Kotaku
By: Joel Johnson
Every critic is a failed artist. What happens when a game reviewer plays designer? In Armchair Designer, I think up my ideal ( but technically-possible game). We hand my concept over to professional game designers, who shoot my pies out of the sky. This week's guest professionals are: Brian Hook, formerly of iD and Verant/SOE; Ryan Seabury, Creative Director/Producer at NetDevil; and Starr Long, currently a producer at NCSoft with Tabula Rasa. Before you ask: I asked them not to go easy on me.
My first challenge: take on the MMO. While I'm far from the hardest of the hardcore massively multiplayer gamer, it seems that most of Kotaku's staffers hold MMOs in low regard. (I guess it's difficult to put in dozens of hours of grind when you've got other games to play and Love and Berry news to keep up with.)
But "MMO" is a big target. I considered these ideas before passing them over:
• Massively-multiplayer turn-based strategy grid game with heavy PVP focus. (See: Final Fantasy Tactics; X-Com; Dofus)
• Post-Apocalyptic car simulator in a world overrun by zombies. (See: Interstate '76; Carmegeddon; Car Wars)
• Side-scrolling beat-em-up with user-upgradable strongholds and in-depth bounty hunting overgame. (See: Bionic Commando; Strider; Contra; River City Ransom)
None of these ideas were without promise—I am the world's greatest Armchair Designer, after all—but they weren't quite working me into a lather. What I needed was something with the fiduciary machinations of EVE Online, the joy of exploration provided by Oblivion and Star Control II, and the skill-based immediacy of Freespace and Deus Ex. I needed to design the world's first massively-multiplayer space opera simulator, and I needed to do it in less than two hours, because Gawker doesn't pay for shit.
Image from Grand Space Opera CG Challenge XVI
Brian Hook:
Now, here's the first trick — what are you considering? Are we talking about a game you want to play or are we talking about a game that you want to make or are we talking about a game that you feel will sell? What type of sales expectations do you have? Because, depending on budget, most of your ideas could at least amount to profitable titles. You don't need massive amounts of cash money to make a decent small scale MMO — in fact, I'm working on that kind of stuff right now — and if your target is like 1000 active players, then suddenly some niche designs are actually profitable/acceptable.This is one of the biggest hitches with being a designer or even criticizing a designer — what parameters are you using? Someone can just as easily remark how Matt Mihaly must be a crappy designer because his Achaea MUD doesn't have nearly as many users as WoW, and someone else can point out how WoW has crappy designers because it lacks any real depth.
The Interface
I like my simulators first person, with lots of strange bits of the spaceship clogging up my screen. (Unlike a lot of people, I thought Privateer's small cockpit viewports added to the experience.) But there's no reason a person couldn't zoom out to third person, should they desire. The point is, the player would have direct control over their ship or their character.
Brian Hook:
Again, who cares what you like? Why is first person the best idea for this design other than your visceral enjoyment? If it's simply because you enjoy it, nothing wrong with that, and in that case none of our criticisms will have merit since your audience is you. =)
That's right: their character. (You may shiver at will.)
Ryan Seabury:
Let me just sum up my overall professional reaction with three words: Needs more elf.No MMO is worth its salt without pointy-eared/haired/teethed skinny folk running about. Yes, this even applies to space games. (Just look at Star Trek Online!)
Unlike most space sims, I want to be able to control my conspicuously humanoid avatar inside and outside of any particular vessel in which I may be adventuring. I want to browse through the stalls of the mid-system space station's Chinatown, talking to vendors, peeking into stale cubbies for goods to swipe, even getting into a shoot-out with the local sherif if things go south. I want to be able to put on an EVA suit and sneak around the outside of a derelict freighter, searching for an airlock with a passcode weak enough to crack. I want to point the autopilot at my next destination, get out of my worn captain's chair, and spend some time decorating my tiny berth with trade items crafted by other players.
And when I defeat an enemy in a furball in orbit of a ringed giant, I want to watch their pathetically ineffective jetpack fail to keep them from falling out of orbit to burn up in the atmosphere. (Especially after I give them a little nudge.)
Brian Hook:
Well Derek, here's the thing — that's all fine and dandy, but content's the problem. One reason that designers choose a scale — personal, tactical, strategic, planetary, universal — is because you can make assets at similar relative sizes and, hopefully, know how many assets will be required. That's a big thing.The other design issue is that you end up with a hodge podge of granularity and focus. Do most players want to be able to do all kinds of wacky stuff, or are they looking for a particular set of mechanics they find engrossing? If the latter, won't they get fed up and annoyed by all the minutiae? A good example is when you have a space sim with first person elements — all of a sudden the sim pilot is like "Crap, I have to walk around?" and the first person guy is like "Crap, I have to fly this thing?" I don't think the intersection of the two form a very large population, so you end up appealing to the hyperdetail freaks that want to relive Firefly, and then you have everyone else that want to play the game they want to play and not 30 games at once.
The Physics and Scale
Space "simulators" are usually anything but—and I'm fine with that, in both ship-to-ship and intersolar scales. I'm okay with the conceit that, for the purpose of greater destruction, all parties have slowed their velocities to a relative crawl. It doesn't make good science but it's a lot more fun, offering the sort of WWII-inspired dogfights and massive fleet actions we've all loved since Star Wars decoupaged the idea onto our collective nerd hope chest.
Brian Hook:
Yay, a concession towards fun instead of realism. At least you have that much going for you. =)
Without warps, an average ship should be able to travel between planets in about five minutes; long enough to be a slight pain, but not so long as to be completely tedious. Intersolar travel would take longer using a system of gates, almost exactly like that of EVE Online or Trade Wars. In fact, as far as the game map and economy are concerned, I would lift them whole cloth from EVE. It's nearly perfect. (Too bad the primary gameplay is so dull.)
Brian Hook:
Using other games as a basis for comparison or a launching point == good. It gives you a prototype without having to build one, and it shows that at least you're open minded about things and don't have to reinvent every wheel.
Small ship physics would be the airplane-derived models of classics like Wing Commander and Tie Fighter while allowing for pseudo-realistic space maneuvers like inertial 180s. (Upgrades would allow true three-axis piloting, once the requisite skills had been earned.) In systems with micro-planetoids and dwarf stars, a skilled (and daring) pilot could even use the gravitational pull to slingshot himself to incredible speeds, avoiding homing torpedos and gunfire while putting tremendous stress on the spaceframe of his ship.
Brian Hook:
Okay...
Capital ships would be something else. While a single player could steer the big beasts, it would take a full complement of players to operate carriers and corporation ships to their full capability. (Third-person ship views would be disabled when at the helm of capital ships at first to drive home the sense of scale.)
Brian Hook:
Eeeeew. You don't want to change fundamental mechanics to "drive home" anything. Consistency is key, and removing consistency had better be more justified than "because I want them to realize it's a BIG ship!"
Capital ships become the mobile bases of corporations and guilds. Carriers could even bring other ships inside, although the large number of capital ships needed by a healthy fleet would mean that most corporations would be traveling in large groups of ships that are slaved to the flagship's autopilot. If you're thinking a universe full of meandering fleets, some more ragtag than others, then you're getting the idea.
Brian Hook:
What is the advantage of having all these floating fleets? How does it improve gameplay? How do they find each other given the vast distances of interstellar space?
Planets
Planets will be of a scale larger than ever seen in any space simulator, multiplayer or otherwise, but still wildly out of realistic scale. Each will have a surface capable of being mined by specialized ships, although in the first release of the game no permanent structures can be built by players. Instead, taking a cue from Trade Wars, players will be able to build orbiting defense stations to protect their claims.
Exploration
In an enticement to get a dedicated core involved as soon as the game launches, players will be able to permanently name systems and planets by being the first to discover them, albeit with an expensive naming fee to prevent too many "Mycockslol IV" and "{FSC} Dong's World" incidents.
Brian Hook:
So what's the point of exploring after the initial rush?
Reconnoissance will be a viable play strategy.
Brian Hook:
But, apparently, a hard word to spell correctly.
Because the game system doesn't make the universe's information transparent to all, buying and selling the latest data will form a large chunk of the game's trade commodities. A solo player might make a healthy living in a quiet, fast ship, slipping through system defenses to run long-range scans on a client's potential targets.
Ryan Seabury:
Reconnoissance will be a viable play strategy. Because the game system doesn't make the universe's information transparent to all. You actually stumbled across a stroke of genius here. The statistical likelihood of a thottbot.com for your game would be virtually zero since so few people will be playing it, making "reconnoissance"[sic] a truly amazing and possibly never-even-seen-before feature.
Sound
In a busy system with human players and many NPC ships, a wide-open radio will pick up both the in-game VoIP and computer-synthesized chatter being broadcast. Optional speech recognition will even allow you to request a landing bay from a station's traffic controller, as well as control aspects of your game and flight interface.
That radio chatter is about all you'll hear on a good day, as noise doesn't travel in our simulated space. Instead, the audio will take a cue from Das Boot and Firefly, with no noise form other ships reaching yours. That's not to say the cockpit will be a quiet place: incoming fire klaxons will bawl; mass driver fire will ping in 3D across your metal hull; the creaks and groans of your ship's frame and engine will almost drown out the sound of air whipping out of the breach in your hull. The radio chatter and weapons fire might provide your only situational awareness as you're out of the pilot's chair working to install a temporary booster to the engines.
Character Progression
Relatively simplistic compared to some games, the skills progression of characters will be based primarily on action: the more you use it, the more you improve it. (Think Deus Ex and a thousand others.)
Ryan Seabury:
What a great way to stick it to the hordes of gold-farmers and all their macro bots! At last! The average gamer will be able to compete again!
For non-capital ships like fighters and scouts, your literal skills as a game pilot will never be impeded by your character's level. A level zero pilot could outfly a level fifty—provided the level fifty pilot chose not to take advantage of the more nimble ships and better equipment his rank and resources afforded.
Ryan Seabury:
This is one thing that is great about typical MMO players. There are so many who love parading around without equipping any of the gear or advantageous items they've spent months and years earning, just letting noobs kill them over and over. I know when I first hit level 60 with my undead rogue in World of Warcraft, the first thing I did was take off all my armor and run to Hillsbrad to give all those level 20s a "fair shot". Because hey, that's fun for them!
When outside the ship, characters are extremely vulnerable, even at high levels. A smart player will make sure he's invested in strong personal armor and a nice PVP gear like personal teleporters, just in case he gets ambushed while strolling through the lower decks of his neighborhood bazaar.
Character Death
If the character avatar dies, it will be resurrected at the last station or capable capital ship the player "saved" at, with all skills intact. To prevent never-ending PVP battles and the like, a compounding resurrection timer will increase each time the player dies in a set window. First death, instant resurrection; second, a minute; third, two minutes; and so on, up to a maximum threshold of an hour.
Ryan Seabury:
There's nothing that says "Subscription Revenue" like ever-increasing death penalties. I know after that 3rd time of being ganked by xXX==LordShadow[EMO]==XXx in my first 60 seconds of playing, I would just be itching to get back in there and give it another go after a good 60 minute "time out." Bonus: 60 minutes of waiting to respawn would give me ample time to change my subscription to the 12 month plan and read up on the undoubtedly rich backstory on the website.
Brian Hook:
Designer Mistake #33 — excessive detail. An hour? What makes you think "an hour" is right? Describe the mechanic, but don't think about the specific details, leave that as "determined by testing".
Like EVE, a player always has the option to purchase an entry-level ship for free upon resurrection. A player may also choose to be resurrected in one of the "Core" systems if they find it too difficult to escape their previously chosen saved resurrection location.
Visuals
Who cares? As long as it is pretty, filled with lots of unrealistic shiny nebulae and glittering C-beams, I couldn't care less what the ships look like. Okay, that's not entirely true—I'm sort of partial to big, steel submarine-looking vessels, not unlike the new Galatica, although with less ornamentation. (The submarine-inspired capital ships of the Wing Commander movie were one of its few redeeming qualities.)
Ryan Seabury:
Your succinct and cutting vision for the look of the game described in your visuals section would be a true inspiration to any artist. In fact, it's so clear just from reading that, you should probably skip hiring an Art Director and get yourself a silver-covered toilet seat from which to admire the latest cohesive, brilliant screenshots of your game in undisturbed privacy. You might have been thinking gold-covered, but speaking from experience that would be ostentatious and might distance you from your production staff. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices as the visionary.
Minigames
So far I admit that most of the ideas I'm putting out there aren't terribly innovative, but I really think this aspect could be folded into not only this space MMO, but to most new MMOs in general. I would like to see optional minigames all over the place in this game to help break up the monotony of play and to give players who aren't quite high level enough a remote chance to crack a lock or sneak past a security bot. Come in for a hot landing to refuel during a long dogfight and get a shield boost for lining up the skid across the deck. (Landing and docking minigames should be an extension of the engine, mind you, with the game recognizing exemplary performance, like the Burnout series.)
Brian Hook:
cf. Puzzle Pirates
The developers could release new minigames all the time, including free-standing time wasters that would give players something else to do while whiling away the minutes on especially long flights.
Cost
A small, in-game tutorial would work offline, as well as a simple multiplayer ship combat game with a limited subset of equipment. To gain access to the MMO aspects, a monthly fee would apply.
Brian Hook:
Why this model over any other model?Fundamentally here is the biggest problem with your proposal — you're describing a setting, not a game. You talk about all the things you can do and how things work, but you don't talk about why the player does anything or even what the player can expect to do at any given time. When working on a game design, it is imperative that you have narrative (woo, check out the rhymin'!). Describe "a day in the life of" a player. Does what you describe sound fun? How can you explain the gameplay to a newbie — or an investor — in a paragraph? Is it a starship trading game, exploration game, or is it all about combat? What if you're only interested in one of those things and not the others?
Break it down to first principles and figure out what the fundamentally fun game play is and why it's fun, then build from there — don't stress over the details of time durations and number of races and spaceship appearance and controls. Think about "This is the basic set of mechanics that players will engage in, and this is why it's fun!" Get THAT down first and then you can sit back and get a better idea of whether the game would work for your target budget and audience.
Ryan Seabury:
On the business front, where's your competitive analysis? There are some cutthroat people out there. The last thing you'd want is for a friend, family member, or worse a very near and dear soft drink machine to be the unfortunate recipient of a 'message' from a ruthless competitor with unparalleled legal muscle and the ability to appear on any internet forum at the slightest whiff of someone stepping on their turf. I'm just saying.Based on the above, if I had the money I'd be willing to pay north of $60-80 Million (US not Canadian) to see this idea come to life, which to get the basic feature set off the ground is probably about right. Sure it's a little more expensive than a really nice pasta/cereal combo bowl set, but it's an MMO! Think of the guaranteed money you'll make when it ships! I mean, WoW made like a million dollars in the first year!
Sadly I don't have that kind of dough lying around. I do have lots of a different kind of dough lying around. My son is almost 2 and you should see the diaper bills. But you should have no problem raising the capital. Make sure to demand a 5-10 year development cycle right from the start. Those silly investors will try to trick you to agree to make them money 'before they die' or some nonsense- don't fall for it.
So, in summary, as a very wise man once said, 'just like every cowboy, sings a sad, sad song,' regrettably I cannot afford to publish your game or recommend anyone in their right mind who would. However, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a way to ship this. If there's anything I need, it's another competitor in my undercrowded industry space, so good luck!
A tip from a friendly potential future competitor: You may want to consider exploring a license deal. One obvious option just waiting, begging! for someone of your talents. Scientology: The MMO. Rumor is they've already put a lot of thought into it, great leveling system, solid business model, squat pointy teeth goblins running amok. Plus I can't think of an organization that likes to poke fun at itself as much as Scientology. It'd be a hoot! You know in high school, one of my JV football teammates once told me I looked like Tom Cruise.
Starr Long:
Oh great, yet another attempt at the grand space opera genre. Why do game designers continue to think they can be George Lucas (in his good years)? Where do I even begin to dissect this bloated corpse of a design? I love the fact that it is so constrained in design. I mean it's not like this guy is asking for every feature ever included in any MMO ever. Oh wait he is. He wants avatars, single player fighters, multi-player capital ships, ship interiors you can move around in, ships you can repair/patch on the fly, orbital defense platforms, voice chat, voice recognition, tons of mini-games, extra-vehicular movement, full orbital mechanics (including slingshotting and atmospheres that will burn you up on a bad re-entry), space stations, and on and on and on. Does this guy expect to have access to the Gross National Product of the developing world along with every game developer alive today and 10 years? Because that's what it would take. I know! How about you try to make just one of these games versus trying to make every game in one? Well because like every freaking arm chair designer this guy has no concept of what it takes to actually build these things.With all that said there are some solid game design ideas in here. The best is building an 'airplane' like physics model versus completely realistic spaceflight to emphasize fun over accuracy. The designer also won many points with me for no sound transmitted through space. Noise in the vacuum of space is my biggest peeve with most science fiction. I do also admire the ambition here even if it is totally unrealistic.
