With all due respect to the old timers, how exactly is punishing a
player like this supposed to make the game fun? Of course there should
be rewards and penalties in any good game system. Yet it amazes me to
see how drastic some elements can be.

I stand behind designers who want to innovate and add challenges not
found in other games. They shouldn't coddle players or make things too
easy. And players should always know what they're getting into before
choosing to invest their time and money in such a system. If Bartle
wants to chalk this up to Newbies designing the system, he has the wrong
impression. If you design a system that noone thinks is fair or fun,
then you can't be surprised nobody would want to play it.

Sometimes I hear people bemoan how much more difficult arcade games were
years ago. They'll say that we've been spoiled with the autosave, the
extra life, even health or energy meters. They'll tell you about how
all it took was one ghost to kill Pacman, one misstep to kill Frogger,
one alien to kill Galaga. They'll tell you how they spent hours running
around a dark maze with no lives left, only to lose it all to a sweaty
joystick knob and have to start from scratch. What they don't remember
is that games design back then were *meant* to be hard -- the faster you
died, the faster another quarter dropped into the slot. Games of today
aren't pay-per-play, they're up front investments with long lead in
times. If the game is going to be sold to someone, it'll be in the
screen shots and feature lists released months before the little plastic
disk.

More commonly now, online games aren't sold so much by features as they
are by community. It isn't the jazzy graphics engine, or the lush
terrain that will draw people to it -- it's their friends and it's
message boards that build a desire for belonging. It's a community of
people working towards the same goals. If the designers want to make
those goals difficult to reach, so be it. But designers have a
responsibility--not just to the accountants who want to see the $$ roll
in every month, but to these players--to make the game worth playing.
And for my money, no game is worth frustration, anger, and downright
pain.

-----Original Message-----
From: eobet--spray.se [eobet--spray.se]
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:23 AM
To: <Address Masked>
Subject: Re: Re: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No,Really!


If you are tired of me talking about Dark Ages, ignore this mail. :)

Death in Dark Ages isn't permanent, but there have been cases of very
long term players (several years of investment in the game) who have
quit because they died.

See, some items in the game are immensly difficult to acquire, and when
you die, ALL your magical items explode!

You also become "scarred" when you die and need a priest (a player) of a
certain religion to remove it (which must be done in a church, and the
priest may need items of rivalling religions in exchange, in order to
restore his faith). The scar adds 25% experience requirement to the next
level, I believe.

I've died a few times in the game and it is really devastating, since
about 50-60% of your characters survival abilities is items (you
essentially loose 10 levels of experience by loosing all your items).

God I want to design my own MMORPG...

/Robert

> Från: Dan Pinal <danp--massmedia.com>
> Till: <Address Masked>
> Rubrik: Re: Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really!
> Datum: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 13:13:57 -0800

> I think the article makes its point very well. It describes very well
>
> the players whom publishers will cater to and possibly must cater to.
>
> And this is unfortunate.
>
> I believe WoW is open beta now. A few of the guys here at work still
> play it. They are also the ones that never played a MMOG before.
Most
>
> of us familiar with the genre have dropped it. The problem with WoW
> is
>
> that it was a much better game in alpha. Even with missing races it
> was
>
> more fun and more complete than any other MMORPG I ever played. None
> of
>
> us could believe we were playing an alpha. Then right before the
> transition to beta Blizzard let in a slew of players many of whom had
> never played an RPG ever. The message boards became overwhelmed with
> screaming, whining and complaining. The game was massively altered to
>
> resemble the familiar they whined about and accomodations were made
> that
>
> totally altered gameplay and made it less fun,
>
> Actually, if I ever get the chance to create another RPG I would make
> permanent death an integral part of it.(It needn't be as horrible as
you
>
> think. ) Sorry to hear about Ryzom, I was a little curious about it.
>
>
> Dan
>
> Piringer, Frank wrote:
>
> >I think the short answer is, companies need to stop releasing MMOs
> that
> >are still in beta. Not stop beta tests -- stop selling the game as
> if
> >it's a complete world. Like most games, MMOs rely on hype and the
> 1st
> >month sales to get them into the red. Unfortunately, MMOs also
> >require a monthly commitment to stay afloat, to pay for things like
> >electricity to run the world servers. The problem is, a poorly
> >released MMO will not keep the excited fan base if there is nothing
> >to intrest them,
> or if
> >the interface is buggy or if the client crashes frequently. I think
> >this kept decent MMOs such as Planetside and Anarchy Online from ever

> >really catching on, and will always be a problem regardless of
> >newbies or not.
> >
> >Personally, while trying to force myself through the Saga of Ryzom
> demo,
> >I was crying in frustration as I tried to learn the complex and
> >poorly designed interface. I will never know what the advanced
> >features of
> the
> >game were, because I immediately uninstalled the game and have become

> >disillusioned with it. Unless I were to really see some glowing
> >reviews over a new and updated interface, the rest of the game and
> >all it's features can rot for all I care.
> >
> >On the other hand, FFXI was an amazingly simple game to get into.
> It
> >was clean, had a short learning curve, and a ton of things to do and
> >explore. Perhaps it was because it was already released in Japan for
> a
> >while, but I think it was more than that: I think that by keeping
> >things simple at first, then making the game more complex as you
> >advance (instead of dumping everything on you at once) Square was
> >able to keep the players who were testing the water and turn them
> >into fans. Blizzard will be taking a very similar tactic towards
> >World of Warcraft, so I hear -- the game will be designed from the
> >bottom up to be as user-friendly as possible. This is not to say
> >that there won't be unpopular features or the dreaded "Blizzard Nerf"

> >patch around
> the
> >corner to piss everyone off. But by having a clear design philosophy
> up
> >front and not throwing the newbies to the wolves (THE biggest reason
> >Lineage will never become mainstream) it stands a chance to survive.
> >
> >It's really a damn shame about Earth: Above and Beyond -- the demo
> I
> >tried out seemed really cool, but I guess they learned an important
> >lesson: players don't like exploring empty space and repetitive fetch

> >quests. Give us some scenery and something interesting to do, and
> we'll
> >forgive the occasional unpopular decision.
> >
> >Just keep away from the "Permanent Death" idea. In a persistent
> world,
> >the worst thing that could happen is to lose a carefully constructed
> and
> >much cared for avatar. I didn't spend 1000 hours and a hundred bucks
> to
> >watch my guy go down in flames because I entered the wrong area at
> too
> >low a level.
> >
> >--Frank
> >
> >
>
>
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> =-
> The Alternate Reality Mailing List Archive
> <A HREF="http://www.alternaterealityarchive.com/"
TARGET="_blank">http://www.alternaterealityarchive.com/</A>
> To post, click reply or send to <Address Masked>
> To unsubscribe, send message to
************
>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
null

Otur i kärlek - www.spray.se/spel Tur i kärlek - www.spraydate.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Alternate Reality Mailing List Archive
http://www.alternaterealityarchive.com/
To post, click reply or send to <Address Masked> To
unsubscribe, send message to ************
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-