Indulgent Creativity

Imagine if at the next Blizzcon, they announced Classic+, and their presentation went something like this: "Many players over the years have loved the path we followed with WoW, while others were hoping for a different game. Classic+ is Blizzard's plan to serve both groups. So which version of WoW are you going to like better?  - If you want a deep story with strong character progression arcs, play retail. If you find that cutscenes and text just get in the way of the game, play Classic+ - If you want a flexible character that can be optimized for whatever you need him to do, play retail. If you want a unique character with individual strengths and weaknesses, play Classic+ - If you want it to be clear which items are upgrades and which fit your character, play retail. If you want to try out janky builds with unusual items, play Classic+ - If you want to join a dungeon group and know exactly what your job is, and how to fit into the group, play retail. If you want the chal...

The last 15 years or so has seen a huge shift toward "living" games--i.e. games that are regularly changed through patches and expansions.  The business world loves these because they are typically monetized for continued spending of the players that you just can't get from an unchanging game. Though I am not opposed to living games (I have played and enjoyed several myself), I am going to make the case that they are overvalued and have non-obvious drawbacks from both a business and a gameplay perspective. And I am going to start with a story.  Note:  I use the broad term "living" rather than the more common "live service" because I want to include more than just video games (ex: Magic: The Gathering). The Rise and Fall of Warmachine For those who are not familiar, Warmachine is a tabletop miniatures game that had a huge burst of popularity (at least among the wargaming crowd) for a few years before falling to a shadow of its former glory.  I played a ...

 In a break from talking about games, I'll go to my other creative passion: writing. I've written four novels--two that were just me learning to write, and two that I think are actually good.  The most recent is "I Like Monsters (Except my Teacher)" which is a bit of a Home Alone meets Wocket in my Pocket story. I just released it on Amazon, so take a look: https://www.amazon.com/Like-Monsters-Except-My-Teacher-ebook/dp/B0C9R4TQ42/ref=sr_1_1

I'm hardly the first person to point out that many former hardcore gamers now have families and responsibilities that severely constrain their game time. However, I haven't found a lot of insight in any of the articles I've read about how to make games to better serve them. So now I'll talk about what's I believe has been missing from all of those. Why This is Such a Great Opportunity These gamers often have money. They deeply miss the epic experiences they used to have, and they're happy to pay if they can get it back. They are especially excited to share this experience with the people they love (some of whom are far below their skill level). However, being time-constrained, they're not going to be spending much time on forums or filling out surveys. It's a group that's significant but mostly silent. As such, I don't have data to back up what I say here, though it reflects the experience of myself and other gamers I know. Likewise, I hope it ha...

There is an oversimplified idea in game design that, in my view, has done enormous damage to the quality of games. It's the idea that failure causes frustration and frustration leads to quitting, so the way to get people to like your game is to protect them from failure for as long as possible. This idea contains truth, which is why it sticks around, but it includes a couple fallacies. The first comes comes from lumping all failures into a single bucket. Certainly, I've experienced the ultra frustrating failures from unreasonable difficulty spikes (Battletoads hoverbikes, anyone?), unfortunate RNG (You have a 95% chance to hit, and you missed three times in a row), confusing mechanics (I was playing...and then I died), or many other things that made me want to throw my controller and never play that game again. However, I've also experienced failures that made the game more interesting. The failure is exciting, sometimes in the moment and other times only after a later ...

 As I have been hunting for a new MMORPG (good ones are hard to find) and watching videos, I am once again hearing a sentiment that gets expressed in many ways. "Why can't it just be all end-game?" "Why won't you let players skip to end-game?" "The game doesn't really start until max level." Of course this sentiment isn't universal, but it is very common. The important question is why do so many players feel this way?  Considering the Obvious Answers The first answers that probably come to most people's minds with this question would be things like: It's more fun when you're more powerful. The content is more epic. There are more options available to make your character(s) what you want them to be. I mention these because I want my readers to understand that I've thought of them, but I want to focus on a factor that I believe is both more important and more subtle.  A Reversal of the Rewards System Players tend to play to th...

One of the most common mistake I see in video games is the tendency to create a good game experience, then build barriers to keep players away from it for as long as possible. Your first reaction is probably "Wait! Who does that?" The answer is almost everybody, but it's probably faster to just list off the ways it is done. 1. Hiding behind an easy intro Think of the last strategy game you played. How long did it take before you actually had to, you know, use any strategy to succeed? Sometimes, game developers are scared that if players fail too early, they will quit the game out of frustration. There's probably some truth in that, but I suspect it usually applies more to players failing and not understanding why. If you've created a game that involves putting in effort to overcome obstacles, then a newcomer isn't really playing your game until they have to put in effort. A player who fails but has ideas about how to avoid failing next time will ofte...

Game guides/walkthroughs are quite a double-edged sword, offering much that is both positive and negative to a full game's experience.  One of the negatives that I want to address here is the way guides are almost mandatory in multiplayer games. In single player, it's easy to say "I like to figure it out myself", and you can just ignore the guide and have a good time.  Multiplayer is different. In PvP , you can expect to have opponents who have read or watched strategies from the best players in the world, and if you don't do the same thing, you get repeatedly crushed. In PvE, your team mates will usually have read or watched these best-player strategies and will quickly become frustrated with you if you make them fail because you're trying to figure out what they already looked up. Unfortunately, game guides (as well as similar things like expert streamers, or forum discussions) will quickly change a tactical experience into a pattern experience, especially i...

Okay, I admit, one of the themes of this blog seems to be me making up terms so that I can explain myself, and I just did it again, but this is a seriously undervalued concept, and I don't know if there is formal game design language to discuss it. Also, this is meant to be a follow-up to my previous article , so if you haven't already, I recommend you read that first. Okay, now on to the definitions. Volume of Content Consumers want lots of content. And game developers try to meet that desire by building new environments with new enemies with new mechanics. On some level, you have to do this, but there are problems with using this as the primary way to create continuing interest and variety for your players. Encourages Patterns Rather Than Tactics: As described in the previous post, a new boss with a new set of mechanics doesn't really require players to think tactically. They just need to learn a new pattern. Once you figure out the basic techniques...

I still rank Warcraft 3 as one of my all-time favorite games, and during its peak, I would have called it my favorite. Which is why I had an intense prejudice against DotA for so long. It looked to me like a modder had taken WC3, removed 90% of the game, enhanced the remaining 10% a bit, and the crowds of shallow people who just couldn't handle the greatness of the full game all migrated over to playing a small fraction of it. It was a long time before I was willing to try it and even longer before I was willing to admit that it was good (despite being hooked in my very first game). Month after month, I almost always preferred to play DotA over WC3, but I had to tell myself it was only because DotA was newer, and I'd go back to preferring the unmodded game. I still didn't understand what made DotA so good, so admitting that I liked it better was admitting that I preferred the shallow game, and my ego couldn't handle that. Because how could controlling one hero with ...

There's a conversation I've had a number of times in one form or another. It tends to go something like this: Person 1: It was mostly a good book, but it was unrealistic when the hero sailed safely down the river despite knowing nothing about boats. Person 2: Wait! You're reading a book full of dragons and wizards, and you think the unrealistic part was the sailing??? Person 1: <awkwardly> Well, um, it's hard to explain, but it just doesn't feel right... I have found this conversation frustrating because I tend to be person 1. I think I'm right, but I'm not quite able to articulate what I meant in order to counter Person 2's snappy 1-liner.  So now it's time to fix that. Fantasy vs. Nonsense If you were truly to write a story that abandoned reality, it would probably go something like this. "Bob teleported to the kitchen to destroy the universe again, now that it had started complaining. How else could the flower chickens grow?...