have a negative relationship with depth.
Hi..
I dont know how to post without quote so.. here it is..
I think open world pvp is a must in every mmorpg. I have play mmorpg like Guild War 2. Game is amazing but get boring without open world pvp.
i think every player that get killed in PVE wont drop any item. After they die, they will have 1 hour buff that wont get attacked by another player. But the buff can be remove if the player want to
Dead player should drop loot around 1 silver to rarely 1 gold. that is all
Player that kill other player will get red name and bounty that increase his gold drop. The red player names that has 10 gold bounty will be taking from his own gold.
"boring" for you .. fun for others.
I think open world pvp is a must-NOT in every mmorpg. I guess everyone has a different opinion, and let the market decides what gets made.
A typical chess game lasts 40 moves. Who do you think is experiencing more game depth: players playing multiple chess matches a day, or players playing one game over 40 years?
The premise here not only isn't false, but is truly the only meaningful way by which to measure game depth because it relates directly to how much depth players experience.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
No, I'm not. The point is, you don't need a good build to prey on PvE players therefore it gives a novice player the impression that the number of viable builds is higher than it actually is.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
At a point where you are dissing two professional game designers you'd better have some pretty fantastical arguments to explain why their definition is wrong and yours is right.
Every noteworthy game designer I've ever read or heard about has talked about depth along those same lines. The definition is universal, and can be applied to any game, to any activities within a game and in any genre.
What you've obviously done, is that you've decided "game A is deep" and modeled your definition around that premise. Needless to say this is the wrong way to approach this. And you're too invested in said game to see things clearly.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
These are games with PvP (full loot pvp) systems I preferred most
Das Tal
Runescape
Ultima
darkfall unholy wars
shadowbane - dead -> shame
diablo 2 (hardcore) - Played it for too long, for too hardcore now
path of exile (hardcore) - Working on an account
dayz - Got bored of Zombiesurvival... h1z1?
Planetside;)
fallout2238/fonline2/fonline:reloaded
earthrise - Yeah still waiting...
the repopulation - Yeah still waiting...
eve online - Reminds me of Atari Asteroids, The EVE announced in '14 with fps element seems nice
shores of hazeron
neocron 2 -
War of Conquest - Dead, simple squareclicking game where you'd sit on orbs 24/7 that paid out real-life cash with an international roster untill rebirth making the game politics heavy.
http://shardsonline.com/ (theyre at 211 percent of hteir kickstarter, lol)
& Shrouds of the avatar/P2P - From their IRC though: There's no full loot pvp in the game, but there will be a little bit - like loot ransom, they want to make a ranking-system for pvp. they just added some of the first intended open pvp zones in the form of shardfalls.
Heard good stuff about continuum.
Linkrealm: Rises like a Phoenix
-> FULL LOOT PVP BEST PVP<3
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!
ROFL, really....
So if i play 1 game in 2 hours, suddenly chess has less depth than if i play 1 game in 15 minutes.
Its getting to absurd levels of funny
Please, feel free to enlighten everyone how chess has less depth if you play 1 game in 2 hours than if you play 1 game in 15 minutes.
That premise is absurd and false.
When you figure that one out, you can start thinking on what actually makes chess deep.
The OP left out a poll choice...."Depends on the progression system & how gear dependent combat is in the game"
If you're playing an open world PvP MMO that has a item / gear based progression system, where the ability of a player to be effective in combat is more heavily influenced by stats provided by gear than the use of abilities & skills....then full loot will just not work. Again, if the game measures your progress by the gear you have....this likely means that value of items are high, and getting said items requires a significant amount of time & resources. Loosing a sword you spent 3 months farming / raiding to get in a cheesy PvP gank will make you /quit. (Think Lineage 2)
If you're playing an open world PvP MMO that has a skill / level based progression system, where the ability of a player to be effective in combat is more heavily influenced by your ability to effectively use your skills than the items you are wearing / using....then full loot isn't that big of a deal. Under a non-item dependent system....cost of said items are usually relatively cheap and do not take long to recoup. Loosing a bag full of regents, your armor or weapon you spent a few hours farming, in a PvP match will only set you back just enough to motivate you to not slack in PvP, but not to the point of quiting the game. (Think Ultima Online)
Don't often agree with you but yeah, after reading through the thread, this truly is getting absurd.
I think it all boils down to handful of mmorpg.com members having some sort of odd inferiority complex over the fact that they really enjoy a shallow game; as if that was a representation of themselves and their intelligence level. I play shallow games and enjoy them, I also like to sink my teeth in something with more depth. EVE is hands down the most complex and deepest game I've ever experienced. I've been playing for almost a decade and a half. I love it. But guess what? I still play games like Combat Arms; it's a shallow game and I know it. Who gives a shit though, it's still fun.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Viability means it can be used effectively. Just because the way it's being used effectively isn't fair, competitive fights doesn't mean it isn't viable. If the game offers multiple ways to play and that leads to more possible builds to use, then that's depth.
Notice how you say nothing in this post. You don't actually take on any of the numerous arguments against this obviously false and flawed and narrow definition of the word depth.
His definition is wrong because depth isn't binary.
His definition is narrow because he talks only about strategy, and depth can encompass more than strategy.
Taking these two elements out of his position, what's left? Seriously, how can you find anything meaningful in that definition? The most generous and vague interpretation I can offer is: A game's depth is determined by how long it stays interesting. That's a much more reasonable and accurate thing to say, not that I would necessarily agree with it 100%. The problem is it doesn't jive with everything else he's saying. He consistently talks about downtime in EVE and the high amount of decisions/time in WoW. Those two things don't really fit with his definition of depth.
I agree with this very much. There's nothing wrong with playing a shallow game. Just don't try to tell me it's something it's not. I'm by no means an expert at EVE, but I feel comfortable restating what you just said: it is by far the deepest and most complex game I've played. The more you play it, the more you realize how huge and sprawling and CONNECTED all of the systems are. That's not the feeling I get from playing any themepark really. Playing a themepark feels like I'm just playing through mass amounts of content. It doesn't feel deep, it just feels busy. There's a difference.
By failing to understand basic concepts like strategy, you drag discussion down to a semantic level. Strategy is long-term planning; it's decision-making. So yes obviously if a crafting-heavy game isn't shallow it's going to involve strategy. When you observe a market which seems ripe for exploitation, the decision to exploit that market is a strategic decision. When you decide to specialize in one particular type of crafting, that's a strategic decision.
You quoted his definition (which doesn't mention competition) and then immediately implied competition was a critical part of his definition. It's not. His definition was about things being strategically interesting.
"Strategically" is the only other part of his definition I might clarify, since strategy refers to a specific subset of skill, and depth is related to all forms of skill. (Skill is decision-making and execution. Decision-making includes strategy and tactics. Execution is any skill involved executing those decisions (sometimes called "twitch skill" if it's a significant amount.))
Same caliber in terms of how much depth they create.
When decisions are exclusive to a subset of players that limits a game's effective game depth just as spending most of your time engaged in shallow systems limits effective depth. How is the importance of this confusing? If someone designed an MMO Chess game where one guild officer makes all the decisions, and players playing each piece make no decisions, then obviously the depth experienced by piece-players would be zero (they wouldn't even be playing a game) while the officer enjoys all the depth of a typical chess game. So it matters a lot whether players individually get to experience game depth.
Consequences don't add depth because they don't increase the skill involved. Depth is about skill. Skill occurs while you're engaging in the challenge. Consequence happens after the challenge. So it doesn't involve skill.
You can't cite a meaningless mistake players sometimes make and claim my definition has "failed" because of it. Obviously if something hasn't really increased the difficulty of mastering a game, it hasn't increased the game's depth. Players may still choose to call time-consuming things difficult ("leveling is hard in this game") but that has zero bearing on the fact that obviously only skill-related difficulties increase a game's depth.
An increase in decisions/time typically provides more opportunities for failure (thus making the game more difficult to master.) It won't always increase depth, because the more decisions exist within a game the more opportunity there is for an unbalanced decision to trump other decisions and reduce game depth, but quite frequently it results in greater game depth. Decisions with greater nuance have the potential to be worth many other decisions, so that's a factor as well. The average chess match is ~40 moves long, after all. But critically, the decisions are made almost as fast as you can make them (minus your opponent's move times of course, which is where the game becomes less enjoyable to play as an active real-time experience.) Other deep turn-based games like Civilization achieve it without multiplayer and allow non-stop decision-making as fast or slow as you want to make them (or they allow pausing like EU4, which is functionally identical.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well again, I'll still be here if you ever decide to field any logical discussion or criticism.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
And again, youre posting a comment on your own arguments.
I guess it's easy to not be wrong when you use extremely broad and generous definitions of words, the problem is by doing so you haven't said anything at all. Nobody would use the word strategy when it comes to any crafting system. Strategy in common usage implies some kind of uncertainty. You have a strategy, you have a plan, but it won't necessarily work out like that. When you talk about choosing one crafting profession over another or playing the market, this is all having to do with competing against other players. If I want to craft armor for myself, it would be highly unusual to call that a strategy, because strategy doesn't simply mean decision-making.
He didn't say the word competition, but it's obviously what he's talking about. He's a fighting game guy. That's the context here.
So you say decisions in EVE and WoW are of the same depth, because they're of the same caliber. And then when I ask you to explain how you're quantifying the term caliber, you say it means it creates more depth. This is circular. If you can't tell me how you're comparing the decisions in WoW and the decisions in EVE, then why should anybody care about you declaring that they're of the same caliber?
Having high level decisions doesn't diminish depth at all, it increases it. The problem with your logic here is it assumes that opening up this level of decision making to everybody else is possible, when obviously it isn't. How is a decision like that limiting the game's depth? People still make micro decisions for themselves, like in any other game. It's just that EVE has the ADDITIONAL layer of having large scale corporation actions.
And again you seem to have forgotten why this was brought up. Your initial point was twofold:
1. EVE and sandbox games have more downtime, fewer decisions/time.
2. When you do eventually have decisions to make, they're no more important or higher caliber than the decisions in WoW.
We've already established that sandbox games will tend to have fewer things going on at once. You don't have to point out that some of these decisions are limited to a small subset of the population at any one time. The point is that, yes there are probably fewer decisions/time in a sandbox, but the decisions that are being made are more important and higher caliber.
Depth is not about skill. Consequence adds an entire layer of decision making to the game. How can you possibly say it ISN'T depth? If I want to go out and kill boars in WoW, I can do so with no consequence. I don't even have to think about it. Do I want to kill boar? Yes? Ok let's kill boar. In a game with consequences, it adds a layer of decision making. Do I want to risk my gear to kill boars? Well, what does a boar drop? Is the risk-reward worth it? Etc. I can't fathom how you can claim that consequences don't add depth to a game.
You said that depth is how long it takes to master a game. So how can you also say that everything difficulty-related isn't also depth related?? If nobody will ever split their marines perfectly in SC2, how is SC2 not infinitely deep? Again, I'm asking you, WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF DEPTH? You can't just say it's the same as Sirlin's because we've already established that his wording is wrong. Please state for me YOUR definition of depth.
First of all, failure isn't a normalized, universal term. Failure in a game like WoW is not the same as failure in a game like EVE or UO or Darkfall. So right off the bat, this is falling apart. A game like WoW may have more opportunities for failure, but that failure means less and easier to bounce back from.
Second, here is my problem with your argument:
"Decisions with greater nuance have the potential to be worth many other decisions, so that's a factor as well. "
That's a "factor"? No, that's the whole point, and you haven't ever factored it in. In fact, I distinctly remember you claiming quite vehemently that decisions in EVE are of the same caliber as decisions in WoW. So which is it? Are the decisions in EVE of the same caliber as the decisions in WoW? Or do you admit the "downtime" nature of sandbox games doesn't inherently make them more shallow, which is how this whole thing started?
You are right, your strawman sounds absurd. What Axehilt said though was, by playing more, you make more decisions; and thus you experience more of that depth.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
In fact, chess is a perfect example of how depth can be quantified ... but expanding the possible chess moves into a decision tree and look into the future possibilities level by level.
By definition, then, depth in chess is the number of "look ahead" (or the levels in the tree) that the game has encountered. So if you play 1 game in 15 minutes, unless you consider as many levels as you play the same in 2hours, it would have a smaller measure of depth.
Given a person usually considers more possibilities (and hence levels in the tree) in 2 hours compared to 15 min ... the 2 hour version has more depth. QED.
I already said, I am not narrowing the scope to only "fair" engagements.
Choices don't always increase depth. That's where balance comes in. Depth based on the subset of interesting and viable choices within all the possible ones. You add classes, races, skills and activities to your game, it doesn't automatically mean the game is deep. That is perhaps the most common mistake people make with game depth. It is not based on strictly the amount choices you can make.
A choice between shooting yourself in the head or not, is not really a choice at all, get it? -Crude, I know, but it should prove my point.
Even if chess has just 32 pieces on the board on two sides with 6 unique pieces, it is still incredibly deep. Magic the Gathering has over 13 thousand cards in it yet the metagame is such that tournaments are usually dominated by less than a dozen (first tier) deck builds with slight variations (my MTG playing friend assures me). At a time when balance was at an all time low, just 2-4 deck builds.
In Eve as in MTG, not every build is as viable as the next even if it gets the job done. You can beat newbies with pretty much anything. It doesn't mean what you're flying is any good. A knife is not as viable as a gun, even though one side outnumbers the other by 5 to 1. And both weapons are lethal.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky