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General: Editorial: Integration of Communities
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Lawrence Doolen provides us a new editorial. Today's topic is the Integration of Communities. Every week we endeavor to bring you new editorial content.
| Today's MMO games are losing depth with simplistic game play of having little to no regard for progressing an active in-game community. The closest experience the majority of MMORPGs offer as communities are force fed grouping options to fight over looting rights. These loot and group based gaming communities have little substance with their ultimate goal of ongoing item rewards.
Giving players a reason to develop a community has immense value and isn't difficult to develop if they're given the right tools. Acquiring group status symbols and destroying them is a sample of situations. Bases or homes that are destroyable depend on organized communities to defend or attack. This sense of value creates pride and morale for those players to want to log-in and have others visibly be envious of. Non-combatants are also involved in community by denying services to opposing players, perhaps it affects their overall faction or guilds ability to progress; or secretly aiding the enemy for selfish financial benefits. Non-combatants need combatants and combatants are dependent on their goods and services. The dependency of combat classes to social and crafter classes should be balanced where character advancement will be deterred without the other. Forcing community relations to be used for both types of player to benefit is key. |
You can read more here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Great editorial. I thought about the original Star Wars Galaxies at a few points while reading. That game, however flawed, did start to realize this concept of community and the links between combatants and non-combatants, creating new and varied gameplay.
Unfortunately, I haven't experienced this in any other mmorpg to the degree that this editorial expresses. I don't think that the next wave of mmorpgs will have this connectivity in the community, either. It is such a shame that SWG failed, because what was a change in the way mmorpgs were made, and played, is now looked at as something that didn't work, and may be avoided in future mmorpgs.
Instead, the developers and producers are making simplified mmorpgs as described in the editorial, and we keep subscribing. I am just a guilty of it as anyone, but I am always hopeful that a mmorpg will come around just like SWG did and present us with alternatives to the same old thing.
Many of those ideas have been done in the past; some successfully. Player-Policing worked well in Meridian59. I loved the crafting in SWG. Unfortinately, the money seems to be betting on continuous duplication of only tried-and-true systems wearing the newest fashions. Innovation will be slow because the risk is high. I agree though, we can do much better.
Dalton Storm
Game Designer
POSSe Entertainment
great communities and are not formed around fighting over loot and all
that jazz. For instance the one game that comes to mind when I read
this was Face of Mankind, while a hard game to get into its a million
times easier once you have gotten into the community. Which sadly a lot
of people just want a grind MMO to do and its nothing of the such so
its always had a small community.
Heidi
Good for Lawrence Doolen. I've been saying that for several years now, except that I state the problem more bluntly: MMOGs are too combat-heavy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having combat in a MMOG. It's a cool adrenaline rush, and a useful way to offer competitive gameplay. But there's no way it should be the only thing to do in a game, especially if that game's designers intend for it to be a long-lasting game world.
Action-oriented players aren't much interested in "community." Achievers can enjoy getting together with a few friends to dominate other players, but typically they don't invest in the game world itself. Once they've burned through all the combat content, they're off to some other game world.
It's the Explorers and Socializers who put down roots in a game world, who see a satisfying game world not merely as a place to "play in" but as a place to "live in." These are the players who create and maintain a game's community. A game whose designers don't bother to try to attract and retain these gamers by creating satisfying content for them will find itself in ghost town mode as soon as the next Cool New Game comes along.
So how to promote community?
To begin with, "interdependence" does not just mean that combat players require non-combatants -- non-combatants need to depend on each other as well. (This, IMO, is one of the few mistakes in the original design of SWG.)
Although it's good for fighters to need crafters to make weapons and armor, and for Entertainers to heal a fighter's Battle Fatigue, that's not enough. Explorers and Socializers must need each other, too. Once you change a game's rules to reduce the dependence of fighters on non-fighters (and you will, because the Achievers will nag you mercilessly about it), your interaction is gone. Because you never considered non-combatants important enough to design features that encouraged them to depend on each other, once combatants didn't need them, no one needed them... so they left.
So if I were a game designer, my design would look like this: Each of the Big Four gameplay systems -- Combat, Commerce (crafting as manufacturing/sales), Discovery (crafting as R&D), and Socialization -- would have as much content as the other three, and that balance would be preserved throughout the game's lifespan so that players are always reassured that their preferred playstyle is respected. And each of the four playstyles would be designed to foster both competition against and cooperation with all three of the other playstyles for full mutual dependence.
That, I think, would produce a community that lasts.
--Flatfingers
Am I sad at the notion that the essence of "community" within online games is seen as nothing more than forming PUGs, and bickering over looting rights? Yes, but I can at least say that I don’t need to post a résumé and wear a headset to get into a PUG.
When the game creates some framework as to the scope of the conflict, then we all are able to play some role within it. City of Heroes at least provides everyone who is playing some sort of context in which they identify with each other at some level. If I am a hero, I fight the villains. This is something I share with other heroes, because we have a common interest that is outside our individual selfish interests, and the selfish interests of my guild. It was the same way in Star Wars Galaxies between Empire and Rebel.
Yes, we are talking about lore here. The same lore that Mr. Doolan argues players skip through and disregard. However, without a central conflict, and without a common interest that defines player relations in the context of the underlying story, how do players know who their friends and foes are, and how they are to "fit" within the framework of a multiplayer world?
The answer is as old as TSO: you bring them from outside the game. In a game where there is no other context other than subjective player relations to each other, the only real community you can depend upon is the community that exists outside the game that you bring with you.
A game without a context that defines allies and enemies turns into Alphaville. It is a place where large networks of out of game relations manipulate game mechanics for power and domination over others who do not have vast networks of out of game relations.
Private gaming clans do not need to be integrated into a server community. They are a community unto themselves that exists whether the game is there or not. They have their own communications networks outside of the game, are self sufficient to where they do not need anyone outside of their ranks, and already arrive to a game with their own support network of trusted friends. They even purchase utility accounts collectively, or do other activities that non-professionalized players do not do, because the group itself often knows each other outside of the game, and are the same players, playing with each other across many games.
The level of play these large, private gaming clans are capable of is astonishing. It is like playing a poker game with six people, five of which are friends, and one of which is a stranger. The stranger is under the delusion that he is playing against five independently interested players, while the other five are acting as a team wholly independent of what the game is intended to be about. They redefine the game’s basic presuppositions into something that is possible only because the connections outside the game make it possible. Where signaling to other players what cards you are holding is a losing strategy, it becomes a winning strategy when you know that you’ll split the winnings equally the next day between the five of you.
When you are on a voice server connecting players across several games, and can call at a moment's notice via teamspeak to get your guildies on to defend a crucial objective, players who do not have that level of out of game organization will not be able to play at the same level. That is because while everyone else is out fostering relations with strangers inside the context of the game, the professionalized gaming clan can simply draw upon resources outside the game. There is no need to care about the server community, when you bring your own from another game.
I have nothing against that organizational level and professionalism. What I do have a problem with is giving these players the tools to manipulate the game and events in such a way that it affects the vast majority of recreational players who are not a part of large, multiplatform, highly competitive, professionalized gaming clans. Because when a design leaves it up to the community to create all the relationships that matter, it is never the relationships that are fostered within the game that matter in the end. It’s the relationships that exist outside the game that the player brings with him or her that one depends upon, everyone else be damned.
The reason is because, as I mentioned, the gaming clans do not need anyone outside their ranks. There is no "community" without "communication," and these days, unless a player is willing and able to log on to the voice chat program of choice, the player is in a sense, not an important part of another player's game, and never will be.
When a cross-title guild needs nobody outside the guild, then there is really nothing stop clan tagged players from griefing others, or powering others out. After all, they depend on a completely separate support and community network than the ones established in the games. Any interaction with anyone from the outside is a matter of preference, and not of need. There is no point in creating a system of dependence on people you do not know in real life, when organized groups of individuals with out of game connections can satisfy their needs wholly within their out of game circle.
If there is a game that does everything that is suggested in this article, then I don’t imagine I am qualified to play, and I don’t imagine I would have much success. Its not that I don’t like to be part of a greater game community, but these "well organized groups of players" aren’t helping matters any. They do not care about anyone or anything outside their guilds and clans, and are not about inclusiveness as much as they are about excluding players for whatever whim they feel is necessary.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
My thoughts exactly. I think the game to do it best is still Ultima Online. Just like every other MMO already released it has it's fair share of major problems, but it's by far the most versatle game as far as your options of what to do. The graphics are dated but the rest of the game's technology has come so far since '97. There is so much that EA could do with that game if they put the money and effort into some major redesign on a few things. But the game is still slowly growing so they're happy with just standard updates.
Shadowbane excels in certain areas. There are a few aspects of the game that I say beats all others. Just that other aspects of the game are just completely lacking. The game has come a long long way from what it was at launch though. The dev team has been moving the game in the right direction for some time now. Hopefully with the recent company changes they'll have the resources available to do what they need to bring back the lasting fun this game can provide.
For all of those who agreed with this article like I do, I suggest you takea good look at Pirates of the Burning Sea. At first this was just another game on the list of MMOs I was minorly interested in. I didn't look into it all that much because it was a pirate game and I couldn't think of there being all that much to do in such. Then I read the very in depth dev log on the system they have for the economy. After that spiked my interests I read more on the other systems with in the game and how they all effected each other. Everything that was/is great about UO I see those concepts in PotBS. A very community centric game that at the same time doesn't force you to be a part of the community. Though it does force you to participate in it. So if you're the loner type you can still do your own thing. Just it won't be like other games where the game becomes more like a single player game that other people happen to be in also. If you're a loner type you're still in the world of the game, you're just a loner in that world. I don't seem to be able to articulate my point very well right now, but take a good look at the info available in the dev logs and I think you'll see what I mean; and hopefully get as excited about the game as I am.
Most articles on this website seem to support open PvP environments, so let me make this absolutely clear: nothing that happens to an attacker after he ruins the evening of a PvE player makes any damn difference. That's where all these "player policing" solutions break down, a PvE player simply will not play a game where other players can attack her, not even if the penalty for doing so is permanent account cancelation. It does not matter since the anguish of some random guy doesn't matter; my evening was still ruined, and I don't gain any fun from the attacker's anguish.
That said, most of these ideas would still be valid in some sort of flagging system or even a purely PvE environment.
As I read this article I thought back to the Darktide server of Asheron's Call 1. This open PvP sandbox resulted in 3 factions: the random player killers RPK, Anti-RPKers or "Anti" and those neutral to either camp. The RPKs killed because the game mechanics allowed them to, the Anti's killed the RPKs as they didn't believe in random kills but the need for order and rationale in the killing. The neutrals straddled the fence and chose sides as they saw fit as opportunists.
So the point I'm making here is that the community development has been given to the players in the past. Whether or not that was successful is up to interpretation. AC is still around, but the player base has diminished over the years for a variety of reasons I'll not bring up here.
Dec 20,1999: AC1(DT).Since then:DAoC,SB,AC2,L2,EvE,WoW,SoR
====================
Currently playing: ArchLord - L58 Knight
LoTRo - L13 Dwarf Guardian
I put a good amount of time into AC and enjoyed, but AC didn't have the forethought as to what an MMO should be, that UO did. A persistant world where you can take on as many roles as possible in that world that someone would be able to take if that were the real world. Granted that though you could be just about anything in UO, there were a lot of things you could do that nobody did do, cause it wasn't as fun as it sounded. The chance of PvP anywhere any time definitely improved the community of the game, perhaps even was the main cause for there even being a community when the game first launched. Most people I know that played UO feel that the game because a lot less of a community and a lot less fun when they created the mirror world where you were safe from PvP.
No insult intended GP, but your respnse to my post is off topic. I specifically aknowledged that AC was not perfect and let's not derail this thread. What it is about is the development of a community and how factions(most currently are in PvP environments, with the exception of WoW and the community race to open Ahn Quiraj gates) interact given that the players have the power to develop or influence the actual factions.
Dec 20,1999: AC1(DT).Since then:DAoC,SB,AC2,L2,EvE,WoW,SoR
====================
Currently playing: ArchLord - L58 Knight
LoTRo - L13 Dwarf Guardian
I agree great editorial and agree that the original SWG (up to and including the Space Flight add-on) was doing things well.
Someone else pointed out that there needs to be interaction between Combat, Commerce, Crafting, and Community and I see that at the fundamental heart of MMOGs. But I know that although not a majority (and I personally have never seen the appeal), PvPers have to be addressed.
Perhaps if games had multiple factions (the number seven comes to mind) with the ability to remain totally neutral (PvE) things would balance out. If possible a mechanic that occasionally changed the alliances (because one factoin was getting to strong) would cause an occasional 'hiccup' that could lead to some interesting conflicts.
And as long as players are able to craft items that are at least as good as items availabe in the game, there will need to be Commerce. Add the ability to gather resouces and the need for resources for Crafting you have another need for commerce.
Crafting cannot be a simple minded add on if you are going to attract players truely interested in that aspect of the game. That was one of the real highlights of SWG, the crafting system with subcomponents, factories, and research really gave the crafting community an inpact. That was the biggest loss when SWG rerolled the game (and that is what I considered it with the massive changes).
As for community, I believe those grow out of the other facets. And given minimal tools (player housing, guild buildings, advantages for 'cities') I think that players would develop their own content. And tools to develop content would not be a bad idea as well. Perhaps the ability for player to create missions (quests) where they have other players collect the resources they need. The currency could be money, items, even something less tangible, or a combination of any or all. I would even suggest a method to occasionally pull 'lone wolves' into the community. There are always thing that even the most independant people need.
Well enough of my raving, it would be interesting to work on a test server where some of the 'players' could act as designers with the ability to actually impact the game.
I'm just of the opinion that UO made great strides on the full persistant world I think a game needs to be to have a really solid community. Also it seems to me that few companies have learned from what UO did right and wrong. Though I've hear SWG is of a similar design, I haven't played that one.
I'm just hoping that PotBS works out like I'm starting to think it will.
Most articles on this website seem to support open PvP environments, so let me make this absolutely clear: nothing that happens to an attacker after he ruins the evening of a PvE player makes any damn difference. That's where all these "player policing" solutions break down, a PvE player simply will not play a game where other players can attack her, not even if the penalty for doing so is permanent account cancelation. It does not matter since the anguish of some random guy doesn't matter; my evening was still ruined, and I don't gain any fun from the attacker's anguish.
That said, most of these ideas would still be valid in some sort of flagging system or even a purely PvE environment.
Nothing in this article says anything about open PvP. It can apply to any game that INCLUDES PvP, and IMO PvP is needed to keep people playing a game that has a monthly fee, there just arent enough people that are willing to pay for an online PVE only game.
If player A kills player Z in open PvP or in a TEF situation or in a special PvP zone the same could aplly.
And BTW the above is YOUR opinion not everyone who wishes to avoid combat. I would be quite satisfied if i got ganked and their accounts were cancelled.
But on a serious note...lighten up its a game.
I would propose that game world size and server population be added to the list. As technology has improved, the worlds and servers keep getting bigger, and the individual player becomes more and more anonymous. Its hard to be a "hero" on a server with 10's of thousands of toons, 99% of which don't know you from Adam. This is made worse by the addons like Teamspeak as Beatnik59 mentioned.
One subtle change that would help build interaction and reliance at least within a guild is adopting the patron/vassal system AC2 used. It rewarded/trained you to help others as they got into the game. The other small item from AC2 was every toon in an allegiance had the monarch listed when you examined them. It was very common to ping patrons and/or monarchs when you were having trouble with someone. That responsibility/interrelation is totally missing from games like WoW and EQ2.
But the bigger picture is we really need more constructive content added to these games. The vast majority of content really adds nothing to the game (crafting being the exception, altho typically gimped by the developers so it isn't competitive with the treasure system). A rare exception was the gate opening event in WoW. It was fun while it lasted, but unfortunately the reward for that was just more insane raid content. Not exactly what most folks needed.
Its really scary that an up and coming title like Vanguard is led by folks who think the only answer at high levels is raids and the only possible reward is more gear (why exactly do I need another sword thats 1% better?). We collectively have to be smarter than that don't we? WoW isn't succeeding because it has Raids and cool gear. Its succeeding because its very easy to learn and it has world class art, spit, and polish. Its content is mediocre at best.
The future I see is along the lines Spore is heading where the content and lore is defined by the players and all the silly realm and alliance/hoard kind of stuff is finally shelved. Very few people read that pre-programed lore and everyone knows it. But for that to happen the developers have to let go on controlling everything and thats not an easy thing to do.
But to make that work in an MMO we will need a world with most of the real world rules enforced. Why would I build a castle or a city or anything else if a random guild could come by and just destroy it for kicks and giggles with no negative consequences. WoW had this happen with the much publisized slaughter of the funeral party recently and the folks who did it got their jollies and faced no consequences besides forum flames. We'll need rules and laws and maybe even courts. Almost none of that has even been attempted so far in a game. That way, if people want to role play the criminal or gangster they can but it has serious consequences if they are caught: throw them in jail for a week and strip them of their gear, or they lose 10 levels, or something like that.
God help us if WoW is the pinnicle of the art of MMO's...
Buck