"Making a Non-Digital Asynchronous Multiplayer Game Which Keeps Players Together in an Environment Similar to an MMORPG's"
What is an asynchronous multiplayer game?
As Ian Bogost states in his 'Asynchronous multiplay: Futures for casual multiplayer experience', multiplayer asynchronous games can have any number of players based on its design (with a minimum of two). However unlike in synchronous games, players play in sequence, sometimes immediately after each other, and in other cases, after a duration.
Bogost also mentions another characteristic for asynchronous multiplay. This is the requirement for a type of persistent state. This persistent state is often seen in MMORPGs as the persistent world which allows the game world to carry on existing during the player's absence. To do this would require the use of a server or database in order for players to be able to 'load' the world's current state when they join the game.
What is meant by "an Environment Similar to an MMORPG's" ?
MMORPGs generally have a persistent game world. They are based on player progression over a reasonably long time and can be played by many players. Players can play either at the same time or at different times than other players and can spend different durations than each other.
Why not just use an MMORPG?
I want to achieve the mentioned traits in a non-digital game rather than an actual MMORPG as the technical knowledge and resources required to run an MMORPG are out of my reach and I would rather focus on designing a game which keeps players together.
What do I mean by keeping players together? and why is it important?
In MMORPGs players are able to progress through the game alone or with other players. I want to design my game in a way that it will not hold players back from choosing to play with their friends should they be playing at the same time.
After having played and looked at several popular MMORPGs I noticed something they had in common. It is very difficult for different players to always play at the same times, and for the same durations, and even if they did, they might still progress at a different speed. The result of this is that players will end up in different places, with different quests and different levels.
This in itself is not an issue as each player has their own 'story', but unfortunately when players want to play with their friends, they often find that the mechanics of the game will greatly hinder their experience due to reasons such as:
- The difference in power is so huge that one player will feel like their efforts are meaningless while the other player might be too powerful to even get any challenge.
- Some players will have already completed certain quests which their friends have yet to do, thus progression will be hindered for some of the players.
What this results in is that most players will end up spending most of their time having to play the game alone even while their friends are also playing. This issue is greatly diminished later on once the 'end-game' is reached by both of the players, however the journey to that point should not have to be so unnecessarily dull.
I will discuss my research in a later post, about the different types of fun and why it is important to allow players to be easily able to play with other players without being hindered by the game mechanics.
The challenges I will face.
Creating an environment similar to that of on MMORPG in a non digital environment.
Designing a progress based game for this environment.
Design must be done in a way to make players want to play together, while keeping solo play a viable option.
Building an economy for the game.
Balancing the game.
Handling data manually in the place of a server.
Gathering the people to test my prototypes and iterating based on feedback and analysis.
What is the marking criteria, how do the jobs tie into this?
As informed by my recent job search for game design jobs, I found that the following skills were commonly required for the job, and all relate to my proposed project, thus these are the points on which I want my dissertation to be marked:
- Coming up with new features / mechanics.
- Creating a detailed design documents for the initial prototype.
- Iterative design and prototyping.
- Testing and analysis of game-play in order to make improvements
- Balancing and Pacing.
- Building a good economy for the game.
- Learning how to make good use of a spreadsheet application similar to Microsoft excel.
References
Bogost, Ian. "Asynchronous multiplay: Futures for casual multiplayer experience." Other Players 6.8 (2004).
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