Today, I went to an awesome presentation by Vadim Bulitko about his most recent research. Here’s the presentation, but I’ll summarize what the presentation was about for general use. (I just found that the pdf didn’t come through the pdf export very well, apparently.) This was a presentation at UBC-Okanagan, in Kelowna, BC for reference. Vadim is thinking about taking his sabbatical here at UBC, yay!

Its a rather innovative technique, and delivers great results for only a bit of computer power.

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I was reading this very long and informative rant/lecture on the shortcomings of current rpg design. Except its dated, because it mentions Ultima Online! The saddest part of the rant however, is the fact that everything stated there still applies to the latest and greatest of rpgs, mmorpgs, etc.

I just had one idea to put out there, for the general improvement of mmorpgs as a whole. One problem with the addictiveness of say, WoW, is the unlimited play model currently in effect. The player pays ~$15 , and they could theoretically play 720 hours(One whole month, with no sleep, downtime, eating, etc).

The downsides of this model are readily apparent, in that being offered unlimited anything, is that we like to get the best bang for our buck. If you pay five bucks for a buffet, you’ll have several helpings, just to take advantage of the deal. It is a natural human tendency to do so, however, it has deleterious effects when applied to new players of an MMORPG.

It creates a pressure, both subconscious and cultural pressure, of playing as many hours as possible to take advantage of the theoretically unlimited play. This can, and does lead to addiction with the game, which in turn can destroy lives, just as any other addiction can do so.

So to combat this, the solution in retrospect is obvious: pay as you play. The idea is to offer new and casual players the opportunity to buy “hours” of game time. Instead of buying unlimited game time, the player instead buys 60 hours of game time, which can be used over several days, weeks, or months.

The benefits are simple and varied. The player can now relax, in that they have bought 60 hours of game time, and can use at any time, with no pressure to play every hour of every day. For the hard working 30-somethings that just want to relax and raid a dungeon with their friends, this is quite literally perfect. As well, it is an immense boon to not have to worry about regular credit card charges, since you’ve been charged once, and will not be charged again until you want more game time.

This is a good thing, for the players and the game designers. It produces a non-addictive game, and allows new players to literally try risk free, with no credit card numbers needed.

The more difficult question, however, is, Do you allow for players to purchase unlimited play alongside the pay as you play, or only do pay as you play?

So, I playtested Paper Knaves with my friend, Gallo Pinto, and discovered a few thing. The game is remarkably well-balanced, not allowing either player to ever gain a supreme advantage over the other. However, it is also a much longer game than I figured. It has a depth of strategy as-yet unexplored, but thats always a good thing.

A few tips: multiple stables or barracks are useless except to block movement.

sacrificing characters is nearly useless, as you can only make one per turn.

Consider all your moves carefully, and remember, you can move pieces diagonally!

So, I was talking with ruby, and we did a quick mental exercise I like to do. Basically, you take a specific genre or game, and your goal is to design a version that is as stripped down as possible. A few simple rules: All the rules must fit on a sheet of paper, and your ultimate goal is a game easily played on pencil and paper.

First, here’s my game, based off the RTS genre, which I call Paper Knaves. (If you have a better name, let me know!)
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Ah, Assassin’s Creed. I wonder if anyone else remembers feeling excited for this game? It certainly looked awesome. Innovative per-npc AI, good graphics, intriguing story, interesting gameplay. And I do remember that simply awesome promo video with the Lonely Souls song in the background. I was hyped for the game.

Who wasn’t? Why, even Ctrl-Alt-Del featured AC, and expressed excitement. Penny-arcade, Kotaku, many others were all excited for AC. Why, for a week, the promo video was one of the most-watched on gametrailers.com.

There was a very large marketing push for this game, and it ended up… not exactly meeting expectations. Why, one could even go so far as to say it was a bad game. But, this whole fiasco does remind me of one key fact with games: the heavier the advertising, the worse the game will be.

Just think about every game you’ve seen, where there were banner ads, videos on tv and the internet(where applicable), even print ads! Now, tell me if that game was any good.

There are of course, a few exceptions, namely any game made by Nintendo, Blizzard, or Bioware, and games that have already proven popular across the ocean(either Europe or Japan).

But, it seems, that when a game is felt not to be… blockbuster calibre, the executives decide to ‘cover their ass’, and push the marketing. Of course, that just pushes up the expenditures related to said game. And they even put pressure onto the reviewers(as detailed here).

The end result are a lot of broken hopes and failed expectations, and yet another broken game, pushed out before it was ready, wasting people’s time, money and effort. Is it any wonder that gamers are becoming so jaded about advertised games?