The laws of Online gaming

[Animoy]

Dont know if anyone has posted this link before, but the people from Funcom should really read this.

The laws of online gaming

[Bystander]

Nice post, and considering how none of the contributors work for Funcom it surprising how much of their theorising is portable and applicable to AO.

This one got me though

"Community size
Ideal community size is no larger than 250. Past that, you really get subcommunities."

lol

[krystanova]

It is always more rewarding to kill other players than to kill whatever the game sets up as a target.
A given player of level x can slay multiple creatures of level y. Therefore, killing a player of level x yields ny reward in purely in-game reward terms. Players will therefore always be more rewarding in game terms than monsters of comparable difficulty. However, there's also the fact that players will be more challenging and exciting to fight than monsters no matter what you do.

This should have an exception of its own: clearly, the game must not make PvP a priority over anything else, since a as many players have no interest in PvP as do have interest in PvP. For example, me: I find nothing rewarding about PK, and do make the rewards of PK better than MK would turn me off to the game.

Storytelling versus simulation
If you write a static story (or indeed include any static element) in your game, everyone in the world will know how it ends in a matter of days. Mathematically, it is not possible for a design team to create stories fast enough to supply everyone playing. This is the traditional approach to this sort of game nonetheless. You can try a sim-style game which doesn't supply stories but instead supplies freedom to make them. This is a lot harder and arguably has never been done successfully.

Hear, hear. I fully agree with this. MMORPGs have yet to figure out how stories would work in their game. As I wrote here a few days ago, there's only two ways to go: static, company-written or dynamic, player-driven, and to date, neither has been pulled off successfully in this genre.

[coldwarkid]

The exception you're looking for is this one:

Dr Cat's Stamp Collecting Dilemma
"Lots of people might like stamp collecting in your virtual world. But those who do will never play with those who like other features. Should you have stamp collecting in your world?" We know that there are a wide range of features that people find enjoyable in online worlds. We also know that some of these features are in conflict with one another

Substitute PvP/Tradeskills/whatever for stamp collecting. This one simply points out that, whatever activity you're discussing, it's likely to conflict with another activity in your game world and that a proportion of your player base will hate one or the other.

Cheers,

~R~

[__________Specialone]

yeah - was it FF8 that had the card game? man, I played that card game a lot more that the rest of the game :P

[______________Orchid]

FF8 and FF9 have card games, but yea I ended up playing the card game tripletriad in FF8 more then any other aspect of the game

[____________Nothanks]

Originally posted by Emiko
FF8 and FF9 have card games, but yea I ended up playing the card game tripletriad in FF8 more then any other aspect of the game

I miss tripletriad

[krystanova]

While we're still off-topic: you can buy Triple Triad cards to play on your own. I did, but note that they're incredibly rare, since Square stopped making them by the time IX was released and not that cheap. The only place I find them reliably now is EBay. A box comes with like 120 cards, the full set is 110 (if I recall), and I filled a good 50% of the series on one box, if not more.

As for FF IX's card game... I hated TetraMaster. So non-intuitive it hurt to play. Also note: in FF VIII, for those not familiar, the card game was an incredibly important, but entirely optional side-quest (used to truly uberize yourself). Something like that in AO may be feasible, but not likely.

[Nitefix]

Bump for this thread...those laws are awesome!!

ps..I liked the card game in Might & Magic VII and VIII..similar to Magic: The Gathering. It was very addicting.

[Jayde]

Originally posted by Krystanova

This should have an exception of its own: clearly, the game must not make PvP a priority over anything else, since a as many players have no interest in PvP as do have interest in PvP. For example, me: I find nothing rewarding about PK, and do make the rewards of PK better than MK would turn me off to the game.

I think the law is probably more hypothetical than that... In that...

An x player can kill y amount of baddies. I.E. X player can kill a whole mission of Vets easily. Therefore, someone in a PvP situation will likely take X*Y satisfaction in killing a player.

e.g. Killing a level x character who you know can 0wn level 2x missions is worth the same in their mind as being able to 0wn level 2x missions.

Which is generally true... Which do you find more rewarding mentally in terms of the evaluation of your own strength? Killing the level 200 MA, or running a million BS missions? =)

Since players always have the ability to waste multiple baddies in any given situation, killing one player is more mentally satisfying than killing one baddie.

-Jayde

[Animoy]

Small bump

[Animosity]

>The new players who enter the world for the first time are the best critics of it.

new players are the best critics of the adoption process. Microsoft is an excellent example. They have spent too much time making their operating systems a place for n00bs to play. They have hidden the power of their operating system, nerfed their potential. This is why the uber geeks move to more powerful operating systems, because these less friendly systems are more powerful.

How does this apply to AO? Well, i think the new character creation, tips and training areas are very important in getting people hooked to the game. But, if someone with a lvl 200 character says something about the game, they probably are right, and have thought about it for a long time.

[krystanova]

Originally posted by JaydeStargunner
Which do you find more rewarding mentally in terms of the evaluation of your own strength? Killing the level 200 MA, or running a million BS missions? =)

Since players always have the ability to waste multiple baddies in any given situation, killing one player is more mentally satisfying than killing one baddie.

-Jayde

Let's agree to disagree on this. PvP is not a feature I personally care about. As you can see from my "RP personality" I have absolutely no interest in killing other players, and the only reason I go killing animals anyway is because I have to to level. I'd much rather earn XP for exploration and research than killing in any way. That's me, though. The difficulty MMORPGs face is finding a way to cater to players like me, to the uber-PvPer, and the die-hard RPer all at once while making a great game.

It's a big challenge no MMORPG has yet to completely surmount.

[Monrakashi]

Great link! Many trueisms in there.

I even had to break out the 'ol dictionary for a couple words (Corollary and Concomitant).

As far as the topic of subgames, which has been brought up in this thread... I 100% agree that having those types of things in-game would make passing down-time so much better.

[MORB]

Macroing, botting, and automation
No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world.

Corollary:
Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun.

*points at clicksaver*