Repost from MTG: Item Repair and Permanent Decay

As with the previous post, I'm attempting to save some of my meager writing history with this reposting of some thoughts I had on decay and item repair in MMOs. As before, take a look and see what you think...

Because of the tragic death (for the third time, as discussed in a previous post) of my laptop screen, I'm currently sitting at my work laptop installing WoW. Thankfully for me, WoW is one of those games that isn't system-intensive and will allow me to actually run the game on my work rig. The work machine isn't bad, it just lacks graphical power, which is the generally the case for all work machines in my line of work (consulting engineering).

So, as I'm here patiently switching out CDs (the five for the original build, plus the four for BC), I thought I'd put down some of my thoughts on MMOs, specifically the systems in place for item wear, item repair and item decay. This general dynamic has been handled in many different ways by MMOs over the years, from no repair or decay whatsoever (a good example of this is the original Everquest), to having to repair items over time as they are damaged during use (most MMOs have some form of this nowadays, including SW:G and WoW, and EQ2 to a small extent), but most, if not all MMOs on the market now do not deal with permanent item decay. If you have an item (let's use in this example a sword), and you use it, in many games the condition of the item will worsen. This makes perfect sense, since in the example of the sword, it's going to take a beating cleaving through rats, bats, and gnolls. As the condition of the sword worsens, it becomes less and less effective. Eventually you'll have to go to an NPC or PC with the proper skills and have your sword repaired. With no permanent item decay, though, your sword can be repaired over and over and over again, with no fear of it ever permanently wearing out, breaking or otherwise becoming unusable.

Now, in a video game world, this makes some sense, as people are not playing the game to deal with real-world issues such as having to replace things because they wear out. It's much easier to suspend disbelief and some sense of realism and just accept the fact that the repair-people have such skill that they can repair any flaws, damage, etc. that are incurred on your item. There is also the fact that players would look less than favorably on the decay of an item that they spent countless hours raiding one boss mob, or one instance, or [insert endgame aspect here] to achieve. The player puts in their time, gets the item, only to have it wear out far too soon.

However, this aspect of items never truly wearing out and/or breaking wreaks havoc on the economy. Because items never really disappear, as players find more and more of these items, they flood the user market and reduce the inherent value of the item. For example, a powerful sword for a warrior, when first discovered, is extremely valuable for its rarity and power, but after a few months of farming and just plain finding more of the sword, its value is reduced because of the greater supply and no attrition of the sword due to breakage or wearing out.

The effect of items never wearing out also affects player-created items. In the original Everquest, early on in the life of the game banded mail armor was very popular and in demand for use by warrior types. Players skilled in the armorsmithing trade could make a decent living by making banded armor for the populace clamoring for it. As time went on, more and more people hopped on the bandwagon to make armor while fewer and fewer players needed it. As better armor was discovered, and players handed down their banded armor to the new characters they created, the market for banded armor dried up and disappeared altogether.

This effect of item wear on the economy has been lessened somewhat by the inclusion of soulbound and/or no-drop equipment, in whatever form it takes on each different MMO game. There are items in all games that, either after being equipped by the player or simply picked up by the player, cannot be traded to another player. This effectively removes the item from any in-game market, because the player who originally picked up or equipped the item cannot transfer it to another character. This system addresses the issue of flooding the game market and economy, but does not address the original topic of permanent item wear and decay.

In the MMO I would design, there would exist the aspect of permanent item wear and decay, and I would propose the basic system to work as such:

Each item would have two numbers associated with its condition, separated by a slash (xxx/xxx). The first number would represent current condition, while the second number would represent overall item conditon. The current condition (number ranges from 0-100) would be affected by the use of the item (i.e. going out and fighting creatures) and would affect the item statistics. As this number goes down, in the case of a weapon, the damage dealt by that weapon would decrease. If the item is armor, the damage mitigated would decrease as the current condition number goes down.

The second number represents the item's permanent condition. This attribute does not affect the item's effectiveness, but represents the amount of wear on the item itself. The attribute goes down over time, based on many factors, including how far the player lets the current condition go down before repairing, the skill of the player or NPC attempting to repair the item, etc. When the permanent condition of an item reaches zero, the item breaks and/or becomes unusable.

Regarding the repair dynamic: Using the original item example from above, taking this item to a player or NPC for repair would (depending on the level of the item and the skill level of the player or NPC repairing the item) revert the current condition of the item back to 100. However, the permanent condition of the item would be reduced, by a little if the repairing player or NPC has high skill, by more if they have little skill or the item's owner has allowed the item's current condition to go below a certain threshold, etc. The exact values of these events can be scaled for balance.

I could go on and on about the nitty gritty details, and bore you for hours taking about the system and the all of the dynamics that could come into effect, but the main thing I'd like to try to get across is that this system could be a vehicle to improve the flooding of the market with basically ageless items that never disappear or are removed from the economy, and also make player tradeskills relevant. If tradeskillers can provide the populace with items that are relevant, desirable and need to be replaced from time to time, then it would create player-driven economy with more interaction between players, create alternate advancement trees and occupations for players who may not be as inclined to 'grind' mobs endlessly, and generally balance out the economy, reducing the flooding of the market with items that never disappear.

Of course, there are downsides to this argument, and here are some of the issues I see with this system. FIrst, how do you apply item decay to rare and/or hard to procure armor, weapons, jewelry, etc. in such a way that it's fair and equitable without angering or downright alienating your playerbase? No player wants to see a rare drop, one that took them hundreds of hours of grinding, complete luck, whatever the circumstance, just disappear from use. Do you not have the decay dynamic affect this item, and simply slap a 'no-drop' or soulbound tag on that item? Do you have a specific NPC that can repair this item for a substantial fee, thus creating a money sink to further attempt to balance the economy? Or do you have the decay dynamic slowed so much that it almost never comes into effect with any regularity? These are questions that would need to be addressed with testing and proper balancing in a game setting, because no matter how good anything sounds on paper, all bets are off when it's released to 100,000+ players.

Again, as I've stated before, I'm not a game developer, so it's very possible that all of these questions have been addressed and answered hundreds or even thousands of times before, and the reason why a system as I've proposed doesn't exist is simply due to the fact that it's not practical. I'd like to think (and please don't burst my bubble too violently, I beg you) that I've come up with at least the basis for a system that could be reviewed, expanded, tested, revised, and become usable at some point. Maybe someday I'll develop a technical document including this system, and present it to a developer and see how much they laugh. An intriguing thought, to be sure...

Well, since the installation of WoW is finished, I'm going to retire from the blogosphere for now and head into Azeroth for a bit, but you can be sure that I'll be back soon, with more ramblings. As always, take care and keep gaming!

Well, what do you think? Leave any comments or suggestions in the comments section.

Repost from MTG: Dynamic Quest Systems

The following post comes from my days at ny old blog. I repost it here in essence so I don't lose the content, as I may someday want to revisit the ideas I put forth here. This particular post dates back to January 2007, and covers my thoughts on a possible implementation of dynamic quest systems in MMOs. Hopefully it's still an interesting read. Enjoy!

I've spent a decent amount of the past 5 years playing MMOs, which is pretty impressive considering my short attention span. I cut my teeth with the original Everquest, and have played several of the larger titles since (DAoC, AC2, SWG, EQ2, WoW). For many people, part of the enjoyment of the game comes with the completion of quests. There's a certain rush to working your way through a long chain of quests, and eliminating the 'boss mob' at the end, then triumphantly marching back to the questgiver for your reward. With this said, the entire experience is cheapened a bit (well, a lot actually) if and when you happen to wander past the area where you experienced the epic struggle, only to see the same boss mob sitting there, just waiting for the next player/group to come along.

This experience is fundamentally different than that of a single player RPG, where your actions can and will affect the story in direct and powerful ways. Once you've worked your way through a particular mission or quest, the gameworld is changed because that objective (killing a boss, freeing a town from occupation or assault, rescuing a damsel in distress, etc.) is gone, and the world is altered accordingly (the boss is dead, the town is free, the damsel is no longer in distress and appropriately grateful to you). Your efforts in the game move the storyline forward, closing certain avenues but inevitably opening others, and in this manner the game continues.

Another major difference between MMOs and single player RPGs is that the single player RPG has an ultimate goal to complete to end the game or finish the main questline. You free the world, kill the demon menacing the coutnryside or save the princess (sometimes all three or even more), the world is grateful, and the credits start to roll. There is a definite feeling of accomplishment and, hopefully, satisfaction in this event. An MMO does not, because the point of an MMO is to have people continue to log in and play (thus requiring them to continue to pay the subscription fee), and to have an ultimate end to the gameplay experience would be counterproductive to this goal. There may be an end boss that players strive to face and destroy, but unlike that of a single player RPG, after the end boss is destroyed, it will respawn after a prescribed period of time, just waiting for the next lucky raid group to come along and test their mettle (or most likely, get killed by the same group for the 50th time for the epic loot they drop, but that is a topic for another post).

This game mechanic is somewhat required, because there are so many players in an MMO that to have a quest or mob disappear after one player or group solving the riddle would be counterproductive to the overall experience. There would be a mad rush, as players compete to finish all of the available quests, and then there would be a general clamoring by the player base for more content, which, if not provided, would cause a mass exodus from the game. But, since there is a need for content to be available to all players that meet the requirements of the content, it cannot be permanently removed. While this is the most fair, equitable and accessible method to provide content to players available at this time, it does not lend itself to developing the 'epic' feeling that often comes from single player games of the same type.

I'd like to think that at some point in the near future the MMO genre will evolve to the point where events can alter the environment, but not to the complete detriment of players. To start, it would be great to have quests that, after the first player or group completes the quest, it disappears. For example, you talk to an NPC in a town that's been attacked by a band of kobolds on a trail outside town, and had a valuable [insert item here] stolen. They're willing to pay some intrepid adventurer(s) to retrieve this item. The player/group travels out to the area indicated by the NPC and finds the signs of a struggle. Following the signs left behind by the marauding kobolds (either simple tracks that can be followed or maybe requiring the use of a player-character hunter/ranger and their tracking skill), they come upon the kobolds at a campsite. After a fierce battle, the player/group wins and begins to search the bodies and the camp. They don't find the [insert item here], but do discover some sort of 'receipt' or clue to who the kobolds have already pawned the [insert item here] to. They then track down this character (say a shady merchant in a seedy part of town) and 'persuades' the merchant to give back the [insert item here] (by force, coercion or simply buying it). The player/group then returns to the original NPC and gives the [insert item here] back, receiving as a reward whatever was promised.

Now, in this generation of MMO, the next player/group to come along and speak to the NPC would find that this poor person has been attacked by kobolds and lost a valuable [insert item here]...What, was the NPC dumb enough to walk out of town, immediately after getting their item returned, travel back to the scene of the attack, and be attacked once again by the same group of kobolds (who should be dead, by the way)? This occurs so that all characters that so desire can experience this quest, and thus achieve the reward offered.

What if, instead of a static NPC that always gave the same quest, with the same steps, the same solution and the same reward, a dynamic quest system were to be implemented? This would involve players going up to an NPC, receiving a quest, and then no other player/group would be able to receive the same quest from that NPC. This system would involve populating citizens of all cities and towns with probabilities to have quests, and when they are assigned a quest by the system, they will hold this quest until activated by a player/group. The quest generator would have many storylines, with many segments to be able to logically mix and match to create quests for the people of the game world. Because of the nature of the world, there would always be some poor woman who's child has gone missing and needs to be found, some poor merchant who's been assaulted by thugs and needs to get his stolen wares back, some old man who's willing to pay a lot of money for the recovery of some artifact that he remembers from his early years. The segments of the quest could be varied, down to the number of distinct segments required to complete to finish the overall quest. The reward could vary according to length of quest and difficulty to complete, and any loot given could be subtle variations on loot given for other quests.

This would make the cities and towns a more vibrant, 'alive' place, as people would be encouraged to travel through and talk to all citizens to see if they're in need of help at any given time. The system could detect your level range and assign a quest of appropriate difficulty to complete. There could still be static quests, such that there are still rites of passage for classes to achieve status in their particular profession, but instead of going out and killing a named person/being that's the same all the time, the quest generator could generate a different name/beast type every time, to develop a sense of uniqueness for each character.

As I'm not a programmer or developer, I'm not sure of the inherent difficulties and resources required to develop and code a sytem of this type and magnitude. The biggest fear I'd have, after reading a blog (I wish I could remember which one) discussing the fact that many systems have not been implemented because of stress on the servers that host and run the games. This is probably one of those cases...

There is also the fact that, most likely, today's MMO players would completely revolt at the thought of a 'non-static' quest system in an MMO. If this type of system were implemented, how could the game sites that we all like to visit (the ones that have all of the detailed quest walkthroughs, including starting NPC, steps and reward) continue to thrive? Now quest walkthroughs would be essentially useless, other than possibliy revealing the structure of specific quest segments, because each quest would start at a different location, with a different NPC, have a different set of segments making up the quest, as well as a different reward. I'm not sure that this system would go over well in today's MMO world made up of games like WoW, that announces quest-givers with a very unnatural yellow '!' floating in space over the NPC's head. If players had to go in search of their quests, that might not be desirable.

This argument is not even taking into accout the effect that this system might have on the economy. If there are relatively unique rewards for each quest, this could greatly increase the value of the reward to the owner, especially once they 'outgrow' the reward (i.e. a piece of armor that is eventually replaced by a better item) and can put it up for auction, using the in-game auction system. Since there are many fewer of this type of item (if a random reward generator is used to assign items with abilities and effects, there is the good chance that there will be duplicates or very similar items generated), the theoretical value of the item is increased. This system is a topic of its own, one I may try to expound upon in a future post.

I'm not professing to be an expert on this topic, or any topic, I'm just speculating on how the next generation of MMOs might build upon the successes of this generation's titles, and evolve into the overall experience I feel is attainable from the genre. The develope rwould have to be serious about making this system work (from a hardware and coding standpoint, as well as a gameplay mechanic standpoint), but the end result would be a game that would feel a bit more unique and dynamic. This can only benefit the players looking for unique experiences every time they log in and play...

Another time, I'd like to explore other enhancements to today's MMOs that, in my opinion, would move the genre forward, but for now, I'll sign off. Take care and keep gaming!

So anyway, that was it. Does anyone have thoughts on this? If so, please leave them in the comments.

PSP to get MMOs?

Being the proud owner of a PSP (that sounds strange, but it's true), I was excited to see this news about Sony Online Entertainment considering bringing MMO content to the handheld market. I've played a few MMOs over the years (with the vast majority of that time spent in SOE's original Everquest), and the thought of an MMO coming to the PSP intrigues me. If done right, it could open up the genre to even more interesting concepts. If tied in with a larger-scale game, the PSP could be used for crafting or auction house access on the go. Even more interesting would be a ground-up game meant for the PSP, possibly with an Internet access portal, for examining characters, inventory management, etc.

Sony Online Considering MMOs On PSP (MTV Multiplayer Blog)