Since my blog got used for a lot of "evidence" of trouble at Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment (CME) and their upcoming MMO Stargate Worlds, I figure I should take a moment and state that CME has made good on their commitments to me. I assume this means things are looking up there! As Stargate Worlds was turning into a stellar game when I left, I can imagine this means good things are coming down the road from Arizona.
In other news, some may have heard I'm at a different company, and I am. I'm still doing tradeskills, and it's becoming a matter of interest to me to see all the ways you can make a tradeskill system and yet have the same general structure.
Players have a love/hate relationship between the items and content created by a TS system. It always seemed strange to me that this was so, since the hallmark of a good and healthy game is a variety of activities and streams of content. Ideally, the TS stream of content should complement and enrich the other systems entangled with it, instead of taking a front seat/back seat relationship as we see in so many MMOs.
Really, tradeskills are not the most logical extension from the killing side of things, but because of the investment of a very dedicated 10% or so of the MMO playerbase, it has become a design imperative for any modern MMO. It makes me wonder if we can pull this trick again for some other aspect of life that make up the world of MMOs...
Speaking of which, is there any interest to a follow up article on virtual world ecologies? I know I need to finish out my Mudflation Cessation Conflation, but that hits a little close to home on stuff I'm working on directly, whereas dreaming about more programmatic virtual worlds isn't.
Oh, and how about The Hunter? Amazing, yes? There is a lot of ecology packed into that 400 megabyte package!
Finally, I've been back into playing LOTRO. LOTRO has:
- among the worst tradeskill system designs ever put in an MMO
- many of the worst aspects of housing from MMOs (the "Mausoleum Effect" I have called it in the past)
- a fairly uninteresting set of character classes gameplay-wise (except the Runekeeper and Warden - they finally made some interesting design choices with their class gameplay, even if the Runekeeper is a failure lore-wise).
- which brings me to my reason for playing - setting. If more games would take a page from them and make actually existing in game half as compelling as LOTRO, I would be a happier camper.
8 comments:
Good news re: Stargate and CME, for sure.
And... I'm one of those 10%, so don't you let me down! I have cohorts and I'm not afraid to use em! If you manage to make a TS system that *doesn't* end up in the usual loot/crafted dichotomy, I'll craft a statue in your name with my bare hands.
As for LOTRO, I agree almost entirely. It's a stunningly beautiful game though -- I used to zone out just watching the scenery and the clouds (and then get eaten by neekers).
Not that I know you or anything, but your recent tweets sure have a positive vibe to 'em, whatever superseekrit thing you may be doing now.
Hey Aruspex,
I'm definitely interested in reading a followup article.
Thank you for speaking up regarding CME/SGW. You can guarantee the supporters are going to actively link you still more =P
I'm another of those 10%, so I would definitely be interested in reading a follow-up article. I'm glad to see you're back on your feet after the end of last year!
Hiya Aruspex, I followed your work in VG and have much respect for you.
If you're looking for an MMO employer, I bet you'd do REALLY well working on Age of Conan or The Secret World ;)
Hey Steve,
Glad to hear you are involved with tradeskills. IMHO, they are vital to a vibrant MMO community. I think the best of the best craftsmen should be able to create best-in-game items that everyone wants. Just don't make the three big mistakes I've seen recently:
1) In WoW (at least pre-BC), some of the best items were Bind on Acquire. This meant you had to be the right class and tradeskill combo just to benefit from the item. Remember the Plate armor pieces with resistances that tanks needed to be effective in raid encounters?
I like having key items coming from crafting, but you cannot limit the items to the crafter. One way to solve this (and crafting fraud problems, too) is to provide a player-to-player crafting screen where the buyer puts resources in the window and the crafter crafts the item automatically giving the results to the buyer. Plus, this method matches SGW's "mini-games for hire" model nicely. Imagine if you placed the order with a "consignment store" it was filled while you were out adventuring or even offline!
2) In EQ2 (around launch anyway), it was so hard to level up crafting that only select few made it to the highest levels and thus completely cornered all markets. Since the highest potency of class skills came from crafting too, this created a huge gulf between the rich and powerful and the masses. Thankfully there was no PvP in EQ2 at this time, but in a game with PvP, this would be disastrous.
It should be difficult to reach the upper echelons of crafting, but it should never require too much time or too many resources. Basically, it should be equally difficult to raise your class level and your tradeskill level. The issue becomes a personal choice of where the player wants to spend their time.
3) In Lotro, the crafting system is far too simple and far too much of a grind. Plus, since Lotro has a fixed item level cap, the best crafted items are essentially as potent as the best raid items. Even with the whole shard/Single Use recipe non-sense, it is not uncommon for anyone that wants the items to reach level 60 and then immediately don all best-in-game quality teals.
And this points out the main issue with Lotro: the gameplay is amateurish. Turbine does an excellent job creating an immersive world true to Tolkien's lore (if you are a fan, I *highly* recommend rolling a Hobbit a going through The Shire), but that's about it. The crafting, the class balance, the itemization, the class uniqueness (aka traits), the PvMP, and even the dread are all poorly done. Turbine is slowly learning and getting better, but I've given up on them for the time being.
I'm glad you are enjoying the setting in Lotro (as I did for a while), but that only goes so far. The game needs substance -- and not just the same old grind. There needs to be a variety of avenues to pursue. And in each avenue, there must be tangible improvements (not just meaningless minor tweaks like Lotro) that you acquire along the way. I hope SGW takes this to heart: all flash and no substance means players will leave after reaching end-game.
Cheers,
-Foam
I'd been wondering if you were one of the ones to move on. I'd been following some of the saga through stories from the other friend I had at CME. Just before the magical injection of capital they received recently, I'd heard they told employees that they would be able to pay their insurance in a particular month. Not to mention some curious side website that was selling subscriptions to CME games (which obviously don't exist yet), and the poor choice of using the SGW funds to not run SGW but to open 2 (or was it 3?) side studios. Ugh.
Glad things are better for you now, the other friend has since moved on to a different AZ gaming company (VERY small staff atm).
Hi Anonymous-es! Here's some clarifications on my post.
About leaving CME - well, I did. This blog post is intended to put to bed any lingering commentary that needed to be made. I want to re-iterate the most salient points of this post:
1) CME has paid at least one employee up to date (ie: ME), and made good on all financial commitments to me. I would never normally post this information, but I felt that I may have inadvertently done some damage to the company with my previous post and greatly desire to clear up any misconceptions I may have raised about the company and its viability.
2) I did and do support the team's work on Stargate Worlds. I think that this industry and the fans of this industry are much too quick to judge a product before it launches. SGW had and has a good team and a kick-ass concept that I think will sell like crazy.
3) I am currently working for Carbine Studios as a Senior Systems Designer. Our studio policy is not to talk about our project at this time, but I building the Tradeskill system for the MMO we are building.
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