I was thinking about computer games where you control a party of heroes.
One of the things I always felt was difficult about these systems is balancing status effects. Status effects always felt extraordinarily irritating to me. All of them. I've never seen a status effect I thought made the game more interesting, with the exception of reflect.
The core problem with status effects is that they are essentially time fees. They force you to spend precious actions fixing them. There's not much difference between being turned to stone, blinded, stunned, paralyzed, KOed, killed, berserked, charmed, confused, muted, toaded, etc. If they have any effect at all, they basically make that character useless until you spend time fixing that character. So they "drain" your action time until you "spend" some action time to fix them.
Sure, they vary in details. They can be healed in various ways, and some are "high-functioning" states (such as berserking a warrior), but the details don't really make them feel interesting to me. When I run into a status-effecting enemy, the basic thought is "how fucking irritating. I'm going to spend half this battle treating status effects rather than fighting."
So... how can you make a status-effect-ridden RPG interesting?
Change how time works!
Every phase (no turns, just phases) you can command only one hero to take an action. This uses up all her action points. The more action points she has, the more powerful her attacks are (and perhaps the more high-level attacks open up).
Every phase, every hero gains an action point - two, if they are not available to be commanded due to an enemy-inflicted status effect.
Battles are longer, and multi-phased. Rather than distinct random encounters, you would face an unending trickle of enemies as you explore, push through, and defend positions. Action points carry over throughout this.
So if a character is, say, swallowed by a fifteen-foot slime monster, that character cannot take any actions. But that's not so crippling: you can only make one character take an action per round, anyway. While he's incapacitated, he's gaining action points at twice the normal rate. So when you kill the slime, he's freed and now has a bank of action points that make his next attack ten times as strong as normal.
Of course, you can also do ongoing attacks. The warrior might be told to attack a skeleton knight. It's not just a one-shot attack, but an ongoing fight where damage is dealt every phase. The warrior gains no action points while he does this, but it deals ongoing damage and keeps the skeleton knight busy...
Straightforward and, I think, probably kind of fun.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
What's Up With Kickstarter?
Some people I generally respect really hate Kickstarter. They cite all sorts of reasons, such as the fact that less than half the projects get funded (that sounds high) and that only half of them deliver exactly what is promised (that also sounds high). They call it "the new reality TV" and so on.
Firstly, let me be clear. Kickstarter is just the gorilla in this game, not the game itself. There are plenty of other funding platforms that do more or less the same thing, such as Indiegogo, Rockethub, etc. We'll be talking about Kickstarter because everyone is familiar with it.
Second, there is probably a bubble here. Like in the nineties, there was an internet bubble. But when the bubble popped, the internet didn't go away. It just became integrated with everything we did. A technology bubble "popping" isn't the same as, say, a housing bubble or stock market bubble. So even if this bubble pops, it doesn't mean crowdfunding is going away.
Crowdfunding is here to stay because we can now talk to each other at a speed and depth never before imagined in the history of humankind. When the bubble pops, it'll simply be that crowdfunding has become commonplace enough that it's no longer a spectacle.
Which is, I think, the reason many people don't like Kickstarter. They see it as a spectacle.
So, let's talk about the things they hate.
They hate the low delivery rate.
That's valid, but it's also a misunderstanding. This is not a mall. This is not a market. This is not an investment brokerage.
I have chosen to simply accept the low delivery rate, and adjust my donations accordingly. As a patron, you should never have such a stake in a crowdfunded project that you will actually suffer if it falls through. That's foolish.
Some people choose to try to enforce a higher delivery rate. I think this is a misunderstanding. Who would do the enforcement? Who could afford to? The moment you tried to make a host responsible for the project's successful completion, you've raised the bar to the level where nobody could ever be a host. Or, at the very least, only the most slick and corporate projects could be hosted.
The way it'll work out is much the same as in any other marketplace. You have some people who stick to the safer bets, buying from established teams with a good record. Others will sponsor newbies with iffier projects, accepting the higher risk rate. And accepting that they will probably fail.
...
People also hate the chaos and pageantry of Kickstarter.
But the chaos and pageantry that some people are offended by? That's what being young is.
It'll mature. Until then, bitching about how immature the market is sounds like "GET OFFA MY LAWN YOU... oh, wait, yer my grandkids! GET OFFA MY LAWN ANYWAY!"
Firstly, let me be clear. Kickstarter is just the gorilla in this game, not the game itself. There are plenty of other funding platforms that do more or less the same thing, such as Indiegogo, Rockethub, etc. We'll be talking about Kickstarter because everyone is familiar with it.
Second, there is probably a bubble here. Like in the nineties, there was an internet bubble. But when the bubble popped, the internet didn't go away. It just became integrated with everything we did. A technology bubble "popping" isn't the same as, say, a housing bubble or stock market bubble. So even if this bubble pops, it doesn't mean crowdfunding is going away.
Crowdfunding is here to stay because we can now talk to each other at a speed and depth never before imagined in the history of humankind. When the bubble pops, it'll simply be that crowdfunding has become commonplace enough that it's no longer a spectacle.
Which is, I think, the reason many people don't like Kickstarter. They see it as a spectacle.
So, let's talk about the things they hate.
They hate the low delivery rate.
That's valid, but it's also a misunderstanding. This is not a mall. This is not a market. This is not an investment brokerage.
I have chosen to simply accept the low delivery rate, and adjust my donations accordingly. As a patron, you should never have such a stake in a crowdfunded project that you will actually suffer if it falls through. That's foolish.
Some people choose to try to enforce a higher delivery rate. I think this is a misunderstanding. Who would do the enforcement? Who could afford to? The moment you tried to make a host responsible for the project's successful completion, you've raised the bar to the level where nobody could ever be a host. Or, at the very least, only the most slick and corporate projects could be hosted.
The way it'll work out is much the same as in any other marketplace. You have some people who stick to the safer bets, buying from established teams with a good record. Others will sponsor newbies with iffier projects, accepting the higher risk rate. And accepting that they will probably fail.
...
People also hate the chaos and pageantry of Kickstarter.
But the chaos and pageantry that some people are offended by? That's what being young is.
It'll mature. Until then, bitching about how immature the market is sounds like "GET OFFA MY LAWN YOU... oh, wait, yer my grandkids! GET OFFA MY LAWN ANYWAY!"
Friday, August 03, 2012
Gripping Turn Based Combat
Turn based combat bothers me a little. See, it originally evolved for war games. Giant maps in your basement covered in little tanks and fake trees. The whole point was that it allowed you to play a game with waaaay too many moving parts and rules.
Now we see it in many other places. For example, computer RPGs. So we're using a system developed to keep details under control in the absence of a computer... on a computer that can keep details under control anyway. That's the definition of irony, according to a song I once heard.
Today I was also thinking about gamefeel. Turn based systems are usually about choosing which tactic to use. Considering how awesome it feels to take a turn is normally not high on the list of considerations. But what if we were to do just that?
What could we come up with if we wanted to do a sort-of-turn-based combat system while focusing on it being responsive and fun to use?
It's an interesting challenge. The play has to respond to the player's touch sharply and tightly, but you have to have depth and skill involved. The player has to be able to see exactly what is going on, and his actions should become second-nature enough that he does them automatically to express his wishes, rather than having to think about traversing menus.
I'm also arbitrarily writing off the idea of a detailed grid map, mostly because I think the grid map is too tightly linked to our concept of a turn-based game, so using it would limit our creativity.
I think an answer is in the initiative system. I think everything can boil down to initiative. Who gets turns, when. Moreover, how many turn-order phases your action can execute for before being interrupted.
Imagine that every battle's centerpiece was a giant turn order wheel. You could clearly see who gets to go, when. Let's say Anna is fighting two goblins.
Anna sees herself, and she sees the goblins going after four turn-order phases on the wheel. She has a few options, such as "attack". She mouses over attack, and sees an arrow from now forwards in time on the turn wheel, shooting past the goblins and a few ticks further. Simple, right? On the goblin's turn, they do much the same. Press attack, choose a target, watch it resolve, watch the wheel spin.
Well, on her next turn she decides to do "flurry", a more advanced attack. The arrow once again flies forward on the turn wheel, but this arrow is not properly an arrow because it does not end. Instead, every two or three turn-order phases there is a hack mark and it fades out after twenty or so phases to indicate it will continue until the chain is broken. Once she selects this and selects a target, she will automatically attack that target every time there is a hack mark until she is interrupted or her target dies.
Barry is a knight, and he comes in specifically to help her with that. Barry's ability is to intercept attackers. He selects "guard" and then selects her. Now, when an enemy attacks her, Barry is in the way. Moreover, Barry's next turn happens the turn phase after he intercepts an attack, or the turn phase after Anna's ongoing attack stops.
Alternately, Chad might cast his "freeze" spell, which has a long refresh rate but causes a target enemy's turn to be delayed for quite a long time as well. There are plenty of other tactical options - tradeoffs as you manipulate the wheel.
I think this has some merit. It's very clear what is happening, when. There are a lot of fun tactical tradeoffs, and the control is easy and, if properly implemented, crisp and clear.
... Maybe I'll even do a demo of it, if I can drag myself away from the demos I'm already doing.
Now we see it in many other places. For example, computer RPGs. So we're using a system developed to keep details under control in the absence of a computer... on a computer that can keep details under control anyway. That's the definition of irony, according to a song I once heard.
Today I was also thinking about gamefeel. Turn based systems are usually about choosing which tactic to use. Considering how awesome it feels to take a turn is normally not high on the list of considerations. But what if we were to do just that?
What could we come up with if we wanted to do a sort-of-turn-based combat system while focusing on it being responsive and fun to use?
It's an interesting challenge. The play has to respond to the player's touch sharply and tightly, but you have to have depth and skill involved. The player has to be able to see exactly what is going on, and his actions should become second-nature enough that he does them automatically to express his wishes, rather than having to think about traversing menus.
I'm also arbitrarily writing off the idea of a detailed grid map, mostly because I think the grid map is too tightly linked to our concept of a turn-based game, so using it would limit our creativity.
I think an answer is in the initiative system. I think everything can boil down to initiative. Who gets turns, when. Moreover, how many turn-order phases your action can execute for before being interrupted.
Imagine that every battle's centerpiece was a giant turn order wheel. You could clearly see who gets to go, when. Let's say Anna is fighting two goblins.
Anna sees herself, and she sees the goblins going after four turn-order phases on the wheel. She has a few options, such as "attack". She mouses over attack, and sees an arrow from now forwards in time on the turn wheel, shooting past the goblins and a few ticks further. Simple, right? On the goblin's turn, they do much the same. Press attack, choose a target, watch it resolve, watch the wheel spin.
Well, on her next turn she decides to do "flurry", a more advanced attack. The arrow once again flies forward on the turn wheel, but this arrow is not properly an arrow because it does not end. Instead, every two or three turn-order phases there is a hack mark and it fades out after twenty or so phases to indicate it will continue until the chain is broken. Once she selects this and selects a target, she will automatically attack that target every time there is a hack mark until she is interrupted or her target dies.
Barry is a knight, and he comes in specifically to help her with that. Barry's ability is to intercept attackers. He selects "guard" and then selects her. Now, when an enemy attacks her, Barry is in the way. Moreover, Barry's next turn happens the turn phase after he intercepts an attack, or the turn phase after Anna's ongoing attack stops.
Alternately, Chad might cast his "freeze" spell, which has a long refresh rate but causes a target enemy's turn to be delayed for quite a long time as well. There are plenty of other tactical options - tradeoffs as you manipulate the wheel.
I think this has some merit. It's very clear what is happening, when. There are a lot of fun tactical tradeoffs, and the control is easy and, if properly implemented, crisp and clear.
... Maybe I'll even do a demo of it, if I can drag myself away from the demos I'm already doing.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Fun Magic
Lets talk about magic, especially in computer games.
The core of this essay is that magic is only interesting and useful if the effects are interesting and useful. You can come up with all sorts of zany spells, but if they don't change the game world in an interesting way, the player isn't going to care.
An obvious example of this are JRPGs such as the Final Fantasy series. In these games, the player is normally only able to play adaptively in battle - the exploration phase is typically just a stock map that doesn't change to suit the player's play style. Because of this, the spells are limited to those which are useful in battle or in prep for battle.
Moreover, there's almost always a "best" approach because of the way the battles work. Use a specific element against an enemy weak to that specific element. Use a specific spell when you take a specific amount of damage. Players can express themselves by playing differently, but this usually means "playing suboptimally" and therefore is not a very good way to let players express themselves.
Western RPGs are often more open-world, and therefore the magic often allows you to affect the world in general. The most noticeable times this happened were in the earlier Elder Scrolls games. In the more recent ones, the noncombat spells have been steadily degrading, but you still typically get lock-opening, invisibility, jumping, cause rage, and a number of other spells that have no real in-combat use but are fantastic at all the things outside of combat.
I started thinking about an RPG where you are a mage and there is no combat. Your magic is entirely limited to things which are useful outside of combat. I thought about how you might be able to do that.
In the end, I came up with a number of things you can set up in your game world such that they can be interestingly affected by magic.
1) Adding physics to combat. The difference between ice and fire is not that some enemies are weak to ice and some are weak to fire. The difference is that one encases you in a physical material while the other one causes the status effect "AGH I'M ON FIRE". Using physics in combat normally necessitates real-time combat in some way. A simple and good example of physics in combat is the Valkyrie Profile series, in which (depending on the game) juggling, repeatedly downing, and limb-striking enemies all have very different results.
2) Open world exploration. Do not cement paths, but instead allow the players to roam anywhere they can get the physics to work out. They can get on top of houses, sure - if they can figure out how. That might be a jump spell, or it might be summoning a crate to stand on. However, in these cases your spells that modify player movement should be high-level and not available right away.
3) Destructable/constructable environments. It can make it very hard to enforce a plot or reliably ambush the player, but allowing them to destroy or construct walls, roofs, floors, furniture, etc can really lure players into investing a lot of time in creating delicately polished variations on spells which do just that. So what if there's no balance?
4) Information environments. Embedding information/sensory details into the world can really make the world a lot more interesting. An easy example is a secret door. It's hidden - you can't see it. But once you know about it, the visual changes and you can see it. Another easy example is a locked door. Locking is not actually physics-based, it's just a piece of information which changes the behavior of the door. Allowing these things to be tweaked with magic can give the player endless fun, especially if he can create them and watch other players or NPCs try and figure things out.
More complexly, information environments can designate who owns specific goods or rooms, whether someone has a bounty on their head, hook a trap up to a sensor, create a trail of quest breadcrumbs that lead to the cool treasure, create a complex lever puzzle to get to the cool treasure, create trade agreements between cities, establish a road, create a destiny link between two people... and all of these can be affected by the player if you let it, allowing the player to construct the world on a much deeper level than they normally could.
5) Body physics. This includes projection (moving the camera to another location), possession (changing bodies), polymorphing (changing your body into something else), and so on. However, it also includes sub-body events such as having a wide variety of status effects (wet, painted, sneezing, broken arm) and affecting specific pieces of gear (heating armor until it glows, lighting hair on fire, etc).
6) Linked state modification. An example of this would be if your world was actually a light and dark world overlaid on each other and the player would sometimes switch between them. A fireball in the light world might resolve into a block of ice in the dark world. As the player builds the world they will find a lot of interesting balancing acts going on, especially if they can cast spells to shunt things from one world into another. For example, a fireball followed by shunting the ice from the dark world into the light world for a double-whammy.
Anyway, those are just quick thoughts. The core point is that spells can only be as interesting as the world they inhabit.
The core of this essay is that magic is only interesting and useful if the effects are interesting and useful. You can come up with all sorts of zany spells, but if they don't change the game world in an interesting way, the player isn't going to care.
An obvious example of this are JRPGs such as the Final Fantasy series. In these games, the player is normally only able to play adaptively in battle - the exploration phase is typically just a stock map that doesn't change to suit the player's play style. Because of this, the spells are limited to those which are useful in battle or in prep for battle.
Moreover, there's almost always a "best" approach because of the way the battles work. Use a specific element against an enemy weak to that specific element. Use a specific spell when you take a specific amount of damage. Players can express themselves by playing differently, but this usually means "playing suboptimally" and therefore is not a very good way to let players express themselves.
Western RPGs are often more open-world, and therefore the magic often allows you to affect the world in general. The most noticeable times this happened were in the earlier Elder Scrolls games. In the more recent ones, the noncombat spells have been steadily degrading, but you still typically get lock-opening, invisibility, jumping, cause rage, and a number of other spells that have no real in-combat use but are fantastic at all the things outside of combat.
I started thinking about an RPG where you are a mage and there is no combat. Your magic is entirely limited to things which are useful outside of combat. I thought about how you might be able to do that.
In the end, I came up with a number of things you can set up in your game world such that they can be interestingly affected by magic.
1) Adding physics to combat. The difference between ice and fire is not that some enemies are weak to ice and some are weak to fire. The difference is that one encases you in a physical material while the other one causes the status effect "AGH I'M ON FIRE". Using physics in combat normally necessitates real-time combat in some way. A simple and good example of physics in combat is the Valkyrie Profile series, in which (depending on the game) juggling, repeatedly downing, and limb-striking enemies all have very different results.
2) Open world exploration. Do not cement paths, but instead allow the players to roam anywhere they can get the physics to work out. They can get on top of houses, sure - if they can figure out how. That might be a jump spell, or it might be summoning a crate to stand on. However, in these cases your spells that modify player movement should be high-level and not available right away.
3) Destructable/constructable environments. It can make it very hard to enforce a plot or reliably ambush the player, but allowing them to destroy or construct walls, roofs, floors, furniture, etc can really lure players into investing a lot of time in creating delicately polished variations on spells which do just that. So what if there's no balance?
4) Information environments. Embedding information/sensory details into the world can really make the world a lot more interesting. An easy example is a secret door. It's hidden - you can't see it. But once you know about it, the visual changes and you can see it. Another easy example is a locked door. Locking is not actually physics-based, it's just a piece of information which changes the behavior of the door. Allowing these things to be tweaked with magic can give the player endless fun, especially if he can create them and watch other players or NPCs try and figure things out.
More complexly, information environments can designate who owns specific goods or rooms, whether someone has a bounty on their head, hook a trap up to a sensor, create a trail of quest breadcrumbs that lead to the cool treasure, create a complex lever puzzle to get to the cool treasure, create trade agreements between cities, establish a road, create a destiny link between two people... and all of these can be affected by the player if you let it, allowing the player to construct the world on a much deeper level than they normally could.
5) Body physics. This includes projection (moving the camera to another location), possession (changing bodies), polymorphing (changing your body into something else), and so on. However, it also includes sub-body events such as having a wide variety of status effects (wet, painted, sneezing, broken arm) and affecting specific pieces of gear (heating armor until it glows, lighting hair on fire, etc).
6) Linked state modification. An example of this would be if your world was actually a light and dark world overlaid on each other and the player would sometimes switch between them. A fireball in the light world might resolve into a block of ice in the dark world. As the player builds the world they will find a lot of interesting balancing acts going on, especially if they can cast spells to shunt things from one world into another. For example, a fireball followed by shunting the ice from the dark world into the light world for a double-whammy.
Anyway, those are just quick thoughts. The core point is that spells can only be as interesting as the world they inhabit.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Death of DLC
I've posted about my distaste of for-pay DLC in the past. I've been thinking about why I hate it so much. I've come up with a simple answer which explains both why I hate it and why it is going to fade away as new business models emerge:
DLC weakens the game.
If two games have the same content, but one of those games has some of that content locked behind a download wall and the other has it included for free, then the one which includes it is going to be a stronger game.
A game with DLC is weaker than the same game which includes all the DLC right from the get-go.
This isn't just paid DLC - it's all DLC. Patches, free DLC - it would always be better to simply have it packaged with the game itself.
Even if it's a free download, it's an additional step and, in a few years, you'll probably shut down your server and the content will simply go away. So the DLCified game is weaker than an identical game with that same content packaged right in.
"But DLC allows the game developers to make more money off their game, which allows them to make more content, or even a whole other game!"
That's business, yeah. Games need to make money. But business models change. I feel very sure that the "freemium" or pay-DLC method is going to die out. Not only because it is weakening the game in an attempt to cash in, but also because the nature of DLC is going to change - which I'll talk about in a moment.
I don't know what the optimal solution is, but if I'm right about the nature of content, it'll be some sort of pay-curation thing which enhances the game rather than limits it.
"DLC that comes out after the game is released is~"
Things like patches and expansions are kind of a gray area. Patches are obviously best to include with the game upon acquisition, but if you're delivering DVDs, you can't reprint them all with each patch. Technical limitations often mean you'll be using DLC to try and fix a weakness in your original game. But the point stands: the game is weaker than if you could package the DLC in it.
Expansion packs are a gray area. I have a feeling their nature will radically change in the next decade. However, once the expansion pack has come out, the original game would still be improved by having the expansion pack bundled with it upon initial purchase. Putting aside the economics of how to get the expansion pack to pay off, the game is weaker without it than if it were already included.
Well, unless the expansion pack sucks.
"There are good kinds of DLC!"
Yes, there are. For example, Oblivion has tens of thousands of mods and content updates available for it, most of which are free. You can download them and radically modify the game to your preference.
Similarly, Spore and some other "massively single-player" games relied on DLC to provide content from a massive, ever-updating library.
DLC can enhance the game. As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of DLC that make sense as game enhancers:
1) DLC which appeals to a niche. For example, a mod which radically changes the game. It could be included in the game and left disabled, but I think it's okay to make it DLC.
2) DLC which is so vast that no player will ever download more than a tiny portion. For example, the billions of costumes and characters for The Sims.
3) DLC which constantly changes and cannot therefore be packaged. For example, the constantly-uploaded Spore creations.
These three kinds of DLC cannot reasonably be packaged with the game, and strengthen the game when treated as DLC.
Can you make money off of them?
Well, sure. Rather than sell a blue outfit for 40 MS points, you could instead sell a game rebalancer where ringouts are impossible and the gravity is half normal.
But if you can stop thinking about selling DLC, there are opportunities to make money by curating the DLC. For example, if you allow players to create and sell content, you can both provide a platform for other players to buy the content and also take a small cut of the sales and also promote ever-updating packages of "editor's favorite" content.
There are tons of opportunities.
I honestly think that more and more games are going to try to leverage their players. It just makes sense. If there are five hundred thousand people playing your game, there are five hundred thousand people giving you their time for free. You can leverage that by harnessing the things they create and using them to entice and enthrall other players.
Because of this, player generated DLC is the future.
I just can't imagine it any other way. Games which harness their players will have an unimaginable edge over games trying to sell "purple shirt 32" for cash.
But games which harness their players won't be the sole proprietor for DLC. DLC will come from the players. Fast. Faster than the devs can even keep up with reading descriptions of it, let alone create. In that kind of environment, trying to charge for individual pieces of developer-created content will be... difficult. Competitive.
DLC won't die out. It'll become so omnipresent that you won't be able to charge for it.
DLC weakens the game.
If two games have the same content, but one of those games has some of that content locked behind a download wall and the other has it included for free, then the one which includes it is going to be a stronger game.
A game with DLC is weaker than the same game which includes all the DLC right from the get-go.
This isn't just paid DLC - it's all DLC. Patches, free DLC - it would always be better to simply have it packaged with the game itself.
Even if it's a free download, it's an additional step and, in a few years, you'll probably shut down your server and the content will simply go away. So the DLCified game is weaker than an identical game with that same content packaged right in.
"But DLC allows the game developers to make more money off their game, which allows them to make more content, or even a whole other game!"
That's business, yeah. Games need to make money. But business models change. I feel very sure that the "freemium" or pay-DLC method is going to die out. Not only because it is weakening the game in an attempt to cash in, but also because the nature of DLC is going to change - which I'll talk about in a moment.
I don't know what the optimal solution is, but if I'm right about the nature of content, it'll be some sort of pay-curation thing which enhances the game rather than limits it.
"DLC that comes out after the game is released is~"
Things like patches and expansions are kind of a gray area. Patches are obviously best to include with the game upon acquisition, but if you're delivering DVDs, you can't reprint them all with each patch. Technical limitations often mean you'll be using DLC to try and fix a weakness in your original game. But the point stands: the game is weaker than if you could package the DLC in it.
Expansion packs are a gray area. I have a feeling their nature will radically change in the next decade. However, once the expansion pack has come out, the original game would still be improved by having the expansion pack bundled with it upon initial purchase. Putting aside the economics of how to get the expansion pack to pay off, the game is weaker without it than if it were already included.
Well, unless the expansion pack sucks.
"There are good kinds of DLC!"
Yes, there are. For example, Oblivion has tens of thousands of mods and content updates available for it, most of which are free. You can download them and radically modify the game to your preference.
Similarly, Spore and some other "massively single-player" games relied on DLC to provide content from a massive, ever-updating library.
DLC can enhance the game. As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of DLC that make sense as game enhancers:
1) DLC which appeals to a niche. For example, a mod which radically changes the game. It could be included in the game and left disabled, but I think it's okay to make it DLC.
2) DLC which is so vast that no player will ever download more than a tiny portion. For example, the billions of costumes and characters for The Sims.
3) DLC which constantly changes and cannot therefore be packaged. For example, the constantly-uploaded Spore creations.
These three kinds of DLC cannot reasonably be packaged with the game, and strengthen the game when treated as DLC.
Can you make money off of them?
Well, sure. Rather than sell a blue outfit for 40 MS points, you could instead sell a game rebalancer where ringouts are impossible and the gravity is half normal.
But if you can stop thinking about selling DLC, there are opportunities to make money by curating the DLC. For example, if you allow players to create and sell content, you can both provide a platform for other players to buy the content and also take a small cut of the sales and also promote ever-updating packages of "editor's favorite" content.
There are tons of opportunities.
I honestly think that more and more games are going to try to leverage their players. It just makes sense. If there are five hundred thousand people playing your game, there are five hundred thousand people giving you their time for free. You can leverage that by harnessing the things they create and using them to entice and enthrall other players.
Because of this, player generated DLC is the future.
I just can't imagine it any other way. Games which harness their players will have an unimaginable edge over games trying to sell "purple shirt 32" for cash.
But games which harness their players won't be the sole proprietor for DLC. DLC will come from the players. Fast. Faster than the devs can even keep up with reading descriptions of it, let alone create. In that kind of environment, trying to charge for individual pieces of developer-created content will be... difficult. Competitive.
DLC won't die out. It'll become so omnipresent that you won't be able to charge for it.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Epic Adventure
I've been thinking about the games and media we get nostalgic about, and about how they felt the first time we played them. Not just video games, but tabletop games and books and movies and whatever.
There were some emotions that you felt when you played those games, watched those movies. The feeling in your chest that new places were being explored, and that amazing things were getting done.
We don't feel that way much any more. I don't, at any rate. I don't think it's because games have gotten less epic. I think it's because I've become used to epicness. Like a child learning to play the piano - at first, they finally manage to play "Chopsticks" and they feel a great sense of accomplishment. But that gets pretty tired after you've played it a hundred times.
There are three basic ways that people progress from that initial accomplishment. The first is that they play more complex songs, reveling in the technical challenge of the art. The second is that they play the songs they have mastered with more care and flair, imparting more meaning and emotion to them. The third is that they innovate - improvising, arranging, writing new songs.
I think we can consider the act of epic adventure to be similar to the act of playing the piano. The games we play now are still epic adventures, but we are focusing on the challenge of ever more complicated epic adventures. Our skill at epic adventuring is being challenged at a technical level, and there's definitely fun to be had there, like trying to master Flight of the Bumblebee on your preferred instrument.
But there are two other directions we can go. We can make epic adventures which allow us to express ourselves more meaningfully. And we can make epic adventures where we are allowed to improvise and arrange consciously.
Of course we can also do two or even all three at once, but it might be best to focus on just one at a time.
I was thinking about how to make an epic adventure feel epic again. More technically complex adventures are interesting, but they don't give you that feeling in your chest. I think you need one of the other models to do that.
I've been working with a few ideas on that front, but I'd be interested to hear any opinions you have.
There were some emotions that you felt when you played those games, watched those movies. The feeling in your chest that new places were being explored, and that amazing things were getting done.
We don't feel that way much any more. I don't, at any rate. I don't think it's because games have gotten less epic. I think it's because I've become used to epicness. Like a child learning to play the piano - at first, they finally manage to play "Chopsticks" and they feel a great sense of accomplishment. But that gets pretty tired after you've played it a hundred times.
There are three basic ways that people progress from that initial accomplishment. The first is that they play more complex songs, reveling in the technical challenge of the art. The second is that they play the songs they have mastered with more care and flair, imparting more meaning and emotion to them. The third is that they innovate - improvising, arranging, writing new songs.
I think we can consider the act of epic adventure to be similar to the act of playing the piano. The games we play now are still epic adventures, but we are focusing on the challenge of ever more complicated epic adventures. Our skill at epic adventuring is being challenged at a technical level, and there's definitely fun to be had there, like trying to master Flight of the Bumblebee on your preferred instrument.
But there are two other directions we can go. We can make epic adventures which allow us to express ourselves more meaningfully. And we can make epic adventures where we are allowed to improvise and arrange consciously.
Of course we can also do two or even all three at once, but it might be best to focus on just one at a time.
I was thinking about how to make an epic adventure feel epic again. More technically complex adventures are interesting, but they don't give you that feeling in your chest. I think you need one of the other models to do that.
I've been working with a few ideas on that front, but I'd be interested to hear any opinions you have.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Closed Combat
I was thinking about systems with open rules and closed rules. What is the difference?
Well, a closed rule is "you have a sword. If you hit someone with it, you deal 2d8 damage. Who will you hit?" An open rule is "which stats will you use to affect which things in the area, and which aspects will you use for an extra point, and which stats will the enemy use to defend?"
There's a lot of attraction to open rules. Open rules feel like you're empowering the player, and they are also a lot easier for the game designer to write. But it's not necessarily better game design.
A big part of playing any game is expressing yourself in how you play. Open rules initially seem like the best choice for that. However, a player can openly attempt to do random things whenever they like regardless of the rules. They don't need an open rule set to swing from a chandelier - they just need to pester the GM into allowing it.
On the other hand, a closed rule set narrows the focus. The player can now express herself through her performance within those well-understood confines. Not simply whether she prefers to be a magician or a warrior, but whether she chooses that +1 to hit on level-up or whether she goes for the free half-step.
Those are choices that have little or no merit from a narrative point of view. But they have a lot of merit from a "you're playing a game, not just making up a story together" point of view. Moreover, they offer three added advantages.
1) They are easy to get into. Whether or not a player can role play, long before there is any real narrative traction there are the rules. Long before the players have any emotional connection to their own characters, let alone a connection to the Demon Lord Bldhduhgu, they have a connection to whether they are performing well within the confines of the game. Every player can get drawn in, although some lose interest in fiddly balancing later on.
2) They are usually faster. A closed rule situation is built to execute smoothly and easily. They "front load" the most complex and creative decisions, offloading them to the part of the game that is open and largely rule-less.
3) They make exceptions mean more. In an open rule system, something unusual happening usually resolves to a simple +1 or +2 or whatever. In a closed rule system, something unusual usually resolves using a completely different and unexpected set of rules, or breaks the rules you normally rely on. This makes a lot bigger impact on the players.
EDIT: 4) They allow for much deeper tactical situations, as open rule sets are necessarily less rigid and structured as to how the battles progress.
Now, allowing the players to be as creative as possible can be good, especially if you can do it in a framework which doesn't instantly fly off the rails. I generally leave it to the "full open" sections of the game rather than the nitty-gritty rule resolution parts, but even in the nitty-gritty you can allow it or even promote it using a simple "window rule".
A window rule is any rule which allows the players to take any unusual action they can think of. For example, swinging on the chandelier rather than simply stabbing the enemy with the sword. There are a variety of window rules, some better thought out than others.
A bad window rule is "if you can come up with some piece of creative description, you get a +1!"
This rule is bad because it encourages the players to throw in random crap, and punishes the players who aren't as good at coming up with random crap.
A slightly better rule is "you can give an ally a +5 if you spend your turn doing something to help him."
Another decent rule is "the enemy's defenses can be reduced by 2 for the rest of the fight if you spend your turn doing something unusual."
But the basic truth is that if the players want to do cool stuff in combat, they will ask to do it. They don't need a special rule. The GM can encourage them to do cool stuff in combat by offering lavish rewards for anyone who comes up with a cool idea (assuming it isn't the same person over and over), as well as having the villains come up with cool ideas that work against the players.
Anyway, the core of it is that a closed rule system isn't necessarily bad. It really allows the players to jump in and express themselves, and it also allows the game designer to build up some fun and interesting exceptions that feel sharp and exciting.
Well, a closed rule is "you have a sword. If you hit someone with it, you deal 2d8 damage. Who will you hit?" An open rule is "which stats will you use to affect which things in the area, and which aspects will you use for an extra point, and which stats will the enemy use to defend?"
There's a lot of attraction to open rules. Open rules feel like you're empowering the player, and they are also a lot easier for the game designer to write. But it's not necessarily better game design.
A big part of playing any game is expressing yourself in how you play. Open rules initially seem like the best choice for that. However, a player can openly attempt to do random things whenever they like regardless of the rules. They don't need an open rule set to swing from a chandelier - they just need to pester the GM into allowing it.
On the other hand, a closed rule set narrows the focus. The player can now express herself through her performance within those well-understood confines. Not simply whether she prefers to be a magician or a warrior, but whether she chooses that +1 to hit on level-up or whether she goes for the free half-step.
Those are choices that have little or no merit from a narrative point of view. But they have a lot of merit from a "you're playing a game, not just making up a story together" point of view. Moreover, they offer three added advantages.
1) They are easy to get into. Whether or not a player can role play, long before there is any real narrative traction there are the rules. Long before the players have any emotional connection to their own characters, let alone a connection to the Demon Lord Bldhduhgu, they have a connection to whether they are performing well within the confines of the game. Every player can get drawn in, although some lose interest in fiddly balancing later on.
2) They are usually faster. A closed rule situation is built to execute smoothly and easily. They "front load" the most complex and creative decisions, offloading them to the part of the game that is open and largely rule-less.
3) They make exceptions mean more. In an open rule system, something unusual happening usually resolves to a simple +1 or +2 or whatever. In a closed rule system, something unusual usually resolves using a completely different and unexpected set of rules, or breaks the rules you normally rely on. This makes a lot bigger impact on the players.
EDIT: 4) They allow for much deeper tactical situations, as open rule sets are necessarily less rigid and structured as to how the battles progress.
Now, allowing the players to be as creative as possible can be good, especially if you can do it in a framework which doesn't instantly fly off the rails. I generally leave it to the "full open" sections of the game rather than the nitty-gritty rule resolution parts, but even in the nitty-gritty you can allow it or even promote it using a simple "window rule".
A window rule is any rule which allows the players to take any unusual action they can think of. For example, swinging on the chandelier rather than simply stabbing the enemy with the sword. There are a variety of window rules, some better thought out than others.
A bad window rule is "if you can come up with some piece of creative description, you get a +1!"
This rule is bad because it encourages the players to throw in random crap, and punishes the players who aren't as good at coming up with random crap.
A slightly better rule is "you can give an ally a +5 if you spend your turn doing something to help him."
Another decent rule is "the enemy's defenses can be reduced by 2 for the rest of the fight if you spend your turn doing something unusual."
But the basic truth is that if the players want to do cool stuff in combat, they will ask to do it. They don't need a special rule. The GM can encourage them to do cool stuff in combat by offering lavish rewards for anyone who comes up with a cool idea (assuming it isn't the same person over and over), as well as having the villains come up with cool ideas that work against the players.
Anyway, the core of it is that a closed rule system isn't necessarily bad. It really allows the players to jump in and express themselves, and it also allows the game designer to build up some fun and interesting exceptions that feel sharp and exciting.
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