Journeys with Jaye

GDC Day Two, Part II

More thoughts and my takeaways from some of the sessions at GDC yesterday:

“The Art of War:  Effective Ways to Address the RMT Issue,” by Eyjolfur Gudmundsson and Einar Sigurdur Hreidarson from CCP

This was a great talk to kick off my second day at GDC.  RMT has always been an issue in games, going way back to that first time I saw someone sell a White Dragonscale Cloak in EQ for hundreds of dollars, and yet it’s something that MMO companies have really struggled to stop.  Some have chosen to go to war, and eliminate botters, farmers, and RMTrs.  Some have chosen to seize back that money and added in their own versions of cash shops and microtransactions.  What Eve decided to do was a little of both, but in a way that doesn’t disrupt their gameplay or cause an imbalance to the in game economy.

They explained how they took a two pronged attack against the RMTrs.  One was to create PLEX, which were basically timecards that could be purchased with isk, the in game currency.  What’s interesting is that PLEX can also be sold and traded through the in game market, player to player.  So veteran players with lots of isk can choose to buy PLEX and basically earn free playtime.  But new players also benefit, because they can buy up PLEX with real money, sell them in game, and get a quick injection of isk to their wallets, which makes their first experiences in Eve that much easier (and probably more fun).

The second part of the attack was called “Operation Unholy Rage,” and it was a sophisticated anti RMT crackdown that took place on June 23rd.  This plan began back in 2008, and was first tested in March 10, 2009.  They banned 3k accounts that day, reviewed the data, revised their strat, and launched the big crackdown on the 22nd, when they banned 6200 accounts.

What was the impact?  First off, and this was something that surprised them, they only banned 2% of their total accounts, but it led to a 30% drop in CPU resources per user.  So performance for everyone greatly improved.  Second, previously clogged systems were now more open for play.  Ingunn, for example, went from 160 players (mostly botters) down to 10.

They also studied the effects on the economy, and what they found was that some items were affected, but over time, and with some adjustments on CCPs part to certain supplies, the markets corrected themselves.

They reminded the audience that once you take action, you need to keep the pressure on.  They also mentioned that while they have made large inroads towards closing the RMT loophole, they now have seen a spike in hacking attempts.  So while they may have won the battle, it’s a never ending war.

“Creating Successful Social Games:  Understanding Player Behavior,” by Mark Skaggs of Zynga

I’m just not into Facebook at all, but I still have to see this talk, mainly because I wanted to see if there was any common ground between how traditional MMO designers and how Facebook game designers approached game development.

The message was clear – having a metric mindset is key.  Essentially, if it’s important, measure it and track it, and move away from relying on old fashioned criteria like forum posts, blogs (hey!), ads, etc.  He explained the idea of the web funnel, which is the same thing as Gordon Walton’s bucket analogy from my earlier entry.  What he stressed is that it’s important to look at why you are losing players at certain stages of their gameplay, and try to design changes to reduce that occurrence.  In addition he pointed out that even after launch, data should drive your post-launch changes.

He then moved on to talk about fun, and his description was, if a player is repeats something, it’s fun.  This statement made me wish I had attended Chris Hecker’s talk, titled, “Achievements considered Harmful?”  But I digress.

Skaggs then went on to talk about how a metric mindset can apply even to hardcore games like Command and Conquer.  By tracking player behavior over a long time, you can look for patterns, and then connect them with player feedback, to pinpoint what patterns reflect “fun,” and which reveal “boring” gameplay.

Some of this parallels what I heard from earlier presentations, and I do think that the increased role of data in design decisions is a good thing.  But when it runs directly into some of the core ideals of your game, what happens?  And what kind of game are you really making as a result?

“Making a Standard (and trying to stick to it!):  Blizzard Design Philosophy,” by Rob Pardo of Blizzard.

This is less of a summary of the talk (it’s been done a ton already) and more of a mental list of what I found interesting:

-  Regarding gameplay, Pardo said you have to concentrate on fun, and not necessarily push the technology.  In other words, the art, design, and programming should support the goal of what the game’s about.  Interesting comment, given the sea of booths displaying high tech graphics, stunningly realistic environments, and cool looking outfits that model human movement.  And then there was that giant sphere….

- Blizzard believes in the idea of easy to learn, and almost impossible to master.  He contrasted the fairly simple leveling mechanics with the highly sophisticated raid encounters of WoW.  And you say WoW is easymode!

-  He raised such questions as, what is fantasy, what is the expectation, and where is the fun – the rush of emotion?  (Hi, R.A. Salvatore!)

-  Epic is good!  He said make everything overpowered, and used the story of how he took a dragon and made it 8 times larger – the WoW version of taking it to 11.

-  Put in lots of concentrated coolness, but don’t overdo.  (WoW’s vehicle system)

- Play, don’t tell.  Amen!  Players should play as much of the story as possible, not click through piles of text.

-  The path of least resistance should be the most fun way to play.  Amen again!  Can’t help but think of the gorgeous zone of New Tunaria in EQ2, contrasted with the hideously boring solo shard quest from the TSO era.  I cry knowing that the latter is content that is used much more by players.

-  Control is king.  Pardo pointed out that players generally won’t complain about this unless it’s really bad, so be meticulous when testing it.  What comes to mind is Vanguard’s combat, and how the mob and player deaths didn’t properly sync with the combat.  But seeing that amazing demo at the Sony booth of a person’s hands controlling a sword on the video screen was an incredible example accurate controls bringing the potential for amazingly fun gameplay opportunities.

- Lastly, he mentioned Blizzard’s use of strike teams, and the importance of using people who are not connected with the project to give solid feedback during the design stages.  Polish should not wait until the end, it should be an ongoing activity.

Posted by jayernh under Uncategorized | Comments (2)