After my recent rant about Richard Bartle, I didn't think my anti-Bartle-ire would be stirred again so soon. But it was.
Dr Bartle, Lord Professor Extraordinaire of MMO-Diku-MUD-backgammon-checkers game design, has descended once more from the mountain to enlighten us with his words of wisdom.
This time, he's telling us all about the wonders of Stranglethorn Vale. This is one of the more widely disliked zones in WoW. I'm not even going to do a blow by blow, as Syp and Scott have already got that covered.
I just want to put it out there. Richard Bartle knows squat about game design. Of course there is the distinct possibility that he actually knows ALL about game design, but since we're not one of the
"20 people in the world right now to whom this makes the kind of sense it makes to me"
us mere mortals could not possibly understand.
"I don't know if I've succeeded in any of this. However, I do know that if anyone tells me MMO design isn't an art form, I will strongly disagree."
Oh, it's an art-form my friend. You're just not an artist.
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6 comments:
>After my recent rant about Richard Bartle, I didn't think my anti-Bartle-ire would be stirred again so soon. But it was.
Well stop reading my blog then if it bothers you so much.
>This time, he's telling us all about the wonders of Stranglethorn Vale.
No, I'm telling the few people who read my blog about one quest hub in STV. I give some of the context necessary to explain it, but I'm not talking about STV itself, just that quest hub.
Of course, if you were merely looking for another excuse to take a pot shot at me, that wouldn't really matter to you.
>This is one of the more widely disliked zones in WoW.
And it could have been a lot more disliked.
The repercussions of many of the broader design decisions that were made in WoW come together in STV. By all rights it should be a terrible mess. However, the designers have managed to lessen the impact of these multiple blows through good design of local systems. You may not like the result, but if they'd only made half as good a job of it as they did you would hate it much, much more.
Anyway, that's incidental. As I said, I wasn't actually commenting on the zone as a whole, I was commenting on that particular quest hub.
>I just want to put it out there. Richard Bartle knows squat about game design.
You have some basis for making this assertion?
>us mere mortals could not possibly understand.
OK, I'll do the same to you as I did to Syp: call you out. If you think of MMOs the same way I do, it shouldn't be all that hard for you two write a piece like I did examining the art behind one quest. Choose any quest, I don't care. Write a Lit Crit style explanation of what you see in it, and why it's art. If you do see MMOs the same way I do, there should be dozens of quests leaping into your mind right now that impressed you with what they said. Choose one and tell us about it.
>Oh, it's an art-form my friend. You're just not an artist.
And where did I say I was?
Richard
O.o
Ahh yes, I was mistaken - the Emperor's New clothes are indeed wonderous. How could I not have seen it before?
I am not saying that fiddling with the position/rewards/staggering of quests in an MMO is unimportant - it is clearly useful to get the balance right.
However the importance of this pales in comparison to the importance of having solid gameplay mechanics for the players to experience.
The analogy that you gave to Syp about feeling like a movie director who started a genre does not quite seem to fit. I would liken it more to being the person who invented opium, and finding some pleasure in strolling down the back streets of suburbia and watching crack houses at work. Sure, the people seem to be addicted to the product, but this does not mean that it's good for them.
So, you see, I can not write a positive review of a single quest in an MMO that I thought was well designed. I could write many of well-designed single player RPG quests.
However, my main interests lie in exploring the combat systems available to class-based team games. Have a troll through the history of this blog if you feel like it - most of the good things I have had to say lately relate to Guild Wars and Left 4 Dead. Bad things have related to World of Warcraft, WAR, and City of Heroes.
Other than those things, I sometimes like to throw my own ideas into the works. A particularly detailed one can be found here:
http://word-of-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/02/playable-non-playable-characters.html
Anyway, they are just that, ideas, and I don't have any design credentials to back them up. But if some budding developer sees some of the ideas and it sows the seeds of intelligent game design in their heads, who knows, maybe some day down the track we will break away from the status quo of MMO game design that you have handed down to us, and enter a new age of...well... actual gameplay in MMO's.
Also note that I do mention from time to time non-MMO games, which we could perhaps abbreviate to NMMORPG's, or just 'games' for short. Although I don't read your blog regularly (being instead directed there by the links of others from time to time), I haven't seen any discussion about game design principles that could actually apply to games in general. Instead, it's all specific to MMO's.
If you were both an accomplished game designer and an accomplished MMO designer (or at least, had some intelligent commentary about game design in general), I could see how you would have a leg to stand on in comparing the level of art required of good MMO design compared to the level required for game design in general.
>the importance of this pales in comparison to the importance of having solid gameplay mechanics for the players to experience.
Why can't you have both?
If Blizzard had gone out of their way to put something bad in, just to make an artistic point, you could have a case. That's not what's happened here, though. Here, the whole zone started off handicapped by the cumulative effects of earlier design decisions; it was always going to be problematical. The designers tried to reduce the damage, and in that regard I think they succeeded. Some of what they did both reduced the damage and was art.
>The analogy that you gave to Syp about feeling like a movie director who started a genre does not quite seem to fit.
You'd know, would you?
>I would liken it more to being the person who invented opium, and finding some pleasure in strolling down the back streets of suburbia and watching crack houses at work.
If you want to make a general comment about the addictiveness of MMOs, sure, you go right ahead. I gave my analogy about movies in response to a question about how I experience MMOs as a designer. If you want to make some out of nowhere analogy on some other aspect of MMOs, er, OK, but that doesn't invalidate my own analogy.
>So, you see, I can not write a positive review of a single quest in an MMO that I thought was well designed.
Why not? Because you don't think any quests are well designed? Because your addiction to playing distorts your view too much? Because you so want to believe that the emperor has no clothes, you still wouldn't see them if he were wearing a burka?
>my main interests lie in exploring the combat systems available to class-based team games.
This doesn't seem to preclude your taking time out to spit at me, though...
>playable-non-playable-characters.html
We had some of this in text MUDs, but yes, it would be good to see it in MMOs. There have been some experiments, such as LotRO's monster play, and even WoW has a shadow priest spell for temporarily controlling an enemy. Much more could be done, though, I agree.
>if some budding developer sees some of the ideas and it sows the seeds of intelligent game design in their heads, who knows
Indeed. It's just as well that not everyone responds to opinion pieces with an outpouring of sarcastic, snarky ad hominem attacks that misrepresent both what's being said and the person who's saying it, isn't it? Otherwise, those ideas would never see the light of day.
>Although I don't read your blog regularly (being instead directed there by the links of others from time to time), I haven't seen any discussion about game design principles that could actually apply to games in general.
Oh, I do occasionally put things there on that subject, they're just not linked to by people who want to start a lynch mob.
>Instead, it's all specific to MMO's.
It's not specific to anything. Today it was video cards; yesterday it was TV quizzes; the day before it was 1980s Egyptian police vans; the day before that it was how dictionary entries reflect cultural changes; the day before that it was the Eurovision Song Contest; the day before that was the MMO post that incited you to gouge me when you heard about it.
>comparing the level of art required of good MMO design compared to the level required for game design in general.
I wasn't making that comparison. How did you get the impression I was?
No, really, how did you manage to read my post and come out with the impression that I was comparing the level of art in MMO design with that in games in general?
I was saying that MMO design is art. I do believe that game design is also art, but I wasn't making that point here.
You seem to consider yourself something of an expert on game design, so why don't you write a piece about it yourself? Not about the mechanics, about the art of design. That would help us both.
Richard
> Why can't you have both?
Staggering the achievement system well does not seem like it would be nearly as challenging as making a varied, well balanced, engaging gameplay experience. This is why I think that your example of appropriate quest progression in MMO's is not a good way to prove your point that MMO design requires art. I did not mean to imply that both can not co-exist in an MMO (although frequently, they don't).
To paraphrase: Quests? Who gives a kobold's right nut about quests?
> You'd know, would you?
Know what? Whether an analogy is apt to a given situation or not? I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with that.
> If you want to make some out of nowhere analogy on some other aspect of MMOs, er, OK, but that doesn't invalidate my own analogy.
The addictive nature of MMO's is tied directly to the achievement system and hence to the quests, which you are lauding as some higher art form of game design. I am arguing that it is actually quite simple to addict people to an achievement system (drugs), and much harder to create engaging gameplay (movies). This is why I think my twist on your analogy was directly relevant.
> Why not? Because you don't think any quests are well designed? Because your addiction to playing distorts your view too much?
I think most MMO quests are poorly designed, I thought I made that clear.
I'm not addicted to playing them, given that I don't actually play them. I've never been able to subscribe for more than a couple of months to any subscription MMO - although I do have a couple thousand hours of Guild Wars time logged up, because it thankfully has a grind-for-looks only mentality that does not force me to invest time to experience content.
So no, I'm not addicted, but it does bother me that the addictive design leads to the creation of grind-fest games that waste the potential of a possibly wonderful genre.
> Because you so want to believe that the emperor has no clothes, you still wouldn't see them if he were wearing a burka?
I don't even know what to say to that. I'm sure you didn't mean to sound like you wear a metal hat on your head. I would have thought it was quite clear that I do indeed want the Emperor to be wearing clothes (i.e. I want MMO's to be better).
> This doesn't seem to preclude your taking time out to spit at me, though...
There are two ways to cause people to want to adopt your ideas. One is to give them good ideas. The other is to shoot down the alternative ideas. I do these both in equal measure.
I haven't launched personal attacks against you, simply your views on game design. I'm not sure why you are so offended - given the relative anonymity of this blog, you can't really be worried about what people might think when they read this. Hopefully it means I've struck a chord and challenged you to think about the way that you approach MMO design.
> Oh, I do occasionally put things there on that subject, they're just not linked to by people who want to start a lynch mob.
I would not imagine they would. If you want to throw me a couple of links I am interested to take the time out to read them. If it turns out that you do appreciate contemporary aspects of game design then much of my criticism against you would be rendered void.
> I wasn't making that comparison. How did you get the impression I was?
Things only have worth in comparison to other things. I wouldn't compare a child's finger-painting to a Monet, for example. If you say that something is art than it better damn well look like art compared to similar objects of interest.
> why don't you write a piece about it yourself? Not about the mechanics, about the art of design
There are several interesting aspects of game design. One of them is the choice and appropriate scaling of interesting mechanics. This is what I mainly write about here, as it's what I identify with. And as I've said, I think it's much more important than getting the progression of achievements down. Which is why I'd love to read something from you that tackles something a little more 'gamey' in content.
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