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Bioware at GDC: loners, solo players and group play in MMORPG's
MMO.Maverick
Member CommonPosts: 7,619
Besides the Bounty Hunter reveal last week there was also the GDC where BW was present as well. An interesting article on Massively was about Damion Schubert's (BW systems designer) talk there on the subject of solo players, the different kinds of MMO solo players and how to entice them towards more social group play.
I've read several presentations of Damion Schubert and found he had always interesting things to say.
Here's some fragments from the Massively article (see for source here):
Schubert on designing for loners
'The perception of "you're doing it wrong" if you play solo definitely exists, Schubert says, but it's not especially accurate because it doesn't take into account the various classes of loner and the various reasons some gamers choose (or are forced to adopt) an isolated playstyle.
He begins by drawing parallels between MMORPGs and the urban sprawl of New York City. The city is the original MMO environment, he says, and even though it bustles with people and activity, it is also the domain of the loner. Manhattan has the largest population of single-centric dwellings in the world, and sociologists have long since debunked the myth that rural Americans are more social and civic-minded than their big-city counterparts. Loners are prevalent in the city, just as they are in MMOs, and they generally fall into one of 10 categories.'
Some of the categories he mentions:
The new kid in town
This is the new MMO player, and Schubert says that the first instinct of a designer is to jam the new kid together with all the other newbs. This is not necessarily the best approach, because many gamers (particularly women according to some studies) do not like to learn in a public environment, and they don't want to be around people until achieving a certain comfort level.
The Daria
The second loner archetype takes its name from the MTV animated character, and these are the folks who "see other people as a tragedy; they see them as a joke. They don't want to group with anyone in the Barrens, but they think they're good fun anyway. These are the people who like to slow down for car crashes."
Darias see other players as content, and they absorb the content that other people create, which in turn puts the onus on the designer to have a social critical mass.
Vacationers
Many solo players fall into the vacationer demographic, a group that Schubert says simply wants to get away from it all for whatever time they may have to play. Whether they're in search of the temporary avoidance of real-life responsibilities or even in-game responsibilities (he shares an amusing anecdote regarding the constant demand for his services as a master crafter in Star Wars Galaxies here), some people choose the loner playstyle simply for the peace and quiet.'
He concludes with:
'Everyone starts off as a casual player, Schubert explains, but MMO progression becomes more and more about grouping as the game unfolds. MMO design therefore becomes more about coaxing people out of their loner shell and getting them into high-level game experiences.
"One of the things we have to acknowledge as MMO designers is that our magic -- our secret sauce, this stuff, the raids -- this is hardcore stuff. This is hardcore gameplay. Even a basic raid is incredibly hard for players to grasp and get comfortable with. This is hardcore gameplay, and we have to figure out how to get the solo player in a position where they want to take part in this, where they feel comfortable with the social circles, where they feel like they can be contributors," he says.
Schubert intimates that the intent isn't to simplify MMOs but rather to convince loners to take the next step and become suitably engaged enough to experience the meat of MMO gameplay and community building. The ultimate challenge for the designer seems to be getting players to make that leap while not alienating the people who have already made it'
For the full article, see the link above.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
I got a chuckle when he talked about extroverts embracing the content and bringing everybody together to lead raids, ect. Doesn't he realize that throughout history introverts have often been the most prolific war generals, tactical planners, due to the the bloodflow in the frontal lobe stimulating the ability of internal processing, and planning/problem solving.
I guess I am only about half introvert. Thought I was full introvert, but I seem to always organize events and groups alot because I prefer to help others rather than follow somebody who I don't trust to succeed. If it's a player who I know is really good at playing their roll though, I will adapt into their play style if their roll is more of a lead type such as tanking.
And the most dangerous too
I know right?
This guy would do well to read up on the meyers briggs personality archetypes.
Ha, typical Bioware. So Raid instances to them are the essence of the MMO experience? I guess they forgot what the word "Massive" means. Hint: it is more than 20. LOL
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
Lol. Heh, it's never enough for some people.
First you have people complaining that SWTOR is just a singleplayer game and that the fact that they're not mentioning the common MMO features is a sure sign that it's not a true MMORPG. Then when they talk about crafting, dungeons, battle grounds and raiding in SWTOR, you have people complaining that BW mentions raids as if that's a sure sign that raids is all there is to SWTOR.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The only real grouping I like is public grouping ala WARs PQs and Rifts...rifts.
They might not be as effective but it's a much more laid back experience. I don't like raiding and such primarily because there's always someone who rages and shit, and I just don't want to listen or deal with it.
If Bioware doesn't want to create content specifically for soloers, or public group stuff, I'll most likely unsub after I finish all story content.
They have already said that they have created a lot of solo content. Even this article mentions it. Also, I don't like group nerg ragers as much as the next guy, but I don't blame the dungeon for that experience, I blame the way the game is set up to approach dungeon running.
You read too much into my post, but I do think that is Bioware's world view. But specifically I was laughing at this quote:
"One of the things we have to acknowledge as MMO designers is that our magic -- our secret sauce, this stuff, the raids..."
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
That's kinda my point, I want solo challenging dungeons so I can avoid the nerd ragers alltogether. I don't expect raid rewards and whatever, I just want some solo end game content that has rewards that are better than waht I can get soloing anywhere else.
Except almost all the features they mention are small scale instanced features, a la WoW, which is one of the most anti social MMOs out there.
Interesting. I know Aion started to do what you are talking about recently. They added a few one man raids. Wonder if BW will do anything similar. I do know that a lot of the mid game will be solo worthy and if you aren't in a rush to end game, there will be many hours of solo content open to you.
From the sounds of what BW has stated though. It seems that they take an objective position between solo players and group players, but it starts to tilt towards the group players come endgame. Seems like a logical and possibly very effective direction to take. Although I won't deny it may upset the passionate soloers who want solo endgame content.
Still, I have to say that this sounds like a better attempt at catering to soloers than most mmo's take. So if somebody is going to grill bioware over this, than they would probably be grilling a lot of other mmo's as well.
Ha, and they speak of these instanced raids with such reverance. I might have to set this quote in my signature it is such a classic:
"One of the things we have to acknowledge as MMO designers is that our magic -- our secret sauce, this stuff, the raids..."
Look I like Bioware games, but that quote is just a world view that seems to miss the point of MMOs entirely. He was poking fun at soloists but then he basically says small groups are really the essence of it. I just think it is very funny. Just me I guess...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
Maybe I read too much into that post. However, although I'm sure they have a certain design philosophy and approach to game design, I have my doubts that 'raids' is what it's all about. They've been pretty proud about other 'magic', like their questing revamp of the standard MMO questing into a more story immersive experience.
Also, they've mentioned several times how important they find the - in their eyes - four MMO 'pillars', and how these deserved focused attention, of which exploration is 1 of those pillars.
But we'll see the result of their design philosophy automatically in the course of the months before launch.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I hope so. I give almost every MMO a shot and I'm not adverse to the WoW philosophy entirely anyway. I've put my time into WoW and battlegrounds and dungeon groups/raids. But he was just waxing so poetic about getting the soloist out of their box but then seemed to stick his foot in his mouth near the end...
Ultimately my world view is that instanced raids/battlegrounds are really just glorified matchmaking lobbies in a FPS. And last I saw we don't really consider CoD an MMO (despite millions of online players, a leveling system, attributes/gear, cooperative team play, and clans).
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
I might have to resub to Aion if they have end game solo dungeons. But from what I remember about Aion is that they had next to non existent drop rates from dungeons.
Why can't everyone just do what DAoC did? It seems to be the only non sandbox game that got end game right. And it didn't even need instances (because it was well designed, instances are simply bandaids for broken game design)
You're referring to the RvR part?
Because that's PvP, while raids is PvE stuff.
In fact, there aren't that many successful PvE options as endgame content, you have either the problems that you encounter in non-instanced raiding as happening in EQ and VG, or you have the problems of instanced dungeons and raids.
In fact, I think that Rift may have a valid good alternative as endgame content next to raids/dungeons, if Trion designers manage to handle it right: territory control and zone defense combined with rift hunting might be interesting PvE endgame content when done right.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
No, I'm referring to the fact that they had PvP and PvE balanced in such a way that brought the entire realm together, provided numerous options for things to do when you hit the level cap, and made it so instances and raiding were never 100% necessary or the only end game option.
DAoC didn't have instances, yet I never once had a guild camp a spot for days. Why? Good game design.
It's RvR was well designed enough to entertain people that even liked PvE and Crafting. It was consentual PvP so if they didn't want to take part they didn't have to, but they could still benefit from it.
So you're a level 50 player, the natural course of events is to go into the frontier. You need gear for that. You can
a) spend a large amount of money to pay a crafter for gear and get all the specs tweaked to your liking. The weapon wouldn't look too exciting though.
b) farm difficult mobs with really low rare drop rate and hope to get a few pieces that way
c) go on a raid and win a roll for a masterpiece item
What made this system work was that the stats were all comparable, but raid items looked a bit cooler, and some of the rare mob drop ones glowed. So when gearing up for RvR, you had a choice between crafters, group PvE, or raid PvE to get your gear. This spread things out nicely so you were never bottle necked or cut off from content. I believe the term Middle Earth Online used for things like this (before the whole design got destroyed by Turine's higher ups and became LotRO) was comparable incomparables.
A level 50 character had the options of becoming a crafter (well, you could at any time, but it was expensive, so 50 was the best bet) get involved in RvR, get into the raiding scene, small scale group content, or roll a new character and play through the regular content, or make a new character and stay in the battlegrounds, or start building your house, gathering trophies and rares to put inside it.
By comparison, in WoW, you have the option of... raiding for gear. Or going into the arena, which is same old same old and never changes, and is heavily gear based rather than skill based.
Why was the Dragon never camped? Why were high lord raids usually only done for fun? Well, because there were a TON of raid mobs to spread people out around. And, because if you needed a good sword, you had more than one way to get it!
No instances or mob or dungeon camping necessary.
The only part that I see that DAoC had different was the PvP part, its RvR content.
The PvE still was raids, only non-instanced. Nothing that special about it, more like oldschool PvE content.
Sure, some people might prefer that but that doesn't make it unique. I don't see any special mechanic in place that makes its PvE endgame content any different from all the other MMO's around except that the community might have been different and that its PvE content was typically 'oldschool' non-instanced.
But hey, tastes differ.
Anyway, this is going offtopic, DAoC gameplay had its merits but it wasn't what the topic was about
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Last I'll say on it, because you're right, it is off topic: no there wasn't anything too incredibly unique about DAoC's PvE mechanic wise, but it's balance was unique. The comparable incomparable system works, and I always wonder why more MMOs don't use it. But then, I guess it's much harder to string along subscribers with increasingly better loot if you just let them craft the awesome loot for a lot of money.
The secret is just.. don't make a game that's a one trick pony. WoW is a one trick pony, so it needs instances because all its players are only doing one thing. Same for EverQuest really, but that at least has the social side of things to keep it interesting. By having a solid RvR system that was constantly changing, it provided something for everyone to do, while also having all the other traditional elements there which were done for fun, not because it was the ONLY thing to do.
I was actually quite pleased to read this, and found it kind of funny that those who want to hate on this MMO often point to it being a single player game, while the developers themselves are apparantly spending alot of time and mental energy on how to bring solo players into an MMO.
Making the entire storyline instanced and providing NPC companions is a pretty horrible way to do this so.. if they're trying, they're showing they don't understand at all how to do what they want.
Wait wait wait. But everyone here said this is only a solo player game? I'm so lost!
As someone else said, no matter what is said, no matter what they do, because it's Bioware/EA/SW/Main Stream/etc, they will hate it.
Exciting.
Cool read, thank you for posting.
I hope soon enough, they will relate these points to TOR and show what they have done to bring those loners into the group.
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
lol this is a game not war....so extroverts would most likely lead as they would be the only ones to form groups (might have an introvert friend that actually comes up with the strategy for bosses though)