One game I did play, and I’m really happy I did, was the short-lived Mythos. The stunted step-sibling to Hellgate: London, it was a quirky fantasy hack-and-slash that never made it out of Beta. You have to wonder if Flagship had gone after Mythos instead of the muddled mess that was Hellgate, would they still be around today? Their RMT payment concept was much more straightforward than what they floated Hellgate with, and the tried-and-true hack-and-slash genre was much more of a sure bet.

Mythos featured a number of neat little tweaks that I really liked: funny takes on fantasy tropes, a number of different camera options, an advance on the Diablo-style inventory system … it had a lot of promise. Check out this video I shot of me taking on a boss in one of the first dungeons:

While we always talk about the need for innovation in the MMO genre Hellgate, Tabula Rasa, and Auto Assault would seem to indicate players don’t actually like to try new types of gameplay. Once again this might come down to that ancient sci-fi vs. fantasy argument, but I think it’s a question that bears considering.

Are players who enjoy MMO games just that adverse to anything without elves? Are we ever going to have a AAA sci-fi game geared around massively multiplayer gameplay that gets really crazy big?

And, more importantly, am I the only one that laments Mythos? Let me hear from you, fellow Mythos-missers!

I’ve written before about the frustrations players have finding and following content in MMOs. Specifically I think it’d be helpful to have guides or aides that specifically connect players with level-appropriate content. In my discussion of ‘the Personal NPC’, I brush against the problem that players face when they return to a character after an extended absence. Back in the day Brent dropped all of his quests when we left World of Warcraft so that he could come back fresh, and I’ve been reflecting on that ‘coming back fresh’ element. More on that in a sec.

In some ways I think the bewilderment of a returning player is almost equal to the transition from a new player to a veteran. In games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars there isn’t a lot in the way of a problem there. Point A to Point B, no problem. What about a game like EverQuest 2, though? Or Dungeons and Dragons Online? If you’ve never tried to make your way through that content without a signpost, you’ll know: it’s hard. My thought is that there are ways to solve the issues of contextless gaming and confusing leveling paths. Ways that involve cool instanced visitor centers! Read on.

Coming in fresh, without a lot of context for a game’s story or purpose, is the real hurdle here. If a player is a returning one they’ll probably quickly recall how to actually play the game. Likewise for a new player, the act of playing probably won’t be a big hurdle. Someone that’s never played an MMO ever, of course, is going to have some serious adjustments to make. But for folks that have played at least one other online title, the rules are going to seem very familiar.

No, what both of these types of players actually lack is motivation. Understanding of what they’re ’supposed’ to be doing. New players get over this hurdle quickly because dealing with this disoriented state is entirely what the early game is ‘about’. You log in for the first time and the developers have created a space that will walk you through what you need to know. Returning players, though, are left adrift. They’ve got a quest  log and maybe some inkling of what they were doing when they last logged off.

Without the context of having played recently, returning players are left trying to connect with an entire life they’ve left behind. The threads of their life in that gameworld are tattered and torn, with their strongest links (other players) most likely long gone. Returning to a game after a protracted absence is a dodgy enough decision to begin with – this period of reconnecting is an incredibly fragile moment for players. I don’t have any firm statistics in front of me, but I’m going to guess my own difficulty of rejoining the player populace is representative. Even a player that actively wants to re-engage is going to have a daunting task before them. Less patient players, or players that might only be in for a ‘free weekend’, are almost certainly not going to stick.

My suggestion is to one-up the idea of a player guide with an entire player visitor center. If a player’s account has been inactive for a certain amount of time (I’d say three months or more), characters logged back in should have the option to appear in a themed ‘visitor’s center’ instead of the last place they logged out. This should be optional, obviously, because some players are just not going to need it.

For those that want a bit of reorientation, though, there should be several NPCs and help systems available. The full gamut of the game’s changes should be available in digestible chunks, everything from in-game cinematics to catch a player up with ongoing lore to full-on tutorials for new or expanded mechanics. Helpful minstrels that can spin you the tales of the latest expansion should stand side-by-side with helpers that will let you reset your skills, retrain, or straighten out your inventory.

I’d even go a step further than that, with NPC merchants allowing returning characters the chance to catch up on stats and loot. As an example, imagine a merchant that would sell level 70 World of Warcraft characters with hopelessly outdated gear greens that would put them on par with pre-Wrath equipment.

To jump back with this a bit, I’m very much also in favour of a little handholding for players leveling up through games with confusing zone spreads. Dungeons and Dragons Online, as much fun as it was, is an infuriating game to move through. Both individually and as a group I had absolutely no sense of what content I should have been attempting. My tactic, such as it was, devolved to grabbing every single quest I could and hoping I got one or two in my level range. The quest tracker’s sorting schema made even this default of an idea challenging.

Similar to visitor center guides, helpful NPCs would be a boon in major player cities with leveling problems like DDO. Even just a simple suggestion of what zone to be in would be a huge help for players looking to get ahead in the game. The default assumption seems to be that all players are relying on external guides to move through the game. Indeed, that’s a generally safe assumption … but not only does it seem kind of lazy, it offloads a bunch of work onto the player. “Here’s a bunch of content,” the developers seems to say. “Work out what you should be doing.” That’s all well and good if you’re caught up to bleeded edge of expansions or working your way through a just launched game, but what about five years down the line?

EQ2 is a fantastic example of this, because at level 59 I have roughly 1,000 zones to adventure in. Which one is ideal for my level? Which one should be seeking solo content in, and which one should I be looking to for group activities. Yes, I know the answer to that thanks to EQ-IQ, but my point is that I shouldn’t have to go looking for that kind of information external to the game. Why isn’t there a bard in Freeport somewhere that can give me rumors of solo adventures in Tenebrous Tangle, or hilarious group hijinks in the Clefts of Rujark?

Ultimately I’m not looking to be coddled here. I don’t want to be babied or railroaded … I just want a sense of what I should be doing so I’m not wasting my time. Time is valuable. The DCUO developers impressed me greatly back in Austin by proclaiming their respect for player time, and I’m right there with them on that.

If I have time to play, I want to play damnit. I don’t want to go searching through your endless expansions and patches for the quest lines I should be doing. I don’t want to guess which zone I should be in. If I’m returning to a game I don’t want to have to remember what quest line I was in the middle of months and months ago. I want to jump in, have fun, and get on with the important work of playing.

Sorry, I just don’t buy these ‘we’re too easy on MMOs’ arguments. Should they be good? Yes. Should they run? Yes. Should they be fun? Yes. If any of these things are untrue at launch, I totally agree, that’s unacceptable. Witness: Vanguard, Age of Conan, Auto Assault, etc, etc.

But if the question is, “Should they be as good as a game that’s been running for four years?”, the answer is no. If you think the answer should be yes you’re dreaming. Seriously. Look at this realistically. While WAR was still deciding whether to wear boxers or briefs World of Warcraft was fiddling with PvP balance, raid tweaking, even superfluous fun content like mounts. Blizzard has had four years of live service to tweak, fix, and change their game. As a result (as I said on SUWT), World of Warcraft is the best MMO ever made, hands down, do not pass Go.

Warhammer has had two months. If you seriously expect a game that’s been out in the sun for two months to compare, polish/content/balance-wise with a four year old game, you’ve really got to re-examine your priorities. MMOs are not likes restaurants, automobiles, or clothing. If a car doesn’t run, it’s because there was a problem in the factory that could have been fixed on the drawing board. If clothes don’t fit, it’s because they were sewn wrong in the factory. If restaurant food tastes bad, it’s because it was prepared badly in the kitchen.

Get it through your heads:

Beta testing is a joke. We’ve talked about it for ages, about the motives behind ‘free players’ and the lack of actual testing. People do not play Betas like they play live games, it’s a demonstrable fact. As a result, the only way to know for certain if you’ve done the right thing is to launch your game. Warhammer did the right thing; they launched, they hit the waters, and now they’re swimming like crazy.

They’re trying to understand what exactly they’ve built in relation to how players interact with the systems, in relation to how the systems interact with each other, and so on and so forth. In a couple of months Warhammer is going to have more content, two more classes, and a lot more balance. That’s when I’ll go back, and that’s when we’ll start to hear a lot of amazing things about this great game Mythic has created.

So, say it with me: MMOs are different.

Minor quibbles aside, Peter completely ‘hooked’ me. He really got those emotions he was looking for. I felt things, I really felt the impact of the story’s ending. I want a chance to go back and do it over again, it’s so painful. But I can’t, because Fable’s not that kind of game. I can’t help but think about our favorite game genre as it relates to these emotional and storytelling questions.

MMOs are the ultimate saveless game. You can’t undo spending thousands of gold, you can’t unsay rude things to a guild member, and you can’t go back and re-experience live events whenever you want. MMOs are just not meant for your enjoyment – they’re environments meant for hundreds of players to inhabit.

As a persistent space, memories are in the making every moment you’re logged in. I still remember the spot my Beta guild and I posed for a screenshot (by the tanks outside of Ironforge). I vividly remember the spot I first saw a piece of blue equipment as a random world drop. And I just as clearly recall the spot where my guild dumped me (I was in Tanaris at the time, hunting near the big vulture-haunted skeleton).

Adjacent to these emotional musings, I’ve been mulling the power of storytelling in MMOs a lot. Fable 2’s somewhat unsatisfactory ending wasn’t the prompt for that. Actually the small amount of info on The Old Republic is what made me really question my viewpoint on the genre. Everything I know about MMOs tells me that what BioWare is trying to do won’t work. And yet. And yet, I’m sitting here knowing in my gut that SWTOR is going to be fantastic. It’s the way those guys operate, they do fantastic work. More than anything right now I want to understand what those three months of BioWare writing school net you.

What I want BioWare to keep in mind, though, is that the best stories are meaningless if no-one reads them. What really matters is how the player walks away from the story; you could argue that ultimately the written word is just an attempt by the writer to instill something in the reader. Tycho has stated just that argument elsewhere, and extremely well.

We need BioWare stories that conquer where Fable 2 fell down. We need an Old Republic that instills emotion, a Jedi experience that makes the player feel that heroism rather than just understand it intellectually.

Ultimately we need a game that can instill drama and emotion into the persistent spaces we’ve all come to love so much over the last decade. I think BioWare is up to the challenge … but I hope it’s understandable I’m simultaneously skeptical and brimming with anticipation.

I’m stretching a premise to make a point, but bear with me. There are two daily quests in particular associated with the Shattered Sun Offensive that surprised me. The first is The Battle Must Go On, a quest on the Isle proper. Essentially it’s just another ‘kill 6 demons’ quest, but it also requires players to stab a battle standard into a particular demon call the Emissary of Hate. Once he’s slain, you just use the item on him and your quest goal is ticked off. The public bit is that you don’t have to have killed the Emissary yourself – you can impale any old Emissary corpse lying around. I’ve seen numerous instances of cooperation with this part of the quest; more powerful 70s even going out of their way to slay an Emissary as an obvious public service.

Even more powerfully PQ-like is the quest Blast the Gateway, in the Throne of Kil’jaeden area of Hellfire Peninsula. It’s only accessible via flying mount (just behind Thrallmar), and is just crawling with critters for the two daily quests offered by the Shattered Sun rep in the area. One of the mobs thickest on the ground are the luminescent Incandescent Fel Sparks – bright green fire elementals, essentially. You’re given an item for the quest called a Living Flare, which when used creates a little flame pet that follows you around. Killing a Fel Spark causes a bright flash of light, and increases the size of your little Flare. Once it hits critical mass (indicated by a color change) you lead the Flare back to a magical gateway to blow it up.

The fun part is that anyone killing a Fel Spark in an area around you ‘ticks’ your Flare up a notch. You don’t have to be grouped or working together at all; two players fighting two Sparks nearby each other will add two ticks to both players’ Flares. It’s a fantastic mechanic, and leads to instant collaboration between players in the area. It reminded me instantly of WAR PQs, and actually made me pine for the ability to collaborate with others like that generally. Maybe specific areas of the game where all the quests are collaborative like that? Or some option the player has control of, to have their quest updates affect everyone in the area? An altruism option, essentially?

Regardless of the here and now, with these simple elements already in place … jeez, I wouldn’t have hedged my bets as much as I have when talking about Blizzard adding PQ-like elements to WoW. We’ll see PQ-like quests, and soon. Maybe as soon as early next summer?

As an aside, I can’t express how much I want a Dragonhawk flying mount. I can only assume they’ll be coming in the expansion, and I’ll be all over that like crazy.

The loss of beast loyalty is NOT new, it just became apparent in GU5 due to a bug. A bug that we have now fixed. To get an understanding on how this wasn’t originally communicated to Beast Masters we have to do a little internal history lesson. Four score and seven something something…

Blixtev and company started working on an ambitious chapter that we called Beast Mastery. During this time we had X amount of designers, programmers, and artists to start our brainstorms/documentation phases.

During the weeks that followed designers, programmers, and artists started to leave the project. Where they went is irrelevant. What IS relevant is the fact that other designers, programmers, and artists had pick up the torch where the others left off. As well as finish their own tasks. For some of those tasks we inherited, we were under the impression that the system/item was done, and just needed bug fixes/polishes. I will freely admit that I was the 3rd designer to touch loyalty/happiness pre chapter 6 launch. When I got this assigned to me, it was assigned as a “fix the bugs that come in, the system is done”. So that’s what I did.

I had internal docs that said the design was to lose loyalty, I didn’t get any bugs on them not losing loyalty, and during my play tests I didn’t find any bugs on this. We went live with this feature enabled. Yes we dropped the ball and it should have been in some sort of update/post to give you more information on it. Since it was me who inherited it last, you can blame me, I am a big boy I can take it. I wont make excuses, all I can say is I was focuses on getting all my tasks done, and fixing what bugs came in for loyalty so I didn’t ever tell Beast Masters how the system works from A to Z.

Lets fast forward to GU5. Hanse had a tough task of working BM update, it is a tough task don’t doubt that for a second. There are a lot of intricate details in this system that are all intermingled, and one wrong move will have wide ramifications. Hanse discovered that the expertise “Beast Empathy” never really functioned. So he took a stab at making beast loyalty happiness function with this expertise. Loyalty/Happiness is called in several places and he had to touch all those places. Unfortunately in the course of making your happiness/loyatly function more efficiently (and with expertise that works) we introduced a bug that dramatically increased loyalty loss. Hanse has since fixed this bug, and we have patched it out …

“Gold farming is a result of bad game design. Gold farming means that some regular player finds some particular activity in a MMORPG so boring, but necessary, that he is ready to pay somebody else to play the game for him … At some point in the future somebody will discover how to make a MMORPG in which all parts of the game are fun to play, and there are no parts to “grind” to achieve some result of virtual currency or level. And that game will have no gold farming. Not because it would be impossible, or because of being threatened with bans, but just because it wouldn’t make sense to pay somebody else to have all that fun for you. The impotent rages of game developers against RMT are really just a reflection of their own failure to make their games fun in all areas.”

Someday someone is going to make a perfect game, where things are always fun all the time? Can’t wait. I’ve played a few, sure … they were called First Person Shooters. Not a one had to entertain a player longer than, say, 15 hours. None had to entertain a player for hundreds the way even the most basic MMO is expected to.

Gold farming is the result of human nature expressing itself inside the designer’s world. Humans are amazing optimizers, especially when it comes to repetitive activities. Do something often enough, and we mentally do our own game design aimed at thwarting or subverting what’s already in place. This is why people buy gold and use powerleveling services – they’ve chosen the optimal path they see between themselves and their goal.

The problem with this, which Tobold is sort of brushing against, is that this level of optimization is destructive to the game. By subverting the game’s design to this extent, it become harmful for both the player who engages in this activity, and for the people around him. Power-leveling is, I’d wager, responsible for far more ‘hacked’ accounts than viruses and keyloggers. That leads to emptied banks and sharded epics – bad mojo all around.

All that said, I think it’s heartening that designers are working to lessen the impact of gold farming in their games. Several of the titles I’m most anticipating right now, including The Agency, Warhammer, and Free Realms, are doing their best to disincentivize farmers. They’re also making it so that farming and purchasing of gold just isn’t as useful an activity to engage in as in other titles.

They’re doing so by fundamentally changing some of the elements we recognize from previous MMOs, which I applaud. Non-static spawns, achievement through non-grinding means, microtransactions … they’re all working to get around this pernicious optimization.

And yet, sad to say, there’s still going to be RMT and power-leveling in those games. Warhammer is built-in with a number of tracking, anti-spam, anti-RMT measures, but it’s still so traditional in a number of ways that I’m dead certain there is going to be a thriving gold farming trade within weeks of the game going live. I think Mythic Entertainment is going to have a lot of success keeping the price of third-party gold high, but that’s all the success I think they’re going to be able to claim.

And still Warhammer will be a fun game. People will enjoy it, they’ll play it, and somehow life will go on. Because (again) gold farming isn’t the result of bad design. It’s a reaction to the baser reality of being a human. People are always going to try to dodge the system. It’s what people do. Getting all huffy and high horse about it is counter-productive; it doesn’t address the human element.

All of these games that are designing around RMT would be well served to approach that human element as a component of their anti-farming methodology. Educate the players on the risks of third-party services. Make it clear what their actions could result in. Ensure that people have the proper context for their actions, and you’re going to have a playerbase much less willing to engage in this behavior.

Game designers are smart. Players are smart. Categorizing either as failures is a losing proposition from the get-go.