Terminally Trivial

I've attended a couple of Atlanta-area game development events in the last month and have been meaning to blog about them both.  I'll talk about this last weekend's SIEGE convention soon, but I'm going to first back up to the Atlanta IGDA Chapter relaunch meeting held back on September 23.

The host for the evening was the Atlanta branch of CCP games, makers of EVE Online.  Their hospitality was astounding.  Not only did they provide attendees with plenty of space to converse, but they also provided a full steak and seafood dinner on the house… that alone nearly pays for my IGDA membership. 

In addition to facilities and food, the staff of CCP also gave a presentation entitled How to Make an MMO (in 90 Minutes or Less!).  No, you can't actually make an MMO on the scale of EVE Online in 90 minutes, but you can get a quick overview of the process.  The presentation consisted of a handful of smaller lectures covering many different aspects of MMO development.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a notepad.  I do, however, remember one point in particular.

Reynir Harðarson, one of CCP's co-founders, gave a design-focused presentation.  In it, he talked about how that many MMO's are either theme parks (find something to do, get in line, and, when it's your turn, participate in the story/quest/activity) and others are sandboxes (here's the things you can do, have fun!).  EVE is more sandbox than theme park.

Why?  Because players quit games, but players don't quit friends.

That's a simple but very profound piece of advice.  It's true that games that are more like theme parks such as World of Warcraft have been phenomenally successful with such an approach, but I really like the logic behind CCP's philosophy.  I find it particularly interesting as I've been studying the social games space a lot lately (if planting crops and running mafia missions counts as "research").  I'd say that this should be a guiding principle to anyone creating a social game.  I may not be interested in reaching yet another level when I've already leveled up 162 times, but I might just keep playing to help my friend reach his goals.

While the next Atlanta IGDA Chapter meeting will be a social gathering, Clint Hocking is scheduled (if I heard correctly) to be the featured speaker at the following meeting.  I listened to him during the "micropresentation" session and went to the game design workshop he and several others ran at GDC last March.  I'm sure he'll have something interesting to say… and I'll remember to bring my notepad this time.

I was thinking about the arcade game Time Traveler the other day.  If you've never heard of it, it is a laserdisc arcade game that uses a special mirror to project game images in a hologram-like manner.  It definitely stood out at the arcade back in 1991, but the gameplay was just like Dragon's Lair.  Players see something happen and must then hit the joystick or a button at just the right time to avoid certain doom.  It should come as no suprise that Rick Dyer was a driving force on both games.

One of its gameplay mechanics that is unusual is the Time Reversal Cube.  Instead of buying extra lives, players have to buy Time Reversal Cubes before running out of lives.  These cubes work like an undo, allowing players to replay the scene that was just failed.  It's interesting that the game wants players to buy continues before needing them.  If a game is going to offer continues, why offer them when the player still has play time remaining?  I could see offering a discount before needing any sort of continues, daring the player to beat the game and making them pay for being so cocky.  I find it awkward to have a continue mechanism and not allow for it to be used after running out of lives, the natural time for such an intervention.

While this mechanic may not make the most sense, it did get me thinking about how arcade games used inserting more coins as a gameplay mechanic.  The better the player is, the more the player can play without paying.  On the other hand, it gives weaker players a chance to actually beat the game.  This mechanic is also the precursor of the pay-to-play MMO game.  Want to keep progressing in the game?  Insert coin to continue.  Maybe someday we'll see an MMO where, instead of a monthly fee, players have to pay 25 cents to respawn.