BioWare Austin Talks MMO Gameplay @ AGDC

AGDC 2008: BioWare Austin Talks MMO Gameplay

Lead combat designer Damion Schubert.

by Charles Onyett

September 15, 2008 - Bioware Austin's Damion Schubert was on hand at the Austin Game Developer Conference 2008 to give a little perspective on what he considered important in massively multiplayer gameplay design. While the studio's current project was not discussed, Schubert did move through examples, good and bad, of a range of MMOs from World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Shadowbane, EVE Online, and World War II online, amongst others. Schubert is the lead combat designer at Bioware Austin, and has in the past worked on Meridian 59 and Shadowbane.

Much of Schubert's talk focused on elder gameplay, or endgame content. He stressed that the endgame content is vital to any MMO, serving as the dedicated player base's reward for moving through the level curve. There are a lot of interesting things happening at the higher end of most MMOs, but unfortunately it's very difficult for players to see them. "There is a lot of really cool stuff going on at the upper end of all of these games," said Schubert. "Unfortunately, not a lot of people have the time, energy and resources to play more than one of these at a time." So what then should developers do to get people to stick with their particular product?

The endgame, elder content is also the most challenging piece of an MMO, says Schubert, especially compared to the leveling process, which he compared to popping bubble wrap. Because of the open nature of MMOs, it's possible to explore the world and discover where the best spots to level are, removing even more challenge from the process. With the endgame, however, people are more restricted, and the difficulty level, either in PvP contests or PvE raid encounters, shoots up dramatically.

In order to pull players through the sometimes dull leveling process, Schubert says it's necessary to give an indication of what's going on at higher levels. In games where the endgame revolves around player versus player territorial control combat, for instance, a good game will let players view a territorial control map. On World War II Online's site, for instance, the main page prominently displays the line of contest between the two sides and which side, the Axis or the Allies, are pushing forward. It's, in effect, an advertisement for the dynamic, high level activity that most new players might not necessarily be aware of.

He went on to talk specifically about the advantages and drawbacks of territorial control PvP and PvE raiding. For territorial control, you need a few basics. You need affiliated teams, either pre-set (World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online) or more freeform. You also need a physical location within the game world that players can fight over. Once that's established, you need to consider the logistics of battle, like far do players need to run to rejoin the battle after death and how long the battles will last. Schubert says that having some way to actually schedule fights is a solid notion, but you should also have a way to specify when that fight will end. Whatever the structure of the PvP conflict, Schubert says it's a concept that needs to be slowly introduced to players early on, like with the territorial map, to give a player an idea of what the strongest in the game world are up to.

Listed were Schubert's six general rules for PvP conflict in MMOs, which we'll list nearly identically as how they were presented during the talk. First, PvP-focused endgames always excite the imagination more than PvE engames, players that aren't as hardcore think they are, five percent of a game's population can destroy the other ninety five percent, teamwork and numbers dominate, fairness matters more than in PvE, and losing repeatedly sucks.

A lot of adhering to these rules has to do with balancing combat between the classes, but there's also the issue of ensuring that a team that repeatedly wins PvP contest doesn't become overly powerful. Either the losers need to be given some kind of advantage in a way, or the playing field needs to be reset to zero and have everyone start over again. If you reward the winners too much, they'll gain far too strong a foothold in the community and push out all other competition, lessening the appeal for incoming players.

He likened the experience of too many rewards to the winners to playing a six person game of Risk. "Those games, the first four hours you always lose four of those players and the next six hours end up being two people arguing over Australia and the other four players are all playing Xbox in the other room." This was an argument for resetting the player competition once in a while, otherwise the players playing Xbox would continue to play and never return to Risk.

Raid encounters are another major form of endgame content, and center around the idea of players working as a team to essentially solve a puzzle. Raid encounters center on boss fights. The draw, naturally, is the loot, but Schubert says there's also the draw of solving the puzzle of the boss' attack patterns. Bosses can have a number of different attack routines, from predictable patterns to randomized attacks to the summoning of minions. These types of actions work to engage players in a number of ways. It requires those in the raid to coordinate their positions and movement on the field of battle, manage their health, and also generates different sub-types of player classes outside of the standard tank, healer, and damage dealers.

Schubert cited the Vashj boss encounter in World of Warcraft as an example, who summons a creature with a fear aura that can create havoc with your raid group. During this battle you need someone to essentially distract the creature from the main battle group, essentially creating a new type of role with whoever's assigned to do that. With balancing these kinds of encounters and determining what drops, it's also important to consider, especially in large dungeons, the frequency with which players will run into each boss. For instance, the boss near the door is going to get killed far more frequently than whatever is to have someone run around with the strider to keep him away from the rest of the raid. Creating new responsibilities is a good mechanic to keep people interested beyond tank and healer roles.

Beyond that, there were plenty of technical and more minor considerations brought up by Schubert for developers to consider. Like, for instance, do you actually have the technology to run your game and time to properly test it, will there be enough people playing to make the kind of endgame you've envisioned possible, is your UI customizable, are you balancing content to assume your player base is using Ventrilo, are you giving players unnecessary 'homework' to do between raids or large encounters, like gathering potions or other grind-type activities. Above all, however, it seemed his clearest message was "people don't pay money to suck."

SOURCE: http://play.tm/wire/click/2117782

..... Just don't make a friggin WoW clone pretty please .... I'm expecting more innovation than repetition from BioWare :

Also... Gordon Walton talks AGDC: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/biowares-gordon-walton-talks-austin-gdc/?biz=1

Next week, the Austin Game Developers' Conference will take place from September 15 – 17. It's the second biggest conference for game developers in the U.S. and the biggest devoted purely to online titles. In order to get the skinny on the event, we chatted with Gordon Walton, Co-Studio Director of BioWare Austin and an advisory board member of the Austin GDC.

"Frankly, [what excites me about Austin GDC is that it's] still in Austin and still about online games!" expressed Walton. "The conference was created to focus on online games, and as we've seen, almost every major game now has an online component. The community here has a large amount of online titles that have become a focal point for the North American market. Other shows concentrate on China and Korea, but we're devoted to North America."

"'Evolve or die' is just a metaphor for our business, which is a true intersection between technology and entertainment," commented Walton on the conference's theme. "You have to satisfy the customers' need for something novel. Gamers become jaded to gameplay styles over time, so you need to continually incorporate something new to make it fresh."

"I'm doing the service and technology track this year," he continued. "Previously, it was me and Rich Vogel doing the editorial board, but now we can spread the work out. The goals are always the same every year, 'How do we get the people that are doing important things?' It's not a commercial goal in that people are looking to move their company forward; it's asking, 'How do we spread the right knowledge around to make the industry better?'"

"My track is pretty broad, but it is primarily looking to see how people are doing online games and getting developers to talk about [their projects]," Walton added. "The biggest platform in the world is the Internet browser; it's a delivery platform like a PC, PS3 or Xbox 360. There are more people with browsers than anything else, but a lot of people aren't thinking about it as a platform. We got people who are doing online games in Java to talk about what they're up to, and I think it's important because there are a lot of people who aren't core gaming fans, but they are gamers. The 'blue ocean' is more there than in any other market."

We also queried if the project at BioWare Austin, long believed to be Knights of the Old Republic Online, would be unveiled at Austin GDC. "I don't know what you're talking about!" a laughing Walton answered before adding, "People sure are going to be surprised when they find out we're making Hello Kitty Online!"

GameDaily BIZ then ventured that they were likely doing more at BioWare Austin than simply shooting pool and drinking beers, and Walton assured us they were very busy. "Making games is as immersive as playing them," he asserted. "It can be hard to enjoy something that you're doing if you're constantly deconstructing it, but I'll say that one of the best things you can keep is your 'customer's eyes.' Putting yourself in the shoes of someone who just wants to enjoy the game and seeing the game from their perspective is a hard but vital skill to have."

"Everyone who sticks with the industry is kinda nuts," he added. "If I ever leave the business I'll consider myself sane. It's not an eight-to-five job; you have have a passion for it."

For a list of speakers [Several from BioWare] head over to: https://www.cmpevents.com/GDAU08/a.asp?option=G&V=2&CPid=226&Sortby=1&SPln=0