episode 2: horrificly bad game design

[keoni]

Why does episode 2 blow chunks, from the standpoint of game design? I think it boils down to this: Nevrax put a closed-ended, victory-condition game within an MMORPG, which by its nature is open-ended with no specific victory conditions. That would be fine except they gave us this subgame, but gave us no rulebook. It was a set piece, and each map had a given time limit. How long? Guess. How many different lands will there be? Unknown. Exactly what is the threshold to get a temple built? We won't tell you. Act 1 ends, and karavan turns a small lead into a big one by getting an unannounced boost. Act 2 ends, with kami having outdone karavan, but gets no boost. Why? Because. So why are we building the temples in the first place? They will give benefits. What benefits? We won't tell you, but if you work hard for them you can get individual prizes and bonuses in exchange for your points. Oh cool what are they? We won't tell you until it's over--they might be really good and you'll regret having not participated, or they will be totally lame and you will feel cheated to have invested heavily of your time.

Bottom line, this is inexcusably lazy game design. How can Nevrax excuse giving us a closed-ended game but not giving us any clear criteria for how to win it, how long we had to fight it out, and what we were fighting for both individually and collectively? This cried out for *definitive* rewards, time limits, and objectives. We were given none of that. People who might otherwise be motivated, are not. The frustrations of a war setting are exacerbated by the frustrations of not knowing exactly what you're fighting for, how long you have to fight, or exactly what you need to do to win.

[sydius21]

I think the first sentence needs to be worded a little better, but the rest is well-said.

[thlau]

I agree that many of us would appreciate a more clear explanation of what is going on.

So let me collect some facts:

• The roadmap defines

  Episode - The advancement of the story is cut in episodes; episodes are basically to events what chapters are to patches.

• The roadmap defines

  Chapter - A big patch introducing major pieces of content or features into the game.

• This major event of episode 2 is named 'The Homes of the Gods'. I guess this refers to the temples/sanctuaries we are building.
• In the special notes section of the release notes to patch 91 it says:

  . The points of honour will be used for the end of Episode 2 to buy the rewards

So if this episode ends with the first act we will get an idea of the rewards in a few days, but this is very unlikely. In my opinion the Episode 2 will span beyond the start of Chaper III with Outposts, Fame System 2nd Edition and Global Faction PvP, and there may be many more major events, until we will see what the rewards will be like.

So the current FvF event is not a subgame, it is a general part of the game, and we have to get used to it that our society is now splitted in several factions. I believe the start of Chapter III will bring much more diversity to Episode 2 and more room for roleplaying, too. Especially if some of us try to avoid conflicts between the different factions and try to calm the waves.

Writing this I collected some questions I posted on the Q&A thread.

[keoni]

"A good game is a series of interesting decisions. The decisions must be both frequent and meaningful."
- Sid Meier
http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameD ... erest.html

By 'episode 2' I‘m referring to the task of building the sanctuaries, which will (presumably) be a closed-ended sub game that will end soon. The fact that we‘re not even certain of that much goes to the heart of the matter: it is impossible to make an informed, considered decision-- much less an interesting one-- when you have nothing to go on but pure conjecture. Nevrax left all the fundamental questions completely unanswered, and threw us into an FvF pressure cooker for an indeterminate amount of time.

Jessica, if you're listening - what could you have possibly been thinking?

[aylwyne]

I agree that they need to make the specific objectives and deadlines clear to us. There's been a lot of apathy in this event because it just keeps dragging on without a clearly stated deadline or specific percent objective on the temple.

This goes back to #5 in my list of things I think we need to see in events that I made in this post.

"5) Clear goals and deadlines: This is critical to the success of point 4. If something bad is going to happen and you fail but you don't understand what it is you should have done, that will just cause frustration. For example, if you need to create 300 guard units in 3 days, that needs to be clearly defined. Also, there would need to be a way to check your progress."

They added the way to check your progress, however, they still didn't add the clear goal and deadline.

[amcyr]

While Episode 2 might interest some people, it certainly left me cold.

Being a non-PvP person, belonging to a neutral guild, and a casual player with little time to compete for a top position, I decided to just stay out of the whole mess (except to have an occasional look-see).

Perhaps if I knew a wondrous prize awaited me or that the game's outcome really would be impacted by our efforts (pfft!), I might have decided to join in.

As it is, I slowly grind away, patiently waiting for future content aimed at neutral, PvE, casual players.

[hugedan]

I agree Keoni the prospects of everyones hard work for a really bad outcome is unnerving. I am just hoping that the people in charge realise this. It does seem we are pretty much left in the lerk is this poor organisation or a greater hidden ajenda to keep us in suspense I am unable to decide at this point.

[marct]

Bottom line, this is inexcusably lazy game design. How can Nevrax excuse giving us a closed-ended game but not giving us any clear criteria for how to win it, how long we had to fight it out, and what we were fighting for both individually and collectively? This cried out for *definitive* rewards, time limits, and objectives. We were given none of that. People who might otherwise be motivated, are not. The frustrations of a war setting are exacerbated by the frustrations of not knowing exactly what you're fighting for, how long you have to fight, or exactly what you need to do to win.

I must say that I do not agree with this. If you do not know why you are building a temple, you must not be playing the game I am, or at least not paying attention. You are building this for your higher power.

I totally do not like the idea of knowing oh this will be open form X to Y and you have to dig 24 gajillion mats between then. How is that more motivating. Would knowing either of these things have motivated you or others more? HOW?

Knowing the rewards would only detriment the process in my mind. If you are playing EP2 for the right reasons (in-game) in my mind that being your high-power, the temple is your reward, not some title, some uber piece of gear or anyhting else. Your and many other peoples focus on the rewards is not warranted in my mind and knowing what the rewards or what the reward levels are would encourage people to make it to a certain level and then abandon the Episode.


Having said all of that, I do believe that EP2 was a GRIND. How you can make Event content into this un-ending grind and think that it is valuable is dis-graceful in my mind. This should be the gripe of everyone. I believe this is the only legitimate gripe beside the PvP.


Noin. (Don't take any of that personally, it was a shotgun approach).

[marct]

"5) Clear goals and deadlines: This is critical to the success of point 4. If something bad is going to happen and you fail but you don't understand what it is you should have done, that will just cause frustration. For example, if you need to create 300 guard units in 3 days, that needs to be clearly defined. Also, there would need to be a way to check your progress."

They added the way to check your progress, however, they still didn't add the clear goal and deadline.

In case I was not clear, Deadlines is not a good idea in mymind. I think we have clear objectives too. Maybe it could be a little clearer what materials are needed for each part of our temples, and they should have had all of the mats available in all of the lands. But why make the newland open on the same day for everyone / etc. Why have a box to tick?

The clear objective is build your temple. The difficulty is it is a crazy grind.

And to repeat myself for everyone else your reward is a temple for your faction of choice, not anyhting else. The other things are very secondary in my mind.

[alyssah]

I wonder how many people realise that the temples were probably Jessica's offering to the foragers & crafters to show they were not forgotten. Well, that certainly backfired by turning into the most vicious PvP episode in the entire hisory of Ryzom.

I agree with most of the opening post. I wonder how long this was tested on ATS? I get the feeling that it was rushed out and nobody had time to think about the rewards. Nor about mats storage either. It would have been nice to know what mats were running low.