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http://blogs.sun.com/gameguy/date/20050505 Thursday May 05, 2005

How to ruin a MMOLRPG in one easy lesson.

Massively multi-player on line games are the direct children of the pen and paper role-play games. In a lot of ways they are closer to them then they are to the single player CRPGs (computer role-play games) they evolved from.

Pen and Paper (or PnP) RPGs typically suffer from a problem known as PC escalation. Players are focused on developing their characters strengths. As the characters get stronger the things they face have to be tougher and the is results in a kind of cold-war escelation that ultimately takes the game into the bounds of the ridiculous.

Besides the inherent problems with keeping such a game believable and enjoyable, there is a very real problem that RPG groups arent static. New players come in and old players leave. When new players come in in the latter stages of such a game they can often feel like ants suddenly thrust into a a battlefield full of giants. This is both frustrating and un-fun for the new players. On Line RPGs can suffer from this effect, only on-line its often even worse. The developers are generally surprised at how fast the quickest developing players get to the end of their released content. They typically react in horror as they see all the work ahead of them to please these players.

In response they do two things:
(1) They make the whole game tougher in order to try to make it tougher on that top 5%
and
(2) They make the game tougher in order to try to slow down the growth of that 5% into a larger number.

This however results in a game that is much more difficult to play and much more frustrating for the users. The result is what was a fun and enjoyable balance for 80% of the players is destroyed for the sake of the top 5 or 10 percent. This builds a barrier to entry for new players as well as discouraging many of the mid-tier of players into giving up.

Although they don't generally talk about this, the experienced MMOLRPG players all know this phenomenon well. That is why in the early stages of the game you see them "grinding" the levels, their entire focus being on getting to the top of the ladder before the hatchet falls. Most MMOLRPG designers decry this player behavior, but ironically it is the designers' incredibly predictable behavior in "tuning" the game that gives rise to the player actions in question.

We are seeing this right now in City of Heroes. The easy ways to the top that the first players found are being declared "bugs" or "exploits" by the developers and removed. The result is that they are punishing those who either didn't get a chance to use these accidental features OR were honest and cooperative enough not to take maximal advantage of them while they were present.

I originally recommended this game as, perhaps, the game that would finally break the casual game-play barrier and allow players who didn't devote every minute of their lives to be real game participants. Alas, from what I see now, I have to retract that. The same old patterns are re-occurring and those who did not devote every waking minute to exploiting the early days of the game are going to have a hard and frustrating time trying to match the accomplishments of those who did.

Its sad and a shame. And, as for me, I've learned my unfortunate lesson. The next MMOLRPG I try to play I am going to level-grind from day one.

Posted at 03:24AM May 05, 2005 by gameguy in General  |  Comments[67]

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