Considering Existing Games as a Starting Place

Introduction

As stated in my proposed title, I would like to make a Non-Digital Asynchronous Multiplayer Game, with the purpose of testing methods which would motivate players to play together in an environment similar to an MMORPG.

As mentioned in the feedback from my proposal, it might be very time consuming to start designing such a game from scratch, so it might be a good idea to instead find an existing game that has its own working economy and mod it to fit my requirements.

Deciding on the Starting Place

During our Game Design Degree course, we have been encouraged to pay more attention to non digital games as it is a good method of inspiring and understanding game rules design.

Quite a few games have been inspiring, two of which have interesting characteristics that I should consider using in my game.

1. Munchkin

This game puts several players in the shoes of typical fantasy RPG characters and gives them a simple goal to reach level 10 before the other players. Players want to achieve the goal alone, but can utilize help from other players in order to gain an advantage. On the other hand, players must always be aware that there are no true friends, other players will suddenly turn on you once they no longer need you to reach their goal.

The game is amusing due to the high amount of interaction between players, but what I liked in particular was how the game gave a very similar feeling to progression based RPG games. The reason for this is because players customize their characters' equipment and become more powerful as they get closer to their goal. 

Equipment is represented through the cards players have placed in front of them, each of which granting their own bonus to the player. Random cards are acquired as they progress towards their goal by 'kicking down dungeon doors' which is simply represented by drawing a card.

I think a similar system to this would work nicely for my game: The player has cards displaying their new-found powers and exploration is represented through drawing cards from a deck.

Something interesting I noticed when looking back at this game, is that while players can get very far ahead of others, no matter how weak a player was, they would still feel involved because at times they can still be the deciding factor of whether an encounter by the strongest player would be successful or not.

2. Pandemic

Pandemic was the first non digital game I had experienced where the players are playing entirely on the same team with a common goal and a common enemy: The game itself.

The game has more power than each individual player can handle on their own, thus players are naturally brought together and interact with each other to be as helpful as possible for the sake of their own survival. Same as with munchkin, the 'enemies' of the players (infections and such) are brought into the game through a card draw each turn.

Just as mentioned in a previous post, this technique where power is taken away from players to bring them together is an effective way to enrich the social experience of a game. The issue I can see with this system is that it is balanced around simultaneous play from the start until the end, and would become unbalanced the moment the number of players changed.

In an asynchronous multiplayer game where players can join and leave at any point, I want players to be able to contribute towards their common goal just like in pandemic, however I will need to avoid having a possibility of defeat based on another player's actions while you aren't involved. This means players will need to face challenges based on their own choices.

Theme of the Game

Just as any game, I will have to think of a theme to use for my game in order to help immerse players into the game world and giving them a purpose and motivation to overcome the obstacles and reach the goal.

An animated series called 'Sword Art Online' was rather inspiring from the perspective of a game designer and along with several other friends of mine, I thought it would be nice to be able to play in an MMORPG using its setting.

A summery of its setting is that several players are trapped inside the game world of a fantasy MMORPG called 'Sword Art Online'. Everyone is unable to leave until someone manages to clear the highest level dungeon in the game world - at which point, everyone would be free to leave the game. However players are given very good motivation to want to become stronger as they are told that if anyone was to die in the game world, they would also die in real life.

This setting can work well to give players a common goal like in Pandemic, then using Munchkin's mechanics as the start point for the economy would give the game the fitting RPG feeling I am looking for.

Next Step

Now that I have chosen my starting place, I will next need to go into a bit more depth about several game elements: Players, Objectives, Rules, Resources, Game State, Information, Sequencing, Player Interaction and Theme. I will need to make decisions, building upon the economy of Munchkin, the team play of Pandemic and the setting of Sword Art Online.

Possible Solutions to Design Barriers Hindering People Fun

Intro

In the previous post I wrote about the main design barriers hindering people fun during the player's journey to the endgame. Now that I know what the problems are, I will move on to pointing out the solutions that have been mentioned and try to come up with new ideas.

The Main Issues To Be Tackled

Issue 1: Leveling System / Gear / Stats (The Power Gap)

• Players are not rewarded for completing lower level content with friends. 
• It is very hard to stay on the same level when trying to play together. 
• Making a low level character just to play with friends, isn't fun when you want to progress your main.
• Players sometimes need enough gear in order to face certain opponents which their friends are facing.
• Power levelling your friends hurts their player experience since they will not feel like they are contributing

Issue 2: Quests & Restricted Access

• Being on different stages of a quest means you can't both progress on the same quest.
• Having completed different quests from other players results in the same problem.
• Players are unlikely to have many quests in common, even when they are in the same zone. 
• Players cannot play together because of level based zone restriction.
• Sometimes players need to be on or have completed a certain quest to access dungeon.

Issue 3: Solo Focused

• When players don't need each other it breeds anti social behavior.
• If players are in control, they don't need each other.

Issue 4: Sharing Resources

• People care more about who is getting what item than about other people.
• It is sub-optimal to progress in a group when you don't have a lot of time.
• It is inefficient to quest with others, it slows you down if resources need to be shared.

Issue 5: Noise

• When too many things are happening, it will take focus away from other people.
• Big groups of people can alienate some of the people in the group.

Solutions For:

Leveling System / Gear / Stats (The Power Gap)

Scaling player's level up or down to suit the area or event that you are in. The higher level player is still superior even when down-leveled however due to perks gained through leveling. - Christina Lauro. (2014) mentions that this is used in Guild Wars 2. 

After looking through several MMORPG forums, most of the comments about down-leveling systems were positive as many people are welcome to being able to play with friends. However a drawback to this system was mentioned as well: "Having this system in place makes the game feel the same from the first to the last level." 

When you take power away from the player, which the player has gained through progression in the game, it reduces the value of what the player spent his time gaining. 

Dungeons & Dragons Online attempted to solve this issue by allowing players to reset their level, but keep a small bonus in exchange for the levels that they lost.

In episode 7 of a radio show called Beyond Bossfights, the host mentions another solution that is used in Lord of The Rings Online: Purchasable levels.

Players can pay for levels, which would make it easier to get to the same content as that being played by their friends. I have also noticed that World of Warcraft has included this feature as well. 

Unfortunately as I mentioned in a previous post, charging real money would act as another barrier, and even then, players who worked hard to gain their levels would feel cheated to see others simply bypassing the process.

When considering that down leveling is currently the most accepted method of tackling the Power Gap issue, my personal opinion is: rather than down leveling, use smaller power gaps between 'levels'.

If power gains which occur through progression in the game were a lot smaller, the 'higher level' players would still get a challenge from going back to earlier content without the need to lower their actual power. This way whatever the player gains through progress will never lose its value.

I noticed that in the game Dark Souls the power gap that occurs as the player progresses through the game is much smaller than what you would find in typical RPGs. This had a big impact on certain aspects of the game.

When the player goes back to earlier content, or fights against a lower level player, the encounter remains challenging. While the power gap does give a clear advantage, it is not big enough to make such encounters effortless.

On the other hand when the player is under-leveled the player is not restricted from accessing later, higher level content. If the player wishes to, they can dive straight into the harder levels and still have a chance of success.

Quests & Restricted Access

As mentioned above, having smaller power gaps between levels would solve level based access restrictions since the lower level player can still succeed even when fighting against higher level enemies and give reasonable contribution when teamed with higher level players.

Some areas may be still be restricted for the sake of the player feeling like they are progressing through the world, however this will not stop higher level friends to come and help you unlock such restrictions quicker.

When it comes to quests, Guild Wars 2's method is the closest to solving the issues. Their solution was to let any player drop in to the quest area and take part even if other players have already started it. Also, players are allowed to repeat quests if they wish, however this would be sub optimal as it gives less rewards than completing it the first time.

Personally I believe that quests should be used sparingly, if at all, rather than to be relied upon as the main method of progression. 

Some MMORPGs, such as Arch-age have started to lean towards the use of sandbox elements as an alternative to quests, allowing players to progress any way they want, instead of having players restricted to questing.

This freedom from quests allows players to be more flexible, thus making it easier to play together with friends.

Solo Focused

Jenova Chen says in "Theories Behind Journey" - Full Keynote Speech says that in order to make players care about each other, take some of the power away from the player, and give it to the enemy, this way players will enjoy being in the presence of each other because they need each other.

The issue with needing other players is that players sometimes want to play alone or only want to team up with friends that they know, who may not always be online at the same time.

Due to this I think it is important to give players a wider choice of difficulty levels where they can progress. This can be done by giving players access to a range of content, with increased rewards depending on the difficulty and risk. While this gives motivation to play together, players would still have the option to progress alone if they so desire.

Sharing Resources

Jeremy Stratton. (2012). says that Guild Wars 2 have also removed the frustration of sharing resources such as mining veins and quest mobs. Dealing with this was quite simple, resources do not become unavailable to you when another player takes them.

In terms of materials such as mining veins, they would only become unavailable to you after you use them. As for quest mobs being a 'limited resource', any player that takes part in defeating them, gets awarded progress towards their quest, regardless of whether they are in the same party.

Noise

Jenova Chen says in "Theories Behind Journey" - Full Keynote Speech, that reducing noise helps get players to focus on other players. To deal with the issue of noise in Journey, the number of players in a game was limited to two. 

Another method that was used was to have the setting of the game be a desert void of life. This makes it natural for players to focus their attention on other players as there is not much else to focus on.

Unfortunately while the latter is an excellent method of bonding players together, it may not fit in more action oriented games where players need to pay attention to their enemies.

Summary

When designing the game, I should include the following traits in order to avoid creating design barriers which hinder people fun.

• Progression system which has small power gaps between levels.
• Progression system does not rely on questing.
• Less access restrictions based on level, giving players a wider range of difficulty levels to choose from.
• Players are rewarded for completing harder content to motivate grouping.
• Limited resources in the game world cannot be made unavailable by other players.
• Groups should have a small size limit in order for every individual to be noticeable by others.

References / Bibliography

Christina Lauro. (2014). MMO Mechanics: Lowering the barriers to entry. Available: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/08/mmo-mechanics-lowering-the-barriers-to-entry/. Last accessed 08/12/2014.

Beyond Bossfights Episode 7 - Barriers To Playing MMO's, video, Braxwolf Stormchaser, 02 July 2014, viewed 08 December 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtMeSAnaovY>.

Jeremy Stratton. (2012). The Soapbox: 'L2P' and the antisocial MMO. Available: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/31/the-soapbox-l2p-and-the-antisocial-mmo/. Last accessed 08/12/2014.

Journey Game Creator Jenova Chen "Theories Behind Journey" - Full Keynote Speech, video, Variety, 08 February 2013, viewed 08 December 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S684RQHzmGA>.