Eric over at Elder Game put up a good post about why skill based systems are bad (or at least, not to be undertaken lightly or by fledgling designers… like me). Â Dig through my archive here and you’ll see me go back and forth on the subject of skills versus classes.
In Eric’s post, he uses EVE as an example, and the game is mentioned in most of the comments there. Â And it got me thinking…
EVE looks like a skill based game. Â It has all the markers of one. Â You have a list of skills and you can train any skill you want, making powerful combinations or gimping yourself by choosing things that don’t work together, as long as you have the prerequisites for that skill. Â But, as I’ve noted on a number of occasions, what I like most about the design of EVE is that ultimately your character matters less than your ship.
In EVE, if you have level 5 in Frigates and level 5 in missiles and a slew of other skills, those don’t matter at all if you are currently flying a mining rig outfitted with only mining lasers. Â Despite being able to choose and learn any skill, EVE is actually a class based game with talent trees. Â Your ship is your class, and the modules you can outfit it with are your talent trees. Â Certain ships are designed for certain types of play. Â You wouldn’t take a giant hauling/mining rig into a dogfight even if you did load it with weapons because the ship isn’t designed for fighting. Â It would be like trying to play a priest as a tank in most MMOs. Â Doable? Â Sure, with the right items, plan and situation, but it isn’t the best option by far.
At best, EVE is a highly templated skill based game, but if you play the game entirely as skill based without ship considerations it quickly becomes unsustainable from a character stand point as you are gaining skills willy nilly that aren’t improving your ability to either a) fly the ship you have better or b) progress you toward flying a different ship that fits your play style better.
Even after reading follow ups by Ysharros and Psychochild and the comments on all three posts, I still think that EVE’s sort of gear controlled skill based system is the way I would go if I were to make my own MMO, largely because I really dislike permanent decisions in games that force me to create alternate character to experience new play styles.  Rift by Trion is attempting to bridge a gap here by allowing archetypes of warrior, rogue, mage and priest to build and maintain several sets of souls (skills, talents, etc) that actually can radically change the way the archetype plays.  If that works, it might open the door for someone to try fantasy version of EVE where you can have any skills you want but are constrained in what matter by what gear you are wearing when you leave town.  And that’s a game I definitely want to play.
Update: Another voice in the wilderness, Rampant Coyote.
Design in business tends to be a collaborative effort. Â Mainly this is because nine times out of ten the person with the idea doesn’t have the ability, and the people with the ability aren’t often focused enough to have the ideas. Â Not to offend either set, but creativity and business sense appear to be, in most people, diametrically opposed. Â That means the more of one you have the less of the other you have.
So, if you are the idea guy, you take your thoughts to someone else.  You’ve laid out the parameters and explained what you wanted.  The designer has gone off and done what you asked and is showing it to you.
The first thing to remember when entering a design process is that until you’ve actually released, you can change anything. Â Even after you release you can probably still change things. Â So when your designer brings you the first pass at implementing your idea, the first thing out of your mouth shouldn’t be pointing out how they totally screwed it up. Â This is a first draft, this is the collaboration part where the designer is trying to understand what you want, in his medium, and you help him. Â Until you learn to literally project your thoughts into someone else’s head, you have to realize that what you dreamed up and what you put on paper as specifications are not remotely identical, and the translation from your brain to paper and then from paper to the designer’s brain is going to cause variation. Â That’s why the two of you need to work together.
Don’t put your designer on the defensive and lead with criticism. Â Look at the work and begin by talking about what you like. Â What elements appear to be going in the right direction. Â And then, when you are done, begin being critical, however, remain constructive. Â If you don’t like the format of something, don’t just say, “I hate that. It’s ugly.” Â Try instead something like, “The words are right like I specified, but I’m not loving the font you chose. Can you show me a few others?” Â If you don’t understand something, ask — the designer is likely happy to explain where he started and how he got there, and if he’s off the mark you should correct the error in his path and help him get to where you want. Â Of course, that doesn’t mean you sit in the designer’s work space and tell him how to do his job.
Just keep in mind how you would react if someone came along and told you how stupid your idea was versus them telling you it’s a good idea, promising, but there are these one or two details you might want to reconsider before you get in too deep. Â In other words, the Golden Rule.
I’ve been a big fan of No More Kings from the moment I heard Sweep the Leg. Â Even bigger once I’d seen them live and listened to the entire first album. Â Then bigger still after getting my copy of their second album and listening through that. Â Both albums are always on my MP3 player and I love every song. Â That’s pretty rare, to love every song by a band. Â Even some of the “best bands in the world” like U2 or The Rolling Stones have a few songs I can’t tolerate. Â But No More Kings has joined Better Than Ezra and Seven Mary Three in the short list of “can do no wrong” for me.
They don’t have a new album out (though I’m hoping for one), I haven’t seen them live recently, nor do they appear to be coming to town anytime soon. Â So why am I talking about them?
Because it’s Zombie Wednesday here at Aim for the Head, I didn’t have any other zombie news to post, and I love this song (not the video so much, it’s not done by the band, but it lets me hear the song, so it has that going for it):
All of their stuff, in my opinion, is worth a listen. Â Many of his songs are just awesome as I’ve written about before. Â And for just $16 you can get bothalbums.
Years ago I tried an experiment that I originally titled “Sneaking Sixty” and then after the Burning Crusade released was retitled “Sneaking Seventy“. Â I had to give it up because exploration exp got killed at some point so that you couldn’t walk a low level character into a high level area and get gobs of exp for surviving the journey, and there just weren’t enough quests to get the job done.
However, with the release of Cataclysm (actually I believe it was in one of the patches leading up to it), they’ve added experience to mining and herbalism. Â So, since “Sneaking Eighty-five” sounds less cool that the two previous incarnations and because I’m certain the level cap will continue to increase, I’m reviving this experiment as “Sneakin’ Around”.
On the Moon Guard server, Kaens, a human rogue, will endeavor to make his way through the World of Warcraft without killing anything. Â He’ll ferry documents, deliver messages, fish, mine ore, pick wild flowers and explore the world, all without a weapon in his hand.
Of course, upon logging in, I am faced with a dilemma: the very first quest is to kill things.  So now I must decide, can I just forgo the entire newbie area or will I need someone to “assist” me through a few quests to get me on my way?  The answer… next time.
Over at Horriftic Intentions, brannagar has posted a bit about what he thinks the community wants. Â My first mistake in getting involved in that discussion was that I was sent a link to the post and didn’t pay attention to the fact that the blog is a Rift fanboy site. Â I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense like some people might. Â I just mean that the author is clearly excited for the game, has already taken the stance that Trion (the makers of Rift) knows all (and agrees with him). Â Had I known, I probably would never have commented there at all and instead come straight here to talk about the issues at hand.
Essentially, of the four points he makes, I completely agree with three of them. Â Two, flying mounts and arenas, on the grounds that just because one game (and for most people that one game is WoW) has them that every game should have them. Â The third, the random dungeon finder, because while I’m certain it leads to more progress in games like WoW, I ultimately feel that the implementation destroys community. Â Why bother meeting people and making connections when you can just use the tool, get a group, and then never play with those people again?
The fourth point of his, the one I disagree with, is that some people are asking for an Auto-Face or Stick function for PvP. Â As you can see from the comments once I stuck my nose in and the two of us bantered back and forth, clearly brannagar likes circle strafing. Â I’ve mentioned my views on circle strafing on here before. Â And if you dig around you’ll find a few more times I’ve brought it up, especially where I say that Fallen Earth actually does it well in that you actually move slower while strafing.
Upon reflection, I see that I was actually mistaken. Â There shouldn’t be accuracy and damage penalties for movement. Â Yes, it is more realistic, but it would serve mainly to irritate players. Â Looking back at my old posts, I do think a speed penalty should apply for various reasons, but even so there are much better ways to handle this.
You see, circle strafing has plagued FPS games for a long, long time. Â The solution on the PC where people use a keyboard and mouse was for players to crank up the sensitivity of their mouse so that small twitches left and right would rotate their character through wider arcs more quickly and allow them to keep the strafing player in sight. Â However, when FPS games became more popular on consoles, and especially after the introduction of the double stick controller which allowed for much better circle strafing, asking people to crank up the sensitivity of their controllers actually had an adverse affect on the rest of game play. Â So, FPS games innovated by adding in the ability for players to perform a 180 degree turn with a single button. Â While not completely nullifying circle strafing as a tactic, it allowed the target player a fighting chance to catch their attacker on the flip side.
This is what MMOs need for PvP. Â A 180 degree flip would do wonders to level the playing field as immobile casters have to deal with highly mobile melee characters while still allowing attentive melees to change direction of movement and not giving the immobile players automated assistance.
In the end though, while I’m glad for the outcome in that it let me realize what is really missing from MMO PvP combat, I was also reminded how annoying it is to argue with the faithful. Â It’s possible that brannagar could read this (that’s the downside to linking to things, the authors can find out you are talking about them), and he might even come here to tell me how wrong I am and that a 180 flip would be stupid or game breaking and how Trion is luckily smart enough to never consider putting something like it in. Â And that’s a shame, because I’d much rather discuss how to make PvP fun for everyone without breaking it for anyone, and as it stands, circle strafing makes the game broken for people who can’t defend against it.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch on collision detection and line of sight issues. Â Being able to break a caster’s spell by stepping through the caster is totally broken design, and yet is the way most games work. Â Maybe we’ll cover that in another post.
The wife and I finally decided to return to Azeroth. Â Seeing as how I’d heard such wonderful things about the new starting areas of each of the new races, we rolled up both goblin and worgen pairs and set about experiencing the new world…
Are you from Jersey?
Whadda you lookin' at?
The latest affront, at least to me, is the new goblin race. Â Back in the original game and into the Burning Crusade (after which I stopped playing), goblins were portrayed as sort of the used car salesmen of Azeroth. Â If they were set in the Star Trek universe they’d be the Ferengi. Â With the new starter zone, it appears the goblins originate from the shore — The Jersey Shore. Â Perhaps I missed it in the various updates since I left, but at some point the goblins of Azeroth have turned into guidos. Â And while the actual meat of the story of the volcano on their home island and the escape isn’t bad, the whole thing is laden with bling and silliness to the point of distraction.
To top it off, they committed, what is to me, the ultimate sin in MMOs and that is imposing story on my character. Â One of the strongest elements of an MMO is how I pick a race and a class and I get the bare bones of a back story to tell me something of the home town I’ve chosen and how someone of my class becomes a member of my class and from there I can do anything I want with it. Â But in Kezan, Blizzard tells me who my friends are and my girlfriend (if you are male you get a girlfriend, if you are female you get a boyfriend, so basically they also give the finger to anyone of anything other than heterosexual leanings) and numerous other details. Â Sure, I can choose to ignore it and pretend it never happened, but I suspect that there will be times in the game where I do quests that will call back to my time in the starter zones.
As an added bonus, don’t bother trying to actually play with any other people during your life in Kezan or the escape. Â Being grouped with even just one other person makes the whole thing play bizarrely as you take turns phasing in and out on each other, interacting with NPCs the other can’t see, driving around in your individual cars because you can’t ride together… it really is designed to be a single player experience. Â The only way to enjoy it is to not fight it and accept the fact that Blizzard is telling you, “Welcome to our MMO! We have millions of people playing! Now… please play by yourself for the next few hours.”
A Cat in a Hat, sure… A Dog in a Hat?
Shropshire Slasher.
After both of us being thoroughly annoyed at the lame comedy of the goblins and the incredibly poor multiplayer experience (yeah, we did the whole goblin bit as a duo, which was just stupid) we decided to make some werewolves next, and to go it alone.
The worgen area is not without its puns, but thankfully they are back to the more subtle variety and aren’t beating you with a club screaming “I’m funny! I’m funny! Laugh, dammit! Laugh!!”  It takes a far more serious and somber tone.  It’s a more gripping story, and proof that when Blizzard tries they can write really good stuff… it’s just a shame they don’t try very often and the result of a good solid story like this is that it will stand in stark contrast to the bulk of the game.
Playing alone clearly is how this was designed and it worked very well, even though we were playing the same thing simultaneously the simple act of not being grouped solved all the technical weirdness we experienced on our goblins. Â It isn’t without it’s problems, though. Â One of the two hiccups we experienced was when the game allowed the wife to phase into the same phase I was in during the town attack, after the attack had started. Â She missed most of the action, running through mostly empty streets with no indication of where to go except by me saying things like “I think we turned left there”, only catching up to us as we fought Sylvanas. Â The other hiccup was shortly after when a dozen people started the next quest where we were supposed to follow a worgen to the cathedral, but a number of us couldn’t see him and had to abandon and restart the quest to fix it.
The worgen vehicle missions were also a lot easier to do, especially since they didn’t involve you driving cars on elevated roads using horribly jerky controls.  Overall, it just flowed more smoothly, and most importantly to me they didn’t impose anything on my character that didn’t derive directly from the story.  When I transitioned from starter area to the night elf city, I did so with a nice solid history of how my race came to be where it is with no baggage at all, free to continue my character’s story any way I like. I suppose it also helps that the setting is much more appealing to my sensibilities.  There is a very Jekyll & Hyde, old London feel to the story that suits the whole werewolf bit like a glove.  I rather think I would enjoy playing an entire game in that setting.  But I digress.
Is this the end?
Now, having played through both of the new race starter single player campaigns, I’m fairly certain that I’ll never do it again. Â The advantage to this design is that it is a newbie area that doesn’t diminish as it ages. Â Old design starter areas eventually suffered when players couldn’t complete certain quests due to a lack of people to fight elite mobs. Â The disadvantage here is going to be sameness.
Personally, when I play single player games, I play them once. Â Then, if there are achievements or something to unlock, I might play through a second time, or replace certain segments. Â After that, I’m done, and the game collects dust. Â When I play MMOs and create new characters, I always delighted in fighting quests I hadn’t done before. Â WoW actually helped with that for a while when they sped up leveling but still had eleventy billion little quests, thus causing you to outlevel an area and be forced to abandon quests to take up new, level appropriate ones. Â But now, if I were to make another goblin or worgen, I’m faced with the knowledge that the first few hours of the game will be identical to my previous experience. Â There is only one story for each race, and you have to play it. Â There are no divergent paths, no quests you didn’t see last time, no event you didn’t experience. Â People keep telling me that by making a new player area that doesn’t need other people the game is more “alt friendly”, however from someone who usually makes dozens of alts this new design actually makes me never want to create alts. Â I mean, what’s the point? Â It’s going to be exactly the same.
On the other hand, by creating a single player experience, I suppose Blizzard has made it so that I can memorize the fastest possible path through the starter zones to get to the real game. Â Or perhaps in a future patch they’ll just allow me to skip it and create a level 12 character from the start.
Unfortunately, with the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic‘s reported focus on story, I suspect this sort of shared single player experience is on the upswing. Â I’d much have preferred for Warhammer Online to have done better and set the new standard, where people were grouping (open groups) and PvPing fresh out of character creation. Â Perhaps Rift and its polish level can turn the tide a little toward open socialization and away from solo play.
Friday Night Lights? Didn’t enjoy the movie, I’ll probably not enjoy the show.
At the time, that was accurate. Â I’d seen the movie and while “didn’t enjoy” might have been a tad harsh, the movie was decent but it didn’t blow me away. Â I certainly didn’t see why it would be turned into a TV show. Â Later on, people would tell me how good of a show it was, but I still avoided watching it. Â I didn’t want to watch a show about football.
Thanks to Netflix’s Instant streaming service and my Xbox 360, I’ve caught up on 4 seasons of the show and am now watching season 5.
Surprised is just too small a word to describe my reaction to Friday Night Lights. Â I was naive to have dismissed the show as being “about football” when football is just the backdrop for this story about people living in a small town. Â The drama depicted here is just so well done, so deftly written and played out, I’m kicking myself for having waited so long.
And it isn’t just the story or the writing, the performances by the actors here is amazing. Â I suppose it helps that many of them are people I don’t recognize. Â Outside of Kyle Chandler (who I know from various places including Early Edition) and Connie Britton (from Spin City), I don’t think I’d seen any of them before, and if I did it was clearly not enough for me to remember them. Â But each of them clearly understands their characters and their scenes play out so naturally, so real.
The main reason I write about the show now though is that this season, the fifth, is going to be the last. Â And it will be missed. Â If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend watching Friday Night Lights.
@GameCouch I've got the black and white one, but I enjoyed that comic so much that I'll buy this too. in reply to GameCouch#
6 months to Peachtree Road Race… let the training begin… #
Every time I consider signing back up to WoW, I remember that my friends are spread out on a dozen servers and I decide not to. #
@etcet It's a 10k. Ran it last year in an hour and 41. Want to beat it this year. in reply to etcet#
@Critus That's never been an issue for me… I just want friends to play with, and I hate having to choose which friends. in reply to Critus#
@Krystalle @Critus If I lived in FL and had season passes I'd be at Disney nearly every weekend. Even just to hang out and people watch. in reply to Krystalle#
Survey time: If you play World of Warcraft, on what server(s) do you play? #
I would never use the word 'za' in my life… except in scrabble where I seem to use it nearly every single game. #
If you have left 4GB of files on my computer, you have not "Successfully Uninstalled!" #
On March 27th, 2009, I posted my first Movie Round-Up. Â I had posted movie reviews before, but I adopted the once a week format to give myself structure and to avoid having multiple movie review posts per week. Â I have enjoyed doing them, even more since I added the Photoshop amalgam poster a few months back, but as time went on and I attended less and less screenings, the posts turned into mostly reviews of trailers and hype.
While I think there is value in that sort of review, and I may start doing that in the future (and if so it would get a new name), for now this particular format is coming to an end. Â I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, and I hope you stick around for whatever else I happen to write.
