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Live Forum Q&A with Raph Koster, 10/16
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Hi Raph, thank you for your time in doing this!
I would like to know your thoughts on what Chris Roberts is currently doing with Star Citizen. Do you think that large amount of funds he has been able to achieve over this past year indicates a large playerbase that is wanting this type of sandbox world simulation gameplay, or is it a smaller "niche" with deep pockets?
Next, in regards to the world of Star Citizen, would this be the type of project you would be interested in working on at this time?
Finally, what is your opinion on how F2 has affected the genre, and how long do you think (what seems to be) the current model of F2P WOW clones is sustainable?
Thanks again!
I had seen the first, not the second. I also saw ArcheAge's plans with how they treat criminals, too. So people are definitely trying some new stuff.
I don't really have a question but I would like to say thank you for swg. It's one of the best mmos ever made and probably the best crafting mmo ever. I, like many fans was sad with what the CE and NGE did to the game but while it lasted it was years ahead of it's time. I've seen a lot of ppl giving you shit over your past mistakes but I hope you remember most people don't tell you when you're doing ( or have done ) great things. They just piss and moan about it once it's time has past. Never let a few voices make you think they speak for everyone.
Keep up the good work!
Ok...i do have a questions....who did it. Who was really behind the change in swg. LA or smed
Do we really want to get into the who and the why about SWG, it's done and water under the bridge.
Oh, and i agree with your first paragraph.
I am trying to think of how to put this in a way that doesn't sound pretentious...
When I think about a game, to me in my head it feels like a lattice, or maybe a sphere made of lattices. Features and whatnot fit into this lattice, and I can "see" where a system can get deeper or shallower, and where a piece might make the shape fall apart if it is removed. (This is why cities and vehicles were delayed in SWG, compared to something that seemed trivial like dancing... dancing was a major "node" in the lattice and removing it would have meant the game broke; cities and vehicles were PAINFUL to delay, but the sphere didn't fall apart).
How do I pick what the key nodes are? Well, I pick them based on function. I didn't know that dancing and musicianship were going to be that important. But I did have a list of stuff that felt critical to represent from the movies and the EU. That stuff went into a "vision document" which was basically a 20 pager about the key elements of the game.
In the case of a sandboxy world, the top priority is actually always designing the sand. In UOs case that meant the resource system. In SWGs it meant the fractal terrain system and economy (those two are actually the same, in a sense, I'll explain). Everything in each of those games started from those premises.
So in SWG, the fractal terrain was the thing that unlocked
- giant planets
- that could be built upon -- in theory, even craters blown in it, terraformed, etc, though it never went quite that far.
- this unlocked stuff like politics (which were on my mind as Star Warsy bc of the prequel trilogy)
- and territory control (GCW!)
- the resource maps were ALSO based on the fractal tech, in a bunch of ways, including how they turned over
- which unlocked the shifting trade economy
Then we could stack the varied roles on top of that: Uncle Owens, Lukes, Hans, Oolas, Landos, etc.
The key in designing a sandbox is that simulation layer first, then layering the static content atop it. (We didn't make enuf of that in SWG's case, of course).
There were, I think, five key principles listed in the SWG doc... I posted them publicly during the beta period. I don't remember them all, but thrilling adventure, the GCW, and community were among them.
Hurm. Not exactly. I want more diversity, more risks. I want to visit a world that doesn't instantly feel familiar. I want to feel that thrill of "holy crap, this isn't what I have played before!"
I think the way to get that is greater diversity. Tools is one way to accomplish that. It lowers costs, which encourages experimentation.
But the goal isn't the tools, it's what the tools enable... does that make sense?
Fair enough. I appreciate the answer and i shall continue to do my best over 'there' with helping finish the Emulation, and thereby honoring not only YOUR *original vision* but also the ahead-of-its-time intent of many others on SWG's founding team.
./deepbow, Nee
p.s. Quick *follow up question* , if you're so inclined: Have you seen/played either SWTOR or ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) and if so, what did/do you think of them (in a general non-critical sense of course) ...?
p.p.s. 1 more real quick: IF say Disney came along, with the input of maybe Mr. Abrams or Blur Studios (or whomever you respect) and offered the opportunity to make SWG-2 , would you umm entertain the idea?
Perfect sense.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
TBH, I have not paid that much attention to Star Citizen. That said, my impression is that a huge chunk of the money raised isn't from crowdsourced funding but from regular investors?
I don't know how much of the player attention on it is from the sandbox elements versus the wonderful memories of Wing Commander, either. When i think of the project, I think "space combat" first, not "sandbox world." I could be wrong though, like I said, I haven't paid that much attention.
Free to play is the present, and probably the future, for quite some time. I think there's room for a mix of a la carte and tiered subs, but we shouldn't expect "free, with upsells" to EVER go away. It widens the audience too much, and frankly, enables a much more accurate matchup between what a person is willing to pay and what they actually pay. With a flat sub, you miss out on all the people who were willing to pay, but less. You also miss out on GIANT amounts of money from people who want to make it their hobby and pay 100x the monthly sub. So it's just a plain old better model for extracting dollars.
That said, of course it has distorting effects on the design. No question. I think you can design in an honorable fair way and take those into account. But in a world of clones, speed of extraction before your fickle playerbase vanishes is the top priority. You KNOW your game will not live long, so you maximize the drilling for dollars. And of course, maiximing it means the games lives even less time, as you piss of players.
A market glut of clones is NOT sustainable and never has been. Them ore similar the games in a market are, the less the market grows, and eventually contracts. That is where MMOs are right now. Worse, the idea of what the market is calcifies too. And players start to expect a more rococo version of what they have already played.
I actively worry that a truly creative innovative game brought to the market would get blown off by the MMO audience because it would be too different.
Thanks for the nice words.
Last year, I did get this lifetime achievement award thingy, so people have in fact said thank you in big ways, but it is always nice to hear!
As far as who drove the change... I wasn't directly involved in it, but my sense is that it was not that simple. People were trying to find their way out of a tricky business situation, and collectively, that was the path that was chosen.
1) I played SWTOR a little bit. A lot of good friends of mine were involved in making it. I didn't think the narrative direction they were going was very fruitful -- sort of the exact opposite of my personal aesthetic, so basically not really up my alley -- but was eager to see how it worked out. I have not seen ESO, but that also has several good friends working on it.
2) Nope. I was actually AT Disney, remember?
I am honestly rather burned out on Star Wars. Also, a lot of my creative juices these days are more about creating my own worlds and fictions rather than working in someone else's. It is frustrating to me that I have never gotten to ship a game that was an original world. I've had at least a half dozen of those started and then shelved, ranging from wacky 50s scifi to New Weird giant cities to mythology-based stuff.
One of the games I am working on, the strategy one, is set in a new fantasy world I've been working on, with four cultures united in an uneasy Empire, always under threat from the strange peoples to the south... now at risk because the economic balance of the Empire is starting to shift. It's been a lot of fun designing out stuff like the music styles for each of the cultures, the geography of the empire, and even what games they would play in a world like that. It's not meant for an MMO (you're supposed to play out the wars of succession) but I could easily see it being a setting for one.
The most accessible way to start doing interactive fiction is probably Twine: http://www.gimcrackd.com/etc/src/
There is a very active Twine community making indie games now. Go find the forums where they hang out and start participating!
Fastest typer in the west you are indeed.
Okay so, you're "burned out" on STAR WARS , eh? I find that notion impossible to fathom personally lol, but np i can respect that. So.....how about *Ultima* ?
Would you ever entertain the idea of 'Ultima Online 2' someday?
Lastly, looking ahead...far ahead into the future of 'gaming' : Could the "next level" (or "next next level" ) of MMORPG's possibly become something like a more physical experience? Perhaps not to the extent of Neo in The Matrix 'plugging-in' , but perhaps to a greater extent than say using tangible peripheral 'tools' of Wii Tennis...?
If benevolent gnomes came up with a development tool, database or inspirational book for the industry, what do you think would do the most good?
( or are there already more busy gnomes out there than a typical game designer can keep up with? )
I suspect the name "UO2" is cursed. Call it something else?
EA hasn't called me up and asked. It's really in their hands, right?
I do think that EA SHOULD be working on a renewed version of UO that captures the spirit of the original and makes use of modern tech. I'd definitely be more up for that than Star Wars. SWG was kind of an emotional rollercoaster experience on many levels, you know?
As far as looking forward... I think MMOs on tablet hardware is coming on fast. After that, I think stuff like CastAR and Oculus Rift are clearly a place where MMOs will likely thrive.
WAY back at SOE, I had the wacky idea of why don't we take an MMO engine on the PS2, attach a dance mat and the PS Move, and make an MMO you controlled that way. I mean, a ludicrously crude thing, but it might have been fun! But a game that requires TWO peripherals? Forget it, nobody would have the needed hardware...
I think that MMOs as we know them can't go more casual realy, because the casual space has been filled up by very lightweight experiences. I wrote about that some in a blog post called "are virtual worlds over?" VR is the next big chance I see for a comeback. Imagine an MMO Skyrim in VR, right? And given that new tech like that will be adopted by core users first, it opens up the door for the deep immersive experiences again.
Venture capitalists starting pinging me about VR and AR ideas almost two years ago now. They always have an eye towards the future...
Thanks for the awesome reply. Your thoughts on F2P are very insightful.
To follow up, to date, Star Citizen has raised just under 23Mil from crowdfunding. Chris had original investors that he has decided to not go with due to the successful crowdfunding. At least, that is the official word on that point.
Back to current trends... Your last sentence is very interesting. Do you believe that this is the current "feeling" with developers/publishers and why we keep getting the simple, shallow "disposable" games we keep seeing? Or, do you think it is just a greed factor of wanting to make quick "Fantasy Game #46" to cash in as fast as possible then toss it for the next?
*Edit* Sorry, it didn't quote... the last sentence was "I actively worry that a truly creative innovative game brought to the market would get blown off by the MMO audience because it would be too different."
Do you think that a success from some of the current indie projects will have any effect on the above mentioned feelings or mindset?
Thanks again!
If it were the RIGHT tool, maybe that.
Unity is the closest there is right now, but really, one of the biggest issues is that tools tend to have presumptions baked into them. Like, if I want to make a 3d game, Unity is great for them, but 2d games it has problems, because it was built with certain assumptions. People find a way, but it's working a bit against the grain, if you know what I mean.
I also think the right book can make a big difference. I have been working on and off for almost ten years on this concept of game grammar, basically the idea that there are underlying rules underneath ALL games of ALL types, and if we can figure out what they are we can design better, communicate better, and experiment better. At this point a lot of people are working on that sort of problem, and if it gets solved, that can make a big difference.
Databases... enh. No, can't think of what could be earth-shattering there. : 0
Exactly!
And a Sandbox World does not start in the Stoneage - it has already a rich Lore (defined by the developers) as starting Point from where the Player go on playing.
EQNext does this to a degree but i fear it is pretty possible that SOE will deliver a very weird "Crowdney Mines Realm" (WoW, Disney, Free Realms, Minecraft) game with a mismatch of Elements and Art that are hard to stomach.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Well... you'd think there would be more games that spun off of The Sims, but there weren't.
You'd think there would have been more games that spun off of Minecraft, but there aren't. Mostly clones.
You'd think there would have been MMOs that tackled EVE's market by now. Where are they?
How about Realm of the Mad God?
You get the idea.
I am probably a little cynical on this front because the MMO player community mostly ignored Metaplace because it wasn't 3d, wasn't a fantasy game, and "looked wrong." I mean, even look at this thread: "can you help a SWG emu? Make SWg2? Make UO2?" The first question was about being forward looking, but most of you (sorry!) have asked about moving backwards, in a lot of ways.
That isn't a knock on you... it's just that I suspect the market is in a place where we have to take incremental steps. Like, say I had done Metaplace in 3d. Say it WAS a UO clone. And then say I had still had the building tools and scripting. THEN, I suspect you would have been into it. And we probably would have gotten MORE people who wanted to build out stuff, and maybe at some point we would have gotten the network of worlds we wanted. Instead, we got over 40,000 worlds made but pretty much nothing done on a big scale by anyone.
So... I do think the audience itself is in a conservative kind of place, conditioned to it by the huge budgets.
Back in the MUD days, when half of the muds on earth were Dikus, we used to moan about "stock mud syndrome." You'd log into a new mud and find that all the areas were ones you could download off of FTP sites (gah, I almost typed "the Web," but of course that wasn't there yet!). What made them different from one another? More classes, more levels, more spells that were reskinned versions of the same spells as always. To me, MMOs kind of feel like that.
But the flip side is, when you go try something new, it's almost like you are driving a car and the steering wheel is in the ceiling and the seats are bicycle seats. You start saying "why can't this be more like WoW? I want WoW, but innovative." Which is a bit of a trap...
I don't have an answer. You tell me. If I got just a couple of million, would you actually play that game? It's probably 2d, iso at best, you know? I suspect it wouldn't matter if it was an awesome sandboxy world under it. You probably want GW2 graphics... which means I need $50m, not $2m.
Actually, one sandbox idea I have toyed with lately DOES start there.
What if instead of simulating physics, we simulated chemistry? We have enough knowledge to do it. We could have resources that were actually real world materials. We could use a combo of a resource chemistry system and an off the shelf physics system to do simulation that hasn' t been seen before. Players would start with old tech, and could actually *replicate the invention process.* Find saltpeter, develop black powder...? There really isn't anything stopping this but a failure of imagination.
Now THAT would be a skill tree.
Thanks for the last answer. But I want to ask you a question about demographics...
It seems to me that the MMORPG genre is designed for, and appeals to, a very narrow demographic these days: single, lower middle to middle class Caucasian and Asian males aged 16 to 40. But how do we make the game appeal to non-traditional demographics? Elderly people, or girls, or housewives, or professionals, or African-Americans? I don't see many play today in the newer games....not like I did when I played SWG and CoH. What kind of features can MMORPGs offer to better attract a diverse playerbase?
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I'll start by saying thanks for the contributions to the genre.
My first question is there a way to have F2P games that maintain the integrity of the game? To be more precise games that doesn't essentially sell game play? I've always been some what of a purist and disliked even "cheesing" cheap plays in a game like John Madden football. I feel all items even cosmetics should be earnable in game without outrageous grinds. How do you balance game economy, profitable cash shops and game integrity?
Do you think it's time for MMORPG's to consider subscriptions more on par with Netflix/Hulu Plus price range or tiered subscriptions?
Do you think that we will ever see true Dungeon Master's in MMORPG's? One that has tools to be able to create content on the fly and people working in a dedicated full time position.