Saturday, June 04, 2011
Friday, June 03, 2011
Joel Bylos talks The Secret World's endgame
Massively: The recent dev blog mentions being able to see the real-world areas represented in the game's version of New York on something like Google Maps. Can you give us an idea about the size of explorable New York in TSW? Is it the whole city? A particular borough? A few blocks? What about London and other urban locations?
Joel Bylos: It's not the whole city; it's a part of it, a small neighborhood if you will. The idea is to capture the feel of the city, not to be identical to it, but we have taken a lot of inspiration from the real-world locations, hence the reference to Google Maps. Seoul is roughly the same size as New York, whereas London is the largest of the hubs.
The hubs are themed to the secret societies as well, the Illuminati are not in the habit of advertising their presence, the Dragon are, well... insane, and the Templars are by far the most public of the secret societies.
Video game cities often feel a bit soulless due to the inability of the player to explore all of the buildings. Conversely those that have tried to make every door accessible (like Matrix Online) have resorted to repetitive interior design. What is Funcom's take on this problem? Can you explore a lot of the buildings in TSW's cities or is the player mainly traveling through exteriors until you get to mission content?
The locations that are important can be accessed, else the doors are closed. And the accessible locations are unique, not recycled interiors, just the way it is in real life. You just can't go opening all the doors in the real world either! But players will be able to enter a lot of buildings from shops to pubs, and of course the secret society headquarters.
Previous interviews have indicated that the game world is open and relatively zone-free. Does that restrict the sizes of the cities and playfields that you can build?
The game world is open in the sense of there being no hard gameplay blockers between areas (like levels), but technically the game still uses zones. However, we are devising a way to handle transportation between areas that makes it feel less abrupt than in, for instance, Age of Conan, to make traveling from location to location feel more like a part of the experience.
We spend a lot of time hand-crafting our areas for atmosphere and we avoid doing things that run counter to that philosophy. Also, just the fact that locations are spread all over the real world would make it impossible to have the game truly seamless.
Age of Conan's Khitai areas were quite a bit larger and more open than the original game zones, but performance suffered for some users. Is the Secret World team taking any particular lessons away from AoC's Dreamworld implementation for use with the new game?
The fact that Age of Conan uses the Dreamworld engine is a massive bonus for The Secret World, of course. The engine is continually improved by our tech team but the value of getting direct feedback from a populated live game can not be overstated. Recently there have been improvements like the addition of Phys-x for server side collision, etc.
Our developers have made vast improvements to the engine, even since the release of Rise of the Godslayer. The Secret World is also continuously pushing the development of the engine forward. On the design side, we pay close attention to the lessons learned from all of the other projects.
The dev blog mentions the use of various objects in the course of doing mission content (vacuum cleaners, phone books, etc.). Can random game objects be wielded in combat or is it more along the lines of certain objects triggering certain encounters?
The answer is both yes and no. The Yellow Pages, for example, can be used whenever the player feels like it. But when on a mission that requires the player to look in the Yellow Pages, they might find some information highlighted that was not highlighted before.
Other things, like the vacuum cleaner, form a part of a specific mission and can not be wielded like a regular weapon outside of that mission. We have some very interesting non-mission related interaction mechanics which tie directly into the skill system.
The dev blog also contains some exciting references to endgame ("every minute of play is the endgame" and "there are no 'you need the blue key to continue' moments"). Can you give us an idea of TSW's endgame? Does it involve aspects of the traditional raid/gear ladder? Is it more story-focused? Is it PvP-focused (and/or focused on experimenting with skill builds)?
It depends on how you define endgame. From my perspective endgame is generally when you have gotten far enough to start being able to access the interesting content. In The Secret World there are all the things you would expect from a traditional MMO endgame: Gear, dungeons and so on. The difference is that shortly after character creation, you can jump right into whichever of them you want and still stand a chance of surviving because you made the right build for the style of gaming you want to play.
Hence, I say that there is no endgame and there are no hard content blockers. You can literally start at the end if you think you are good enough! Of course, there is still a strong feeling of progression throughout the entire game, but it's not about achieving a certain level so you can go battle a certain monster that requires you to be a certain level to stand a chance. It will definitely challenge you, it requires you to approach the game differently than you would in other MMOs.
Along the same lines, the "blue key" comment indicates that TSW will feature non-linear/sandbox gameplay. Do you consider the game a sandbox? Is there a definite progression and/or story path that you'd like for players to experience or is advancement and content consumption arbitrary and/or up to the player?
I wouldn't describe the game as a sandbox, but rather a theme park where you pick whichever rides you like whenever you like. Most missions (unless they are a part of a story arc or secret society ranking) are available the minute you finish the tutorial. All skills are available after a few hours of play. Through the story mission there is an encouraged progression path, but there is nothing forcing players to follow it before they can move on.
We really want The Secret World to be a world to our players. A place that draws them in whether their interests are PvP, story, crafting, exploration or social. Whatever they like, our philosophy is that they should be able to start enjoying it right away.
Joel Bylos: It's not the whole city; it's a part of it, a small neighborhood if you will. The idea is to capture the feel of the city, not to be identical to it, but we have taken a lot of inspiration from the real-world locations, hence the reference to Google Maps. Seoul is roughly the same size as New York, whereas London is the largest of the hubs.
The hubs are themed to the secret societies as well, the Illuminati are not in the habit of advertising their presence, the Dragon are, well... insane, and the Templars are by far the most public of the secret societies.
Video game cities often feel a bit soulless due to the inability of the player to explore all of the buildings. Conversely those that have tried to make every door accessible (like Matrix Online) have resorted to repetitive interior design. What is Funcom's take on this problem? Can you explore a lot of the buildings in TSW's cities or is the player mainly traveling through exteriors until you get to mission content?
The locations that are important can be accessed, else the doors are closed. And the accessible locations are unique, not recycled interiors, just the way it is in real life. You just can't go opening all the doors in the real world either! But players will be able to enter a lot of buildings from shops to pubs, and of course the secret society headquarters.
Previous interviews have indicated that the game world is open and relatively zone-free. Does that restrict the sizes of the cities and playfields that you can build?
The game world is open in the sense of there being no hard gameplay blockers between areas (like levels), but technically the game still uses zones. However, we are devising a way to handle transportation between areas that makes it feel less abrupt than in, for instance, Age of Conan, to make traveling from location to location feel more like a part of the experience.
We spend a lot of time hand-crafting our areas for atmosphere and we avoid doing things that run counter to that philosophy. Also, just the fact that locations are spread all over the real world would make it impossible to have the game truly seamless.
Age of Conan's Khitai areas were quite a bit larger and more open than the original game zones, but performance suffered for some users. Is the Secret World team taking any particular lessons away from AoC's Dreamworld implementation for use with the new game?
The fact that Age of Conan uses the Dreamworld engine is a massive bonus for The Secret World, of course. The engine is continually improved by our tech team but the value of getting direct feedback from a populated live game can not be overstated. Recently there have been improvements like the addition of Phys-x for server side collision, etc.
Our developers have made vast improvements to the engine, even since the release of Rise of the Godslayer. The Secret World is also continuously pushing the development of the engine forward. On the design side, we pay close attention to the lessons learned from all of the other projects.
The dev blog mentions the use of various objects in the course of doing mission content (vacuum cleaners, phone books, etc.). Can random game objects be wielded in combat or is it more along the lines of certain objects triggering certain encounters?
The answer is both yes and no. The Yellow Pages, for example, can be used whenever the player feels like it. But when on a mission that requires the player to look in the Yellow Pages, they might find some information highlighted that was not highlighted before.
Other things, like the vacuum cleaner, form a part of a specific mission and can not be wielded like a regular weapon outside of that mission. We have some very interesting non-mission related interaction mechanics which tie directly into the skill system.
The dev blog also contains some exciting references to endgame ("every minute of play is the endgame" and "there are no 'you need the blue key to continue' moments"). Can you give us an idea of TSW's endgame? Does it involve aspects of the traditional raid/gear ladder? Is it more story-focused? Is it PvP-focused (and/or focused on experimenting with skill builds)?
It depends on how you define endgame. From my perspective endgame is generally when you have gotten far enough to start being able to access the interesting content. In The Secret World there are all the things you would expect from a traditional MMO endgame: Gear, dungeons and so on. The difference is that shortly after character creation, you can jump right into whichever of them you want and still stand a chance of surviving because you made the right build for the style of gaming you want to play.
Hence, I say that there is no endgame and there are no hard content blockers. You can literally start at the end if you think you are good enough! Of course, there is still a strong feeling of progression throughout the entire game, but it's not about achieving a certain level so you can go battle a certain monster that requires you to be a certain level to stand a chance. It will definitely challenge you, it requires you to approach the game differently than you would in other MMOs.
Along the same lines, the "blue key" comment indicates that TSW will feature non-linear/sandbox gameplay. Do you consider the game a sandbox? Is there a definite progression and/or story path that you'd like for players to experience or is advancement and content consumption arbitrary and/or up to the player?
I wouldn't describe the game as a sandbox, but rather a theme park where you pick whichever rides you like whenever you like. Most missions (unless they are a part of a story arc or secret society ranking) are available the minute you finish the tutorial. All skills are available after a few hours of play. Through the story mission there is an encouraged progression path, but there is nothing forcing players to follow it before they can move on.
We really want The Secret World to be a world to our players. A place that draws them in whether their interests are PvP, story, crafting, exploration or social. Whatever they like, our philosophy is that they should be able to start enjoying it right away.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Age of Conan switching to F2P
Being a fan of Funcom games, I would like to give this a whirl this summer.
Free and Premium Content Overview
What are the differences between the free and the Premium offering?
How do the character slots work after the hybrid model launches?
How many character slots can I have in total?
What happens if I go from Premium to free?
What character classes are available to free players?
How much of the game can I actually play for free?
How do I get access to the expansion content?
Will we be able to play through all of the dungeon content?
Can a free player take part in all the raids?
Can a free player take part in Sieges?
How much personal bank space does a free player get?
Do free players earn Guild Renown?
Do free players gain Alternative Advancement (AA) points?
Are there limits to which Mount Training can be done on a free account?
Read more with a FAQ here.
What are the differences between the free and the Premium offering?
Please consult the chart below for the main differences between the free to play option and the Premium subscribers option.
How do the character slots work after the hybrid model launches?
Free players can only make two characters by default, while Premium players get eight character slots. Returning customers get to keep the number of character slots they already had.
How many character slots can I have in total?
All accounts have a maximum limit of 18 slots.
Each account type starts with a basic number of slots (2 for free players, 8 for premium players). Any slots purchased in addition to this base will be added no matter what subscription type you currently use.
What happens if I go from Premium to free?
After downgrading from Premium to free, any characters in the slots beyond the two default ones can not be played, unless enough additional slots have been purchased from the item shop to compensate. Your characters will be there, but any beyond your two slots will be unplayable. You get to pick which characters will be your included slots once you downgrade to free.
What character classes are available to free players?
The following four classes are available for all players of ‘Age of Conan: Unrated’.
● Barbarian
● Demonologist
● Guardian
● Priest of Mitra
The following classes are only available to Premium subscribers:
● Assassin
● Bear Shaman
● Conqueror
● Dark Templar
● Herald of Xotli
● Necromancer
● Ranger
● Tempest of Set
How much of the game can I actually play for free?
All outdoor playfields in Aquilonia, Cimmeria, and Stygia are available to all players.
How do I get access to the expansion content?
Access to the Khitai content is available via an 'expansion pass' - granting access to all of the expansion areas and dungeons. Anyone who already bought the expansion has this enabled automatically. Subscribers who have not purchased the expansion before do not have access to this unless they buy the 'expansion pass'.
Will we be able to play through all of the dungeon content?
Some of the instanced dungeon content will be completely free, and other will be accessed through new passes or expansion purchases.
Free dungeons:
● Tortage Underhalls (solo)
● Acheronian Ruins (solo)
● Bubshur House (solo)
● Abandoned Smuggler Tunnels (solo)
● The Maze (solo)
● Spider Caverns (solo)
● Border Ranges (solo)
● Outflow Tunnels (solo)
● Ice Cave (solo)
● Cannibal Cave (solo)
● Catacombs (group)
● Toirdealbach’s Tomb (group)
● Prison Colony (group)
● Scorpion Cave (group)
● Caravan Raider Camp (group)
● Atzel’s Fortress (group)
● Onyx Chambers (group)
Premium dungeons:
Access to Premium dungeons will work in several ways. Some access passes are a once off purchase, some allow access for a set duration, and some are linked to expansion content.
● Pyramid of the Ancients (solo) –permanent-only purchase
● Treasury of the Ancients (solo) –permanent-only purchase
● Villa Camillus, Amiel, Verde, Paetus, Lentulus (solo) –permanent-only purchase
● Slaughterhouse Cellar (solo)
● Attilius Mansion (solo) – permanent-only purchase
● Black Castle (group) – permanent-only purchase
● The Cradle of Decay (group) – permanent-only purchase
● Sanctum of the Burning Souls (group) – permanent-only purchase
● The Cistern (group) – permanent-only purchase
● Main System (group) – permanent-only purchase
● Ampitheater of Karutonia (group) – permanent-only purchase
● Halls of Eternal Frost (group)
● Imirian Ravine, Oasis of Zaara, Frost Swamp (group ACG)
● Xibaluku (group)
● Crow’s Nest (group)
● Iron Tower (group)
● Khitai Dungeons - accessed through Rise of the Godslayer expansion purchase
Can a free player take part in all the raids?
Free players may access the beginnings of raids and the raid equipment ladder, but they can’t complete tier 1 without switching to Premium access or purchasing entry to more raids, which will be available in the item store.
Free raids:
● Kylikki’s Crypt
● Yakhmar’s Cave
Premium raids:
● Vistrix's Lair
● Black Ring Citadel (all wings)
● Thoth-Amon’s Stronghold
● All raids in Khitai
Can a free player take part in Sieges?
Free players may purchase time-limited passes to the zones related to sieges (Bori and Borderlands), while subscribers may participate in as many sieges as they like, whenever they like.
How much personal bank space does a free player get?
Free players get access to half of the bank slots that are available to Premium players. In the future, further bank and/or inventory slots will be available for purchase.
Do free players earn Guild Renown?
All players may contribute Valor, Glory, and Artistry to their guilds, regardless of their subscription status.
Do free players gain Alternative Advancement (AA) points?
Free players may not earn AA points, even if they are level 80. These are only available to Premium subscribers. Free players can however purchase items to enable AA point gain in the item shop.
Are there limits to which Mount Training can be done on a free account?
Free players may only ride the horses which require the Basic Riding skill by default. Premium players retain all their mount abilities and may learn to ride swift horses, armored horses, mammoths, rhinos, tigers and wolves as usual.
Read more with a FAQ here.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
GRTV: The Secret World preview
Game Reactor has just released a new preview video for Funcom's horror-conspiracy opus known as The Secret World. Petter Martensson and Bengt Lemne have a lot to say about the title in an impressions piece that runs just north of 10 minutes in length.
Lemne talks about his experiences viewing the game at GDC, and we get to see a few glimpses of new footage from Kingsmouth and other locations throughout the world. The duo also talks about Funcom's much-publicized focus on story, with Lemne ultimately concluding that whether TSW is story-centered or not will be up to the players. "You can go and do all this [the story elements], and I think you can have a lot of fun if you do it in a group... but I think that the day the game is released, you're going to find guys that know how to do all these things, how to find these things, how to do it the fastest," he explains.
Lemne also posits that earning skill credits will be the primary motivating factor for players (as opposed to Funcom's stated aim to have the narrative drive gameplay). Endgame is also a concern, as eventually the story content will dry up, and the plan seems to be to funnel players towards TSW's PvP elements. There's more, including discussion of PvP modes and the game's "overwhelming" skill options (as well as the resulting balance issues).
Lemne talks about his experiences viewing the game at GDC, and we get to see a few glimpses of new footage from Kingsmouth and other locations throughout the world. The duo also talks about Funcom's much-publicized focus on story, with Lemne ultimately concluding that whether TSW is story-centered or not will be up to the players. "You can go and do all this [the story elements], and I think you can have a lot of fun if you do it in a group... but I think that the day the game is released, you're going to find guys that know how to do all these things, how to find these things, how to do it the fastest," he explains.
Lemne also posits that earning skill credits will be the primary motivating factor for players (as opposed to Funcom's stated aim to have the narrative drive gameplay). Endgame is also a concern, as eventually the story content will dry up, and the plan seems to be to funnel players towards TSW's PvP elements. There's more, including discussion of PvP modes and the game's "overwhelming" skill options (as well as the resulting balance issues).
Monday, May 16, 2011
Agent Changes
Agent Division Changes
Up till now, each corporation in the game had up to 21 divisions within it - Legal, Security, Distribution, etc. - each with its own agents. The missions given out by the various divisions were similar, coming from the same pool of missions available to that corporation; the difference between divisions was the relative amount of encounter, mining, trade, and courier missions given out. Yet the chance of getting one of those types of missions, by division, was quite arbitrary each time you visited an agent: For example, an Administration agent had a 75% chance of giving out encounter missions, while a Personnel agent had a 64% chance of doing the same. No rhyme, some reason.
In general, these divisions and values did little other than adding complexity to an already complex game.
So now, we've taken these divisions and amalgamated them into four simple divisions, each of which now gives out only one type of mission, meaning you won't have to decline that occasional mining or courier mission when all you want to do is blow up some Angels.
The four new divisions are as follows, along with the former divisions that have now been folded up within each:
* As a result of the division changes, a few newly made Distribution agents didn't have a destination station for courier missions within the range parameters authored for their missions, so we were forced to make those agents Security agents instead.
Connections Skills
We had to change a few other things to suit the division overhaul, all having to do with the seven "Connections" skills from the Social skill set (i.e., Financial Connections, Political Connections, etc.). These skills each granted a +5% yield per skill level to Loyalty Point payout for each of 5 or 6 divisions; in total, it was possible, with all seven skills maxed out, to gain a 10% LP boost for every division.
We have removed those seven skills from the game and will refund those skill points to you, just as we did with the old Learning skills a little while back.
So now we have three new skills in place of the former seven, these ones aptly named "Distribution Connections," "Mining Connections," and "Security Connections"; each grants a 10% bonus to LP gain per level for its namesake division. These new skills are all rank 2, as opposed to the old rank 1 skills (meaning these new ones take twice as long to train), since there are roughly half as many to train now.
Finally, if you had any of the old Connections skills or skillbooks, then they will be replaced with new skillbooks, as shown on the following table:
Agent Locations
Be warned that we'll be monitoring this change closely, along with the player activity it produces, and we will very likely move or retire a number of redundant agents as time goes on: There will now be many stations with multiple agents of the same level and division.
Agent Quality Change
In addition to the division changes, we've also implemented a pretty huge change to how agent quality works. Previously, an agent's quality, ranging from -20 to +20, factored into both how difficult it was to gain access to that agent and how much that agent paid out for missions. Yet the system by which these values affected agent access and rewards was pretty opaque, even to most devs, and the effects were not particularly meaningful.
Now, all agents in the game will have an effective quality of both -20 and +20: That is, in terms of calculating access to an agent based on your standings with his or her corporation, the system will assume that all agents are quality -20, making them (in some cases, considerably) easier to access; and at the same time, every agent will pay out rewards as if he or she had a quality of +20, meaning all agents of the same level within the same system security level (e.g., 0.6) will pay out the same amount for similar missions - and in most cases, they will pay out somewhat more than they used to.
Just be aware that these two changes, to divisions and to quality, may have some unforeseeable ramifications, and we're going to be watching carefully to see how they impact the game. Expect further tweaking, and as always, please voice your concerns and observations on our forums so we can benefit from your opinions.
Up till now, each corporation in the game had up to 21 divisions within it - Legal, Security, Distribution, etc. - each with its own agents. The missions given out by the various divisions were similar, coming from the same pool of missions available to that corporation; the difference between divisions was the relative amount of encounter, mining, trade, and courier missions given out. Yet the chance of getting one of those types of missions, by division, was quite arbitrary each time you visited an agent: For example, an Administration agent had a 75% chance of giving out encounter missions, while a Personnel agent had a 64% chance of doing the same. No rhyme, some reason.
In general, these divisions and values did little other than adding complexity to an already complex game.
So now, we've taken these divisions and amalgamated them into four simple divisions, each of which now gives out only one type of mission, meaning you won't have to decline that occasional mining or courier mission when all you want to do is blow up some Angels.
The four new divisions are as follows, along with the former divisions that have now been folded up within each:
| New Division* | Old Divisions (Amalgamated) |
| Distribution (100% courier) | Accounting, Advisory, Archives, Distribution, Financial, Marketing, Personnel, Production, Public Relations, Storage |
| Mining (100% mining) | Astrosurveying, Manufacturing, Mining |
| Security (100% encounter) | Administration, Command, Intelligence, Internal Security, Legal, Security, Surveillance |
| Research (100% research) | R&D (no change) |
Connections Skills
We had to change a few other things to suit the division overhaul, all having to do with the seven "Connections" skills from the Social skill set (i.e., Financial Connections, Political Connections, etc.). These skills each granted a +5% yield per skill level to Loyalty Point payout for each of 5 or 6 divisions; in total, it was possible, with all seven skills maxed out, to gain a 10% LP boost for every division.
We have removed those seven skills from the game and will refund those skill points to you, just as we did with the old Learning skills a little while back.
So now we have three new skills in place of the former seven, these ones aptly named "Distribution Connections," "Mining Connections," and "Security Connections"; each grants a 10% bonus to LP gain per level for its namesake division. These new skills are all rank 2, as opposed to the old rank 1 skills (meaning these new ones take twice as long to train), since there are roughly half as many to train now.
Finally, if you had any of the old Connections skills or skillbooks, then they will be replaced with new skillbooks, as shown on the following table:
| Old Connection Skills | Skillbook Given | ||
| Distribution Connections | Mining Connections | Security Connections | |
| Bureaucratic Connections | X | ||
| Financial Connections | X | ||
| High Tech Connections | X | ||
| Labor Connections | X | ||
| Military Connections | X | ||
| Political Connections | X | ||
| Trade Connections | X | ||
Agent Locations
Be warned that we'll be monitoring this change closely, along with the player activity it produces, and we will very likely move or retire a number of redundant agents as time goes on: There will now be many stations with multiple agents of the same level and division.
Agent Quality Change
In addition to the division changes, we've also implemented a pretty huge change to how agent quality works. Previously, an agent's quality, ranging from -20 to +20, factored into both how difficult it was to gain access to that agent and how much that agent paid out for missions. Yet the system by which these values affected agent access and rewards was pretty opaque, even to most devs, and the effects were not particularly meaningful.
Now, all agents in the game will have an effective quality of both -20 and +20: That is, in terms of calculating access to an agent based on your standings with his or her corporation, the system will assume that all agents are quality -20, making them (in some cases, considerably) easier to access; and at the same time, every agent will pay out rewards as if he or she had a quality of +20, meaning all agents of the same level within the same system security level (e.g., 0.6) will pay out the same amount for similar missions - and in most cases, they will pay out somewhat more than they used to.
Just be aware that these two changes, to divisions and to quality, may have some unforeseeable ramifications, and we're going to be watching carefully to see how they impact the game. Expect further tweaking, and as always, please voice your concerns and observations on our forums so we can benefit from your opinions.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The end of WoW
At least for me I think...
I posted this a couple weeks ago:
I haven't logged into WoW for almost 2 weeks now. However, I am still considering a faction change and maybe it will bring some new light somehow.
I posted this a couple weeks ago:
I've wanted to post this for a while, but I was hoping there was light at the end of the tunnel but I haven't seen any yet.
Lately, and I'm sure you noticed, that I have lost the motivation, willpower and desire to continue raiding. I login to raid, hoping it would be different, and would feel bad if I didn't and you couldn't get a raid going Ever since this expansion pack was released, I haven't had any enjoyment in raiding. The overcomplexity, random events and the amount of stress that involves defeating bosses is retarded.
On the bright side, one less caster, one less clothie and one less class token (half the raid shares the same token) to roll against. No real loss there. Lost rolls for 2 months straight vs someone is kinda depressing also.
There are some folks out there that I've played since vanilla and we have a long guild/raid history. We've had some great memories in that time.
I'll be honest here, I have thought about faction changing and hoping to find a new experience there, but I fear it will just be the same deal.
Convince me. Convince me there is light at the end of the long tunnel.
Account created: 11/23/04
For the first time since release:
Canceled (Expires: 8/8/2011 7:39 AM)
I haven't logged into WoW for almost 2 weeks now. However, I am still considering a faction change and maybe it will bring some new light somehow.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Introducing the Codex
There are clearly many games that have deep, engaging back stories that designers and writers have worked tirelessly to develop, but in the game, the player only sees what their character sees. Often times, the rich back story is used only for the context of quests, and players never really get the bird’s eye view of the narrative. The ‘big picture’ can become even more confusing and incomplete if the player misses a quest or discovers key plot points out of order. A lot of times, what ends up happening, is that the player just gives up on understanding the overarching storyline, and just focuses on enjoying other parts of the gameplay experience.
Obviously, this was a matter of some concern to us. Star Wars™ is one of the richest, most engaging fictional settings in all of pop culture. We have an exceptional team of writers working hard to build and expand the Star Wars universe in the Old Republic era. As you may have heard, story is kind of a big deal to BioWare and to The Old Republic™, and that story is a lot better if you understand the context for what’s going on around you and how your actions fit in.
The Genesis of the Codex
When we encounter design problems in The Old Republic, we like to first look at other BioWare games for a solution. In this case, we really appreciated the codex used in Dragon Age, which allows players to collect pieces of the story that eventually coalesce into a collected whole. We also looked at the codex in Mass Effect. The focus was slightly different, instead providing an encyclopedic view of the universe as a whole.
For The Old Republic, we took the best of both systems, using our codex to not only elaborate on the settings you fight in and the creatures you kill, but also to plant seeds of knowledge relating to key personages and concepts from your class story and long-lost lore meant to give more feedback at large. We sketched out what we wanted, and told the writers to get to work
How much work? Current estimates of our codex are around 120,000 words of text. By comparison, the average Star Wars novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
The Mechanics of Discovery
This feature isn’t just about being another way to deliver story to the player. As Lead Systems Designer, I’m mostly concerned about bringing the fun. Delivering story and context isn’t enough for me – I also want to be sure that we add new activities for players to do and goals for him to achieve. In particular, we saw the codex as a way to reward exploration.
Long-time players of MMOs are probably, on some level, familiar with the work of Richard Bartle. He wrote what is considered a seminal work on MMO design, describing the types of players that play in virtual worlds (wondering what sort of player you are? Take one of the many Bartle’s tests out on the web and find out). He divided up the player base into killers, achievers, socializers and explorers, allowing for the fact that most players are actually some mixture of the categories. He posited that, in truth, games needed to appeal to all four quadrants to be successful. Building off his work—we see the codex as a way to enhance the gameplay for explorers.
We give away some codex entries for free. For example, we think that it’s important that players have basic background about the locations they are visiting, and key people in their class story arcs will almost always merit a codex entry. For the rest, though, we want people to explore the planets a little more, and take on some challenges a little ways off the beaten path.
Wandering to distant locations on the map will unlock codex entries about those far flung corners of the globe. Unlocking the codex entry for the k’lor’slug, for example, involves killing a hard to find, tougher k’lor’slug deep in one of Korriban’s tombs. Additionally, exploring the artifacts in the Academy’s library can reveal ancient bits of lost lore, and doing quests for various alien species can unlock their entry in the codex.
Currently, none of these are locked behind a serious challenge – our codex unlocking k’lor’slug is a challenge for its level, to be sure, but not a ‘OMGPWN3D go bring back 3 friends in epics!’ challenge – and that’s intentional. Explorer gameplay should, first and foremost, reward exploring.
The Datacrons Challenge
That’s not to say that some codex entries shouldn’t be challenging. Quite the opposite, we want some codex entries to be worthy challenges – but we want those challenges to be centered on exploration. Enter the datacrons. In-game datacrons will be a sub-set of the codex entries. The world builders had been kicking around the idea of these little world gizmos for a while now. These unique objects are placed throughout the world for the player to find, usually in hard to reach places. If you successfully reach one and interact with it, one of your stats will be increased -- permanently. The codex gave us a way to increase the visibility of these devices, and offer a player an easy way to track his progress finding them.
While most codex entries can be obtained with the players stretching their legs (searching the whole map, killing obvious targets you don’t normally need to kill), finding datacrons typically requires a little extra exploration and a even little ingenuity. While some are hidden, many are in plain sight – the trick is often in figuring out how to get to that datacron that you see on a ledge off in the distance.
The inspiration for datacrons comes from a similar game mechanic in one of my earlier projects. These items spawn in predictable locations, but are only usable by each character once. Over time, the locations of these become known, and shared lore. In this other project, the unique nature of finding these items resulted in an interesting social dynamic, where intrepid explorers, eager to prove their world mastery, organized hunting parties for groups of new players to explore these worlds and find these hidden nooks and crannies. We would not be surprised to see a similar pattern emerge in The Old Republic.
Wrapping Up
All of these features combine to make a nice little collection game for the player, where the reward for the act of collecting is more lore and context offering insights and depth into the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic. In the codex user interface, players can not only see the entries they’ve discovered so far, but also the progress they’ve made towards finding all there is to find on a planet or in a category.
Overall, the codex system has been successful at meeting our two design goals of providing more fictional context to the player, and providing an explorer mini-game with meaningful rewards. One nice thing about the system is that it’s also designed to be easily expandable – an important consideration when building a game likely to have a long lifespan through patches and expansions. We expect the codex to become continually richer and more involved throughout the life of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Obviously, this was a matter of some concern to us. Star Wars™ is one of the richest, most engaging fictional settings in all of pop culture. We have an exceptional team of writers working hard to build and expand the Star Wars universe in the Old Republic era. As you may have heard, story is kind of a big deal to BioWare and to The Old Republic™, and that story is a lot better if you understand the context for what’s going on around you and how your actions fit in.
The Genesis of the Codex
When we encounter design problems in The Old Republic, we like to first look at other BioWare games for a solution. In this case, we really appreciated the codex used in Dragon Age, which allows players to collect pieces of the story that eventually coalesce into a collected whole. We also looked at the codex in Mass Effect. The focus was slightly different, instead providing an encyclopedic view of the universe as a whole.
For The Old Republic, we took the best of both systems, using our codex to not only elaborate on the settings you fight in and the creatures you kill, but also to plant seeds of knowledge relating to key personages and concepts from your class story and long-lost lore meant to give more feedback at large. We sketched out what we wanted, and told the writers to get to work
How much work? Current estimates of our codex are around 120,000 words of text. By comparison, the average Star Wars novel comes in at around 100,000 words.
The Mechanics of Discovery
This feature isn’t just about being another way to deliver story to the player. As Lead Systems Designer, I’m mostly concerned about bringing the fun. Delivering story and context isn’t enough for me – I also want to be sure that we add new activities for players to do and goals for him to achieve. In particular, we saw the codex as a way to reward exploration.
Long-time players of MMOs are probably, on some level, familiar with the work of Richard Bartle. He wrote what is considered a seminal work on MMO design, describing the types of players that play in virtual worlds (wondering what sort of player you are? Take one of the many Bartle’s tests out on the web and find out). He divided up the player base into killers, achievers, socializers and explorers, allowing for the fact that most players are actually some mixture of the categories. He posited that, in truth, games needed to appeal to all four quadrants to be successful. Building off his work—we see the codex as a way to enhance the gameplay for explorers.
We give away some codex entries for free. For example, we think that it’s important that players have basic background about the locations they are visiting, and key people in their class story arcs will almost always merit a codex entry. For the rest, though, we want people to explore the planets a little more, and take on some challenges a little ways off the beaten path.
Wandering to distant locations on the map will unlock codex entries about those far flung corners of the globe. Unlocking the codex entry for the k’lor’slug, for example, involves killing a hard to find, tougher k’lor’slug deep in one of Korriban’s tombs. Additionally, exploring the artifacts in the Academy’s library can reveal ancient bits of lost lore, and doing quests for various alien species can unlock their entry in the codex.
Currently, none of these are locked behind a serious challenge – our codex unlocking k’lor’slug is a challenge for its level, to be sure, but not a ‘OMGPWN3D go bring back 3 friends in epics!’ challenge – and that’s intentional. Explorer gameplay should, first and foremost, reward exploring.
The Datacrons Challenge
That’s not to say that some codex entries shouldn’t be challenging. Quite the opposite, we want some codex entries to be worthy challenges – but we want those challenges to be centered on exploration. Enter the datacrons. In-game datacrons will be a sub-set of the codex entries. The world builders had been kicking around the idea of these little world gizmos for a while now. These unique objects are placed throughout the world for the player to find, usually in hard to reach places. If you successfully reach one and interact with it, one of your stats will be increased -- permanently. The codex gave us a way to increase the visibility of these devices, and offer a player an easy way to track his progress finding them.While most codex entries can be obtained with the players stretching their legs (searching the whole map, killing obvious targets you don’t normally need to kill), finding datacrons typically requires a little extra exploration and a even little ingenuity. While some are hidden, many are in plain sight – the trick is often in figuring out how to get to that datacron that you see on a ledge off in the distance.
The inspiration for datacrons comes from a similar game mechanic in one of my earlier projects. These items spawn in predictable locations, but are only usable by each character once. Over time, the locations of these become known, and shared lore. In this other project, the unique nature of finding these items resulted in an interesting social dynamic, where intrepid explorers, eager to prove their world mastery, organized hunting parties for groups of new players to explore these worlds and find these hidden nooks and crannies. We would not be surprised to see a similar pattern emerge in The Old Republic.
Wrapping Up
All of these features combine to make a nice little collection game for the player, where the reward for the act of collecting is more lore and context offering insights and depth into the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic. In the codex user interface, players can not only see the entries they’ve discovered so far, but also the progress they’ve made towards finding all there is to find on a planet or in a category.
Overall, the codex system has been successful at meeting our two design goals of providing more fictional context to the player, and providing an explorer mini-game with meaningful rewards. One nice thing about the system is that it’s also designed to be easily expandable – an important consideration when building a game likely to have a long lifespan through patches and expansions. We expect the codex to become continually richer and more involved throughout the life of Star Wars: The Old Republic.
0.0 Tweaks
In the latest Devblog:
We’re going to delve back into 0.0 development in the near future and I’d like to keep you guys in the loop of what we’re doing. There are going to be a few immediate changes coming out very soon and some changes over the long run.
Short term:
We’ve been looking into players interacting and how that ties into movement and security. Jump bridges have become a bit too much of a crutch in terms of getting around, so we’re going to apply a three changes. Basically, it’s become a very easy, convenient and safe way to travel, with little or no downside. That’s not to say you’re invincible when using jumpbridges, but if you’re in an alliance with an intel channel and a semi-decent jumpbridge network, you have a pretty overwhelming degree of safety. That safety is detrimental to interaction, both in terms of meeting friendly and unfriendly players, which is the base of our change. If it’s difficult catching people moving around, roaming/open world pvp becomes more sidelined, which we’re against. On the other hand, we don't want to take jumpbridges out, since they provide a great way of reaching whatever content you’re using quickly. Anyway, this is what’s happening:
The first change is the removal of ships with jumpdrives from the jumpbridge eligibility list. This isn’t very dramatic and long overdue. Basically if your ship has a jumpdrive, it can’t use the jumpbridge (Black Ops ships are exempt from this rule). This change will go in on the 17th of this month.
The second and third changes will go in next month, with the main patch. We will be limiting the number of jumpbridges you can have in a system to one, while upping the fuelbay to 30.000 (3x) to avoid suicide among players who do logistics. We would suggest you start reconfiguring your jumpbridge network as soon as possible.
Hopefully, this will better balance the rewards of fast travel with the risk of getting caught on the way. So you’ll still be able to use jumpbridges, but every jumpbridge link adds a normal gate jump too. Anyway, that’s short term.
Long term:
We’re currently looking into a long term plan for 0.0. I say long term, not because it’s planned for 2014, but because the work will begin this winter and hopefully go on for a while. I think the community as well as CCP feels that 0.0 is in need of a bit of an overhaul, so that’s what we’ll do. The starting point for that is identifying 0.0s weaknesses, and developing guidelines for what 0.0 “should” be. Luckily, the CSM will be joining us this month so the players are adequately represented. We’ll have several sessions with them and hopefully they will be able to contribute to our goal. To give you a quick peek at the type of topics we’re looking at when doing this evaluation (in no particular order):
We will then start implementing changes that will hopefully end up making 0.0 a better place to live than it is today. This particular area of space should offer a lot more opportunities than it does today, and that’s what we’ll put in. Good things will come. Anyway, that’ all for now. We’ll keep you updated after the CSM visit.
We’re going to delve back into 0.0 development in the near future and I’d like to keep you guys in the loop of what we’re doing. There are going to be a few immediate changes coming out very soon and some changes over the long run.
Short term:
We’ve been looking into players interacting and how that ties into movement and security. Jump bridges have become a bit too much of a crutch in terms of getting around, so we’re going to apply a three changes. Basically, it’s become a very easy, convenient and safe way to travel, with little or no downside. That’s not to say you’re invincible when using jumpbridges, but if you’re in an alliance with an intel channel and a semi-decent jumpbridge network, you have a pretty overwhelming degree of safety. That safety is detrimental to interaction, both in terms of meeting friendly and unfriendly players, which is the base of our change. If it’s difficult catching people moving around, roaming/open world pvp becomes more sidelined, which we’re against. On the other hand, we don't want to take jumpbridges out, since they provide a great way of reaching whatever content you’re using quickly. Anyway, this is what’s happening:
The first change is the removal of ships with jumpdrives from the jumpbridge eligibility list. This isn’t very dramatic and long overdue. Basically if your ship has a jumpdrive, it can’t use the jumpbridge (Black Ops ships are exempt from this rule). This change will go in on the 17th of this month.
The second and third changes will go in next month, with the main patch. We will be limiting the number of jumpbridges you can have in a system to one, while upping the fuelbay to 30.000 (3x) to avoid suicide among players who do logistics. We would suggest you start reconfiguring your jumpbridge network as soon as possible.
Hopefully, this will better balance the rewards of fast travel with the risk of getting caught on the way. So you’ll still be able to use jumpbridges, but every jumpbridge link adds a normal gate jump too. Anyway, that’s short term.
Long term:
We’re currently looking into a long term plan for 0.0. I say long term, not because it’s planned for 2014, but because the work will begin this winter and hopefully go on for a while. I think the community as well as CCP feels that 0.0 is in need of a bit of an overhaul, so that’s what we’ll do. The starting point for that is identifying 0.0s weaknesses, and developing guidelines for what 0.0 “should” be. Luckily, the CSM will be joining us this month so the players are adequately represented. We’ll have several sessions with them and hopefully they will be able to contribute to our goal. To give you a quick peek at the type of topics we’re looking at when doing this evaluation (in no particular order):
- Is 0.0 industry currently geared to support the population living there?
- Is the relationship between 0.0 and empire balanced well enough?
- Does the current sovereignty system meet our goals?
- Are there enough incentives for conflict/pvp outside sov?
- Are we happy with movement/player interaction?
We will then start implementing changes that will hopefully end up making 0.0 a better place to live than it is today. This particular area of space should offer a lot more opportunities than it does today, and that’s what we’ll put in. Good things will come. Anyway, that’ all for now. We’ll keep you updated after the CSM visit.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Black Prophecy patch 1.0.1
MISSIONS
Following new missions were implemented:
GENERAL
HUD
GFX
Following new missions were implemented:
- "Cash for clunkers", Comadrome, Level 7, Tyi
- "Valuable freight", Caldeena Tyi Hub, Level 34, Tyi
- "Boosting morale", Caldeena Tyi Hub, Level 35, Tyi
- "The prototype", Col Esera, Level 14, Genide
- "Lost in the Badlands", Elysion, Level 18, Tyi + Genide
- "No response from Station FG-31", Elysion, Level 18, Tyi + Genide
- "Escort", Gyoda, Level 30, Tyi
- "Security loopholes", Gyoda, Level 30, Genide
- "There's always something waiting...", Geneera, Level 27, Tyi
- "Crafting Session", Apo Kata, Level 4, Sapiens
GENERAL
- General performance improvements in all sectors.
- Removed exploit possibility that allowed players to collect unlimited colors in "Paint Job".
- Fixed issues with performance and missing NPCs in Bara Kaitos sectors.
- Fixed ship health display inconsistencies.
- Damage distribution changed slightly: Damage is distributed evenly among active ship items, proportional to the items' durability percentage in relation to the entire ship. The item that is directly hit (unless it's the cockpit) receives slightly more percental damage than the other items.
- Repair kit durability is distributed evenly among all active ship items, proportional to the items' durability percentage in relation to the entire ship.
- Increased the amounts repaired by the higher level repair kits.
- Fixed heavy alien fighter item values. It can turn at decent speeds now.
- Implemented better spawn point variation for weapon transporters in the Nimbus, to prevent spawn point camping.
- Fixed a bug in the mission "Energy Reserves".
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to have steering problems when switching to sniper weapons.
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to not move when they should try to hide.
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to have steering problems when breaking off from a formation.
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to ignore new threats when purposefully attacking enemies.
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to ignore turrets on capital ships.
- Fixed an AI bug that caused NPCs to randomly experience steering problems during fights.
HUD
- Quickplay/instance button and sector/station name info no longer disappear when docked to a station and activating mouse mode.
- Premium items can no longer be moved to the ship inventory while a trade with a player or NPC is already active.
- Fixed kill-assist game messages if the player is killed by an NPC, but was damaged by other players before.
- Quickplay is now correctly being disabled when the client disconnects.
- More detailed information is now displayed when a player wants to request a clan sector.
- Removed warning message when players cancel their pending mission.
- Fixed a case where players could receive an error message "mission already starting" even after logging out and logging back in.
- Reserved names filter has been updated to allow some popular, previously blocked character names.
GFX
- Fixed colony ship texture flickering.
- Fixed engine exhaust effects for Tyi fighters.
- Fixed weapon attachment alignment for Tyi fighter wing module.
- Enhanced areas influenced by player color for Tyi fighter modules.
- Correct interior scene is now shown in the Gyoda Nebula for Tyi players.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)