Star Trek Online – Pre-order Penalty
It should stand to reason that pre-ordering an MMO should result in nothing but benefit; at least compared to someone who purchases it within the next few months. Over the weekend Atari offered Star Trek Online at a discounted rate of $10 off plus 60 days of additional free gameplay (for a total of 90 days). I would expect this kind of promotion to run a year or more after release, but certainly not 3 weeks after launch. Are players upset about this? You bet. They take it as a virtual slap in the face. Wait, it gets worse. Due to the tremendous outrage of the current player-base and the numerous posts that followed, Atari rescinded the offer from their website. Not only did they cancel the promotion, but they also canceled the extra 60 day deal they had made with players who purchased it over the weekend. This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon, and that did not play out well for the consumer.
Atari broke one of my rules of operating an MMO; “For every new player award, there shall be a veteran reward”. Keeping players is important, so it is good business to reward existing players with something of equal or better value than what you are awarding new players. Now the question is raised of who is actually responsible for this. Atari published the deal, so personally I am resting the blame on them. Whether or not Cryptic Studios is completely exonerable, they are taking most of the flak. At the time of writing, they have not released a statement. At its neonatal stage, the last thing Star Trek Online needs is more controversy. I would like to hear your opinions though, and we promise not to ban you for it.
Star Trek Online – Pre-order Penalty
It should stand to reason that pre-ordering an MMO should result in nothing but benefit; at least compared to someone who purchases it within the next few months. Over the weekend Atari offered Star Trek Online at a discounted rate of $10 off plus 60 days of additional free gameplay (for a total of 90 days). I would expect this kind of promotion to run a year or more after release, but certainly not 3 weeks after launch. Are players upset about this? You bet. They take it as a virtual slap in the face. Wait, it gets worse. Due to the tremendous outrage of the current player-base and the numerous posts that followed, Atari rescinded the offer from their website. Not only did they cancel the promotion, but they also canceled the extra 60 day deal they had made with players who purchased it over the weekend. This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon, and that did not play out well for the consumer.
Atari broke one of my rules of operating an MMO; “For every new player award, there shall be a veteran reward”. Keeping players is important, so it is good business to reward existing players with something of equal or better value than what you are awarding new players. Now the question is raised of who is actually responsible for this. Atari published the deal, so personally I am resting the blame on them. Whether or not Cryptic Studios is completely exonerable, they are taking most of the flak. At the time of writing, they have not released a statement. At its neonatal stage, the last thing Star Trek Online needs is more controversy. I would like to hear your opinions though, and we promise not to ban you for it.
Competitive Dungeoneering
I still seem to be hooked on the topic of risk and reward in MMOs. This article continues along that vein, but instead of the harsh, cold realities of item loss, we are going to think in terms of the spirit of the Olympic Games and talk about the sport of Competitive Dungeoneering.
Betting – In this system, some instances are only accessible to teams willing to pay the ante. Depending on the instance, this ante can be in the form of gold, experience, or interesting items. A low level dungeon might require 50 coins, or a green weapon to enter. A high level instance might require 1000s of coins and an epic piece of equipment. Any items bet cannot be used until the team has completed their mission.
Very simply, if your team completes the mission, they get their bet back plus an appropriate reward. However, if they fail the instance, they lose the bet and their stuff is lost. The definition of failure would vary each instance. A party wipe could mean failure, or the mission might require that a certain player or NPC never die, or the mission might be timed.
One variation is to allow players to up their ante, thus increasing their reward if they win… and possibly the power of the enemies in the instance. This is a pretty direct way to climb the risk vs. reward curve.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is contrived, and requires a lot of meta-gaming on the part of the players… but MMO players ought to be used to meta-gaming, right?
Item World?– One interesting variation steals from console RPGs like the Disgaea series. Instead of betting gold or experience, players put up items to enter dungeons. Groups that succeed in conquering the instance find their items returned to them, but with significant upgrades in their stats and powers.
Competitive Dungeoneering — The next step in this idea requires that we devise a system by which we can score a team’s performance in our dungeon. Missions could be timed, or we could score based on monsters killed, or treasure found. Deaths would likely count against a team’s score and a party wipe could mean the team is disqualified.
Similar to the betting system, teams would enter the dungeon only after putting up a decent amount of cash. Once the team completes the run, their score is calculated and recorded on a leader board. At the end of the week, the best teams split a hefty portion of the bets placed by all the groups that week.
Variant Dungeons– This system lends itself to tons of variations. Instances could be created with the competitive dungeoneering concept in mind. You could have dungeons where teams faced wave after wave of monsters with little time to rest in between. The team is scored based on how long they can last. Some instances could consist of long hallways filled with platforms and obstacles and teams could engage in a timed race to the finish… with monsters thrown in to slow them down.
Competitive Dungeoneering
I still seem to be hooked on the topic of risk and reward in MMOs. This article continues along that vein, but instead of the harsh, cold realities of item loss, we are going to think in terms of the spirit of the Olympic Games and talk about the sport of Competitive Dungeoneering.
Betting – In this system, some instances are only accessible to teams willing to pay the ante. Depending on the instance, this ante can be in the form of gold, experience, or interesting items. A low level dungeon might require 50 coins, or a green weapon to enter. A high level instance might require 1000s of coins and an epic piece of equipment. Any items bet cannot be used until the team has completed their mission.
Very simply, if your team completes the mission, they get their bet back plus an appropriate reward. However, if they fail the instance, they lose the bet and their stuff is lost. The definition of failure would vary each instance. A party wipe could mean failure, or the mission might require that a certain player or NPC never die, or the mission might be timed.
One variation is to allow players to up their ante, thus increasing their reward if they win… and possibly the power of the enemies in the instance. This is a pretty direct way to climb the risk vs. reward curve.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is contrived, and requires a lot of meta-gaming on the part of the players… but MMO players ought to be used to meta-gaming, right?
Item World?– One interesting variation steals from console RPGs like the Disgaea series. Instead of betting gold or experience, players put up items to enter dungeons. Groups that succeed in conquering the instance find their items returned to them, but with significant upgrades in their stats and powers.
Competitive Dungeoneering — The next step in this idea requires that we devise a system by which we can score a team’s performance in our dungeon. Missions could be timed, or we could score based on monsters killed, or treasure found. Deaths would likely count against a team’s score and a party wipe could mean the team is disqualified.
Similar to the betting system, teams would enter the dungeon only after putting up a decent amount of cash. Once the team completes the run, their score is calculated and recorded on a leader board. At the end of the week, the best teams split a hefty portion of the bets placed by all the groups that week.
Variant Dungeons– This system lends itself to tons of variations. Instances could be created with the competitive dungeoneering concept in mind. You could have dungeons where teams faced wave after wave of monsters with little time to rest in between. The team is scored based on how long they can last. Some instances could consist of long hallways filled with platforms and obstacles and teams could engage in a timed race to the finish… with monsters thrown in to slow them down.
Champions Online May Win Me Back
Two weeks ago I specified a few reasons why I was going to walk away from Champions Online when my subscription expired. Normally, I try to look at the positives of a situation, but my experiences with the game, Cryptic’s handling of it and the future plans didn‘t sit well with me. Or the rest of the playerbase, as a few readers explained their issues with the game in the comments section.
Last week, Cryptic backpedaled on its decision to offer paid for high-level content. Champions Online – Revelation, what the company claims is a “full-fledged expansion,” didn‘t go over well. The decision was reversed after people like us spoke our minds about paying for content in a game that is lacking just that. Commentator Snorlax returned to the post to pose a very good question:
“Do you see yourself coming back now that Cryptic has backpedaled on their paid content pack/expansion and put out some olive branches to the community?”
Initially, no. The company lost a good amount of my trust, the damage had been done. But Cryptic followed up last week’s olive branch with another State of the Game address that focuses on the free “expansion.” Costumes, perks, and additional lairs are always welcome additions. Two bullet points really caught my attention – Adventures Packs and Monthly In-Game Events.
Adventure Packs are story driven packages that are playable at “nearly any level.” That will make them perfect for all of the altaholics out there (and casual players). Personally, I am excited to see the story part take shape. Who wouldn‘t want to battle with “villains both new and established.” The more Foxbat the better.
If there’s something that small companies and small MMOGs excel at it’s usually community. Cryptic Studios is looking to be a large part of that by joining us side-by-side. We’ll be seeing a lot more of the developers in the virtual space they created thanks to the monthly in-game events. Dates, times and details will be announced as they happen.
Cryptic, you’ve got about a month to win me back. It’s been a good start.
Champions Online – Revelation will go live in mid-March. More information will be revealed when the official mini-site launches this week.
Champions Online May Win Me Back
Two weeks ago I specified a few reasons why I was going to walk away from Champions Online when my subscription expired. Normally, I try to look at the positives of a situation, but my experiences with the game, Cryptic’s handling of it and the future plans didn‘t sit well with me. Or the rest of the playerbase, as a few readers explained their issues with the game in the comments section.
Last week, Cryptic backpedaled on its decision to offer paid for high-level content. Champions Online – Revelation, what the company claims is a “full-fledged expansion,” didn‘t go over well. The decision was reversed after people like us spoke our minds about paying for content in a game that is lacking just that. Commentator Snorlax returned to the post to pose a very good question:
“Do you see yourself coming back now that Cryptic has backpedaled on their paid content pack/expansion and put out some olive branches to the community?”
Initially, no. The company lost a good amount of my trust, the damage had been done. But Cryptic followed up last week’s olive branch with another State of the Game address that focuses on the free “expansion.” Costumes, perks, and additional lairs are always welcome additions. Two bullet points really caught my attention – Adventures Packs and Monthly In-Game Events.
Adventure Packs are story driven packages that are playable at “nearly any level.” That will make them perfect for all of the altaholics out there (and casual players). Personally, I am excited to see the story part take shape. Who wouldn‘t want to battle with “villains both new and established.” The more Foxbat the better.
If there’s something that small companies and small MMOGs excel at it’s usually community. Cryptic Studios is looking to be a large part of that by joining us side-by-side. We’ll be seeing a lot more of the developers in the virtual space they created thanks to the monthly in-game events. Dates, times and details will be announced as they happen.
Cryptic, you’ve got about a month to win me back. It’s been a good start.
Champions Online – Revelation will go live in mid-March. More information will be revealed when the official mini-site launches this week.
Putting Risk Back Into the Themepark — Drop Chance
Last month, I posted a bit about the concept of risk in MMOs and the conclusion I came up with is that most modern themepark MMOs have sanitized their gameplay such that risk is no longer a factor. I feel that risk is an intriguing design element and that without it, our MMOs are less than they could be. In this article, I am going to talk about a traditional MMO death penalty that has been abandoned in most modern games, Losing Your Cool Stuff.
Of course, the most extreme example of this penalty is the Full Loot/Corpse Run — you die and everything you own is left on your corpse. You might have a window where only you can loot your corpse, or if the game is “full loot”, then your corpse is fair game. This is the death penalty of old-school, “hardcore” games like Ultima Online, Everquest and more recently, Vanguard and Darkfall. I understand why people don’t like corpse runs. You play through dozens of quests and instances to get great gear, only to die in the middle of a lava pit and have to sit naked and forlorn, staring at your unreachable corpse as the timer runs down and your precious items vanish. Full loot is even worse because almost every death brings with it the loss of your good stuff — and most players hate losing their stuff.
The Drop Chance System
This is a simple tweak to the full loot idea. When you die, instead of dropping all of your items on your corpse, each item has a small percentage chance that it drops — say between 2 and 5 percent. When an item drops, it will either stay on your corpse, to be possibly looted by players, or it will appear in the inventory of the monster that killed you. Most of the time, players will be able to shrug off death, having lost nothing, or only trivial items. However, every so often, death will mean the loss of a powerful weapon or armor and the player will have to decide whether it is worth the effort to get it back.
One of the problems you see in full-loot games is that items lose a lot of their value. You might own a powerful sword, but because the chance of losing it is so high, you never take it out of the bank. At this point, though the sword might be worth quite a bit of in-game currency, it isn’t in play and thus becomes pointless. If you want a game with lots of important, powerful gear, full-loot probably isn’t the way to go. Darkfall is a good example of this. Gear is important in the sense that it makes a difference in combat, but it is all expendable (and consumable) and so no specific piece of gear is interesting.
By making item loss possible, we add an element of risk. By making item loss rare, we increase the expected return of a player equipping his best gear. If there is only a 2% chance of losing the Greatsword of Doom and it increases your combat abilities by 20%, that is a pretty good bet that most players will be willing to make. We get our element of risk, but still get more gear, and more interesting gear, into the game.
Let’s take a look at some other ramifications and possibilities of this system.
Spicing Up Loot Tables: If you die to a mob, any items lost will be found on the inventory of that creature when you kill it. This gives players a chance to get their gear back, if they are so inclined, but also means that any mob kill has a chance to turn up some unexpected gear dropped by another hapless player. I like the idea of killing a wandering goblin and finding he just killed an unfortunate adventurer to the tune of a couple hundred gold and a nice sword.
Spicing Up the Monsters: Take that one step further and actually give the creature the benefits of any items he takes from players. I would mark these creatures in some way (ideally by putting the armor/weapon model on them) to show players these creatures are enhanced, but carry more loot than usual. You would have to limit this to humanoids, or just accept that this is a little goofy — how would a raging boar wield a sword? Still, imagine coming across a goblin in the wilderness and jumping him, only to find that he is wielding a wand of fire, or going up against a giant ogre boss when you know he just wiped the previous group and snatched a particularly powerful mace… but man do you want that mace!
Unique Items: One possibility I find very intriguing is that this system would allow the inclusion of powerful unique items in the game. These artifacts would be more powerful than similar items of their level, or have unique effects, but would have much larger drop chances. They are worth seeking out and owning, but you know that you won’t keep them for very long. Sooner or later, you will die and the item will pass on to the next owner.
Spicing Up the Economy: Part of the game’s economy could be focused around drop chance. Because the drop chance is low, I think people will be more willing to use (and lose) cooler stuff. However, because the chance to lose your good gear is there, most people will have backup sets. These sets will have to be looted, bought or crafted and I think a viable economy would exist for “second-tier” items. Crafted “second-tier” items would be even more in demand if you made the drop chance for crafted gear lower than that of looted gear.
A possible variation of this system is that drop chances could start low, but then increase as the player died. Certain classes or crafters could have access to enchants or buffs that lowered the drop chance. An economy would certainly spring up around these enchants as people tried to protect their best pieces of equipment.
Tying Risk to Reward: You could make certain areas of the game increase the base drop chance of the items of anyone who dies there. Increasing the drop chance increases the risk, because players who die have a higher chance of losing items. However, the rewards in that reason would be increased, either because the designers put the best stuff there, or just because all the monsters you are facing are likely to be carrying player gear. Dungeons could have the absolute best rewards, but only if you were willing to brave a greatly increased chance of dropping your best items.
So that’s the idea… If I were to be creating an MMO, I would consider a drop chance system as a compromise between a hardcore risk system like full loot and a no risk system like durability loss. Still, there are other ways to inject risk into a traditional themepark game and we will explore another one of those next post. Until then, I hope you have some questions, comments or ideas of your own. I would love to hear them.
Putting Risk Back Into the Themepark — Drop Chance
Last month, I posted a bit about the concept of risk in MMOs and the conclusion I came up with is that most modern themepark MMOs have sanitized their gameplay such that risk is no longer a factor. I feel that risk is an intriguing design element and that without it, our MMOs are less than they could be. In this article, I am going to talk about a traditional MMO death penalty that has been abandoned in most modern games, Losing Your Cool Stuff.
Of course, the most extreme example of this penalty is the Full Loot/Corpse Run — you die and everything you own is left on your corpse. You might have a window where only you can loot your corpse, or if the game is “full loot”, then your corpse is fair game. This is the death penalty of old-school, “hardcore” games like Ultima Online, Everquest and more recently, Vanguard and Darkfall. I understand why people don’t like corpse runs. You play through dozens of quests and instances to get great gear, only to die in the middle of a lava pit and have to sit naked and forlorn, staring at your unreachable corpse as the timer runs down and your precious items vanish. Full loot is even worse because almost every death brings with it the loss of your good stuff — and most players hate losing their stuff.
The Drop Chance System
This is a simple tweak to the full loot idea. When you die, instead of dropping all of your items on your corpse, each item has a small percentage chance that it drops — say between 2 and 5 percent. When an item drops, it will either stay on your corpse, to be possibly looted by players, or it will appear in the inventory of the monster that killed you. Most of the time, players will be able to shrug off death, having lost nothing, or only trivial items. However, every so often, death will mean the loss of a powerful weapon or armor and the player will have to decide whether it is worth the effort to get it back.
One of the problems you see in full-loot games is that items lose a lot of their value. You might own a powerful sword, but because the chance of losing it is so high, you never take it out of the bank. At this point, though the sword might be worth quite a bit of in-game currency, it isn’t in play and thus becomes pointless. If you want a game with lots of important, powerful gear, full-loot probably isn’t the way to go. Darkfall is a good example of this. Gear is important in the sense that it makes a difference in combat, but it is all expendable (and consumable) and so no specific piece of gear is interesting.
By making item loss possible, we add an element of risk. By making item loss rare, we increase the expected return of a player equipping his best gear. If there is only a 2% chance of losing the Greatsword of Doom and it increases your combat abilities by 20%, that is a pretty good bet that most players will be willing to make. We get our element of risk, but still get more gear, and more interesting gear, into the game.
Let’s take a look at some other ramifications and possibilities of this system.
Spicing Up Loot Tables: If you die to a mob, any items lost will be found on the inventory of that creature when you kill it. This gives players a chance to get their gear back, if they are so inclined, but also means that any mob kill has a chance to turn up some unexpected gear dropped by another hapless player. I like the idea of killing a wandering goblin and finding he just killed an unfortunate adventurer to the tune of a couple hundred gold and a nice sword.
Spicing Up the Monsters: Take that one step further and actually give the creature the benefits of any items he takes from players. I would mark these creatures in some way (ideally by putting the armor/weapon model on them) to show players these creatures are enhanced, but carry more loot than usual. You would have to limit this to humanoids, or just accept that this is a little goofy — how would a raging boar wield a sword? Still, imagine coming across a goblin in the wilderness and jumping him, only to find that he is wielding a wand of fire, or going up against a giant ogre boss when you know he just wiped the previous group and snatched a particularly powerful mace… but man do you want that mace!
Unique Items: One possibility I find very intriguing is that this system would allow the inclusion of powerful unique items in the game. These artifacts would be more powerful than similar items of their level, or have unique effects, but would have much larger drop chances. They are worth seeking out and owning, but you know that you won’t keep them for very long. Sooner or later, you will die and the item will pass on to the next owner.
Spicing Up the Economy: Part of the game’s economy could be focused around drop chance. Because the drop chance is low, I think people will be more willing to use (and lose) cooler stuff. However, because the chance to lose your good gear is there, most people will have backup sets. These sets will have to be looted, bought or crafted and I think a viable economy would exist for “second-tier” items. Crafted “second-tier” items would be even more in demand if you made the drop chance for crafted gear lower than that of looted gear.
A possible variation of this system is that drop chances could start low, but then increase as the player died. Certain classes or crafters could have access to enchants or buffs that lowered the drop chance. An economy would certainly spring up around these enchants as people tried to protect their best pieces of equipment.
Tying Risk to Reward: You could make certain areas of the game increase the base drop chance of the items of anyone who dies there. Increasing the drop chance increases the risk, because players who die have a higher chance of losing items. However, the rewards in that reason would be increased, either because the designers put the best stuff there, or just because all the monsters you are facing are likely to be carrying player gear. Dungeons could have the absolute best rewards, but only if you were willing to brave a greatly increased chance of dropping your best items.
So that’s the idea… If I were to be creating an MMO, I would consider a drop chance system as a compromise between a hardcore risk system like full loot and a no risk system like durability loss. Still, there are other ways to inject risk into a traditional themepark game and we will explore another one of those next post. Until then, I hope you have some questions, comments or ideas of your own. I would love to hear them.
Hi-Rez Going In The Right Direction
I’ve had my beef with many a company, from Comcast to Cryptic Studios, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing these companies prove me wrong. I don’t want the hassle of finding a new games, a cable provider or what have you. I want the service provider in question to win me back. Naturally, the best way to prevent me from getting upset with a company is to treat me, and the rest of the customers, right. Offer us incentives to stay on board, give us information on upcoming products and keep us informed – even if it’s PR fluff.
That’s exactly what the maker of the recently launched Global Agenda did yesterday. Even though the game has had a relatively smooth launch, Hi-Rez Studios is extending the free 30 days through March. That’s your incentive. Todd Harris followed that announcement up by explaining what’s in store for the Commonwealth’s immediate future. Based upon early community feedback the company will be adding the following features by the end of February: a Friends/Ignore list, the ability to chosePvP queues, Repair Kits (gear is currently unrepairable), and new AvA zones timed for other time zones.
There’s many more issues that Hi-Rez has to deal with in the game – window mode optimization, being removed from missions on disconnects/crashes, thus losing XP, etc – but the communication so far has been superb. Further ahead Hi-Rez promises additional content of all types (PvP, PvE, AvA), tweaks and overhauls to crafting, loot and prestige.
I mentioned in my “Why I Quit Champions Online” post that I believe MMOG companies and players live in a symbiotic relationship. By giving the companies money to fund the entertainment we want we are providing services to each other. It’s still early, but Hi-Rez has my trust, and thus my money, for now.
Hi-Rez Going In The Right Direction
I’ve had my beef with many a company, from Comcast to Cryptic Studios, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing these companies prove me wrong. I don’t want the hassle of finding a new games, a cable provider or what have you. I want the service provider in question to win me back. Naturally, the best way to prevent me from getting upset with a company is to treat me, and the rest of the customers, right. Offer us incentives to stay on board, give us information on upcoming products and keep us informed – even if it’s PR fluff.
That’s exactly what the maker of the recently launched Global Agenda did yesterday. Even though the game has had a relatively smooth launch, Hi-Rez Studios is extending the free 30 days through March. That’s your incentive. Todd Harris followed that announcement up by explaining what’s in store for the Commonwealth’s immediate future. Based upon early community feedback the company will be adding the following features by the end of February: a Friends/Ignore list, the ability to chosePvP queues, Repair Kits (gear is currently unrepairable), and new AvA zones timed for other time zones.
There’s many more issues that Hi-Rez has to deal with in the game – window mode optimization, being removed from missions on disconnects/crashes, thus losing XP, etc – but the communication so far has been superb. Further ahead Hi-Rez promises additional content of all types (PvP, PvE, AvA), tweaks and overhauls to crafting, loot and prestige.
I mentioned in my “Why I Quit Champions Online” post that I believe MMOG companies and players live in a symbiotic relationship. By giving the companies money to fund the entertainment we want we are providing services to each other. It’s still early, but Hi-Rez has my trust, and thus my money, for now.
