So, one of the essays I found useful in the Escapist was the one on shmups. Specifically, the link to Torus Trooper.
This game is very nice. Fighting on the inside of a tube feels like the most natural thing in the world. But this game is also very "pure". There's no power-ups, no crashing into walls. There's not even any homing bullets or things that change velocity. The whole game consists of dodging bullets and shooting people, at as high a speed as you can manage.
It's got some interesting dynamics! For example, never play it on the lowest difficulty setting. In all the other modes, the ship moves at just the right speed to avoid waves of bullets in a zen-like fashion. In easy, however, the ship moves wrong, and you actually have to keep track of every bullet. Pain in the ass.
I didn't know there was a charge-shot. I hate the fact that games like this insist on having one. I don't like to use it, because it's primary purpose is to kill bullets, and I don't have a hard time dodging bullets. I had a great time without it: the zen-like maneuvering is what I'm after, screw the specialty weapons.
Anyhow, play it.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
You can't cover all the bases, but you can try.
Dissection of a "card game". It's long!
So, I recently ran a game I call "Kung Fu the Card Game the RPG". It's not actually over, yet, but it's far enough along that I'm comfortable writing about it.
Frankly, it's a mess. But my games are always exercizes in controlled chaos. This one simply exceeded the scope I expected of it. Still, there's lessons to be learned from it, both for me and for, presumably, everyone else.
First, a quick description.
KFtCGtRPG is a game which is largely driven by rock paper scissors: there are various action cards, and each action card wins over various other action cards in a straightforward and relatively easy-to-remember way. It also ties with certain action cards.
Statistically, there are twelve normal action cards, each which wins against four, loses to four, and ties to four (including itself). There are also two special cards - item and stance - which lose to everything.
Now, from a statistical standpoint, each card has a 6-4-4 win-loss-tie ratio. But not all cards are played equally, and this is something I was very careful to design in.
Each action has a different result if it wins. Some do damage. Some interrupt your enemy's rhythm. Some increase your own rhythm.
In addition, you can play adjectives on your actions to do other things - wildly varying depending on the adjective. When making a character, you get to buy "schools" of martial arts at various levels, so everybody has wildly varying adjective sets.
Now, if you get through your deck three times, you tie the entire match. And people wanted to win. However, in the early days, they didn't have much in the way of damage-dealing adjectives. So they had to stock up on damage-dealing cards, weighting action selection heavily. So, other people would adapt to this, and weight their deck with the actions that counter the actions the first wave preferred.
In addition, as characters got more powerful, they would likely find they were choosing their actions primarily to win the rock-paper-scissors, rather than to do damage or not. Also, I predicted that the heavy rhythm damage moves would be unpopular to begin with, but popular later, as decks got more rhythm-intensive.
I had planned this, and it worked wonderfully.
I also knew there would be a bunch of special abilities. It is a bad kung-fu movie, so this is pretty much required. I created a unique method of revealing plot which put in a fair negative feedback loop, so the players who shot ahead of the pack would need to go back and pull up the players who didn't.
Those parts didn't work so well.
The negative feedback loop is easy: the only problem with it was that it simply wasn't strong enough. I know how to fix that for the next run, many months from now.
The special abilities didn't work quite as well as I wanted them to. First, there were a few rather critical typos. Still, the game adjusted - such is the joy of rock-paper-scissors. However, more critically, I totally underestimated the lethality of the later decks.
For example, there are two martial arts styles called "Classic" and "Exploding Platypus". They're awkward, clumsy styles (from a gameplay perspective), and although I had a soft spot in my heart for both of them, they were widely considered inferior to more balanced martial arts styles like "Crazy Ivan" and "Raging Kitten".
But, in fact, the first player to win the game did it without understanding an inch of plot. He simply attacked the boss and beat her - without knowing the weaknesses or anything. This boss was someone who regained 10% of their hit points every round, gained rhythm every round, and had a killer deck. But by combining the clumsiness of Classic and Exploding Platypus, he came up with a way to deal enough damage to beat her. It was extremely impressive.
It was then I realized I might have a problem.
Nobody else has beaten the bosses yet (as far as I know), but there are warriors out there who are just as powerful as many of the bosses. As an example, both warriors generally have 7 HP. But there have been single rounds in which 30 damage is dealt to one side (usually accompanied by 16 damage to the other side). The lethality took off from the early game, where two damage was considered damn sweet.
Looking back on it, it seems obvious. The way to fix it is also obvious. (I haven't explained the rules clearly enough for you to know, so take my word for it.) But it didn't occur to me.
I could look ahead and see how the decks were going to change, how the people would operate, but I didn't notice that the players would become so fatal, so fast. Geez, talk about missing the forest for the trees, eh?
However, the game is evidently still fun. I tried to put in something for every kind of player type I could think of: there's a complex, puzzly plot for people who like that sort of thing. There's the card game itself, for people who like that sort of thing. There's pretending to be "The Nekomancer" or "Steve of the North" and shouting move names, for people who like that sort of thing.
However, I was still surprised - stunned, actually - when another kind of play popped into the game. The architect.
The architect is a player who builds. He likes building. He likes creating things which are impressive. I knew he existed, but I didn't incorporate him into the game, or, in fact, care about him at all.
Until people created their cards. Some people created cards which had pictures, many people put on flavor text. These people personalized a game which was, until they came along, about some scraggly text on half a notecard.
I think these decks added greatly to the play of the game.
Now, on another subject, there are several players who joined that didn't care for the game. About 15%, which is about average for me. They got fired up by the concept, but the actual gameplay was a turn-off.
This is the same problem MMORPGs have. The way they solve it is to let people play on any axis. They don't have to fight. If they like creating decks, hook them up with people who need decks, but don't force them to fight.
The problem with that is -win condition-. I'll have to think about it. This game was made specifically as a competitive game. I could make it so that you can participate without trying to win, but some of the players want to do the plot part without doing the combat part, and that doesn't work.
I'll have to think about it, but the point is:
You can't think of everything. But you can try.
So, I recently ran a game I call "Kung Fu the Card Game the RPG". It's not actually over, yet, but it's far enough along that I'm comfortable writing about it.
Frankly, it's a mess. But my games are always exercizes in controlled chaos. This one simply exceeded the scope I expected of it. Still, there's lessons to be learned from it, both for me and for, presumably, everyone else.
First, a quick description.
KFtCGtRPG is a game which is largely driven by rock paper scissors: there are various action cards, and each action card wins over various other action cards in a straightforward and relatively easy-to-remember way. It also ties with certain action cards.
Statistically, there are twelve normal action cards, each which wins against four, loses to four, and ties to four (including itself). There are also two special cards - item and stance - which lose to everything.
Now, from a statistical standpoint, each card has a 6-4-4 win-loss-tie ratio. But not all cards are played equally, and this is something I was very careful to design in.
Each action has a different result if it wins. Some do damage. Some interrupt your enemy's rhythm. Some increase your own rhythm.
In addition, you can play adjectives on your actions to do other things - wildly varying depending on the adjective. When making a character, you get to buy "schools" of martial arts at various levels, so everybody has wildly varying adjective sets.
Now, if you get through your deck three times, you tie the entire match. And people wanted to win. However, in the early days, they didn't have much in the way of damage-dealing adjectives. So they had to stock up on damage-dealing cards, weighting action selection heavily. So, other people would adapt to this, and weight their deck with the actions that counter the actions the first wave preferred.
In addition, as characters got more powerful, they would likely find they were choosing their actions primarily to win the rock-paper-scissors, rather than to do damage or not. Also, I predicted that the heavy rhythm damage moves would be unpopular to begin with, but popular later, as decks got more rhythm-intensive.
I had planned this, and it worked wonderfully.
I also knew there would be a bunch of special abilities. It is a bad kung-fu movie, so this is pretty much required. I created a unique method of revealing plot which put in a fair negative feedback loop, so the players who shot ahead of the pack would need to go back and pull up the players who didn't.
Those parts didn't work so well.
The negative feedback loop is easy: the only problem with it was that it simply wasn't strong enough. I know how to fix that for the next run, many months from now.
The special abilities didn't work quite as well as I wanted them to. First, there were a few rather critical typos. Still, the game adjusted - such is the joy of rock-paper-scissors. However, more critically, I totally underestimated the lethality of the later decks.
For example, there are two martial arts styles called "Classic" and "Exploding Platypus". They're awkward, clumsy styles (from a gameplay perspective), and although I had a soft spot in my heart for both of them, they were widely considered inferior to more balanced martial arts styles like "Crazy Ivan" and "Raging Kitten".
But, in fact, the first player to win the game did it without understanding an inch of plot. He simply attacked the boss and beat her - without knowing the weaknesses or anything. This boss was someone who regained 10% of their hit points every round, gained rhythm every round, and had a killer deck. But by combining the clumsiness of Classic and Exploding Platypus, he came up with a way to deal enough damage to beat her. It was extremely impressive.
It was then I realized I might have a problem.
Nobody else has beaten the bosses yet (as far as I know), but there are warriors out there who are just as powerful as many of the bosses. As an example, both warriors generally have 7 HP. But there have been single rounds in which 30 damage is dealt to one side (usually accompanied by 16 damage to the other side). The lethality took off from the early game, where two damage was considered damn sweet.
Looking back on it, it seems obvious. The way to fix it is also obvious. (I haven't explained the rules clearly enough for you to know, so take my word for it.) But it didn't occur to me.
I could look ahead and see how the decks were going to change, how the people would operate, but I didn't notice that the players would become so fatal, so fast. Geez, talk about missing the forest for the trees, eh?
However, the game is evidently still fun. I tried to put in something for every kind of player type I could think of: there's a complex, puzzly plot for people who like that sort of thing. There's the card game itself, for people who like that sort of thing. There's pretending to be "The Nekomancer" or "Steve of the North" and shouting move names, for people who like that sort of thing.
However, I was still surprised - stunned, actually - when another kind of play popped into the game. The architect.
The architect is a player who builds. He likes building. He likes creating things which are impressive. I knew he existed, but I didn't incorporate him into the game, or, in fact, care about him at all.
Until people created their cards. Some people created cards which had pictures, many people put on flavor text. These people personalized a game which was, until they came along, about some scraggly text on half a notecard.
I think these decks added greatly to the play of the game.
Now, on another subject, there are several players who joined that didn't care for the game. About 15%, which is about average for me. They got fired up by the concept, but the actual gameplay was a turn-off.
This is the same problem MMORPGs have. The way they solve it is to let people play on any axis. They don't have to fight. If they like creating decks, hook them up with people who need decks, but don't force them to fight.
The problem with that is -win condition-. I'll have to think about it. This game was made specifically as a competitive game. I could make it so that you can participate without trying to win, but some of the players want to do the plot part without doing the combat part, and that doesn't work.
I'll have to think about it, but the point is:
You can't think of everything. But you can try.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Yet Another Good Idea...
An idea from Darius!
His blog just turned one. Mine is, uh, about one, give or take. Although I pity anyone who has been reading from the beginning. I was pretty poor at rough drafting back then.
He has asked his readers - especially those who don't usually comment - to tell him what they like about, and what they want from, his blog.
So, hey I'll post the same question. What do you like? What do you hate? What do you want to see more of?
Honestly, I mostly do this for my own pieces of mind, but a mind is an astonishingly flexible thing. If it turns out that everyone hates foo type of article, I'll avoid writing them. Don't worry about my fragile ego. I'm a pretty durable guy.
So post! Now's your chance to change the world!
And while you're at it, tell me your favorite colors.
His blog just turned one. Mine is, uh, about one, give or take. Although I pity anyone who has been reading from the beginning. I was pretty poor at rough drafting back then.
He has asked his readers - especially those who don't usually comment - to tell him what they like about, and what they want from, his blog.
So, hey I'll post the same question. What do you like? What do you hate? What do you want to see more of?
Honestly, I mostly do this for my own pieces of mind, but a mind is an astonishingly flexible thing. If it turns out that everyone hates foo type of article, I'll avoid writing them. Don't worry about my fragile ego. I'm a pretty durable guy.
So post! Now's your chance to change the world!
And while you're at it, tell me your favorite colors.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
DOAXBV
I'd like to take a moment to talk about Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball.
Okay, well, not really. But I would like to talk about that niche.
"What, the 'I wish I were porn' niche?"
No, the "utterly relaxed exploration" niche.
The problem is, there aren't exactly a whole bunch of examples floating around. In fact, one of the two big-name titles I can find in that genre is - you guessed it - XBV. The other is Animal Crossing.
There's a place for games with no real challenges. There's no real challenge to XBV. The whole point of the game is blatantly to collect swimsuits. There are "volleyball tournaments", but if you don't win them, you just have to play for longer. They aren't exactly challenging gameplay, anyhow. There's no "lose and restart".
In Animal Crossing, you get a similar situation. The game is all about exploring the options that the world offers, customizing everything. There's not exactly a whole lot in the way of tense, skill-based play, is there?
Why are there so few games like this, where the whole purpose is to explore the gamespace at your leisure, in any direction you please?
I mean, these games obviously sell poorly. XBV only outsold 99% of the other XBox games, and Animal Crossing sold worse than... uh, Nintendogs, which is a third title I had momentarily forgotten about.
Maybe they cost a lot to produce? I don't think XBV cost much at all, save for modeling 18,000 swimsuits. Nintendogs was probably expensive because it was new hardware, but I doubt Animal Crossing was expensive at all - not compared to, say, a Zelda game.
Thing is, I think these games are the latest descendents of adventure games. I mean Monkey Island-style games. They kind of feel the same to me, with their "no real rush" methodology. You're obviously there for the setting, not for the plot.
Zelda games are the same way, but they have all sorts of pushing and pulling.
Some of you are probably saying, "first he yammers on about gameplay needing goals and challenges and stuff, now he's saying the industry could use more games without goals or challenges?"
Well, these games have rules, patterns, goals, and challenges. They're just... very, very relaxed. The goals are usually presented as aesthetic lures. The challenges are things which don't cause you to sweat, and your grandma could do them if she spent any time at it. They definitely have rules and patterns.
Even if all you're doing is exploring space, one of my latest posts gave some examples as to how you can do that in a number of interesting ways.
Why do we feel that every game must be tense and challenge-driven? Every game must be a test of our skill? We seem to think games need to be like that, but I have lots of fun just exploring a world. And, more importantly, being able to affect that world.
I don't know the answers. All I'm saying is: isn't it a bit odd? That a "genre" sells so well when published, but doesn't get any more popular?
I occasionally want to sit down and just experience a universe. Don't make me play XBV! Please! It's really poor! Give me other games!
Okay, well, not really. But I would like to talk about that niche.
"What, the 'I wish I were porn' niche?"
No, the "utterly relaxed exploration" niche.
The problem is, there aren't exactly a whole bunch of examples floating around. In fact, one of the two big-name titles I can find in that genre is - you guessed it - XBV. The other is Animal Crossing.
There's a place for games with no real challenges. There's no real challenge to XBV. The whole point of the game is blatantly to collect swimsuits. There are "volleyball tournaments", but if you don't win them, you just have to play for longer. They aren't exactly challenging gameplay, anyhow. There's no "lose and restart".
In Animal Crossing, you get a similar situation. The game is all about exploring the options that the world offers, customizing everything. There's not exactly a whole lot in the way of tense, skill-based play, is there?
Why are there so few games like this, where the whole purpose is to explore the gamespace at your leisure, in any direction you please?
I mean, these games obviously sell poorly. XBV only outsold 99% of the other XBox games, and Animal Crossing sold worse than... uh, Nintendogs, which is a third title I had momentarily forgotten about.
Maybe they cost a lot to produce? I don't think XBV cost much at all, save for modeling 18,000 swimsuits. Nintendogs was probably expensive because it was new hardware, but I doubt Animal Crossing was expensive at all - not compared to, say, a Zelda game.
Thing is, I think these games are the latest descendents of adventure games. I mean Monkey Island-style games. They kind of feel the same to me, with their "no real rush" methodology. You're obviously there for the setting, not for the plot.
Zelda games are the same way, but they have all sorts of pushing and pulling.
Some of you are probably saying, "first he yammers on about gameplay needing goals and challenges and stuff, now he's saying the industry could use more games without goals or challenges?"
Well, these games have rules, patterns, goals, and challenges. They're just... very, very relaxed. The goals are usually presented as aesthetic lures. The challenges are things which don't cause you to sweat, and your grandma could do them if she spent any time at it. They definitely have rules and patterns.
Even if all you're doing is exploring space, one of my latest posts gave some examples as to how you can do that in a number of interesting ways.
Why do we feel that every game must be tense and challenge-driven? Every game must be a test of our skill? We seem to think games need to be like that, but I have lots of fun just exploring a world. And, more importantly, being able to affect that world.
I don't know the answers. All I'm saying is: isn't it a bit odd? That a "genre" sells so well when published, but doesn't get any more popular?
I occasionally want to sit down and just experience a universe. Don't make me play XBV! Please! It's really poor! Give me other games!
Sly Cooper
Darius: hey, re: your space/time post, what do you think was so fancy about Sly Cooper's handling of space?
me: Have you played it?
Darius: yes
I liked it a lot
me: Did you notice how every move felt natural?
Sly leaps off into space and when he comes down, it's just where you wanted him to?
Darius: I noticed how the control system massively overcompensated for me, yes
it bordered on annoying, since i'm used to far less forgiving systems
me: No need for expert aim - it could ready your mind, react to your intention.
I thought it was incredibly nimble.
Darius: once I got it, I thought so too
it reminded me of the new Prince of Persia games, actually
me: It cut GROOVES in the space-time of the game.
Darius: which had a similar flow to the movement
yes, I see that
me: There were invisible roads which were, nontheless, perfectly obvious.
It was quite well done.
Darius: that last statement about invisible roads reminds me of Mario 64
me: I actually never played it.
Darius: I only played a little
but Miyamoto's genius has ALWAYS been in his ability to draw you through space implicitly and intuitively
me: BTW, I suggest Sly Cooper to non-hardcore gamers (like the security guard's wife). I've had many satisfied "customers", and nobody who's disliked it.
Yes, Miyamoto does the same thing.
Except Miyamoto says, "jump here!"
Sly Cooper said, "jump to there!"
IE, Miyamoto requires timing, skill, and aim.
He tells you when to jump, guides you to the moment.
Sly Cooper just guides you to the destination.
Darius: right, right, the more classic control scheme... of course, it was obviously not class, but in fact revolutionary when he debuted it
yes
I completely see what you mean about Sly now
me: Huzzah!
Should I post it?
Darius: yes.
actually, you had me convinced as soon as you said "grooves"
that was all I needed. very concise metaphor
me: Have you played it?
Darius: yes
I liked it a lot
me: Did you notice how every move felt natural?
Sly leaps off into space and when he comes down, it's just where you wanted him to?
Darius: I noticed how the control system massively overcompensated for me, yes
it bordered on annoying, since i'm used to far less forgiving systems
me: No need for expert aim - it could ready your mind, react to your intention.
I thought it was incredibly nimble.
Darius: once I got it, I thought so too
it reminded me of the new Prince of Persia games, actually
me: It cut GROOVES in the space-time of the game.
Darius: which had a similar flow to the movement
yes, I see that
me: There were invisible roads which were, nontheless, perfectly obvious.
It was quite well done.
Darius: that last statement about invisible roads reminds me of Mario 64
me: I actually never played it.
Darius: I only played a little
but Miyamoto's genius has ALWAYS been in his ability to draw you through space implicitly and intuitively
me: BTW, I suggest Sly Cooper to non-hardcore gamers (like the security guard's wife). I've had many satisfied "customers", and nobody who's disliked it.
Yes, Miyamoto does the same thing.
Except Miyamoto says, "jump here!"
Sly Cooper said, "jump to there!"
IE, Miyamoto requires timing, skill, and aim.
He tells you when to jump, guides you to the moment.
Sly Cooper just guides you to the destination.
Darius: right, right, the more classic control scheme... of course, it was obviously not class, but in fact revolutionary when he debuted it
yes
I completely see what you mean about Sly now
me: Huzzah!
Should I post it?
Darius: yes.
actually, you had me convinced as soon as you said "grooves"
that was all I needed. very concise metaphor
More MMORPG stuff.
More on MMORPG's badness:
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/02/24/what-are-the-lessons-of-mmorpgs-today/
It pretty much agrees whole-heartedly with Sirlin, and me, and probably Corvus. MMORPGs teach really shitty lessons.
Now, let's look at the lessons Eve Online and SecondLife teach - or used to teach, I haven't played either in quite a while. What I'm trying to do is identify the pieces of gameplay which encourage each type of lesson.
"Lone heroes can’t slay dragons. It takes an army."
This is true of Eve Online, but patently false in SecondLife, which teaches that one person can do just about anything, if they have the time and skill.
This is because Eve allows players to gang into armies, and an army of players is awfully hard for one person to defeat. SL has little opinion on the matter, and most of it's dragon-slaying is constructive, rather than destructive. Hm.
"People are only good at one thing."
Again, largely true in Eve Online, except that there's some actual skills involved on occasion. SecondLife, however, has no such limitation.
This is because Eve seeks to put all players on equal footing the same way other MMORPGs do: by limiting the number of talents you can have. (I am remembering this right, right?) It's called "balanced character progression", and it's not your friend in a massively multiplayer game. SL doesn't strive to make players equal. It gives them an equal starting position, then celebrates their differences.
Does this drive away players? I doubt it, but presumably that's the theory MMORPG designers run on when they decide to force equality. Sorry, chaps, but not all people are equally good at playing all games. Doesn't mean you can't make a contribution. Trying to force equality means that the people who are good at the game can't make a contribution.
You never, ever, ever change jobs. If you want to, you probably need to die.
Related to the "balanced character progression" as above. Eve allows you to switch jobs, but it takes a long time. SL doesn't care, because it doesn't have balanced character progression.
You can be the best in the world at your job. But so can everyone else. And you will all do it exactly the same way.
Eve has some of this - not too terribly much - because it is, like most MMORPGs, still a closed system. There aren't an infinite number of choices as to how to do your job, and there is a statistical max cap on skills. No statistical max cap on being an awesome leader or economist, fortunately.
SL doesn't have this. It's unlikely you're the best, but you can still make significant contributions in any way you please. Uniquely. Why? Because SL doesn't have "balanced character progression", so they can let players bring whatever crap they want into the game. Did you just build a giant mech? Good for you! And on your second day!
Evil is not redeemable; good is not a choice. Your morals are innate.
Bwa ha ha! Yeah, a totally worthless aesthetic choice by Blizzard. No game allowing for significant player content, such as Eve or SL, has this problem.
Killing is the only real way to gain people’s admiration. Well, you can make stuff too, but you won’t earn the same kind of admiration.
A problem of having a play system rigged too tightly to reward killing. Both Eve and SL don't really reward killing, and neither has this problem. In SL, you gain admiration by designing women's clothings or a giant mech.
In fact, there are only two kinds of admiration in the world, and they can be quantified.
Another idiotic choice rigged to balance player progression. All players must be equal! So sayeth Blizzard!
All that hoorah about endangered species is like, a total exaggeration. There’s plenty of everything.
This one is definitely true of both Eve and SL. There's personal shortages, but it's very rare to have a global shortage. Eve does have some limited run space ships, though.
You not only can’t go home again, you probably don’t have one. If you do, it’s mostly to store stuff, not to live in. You never have people over.
This is interesting. In SL, you can have a home and have people over because your home probably contains poseballs and items which can't be found elsewhere. But there is really not a whole lot of sense of personal space in any of the MMORPGs.
I think this is due to a lack of character clues. For example, if your character always leaned back and looked uncomfortable when someone got too close - or even actively shoved the other character away - the player would pick up on that. It would have to be innate to the character, rather than triggered by the player.
These actions could vary depending on how well you knew the other character and how secure you felt. You would feel very secure in your own home.
The idea is fascinating to me.
Staring at someone who is talking the politest thing you can do. Because the only other option is to not look at them at all. Running past or away from people while you are talking to them is also polite.
Ditto.
If you don’t keep up with the Joneses, you will never see them again. In fact, if you don’t keep up with your friends, you will never see them again either.
Again, "balanced character progression" is evil.
There are no children.
There's no children-children in either Eve or SL. In SL, you can have children pretending to be adults, or adults pretending to be children. I don't suppose it's really the same thing.
I'm not sure I consider this to be a solvable problem. Children don't want to play children, and computers can't simulate them. Yet.
Death doesn’t really sting. Nerf, however, is incredibly painful.
"Balanced character progression". Need I say more?
There is always a demand for couriers and assassins.
This one is really interesting. It would, however, take a thousand words to explain. It involves the game's time-space. I'll make a post about it sometime soonish.
Moving frequently is normal, and never going back to your old stomping grounds again is the way of things.
The fact that your old stomping grounds never change is probably the real reason. The gameplay sweeps you out of that area - and returning to it is needlessly irritating from a gameplay perspective.
SL handles this very well. Eve, less so.
There are no such things as social progress or technological advancement. In fact, evil will always be lurking at the edge of the village. On the other hand, it will never invade. There are no governments. Thus there are no laws. Instead, there are laws of physics.
Hee hee. Static world problems. Don't have one, you won't have them.
There are gods, and they are capricious, and have way way more than ten commandments. Nobody knows how many because everyone clicked past them.
Awesome! Also a problem - a serious one - in SL. Less so in Eve, but still latently a problem.
I don't know how to solve it.
Charity is not a virtue; in fact, it’s frequently physically impossible.
This is because of enforced - dare I say it? Okay, enforced "balanced character progression". Are you surprised? Delighted? Irritated that I keep using that phrase?
Not allowed to give charity, because it's an unfair advantage to the recipient.
You should not associate with those of lower social standing than yourself.
This must be particular to WoW. Haven't seen it, can't comment.
You can’t be in two places at once. But places can be in two places at once. Parallel universes are obvious. Walking is stupid. Actually, in general, taking your time is counterproductive.
Hee hee. This is, again, about game space-time. I'll talk about it in a different post.
The most important thing in the world is slaying something that will be back the next day… before anyone else gets to slay it.
Well, this kind of highlights everything that's wrong with MMORPGs. It encapsulates balanced character progression and the problem with static worlds, all in one sentence! Bravo!
You should probably have entrance and résumé requirements to join your circle of friends.
Huge problem in Eve Online, due to the high rate of betrayal. Not so much in SL, since betrayal rarely accomplishes much.
Hunting is the noblest profession. I take that back; hunting is only noble until you’re good enough to switch to murder. Robbing the dead of indigenous cultures is how you make money.
Due to the primary play loop revolving around killing. Not true in either Eve or SL.
There is no such thing as obesity. All women are beautiful and all men are either handsome or darkly mysterious. There is no need for bras. People have sex a lot. Somehow, this means that nobody is beautiful and there is no mystery.
I think I like the idea of having to spend character points on beauty - and/or having to work at it. People who want to be beautiful will have less time/points to spend on being strong, skilled, whatever.
People never touch.
I think it's another problem with a lack of subtle, automated character clues.
Nobody reads.
Your character would have to have an autonomous life to want to read. You will never want him to read, unless there's a reward for it. Which kind of defeats the flavor of this point.
They’ve never heard a brand new song. In fact, inventing is either forbidden or impossible. Sometimes both.
Static world idiocies.
Most people don’t have families.
Everybody wants to pick their families in video games. Players are too unreliable to want one as your mother or son.
Nobody’s really from here, they just live here.
This is a toughie. No clue.
[Skipped a bunch of static world/immersion flaws.]
There is no death; there is simply a failure to show up. Because of this, there is also rarely any mourning.
In Eve, there is mourning. Oh, is there mourning. And rage. Helpless, blind rage.
In SL, it's pretty rare. SL is too idealized for that. Which is kind of a shame. I think the negative emotions are just as necessary.
Here's the biggie, from Sirlin: Time is more important than skill.
In Eve, this is literally true, because skills take a set amount of real-world time to learn. However, more important than your character's skills are your skills as a player - planning routes, working the economy, finding friends. So, while literally true, it is not true in practice.
In SL, this is flat out false.
Is it any surprise that these two MMORPGs are among the only ones I consider playing?
Summary:
The big problem is "balanced player progression". When you try to let everyone have the same opportunities to advance despite their skill or lack of skill, you end up killing the cream off. You don't get your Einsteins or Elvises. They aren't allowed to be Einsteins and Elvises, because that would be too much of an advantage.
I happen to like people who excel. Moreover, I happen to benefit from them. My world - even my virtual world - is richer because of the fruits of their intellects.
People who aren't geniuses can still have a place. I'm no Elvis, but I have my fun.
From this rule of balance comes a static world. If the world can change, then players can change it. If players can change it, they will change it in their favor.
There are so many design options to get around this. But they require a new kind of MMO, one which wouldn't be made with the budget of a real MMO.
Even SL and Eve are insufficient. They could be more. So much more. They are steps in the right direction - but there's a lot of path to walk.
Sorry this is so rough. Take it as it comes, I suppose, but please forgive any details which came out a bit wrong.
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/02/24/what-are-the-lessons-of-mmorpgs-today/
It pretty much agrees whole-heartedly with Sirlin, and me, and probably Corvus. MMORPGs teach really shitty lessons.
Now, let's look at the lessons Eve Online and SecondLife teach - or used to teach, I haven't played either in quite a while. What I'm trying to do is identify the pieces of gameplay which encourage each type of lesson.
"Lone heroes can’t slay dragons. It takes an army."
This is true of Eve Online, but patently false in SecondLife, which teaches that one person can do just about anything, if they have the time and skill.
This is because Eve allows players to gang into armies, and an army of players is awfully hard for one person to defeat. SL has little opinion on the matter, and most of it's dragon-slaying is constructive, rather than destructive. Hm.
"People are only good at one thing."
Again, largely true in Eve Online, except that there's some actual skills involved on occasion. SecondLife, however, has no such limitation.
This is because Eve seeks to put all players on equal footing the same way other MMORPGs do: by limiting the number of talents you can have. (I am remembering this right, right?) It's called "balanced character progression", and it's not your friend in a massively multiplayer game. SL doesn't strive to make players equal. It gives them an equal starting position, then celebrates their differences.
Does this drive away players? I doubt it, but presumably that's the theory MMORPG designers run on when they decide to force equality. Sorry, chaps, but not all people are equally good at playing all games. Doesn't mean you can't make a contribution. Trying to force equality means that the people who are good at the game can't make a contribution.
You never, ever, ever change jobs. If you want to, you probably need to die.
Related to the "balanced character progression" as above. Eve allows you to switch jobs, but it takes a long time. SL doesn't care, because it doesn't have balanced character progression.
You can be the best in the world at your job. But so can everyone else. And you will all do it exactly the same way.
Eve has some of this - not too terribly much - because it is, like most MMORPGs, still a closed system. There aren't an infinite number of choices as to how to do your job, and there is a statistical max cap on skills. No statistical max cap on being an awesome leader or economist, fortunately.
SL doesn't have this. It's unlikely you're the best, but you can still make significant contributions in any way you please. Uniquely. Why? Because SL doesn't have "balanced character progression", so they can let players bring whatever crap they want into the game. Did you just build a giant mech? Good for you! And on your second day!
Evil is not redeemable; good is not a choice. Your morals are innate.
Bwa ha ha! Yeah, a totally worthless aesthetic choice by Blizzard. No game allowing for significant player content, such as Eve or SL, has this problem.
Killing is the only real way to gain people’s admiration. Well, you can make stuff too, but you won’t earn the same kind of admiration.
A problem of having a play system rigged too tightly to reward killing. Both Eve and SL don't really reward killing, and neither has this problem. In SL, you gain admiration by designing women's clothings or a giant mech.
In fact, there are only two kinds of admiration in the world, and they can be quantified.
Another idiotic choice rigged to balance player progression. All players must be equal! So sayeth Blizzard!
All that hoorah about endangered species is like, a total exaggeration. There’s plenty of everything.
This one is definitely true of both Eve and SL. There's personal shortages, but it's very rare to have a global shortage. Eve does have some limited run space ships, though.
You not only can’t go home again, you probably don’t have one. If you do, it’s mostly to store stuff, not to live in. You never have people over.
This is interesting. In SL, you can have a home and have people over because your home probably contains poseballs and items which can't be found elsewhere. But there is really not a whole lot of sense of personal space in any of the MMORPGs.
I think this is due to a lack of character clues. For example, if your character always leaned back and looked uncomfortable when someone got too close - or even actively shoved the other character away - the player would pick up on that. It would have to be innate to the character, rather than triggered by the player.
These actions could vary depending on how well you knew the other character and how secure you felt. You would feel very secure in your own home.
The idea is fascinating to me.
Staring at someone who is talking the politest thing you can do. Because the only other option is to not look at them at all. Running past or away from people while you are talking to them is also polite.
Ditto.
If you don’t keep up with the Joneses, you will never see them again. In fact, if you don’t keep up with your friends, you will never see them again either.
Again, "balanced character progression" is evil.
There are no children.
There's no children-children in either Eve or SL. In SL, you can have children pretending to be adults, or adults pretending to be children. I don't suppose it's really the same thing.
I'm not sure I consider this to be a solvable problem. Children don't want to play children, and computers can't simulate them. Yet.
Death doesn’t really sting. Nerf, however, is incredibly painful.
"Balanced character progression". Need I say more?
There is always a demand for couriers and assassins.
This one is really interesting. It would, however, take a thousand words to explain. It involves the game's time-space. I'll make a post about it sometime soonish.
Moving frequently is normal, and never going back to your old stomping grounds again is the way of things.
The fact that your old stomping grounds never change is probably the real reason. The gameplay sweeps you out of that area - and returning to it is needlessly irritating from a gameplay perspective.
SL handles this very well. Eve, less so.
There are no such things as social progress or technological advancement. In fact, evil will always be lurking at the edge of the village. On the other hand, it will never invade. There are no governments. Thus there are no laws. Instead, there are laws of physics.
Hee hee. Static world problems. Don't have one, you won't have them.
There are gods, and they are capricious, and have way way more than ten commandments. Nobody knows how many because everyone clicked past them.
Awesome! Also a problem - a serious one - in SL. Less so in Eve, but still latently a problem.
I don't know how to solve it.
Charity is not a virtue; in fact, it’s frequently physically impossible.
This is because of enforced - dare I say it? Okay, enforced "balanced character progression". Are you surprised? Delighted? Irritated that I keep using that phrase?
Not allowed to give charity, because it's an unfair advantage to the recipient.
You should not associate with those of lower social standing than yourself.
This must be particular to WoW. Haven't seen it, can't comment.
You can’t be in two places at once. But places can be in two places at once. Parallel universes are obvious. Walking is stupid. Actually, in general, taking your time is counterproductive.
Hee hee. This is, again, about game space-time. I'll talk about it in a different post.
The most important thing in the world is slaying something that will be back the next day… before anyone else gets to slay it.
Well, this kind of highlights everything that's wrong with MMORPGs. It encapsulates balanced character progression and the problem with static worlds, all in one sentence! Bravo!
You should probably have entrance and résumé requirements to join your circle of friends.
Huge problem in Eve Online, due to the high rate of betrayal. Not so much in SL, since betrayal rarely accomplishes much.
Hunting is the noblest profession. I take that back; hunting is only noble until you’re good enough to switch to murder. Robbing the dead of indigenous cultures is how you make money.
Due to the primary play loop revolving around killing. Not true in either Eve or SL.
There is no such thing as obesity. All women are beautiful and all men are either handsome or darkly mysterious. There is no need for bras. People have sex a lot. Somehow, this means that nobody is beautiful and there is no mystery.
I think I like the idea of having to spend character points on beauty - and/or having to work at it. People who want to be beautiful will have less time/points to spend on being strong, skilled, whatever.
People never touch.
I think it's another problem with a lack of subtle, automated character clues.
Nobody reads.
Your character would have to have an autonomous life to want to read. You will never want him to read, unless there's a reward for it. Which kind of defeats the flavor of this point.
They’ve never heard a brand new song. In fact, inventing is either forbidden or impossible. Sometimes both.
Static world idiocies.
Most people don’t have families.
Everybody wants to pick their families in video games. Players are too unreliable to want one as your mother or son.
Nobody’s really from here, they just live here.
This is a toughie. No clue.
[Skipped a bunch of static world/immersion flaws.]
There is no death; there is simply a failure to show up. Because of this, there is also rarely any mourning.
In Eve, there is mourning. Oh, is there mourning. And rage. Helpless, blind rage.
In SL, it's pretty rare. SL is too idealized for that. Which is kind of a shame. I think the negative emotions are just as necessary.
Here's the biggie, from Sirlin: Time is more important than skill.
In Eve, this is literally true, because skills take a set amount of real-world time to learn. However, more important than your character's skills are your skills as a player - planning routes, working the economy, finding friends. So, while literally true, it is not true in practice.
In SL, this is flat out false.
Is it any surprise that these two MMORPGs are among the only ones I consider playing?
Summary:
The big problem is "balanced player progression". When you try to let everyone have the same opportunities to advance despite their skill or lack of skill, you end up killing the cream off. You don't get your Einsteins or Elvises. They aren't allowed to be Einsteins and Elvises, because that would be too much of an advantage.
I happen to like people who excel. Moreover, I happen to benefit from them. My world - even my virtual world - is richer because of the fruits of their intellects.
People who aren't geniuses can still have a place. I'm no Elvis, but I have my fun.
From this rule of balance comes a static world. If the world can change, then players can change it. If players can change it, they will change it in their favor.
There are so many design options to get around this. But they require a new kind of MMO, one which wouldn't be made with the budget of a real MMO.
Even SL and Eve are insufficient. They could be more. So much more. They are steps in the right direction - but there's a lot of path to walk.
Sorry this is so rough. Take it as it comes, I suppose, but please forgive any details which came out a bit wrong.
Time and Space... Oooooooo.
This is LONG. It takes up more than its fair share of space and, if you read it, time.
I just wanted to talk a tick about gameplay that most people miss. The innate gameplay involving time and space.
There's a set of restrictive rules and tradeoffs inherent in time and space. Many games simply let this slide without taking advantage of these rules. In the other gameplay loops - such as shooting monsters, earning cash, or building a house - the game tweaks and twists and explores every possibility.
But in the innate gameplay of time and space, few games explore other possibilities. Few games tweak or use it.
I think this is a real shame, because it's such a deeply integral experience. It's the perfect thing to tweak.
I suppose I should explain what the hell I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the act of walking around the game world. About what you see, how you move. The fact that in order to go one place, you have to not go somewhere else. In order to be near something, you have to be further from other things.
Here's some examples of the way this can be tweaked, and the success of these tweakings:
Frogger. Very popular. Pong. Very popular. Why? Because they were the first?
Yes, but their whole game was based around navigating space in a way few people had conceived of until that moment. Space as a set of hard, chunky coordinates - combined with realtime speed? How bizarre! Chunky coordinates, such as chess, always meant turn-based before.
Toejam and Earl. Classic Sega. Very popular in its day. Why? Because it was wonky and goofy? Yes. It also played havok with space and the way you travel across it (time). The whole game was maps of bizarre floating maze-islands, combined with rocket skates, jumping boots, and Icarus wings.
This made for an extremely bizarre game, at least until you got used to it. Movement was the key difficulty. Of course, the game turned out to be painfully repetitive, but that was hardly the idea's fault. After all, a similar idea was aced perfectly with:
Gauntlet. You can see sooooo much further than you can walk. Your relative vision is enormous - you have plenty of time to react. But you don't know, really, which way to go. You're stuck in a maze. A brilliant reversal of the standard:
Racing Game. Any racing game. These things don't let you see very far and make you move exceedingly fast. Spy hunter, for example. Or Gran Turismo. Whatever. This makes navigating space a massive twitch-level challenge. The repetitiveness of the levels made for easy navigation, which is one of the reasons I never much cared for these games. Instead, I liked:
Sonic the Hedgehog. Fast as a racer, but without the simplicity of a racer. You have complex goals and a complex level to do them in. While you could slow down to keep your relative vision high (giving you time to react), much of the game's cool stuff could only be found racing through at top speed.
All of these games. Popular, popular, popular!
How about more recently? Prince of Persia - allows you to do some really fantastic spatial navigation. Brilliant stuff which breaks all the norms in a really coherent way. But if you really want spacial navigation that breaks the norms brilliantly, Sly Cooper is the series for you. Absolutely brilliant, if not quite as popular.
How about Psychonauts? Have you seen some of those levels, twisting and breaking like a superior version of Toejam and Earl?
FarCry: Instincts gives you different ways of perceiving and moving through the levels. The only thing that was brilliant about that game.
Soul Reaver had two different versions of the same world, connected such that moving through one moved you through the other. Fascinating.
All these games - and many others - change the ways you look at and move through levels. They alter the basic relative vision that the player has from the everyday norm.
Even just this little amount of tweaking provides a game with a special sparkle, something that sets it apart from other games. But why tweak a little, when you can tweak a lot?
Nearly all games show space as space. You have an avatar (or, at least, a viewscreen) and you zoom through space at set maximum speeds, able to see a set distance, travelling in set ways.
Why not change the nature of how you travel? How you view "speed"? How you think of "distance". Even change the nature of space itself from being a simple 3D or 2D navigation?
Why not have it so that the faster you go, the further you can see ahead, but the less you can see off to the sides? How about a level where travelling doesn't necessarily move everything in that direction closer: just the thing that you're travelling to. How about a level where the faster you move on one axis, the slower you move on another axis, and visa-versa? How about just a game which lets me fly instead of walk?
It could make for some fascinating games, don't you think?
Here's the thing about the way a player perceives and travels through space in a game (the game's "space-time"): it determines how the player interacts with the rest of the world.
Imagine an MMORPG. Doesn't matter which, they all treat space the same.
You have a certain max speed cap, which is generally agreed to be abominably slow. The world has a certain size, which is generally agreed to be hideously large. There are ways to get from here to there, but they either cost money or take quite a lot of time. Or both. Boats, teleports, whatever.
This leads to an entire division of people whose sole purpose is to run from one end of the universe to the other, moving goods that aren't available at the other end of the universe.
You created this job class by designing your world like that. Is it bad?
Well, no, not really. It is underdone. There's no reason to make it such a boring job. Why not have a minigame of some variety? For example, teleportation can only be done with an accuracy determined by your skill at a puzzle game. Or interstellar travel generally has quite a lot of pirates running around.
But if you can create that job class by designing the basics of your world, you should be able to create others. Right?
How about a universe with no IMs, just an "online" or "offline" icon. You have to be in person to send messages. The other half of this equation is that you let people who aren't carrying any equipment teleport wherever they want.
Suddenly, you've created a class of people who journey all over the universe without any equipment. They carry messages, make maps, and so forth - but they can't take on any monsters.
A secondary class of people - bankers - pop into existence. Their whole purpose is to provide teleporters with local equipment and/or money - obviously, only to the the teleporters who have deposited money before. Probably via physical courier.
Why stop there? Why not make flight a possibility. Requires a jet pack or something. This gives all sorts of weird penalties - maybe you can only fly with a maximum of twenty pounds of inventory or something. What do these people do? They race around couriering gold and valuable baubles. They scout and map more reliably than the teleporters. They have to navigate winds, avoid air monsters, whatever. Make it interesting somehow.
How about a group of people for which gravity is reversed. They live on the underside of the sky - instead of seeing stars, you see the lights of their homes. They fly up on occasion to trade with you - while upside-down.
Make it more interesting: how about people for whom both gravity and matter is reversed? They walk on the atmosphere, breath the earth. Someone's house is, to them, a bizarre pit-like structure. This creates a weird tension where people from opposite sides of the surface are vying for land rights - or "air rights".
How about a group of people who can see through other people's eyes? Or see heat instead of light? Or life instead of either?
You can create so many dynamics, just by messing with how people perceive and move through the space you have created. Why limit yourself to eighteen variants on "kill monsters" and four variants on "make crap"?
We haven't even touched different ways of viewing time. How about someone who sees motion vectors? How about a one-player game where everything happens backwards in time?
Space itself doesn't have to be linear or 3D... there's so many options. The world does not have to be the way games keep portraying it.
I just wanted to talk a tick about gameplay that most people miss. The innate gameplay involving time and space.
There's a set of restrictive rules and tradeoffs inherent in time and space. Many games simply let this slide without taking advantage of these rules. In the other gameplay loops - such as shooting monsters, earning cash, or building a house - the game tweaks and twists and explores every possibility.
But in the innate gameplay of time and space, few games explore other possibilities. Few games tweak or use it.
I think this is a real shame, because it's such a deeply integral experience. It's the perfect thing to tweak.
I suppose I should explain what the hell I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the act of walking around the game world. About what you see, how you move. The fact that in order to go one place, you have to not go somewhere else. In order to be near something, you have to be further from other things.
Here's some examples of the way this can be tweaked, and the success of these tweakings:
Frogger. Very popular. Pong. Very popular. Why? Because they were the first?
Yes, but their whole game was based around navigating space in a way few people had conceived of until that moment. Space as a set of hard, chunky coordinates - combined with realtime speed? How bizarre! Chunky coordinates, such as chess, always meant turn-based before.
Toejam and Earl. Classic Sega. Very popular in its day. Why? Because it was wonky and goofy? Yes. It also played havok with space and the way you travel across it (time). The whole game was maps of bizarre floating maze-islands, combined with rocket skates, jumping boots, and Icarus wings.
This made for an extremely bizarre game, at least until you got used to it. Movement was the key difficulty. Of course, the game turned out to be painfully repetitive, but that was hardly the idea's fault. After all, a similar idea was aced perfectly with:
Gauntlet. You can see sooooo much further than you can walk. Your relative vision is enormous - you have plenty of time to react. But you don't know, really, which way to go. You're stuck in a maze. A brilliant reversal of the standard:
Racing Game. Any racing game. These things don't let you see very far and make you move exceedingly fast. Spy hunter, for example. Or Gran Turismo. Whatever. This makes navigating space a massive twitch-level challenge. The repetitiveness of the levels made for easy navigation, which is one of the reasons I never much cared for these games. Instead, I liked:
Sonic the Hedgehog. Fast as a racer, but without the simplicity of a racer. You have complex goals and a complex level to do them in. While you could slow down to keep your relative vision high (giving you time to react), much of the game's cool stuff could only be found racing through at top speed.
All of these games. Popular, popular, popular!
How about more recently? Prince of Persia - allows you to do some really fantastic spatial navigation. Brilliant stuff which breaks all the norms in a really coherent way. But if you really want spacial navigation that breaks the norms brilliantly, Sly Cooper is the series for you. Absolutely brilliant, if not quite as popular.
How about Psychonauts? Have you seen some of those levels, twisting and breaking like a superior version of Toejam and Earl?
FarCry: Instincts gives you different ways of perceiving and moving through the levels. The only thing that was brilliant about that game.
Soul Reaver had two different versions of the same world, connected such that moving through one moved you through the other. Fascinating.
All these games - and many others - change the ways you look at and move through levels. They alter the basic relative vision that the player has from the everyday norm.
Even just this little amount of tweaking provides a game with a special sparkle, something that sets it apart from other games. But why tweak a little, when you can tweak a lot?
Nearly all games show space as space. You have an avatar (or, at least, a viewscreen) and you zoom through space at set maximum speeds, able to see a set distance, travelling in set ways.
Why not change the nature of how you travel? How you view "speed"? How you think of "distance". Even change the nature of space itself from being a simple 3D or 2D navigation?
Why not have it so that the faster you go, the further you can see ahead, but the less you can see off to the sides? How about a level where travelling doesn't necessarily move everything in that direction closer: just the thing that you're travelling to. How about a level where the faster you move on one axis, the slower you move on another axis, and visa-versa? How about just a game which lets me fly instead of walk?
It could make for some fascinating games, don't you think?
Here's the thing about the way a player perceives and travels through space in a game (the game's "space-time"): it determines how the player interacts with the rest of the world.
Imagine an MMORPG. Doesn't matter which, they all treat space the same.
You have a certain max speed cap, which is generally agreed to be abominably slow. The world has a certain size, which is generally agreed to be hideously large. There are ways to get from here to there, but they either cost money or take quite a lot of time. Or both. Boats, teleports, whatever.
This leads to an entire division of people whose sole purpose is to run from one end of the universe to the other, moving goods that aren't available at the other end of the universe.
You created this job class by designing your world like that. Is it bad?
Well, no, not really. It is underdone. There's no reason to make it such a boring job. Why not have a minigame of some variety? For example, teleportation can only be done with an accuracy determined by your skill at a puzzle game. Or interstellar travel generally has quite a lot of pirates running around.
But if you can create that job class by designing the basics of your world, you should be able to create others. Right?
How about a universe with no IMs, just an "online" or "offline" icon. You have to be in person to send messages. The other half of this equation is that you let people who aren't carrying any equipment teleport wherever they want.
Suddenly, you've created a class of people who journey all over the universe without any equipment. They carry messages, make maps, and so forth - but they can't take on any monsters.
A secondary class of people - bankers - pop into existence. Their whole purpose is to provide teleporters with local equipment and/or money - obviously, only to the the teleporters who have deposited money before. Probably via physical courier.
Why stop there? Why not make flight a possibility. Requires a jet pack or something. This gives all sorts of weird penalties - maybe you can only fly with a maximum of twenty pounds of inventory or something. What do these people do? They race around couriering gold and valuable baubles. They scout and map more reliably than the teleporters. They have to navigate winds, avoid air monsters, whatever. Make it interesting somehow.
How about a group of people for which gravity is reversed. They live on the underside of the sky - instead of seeing stars, you see the lights of their homes. They fly up on occasion to trade with you - while upside-down.
Make it more interesting: how about people for whom both gravity and matter is reversed? They walk on the atmosphere, breath the earth. Someone's house is, to them, a bizarre pit-like structure. This creates a weird tension where people from opposite sides of the surface are vying for land rights - or "air rights".
How about a group of people who can see through other people's eyes? Or see heat instead of light? Or life instead of either?
You can create so many dynamics, just by messing with how people perceive and move through the space you have created. Why limit yourself to eighteen variants on "kill monsters" and four variants on "make crap"?
We haven't even touched different ways of viewing time. How about someone who sees motion vectors? How about a one-player game where everything happens backwards in time?
Space itself doesn't have to be linear or 3D... there's so many options. The world does not have to be the way games keep portraying it.
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