Games with depth have the quality of being easy to learn and hard to master. This immediately infers that games with depth require players to demonstrate some skill. The greater the gap between ease of learning and difficulty of mastery, the greater the depth of the game. A game that is hard to learn and hard to master doesn't have depth. It has complexity. The two are not the same.
Note also that MMOs have multiple forms of entertainment to them, so they can be measured for depth in multiple areas. It would seem to be rather pointless to claim that a game was deep or shallow in total. Each form of entertainment in the game should be considered on its own merits.
Classic examples of games that have depth are Go and Chess. They are easy to learn, but difficult to master. A child can play Go because all it takes is the ability to place stones on a board. But to win in Go requires some serious skill. Chess is a shade harder to learn, but becoming a grandmaster remains a very difficult task.
Classic examples of games that lack depth are Tic-Tac-Toe and Checkers. They are easily learned and easily mastered.
When does mastery of a game become difficult? When the patterns in the game are non-trivial. The human mind is built to detect patterns. We become intellectually skilled when we can examine a situation to discover one pattern, imagine another pattern in our heads, the figure out how to act to change one pattern to the other.
That's terribly abstract, so I'll use a simple example. A move in Chess consists of looking at the game board and seeing how the pieces are laid out. You might see the beginnings of a feint of activity on the left side of the board while spotting a quick kill coming in via the opponent's knight in three moves. That is a pattern. The pattern that you form in your imagination might be the death of the knight. You work that out in your head and see the sequence of moves that will increase your chances of taking that knight.
The fact that you can approach the knight in about 100 different ways is part of what makes chess difficult to master. So the Chess player is always pondering how they're going to accomplish their goal using the rules of the game.
Players don't spend much time pondering how they're going to tackle a given task in an MMO. There are simply too few options. The options are primarily focused on optimizing a character's abilities to a particular configuration. It's like honing the edge on an axe. When all is said and done, you're going to chop down progressively-larger trees. There's no how involved, apart from the choice of how you're going to sharpen your axe. And those choices are quite simple. Do you want to use a serrated edge or a smooth edge? Do you want to have a concave or flat grind? And so on.
If you want depth out of your game systems, you're going to have to turn a critical eye on the techniques that you can use to approach a given goal, whether short-term or long-term. The most important trait that a game system must possess is the tendency to change. A static set of conditions in which you make your tactical decisions means that you're always going to make the same decisions. Chess and Go have the quality of changing the game conditions after every move. MMO systems tend to lack this quality because they want repeatability and predictability. They oppose depth.
Depth of combat means that when you come up with a tactic for taking out one set of orcs, it may or may not work the next time you take on another set of orcs. That's because of tactically-significant changes in the way that you encounter those orcs. Imagine 100 different tactically-significant variations in orc encounters. Not eye candy, but tactical differences. The slipperiness of the terrain. The location of the sun. The direction of the wind. The morale and training of the opposition. Whether your're uphill or downhill from the opposition. How much you know about where your opposition is and how many there are. Whether they have short swords or long swords. And so on.
(I should mention here that a tactically-significant variation is one where you are obligated to adapt your tactics to the situation. If you see an opponent with a short sword, you employ your character one way. If you see an opponent with a long sword, you employ your character another way. If short swords and long swords are dealt with in an identical way, there's no point in having a distinction. It's just pointless eye candy, like having pawns in Chess carrying different weapons. A pawn moves a certain way, and that's all that matters.)
Depth of crafting means that when you know how to make one sword, you may not be able to make the next one in exactly the same way. That's because of tactically-significant changes in the way that you encounter the next chunk of metal. The ambient temperature may be different. The metal may have inclusions of higher and lower quality metals, etc. The order that you received may emphasize one trait over another in the sword.
Depth of magic means that when you know how to cast one spell, yo umay not be able to cast the next spell for the same effect the next time. The tactical factors might be much the same as combat. But if magic is based on ambient pools of magic, you may be closer or farther from a pool. If magic is component, based, there will be variations in traits of the components. The mage might improvise the use of an impure, raw source to get an effect that he hadn't planned. His decisions may be affected by the presence of other spell-casters, whether friend or foe.
Don't get too caught up in the examples that I'm offering. The point is that players aren't obligated to put much thought into how a certain encounter is going to be tackled. Especially not after having tackled it once already. There tends to be a 'correct' way to complete any given encounter, whether it is crafting, magic, questing, combat or anything else, and once found, the whole 'how' business goes out the window. There is no game at that point, only a process of going through the motions. Not unlike a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
When a game comes out that has web sites discussing tactics of encounters instead of walk-throughs of encounters, you'll be seeing signs of a game with depth.
Can you give an example of a game that has anywhere close to this level of "depth" and "complication?"
Mon Nov 12 2007 3:52PMI know you are going to say EVE...
heerobya, nothing that I've seen has the depth that I'm talking about. Pick any MMO that is known for the permitting players to employ their skills of cognition - including Eve Online - and you've got a game with some depth. The players have to consider how they're going to apply their game abilities.
As I recall, Eve Online's two games with depth are the economic game and the game of galactic conquest. A portion of the conquest game happens on the web, not in the game. Whether planned or not, it has turned out to be a clever use of resources by CCP.
The challenge about introducing depth is permitting players to experiment and exploit the way the game works. I'm sure that the original Ultima Online wanted to give the players this kind of a game. Unfortunately, they didn't anticipate the problems of combining such a system with a level-stratified society. The players certainly experimented and exploited. They figured out lots of avenues that the designers never expected them to pursue. Ever since then, fantasy games have been very carefully structured to guide players on the level treadmill. It's safe entertainment.
What I'm calling depth is the means by which I think players can be entertained apart from the class/level structure that is in place now. By dumping those mechanisms and introducing new ones that permit players to approach goals in a variety of ways, the process of figuring out how they want to tackle an objective should provide more than enough entertainment for players.
How do you want to go through the game to acquire a barony? How do you want to make your bows? How do you want to raise your falcons? How do you want to feed your NPC town? How do you (and your friends) want to take out that stone giant? Successful board games and single player PC games have been asking us these questions for years. Now it's time for MMOs to do the same.
Mon Nov 12 2007 4:43PMI dunno if we'll see this kind of depth in a game any time soon...maybe dozen years from, now...but not soon.
Mon Nov 12 2007 4:51PMTeala, to quote Richard Bartle, author of the very first text MUD:
"I do see some light, though. Some players and designers do sense the possibilities. If production costs were to come down, they could experiment with new designs, in new directions, recapturing some of what was lost and, hopefully, striking out to bring us more than we ever had before."
I love the advancement in graphics, but advancements in other areas of MMOs seems to have come to a halt. Note that the most innovative game to come out in 10 years - Eve Online - has simple graphics relative to the rest of the genre. Where there's meat, there's less need for flash.
Mon Nov 12 2007 5:36PMI totally agree that there needs to be more depth to MMORPG's - completely agree. However, I think you'd be tapping into a very small market with such a game. People that play these games today(mostly the newer players who were introduced to WoW) are not interested in the things "we" might be interested in. They like the simplistic notion of getting in and getting out of a dungeon or raid with out all the intricate game mechanics that such a game as you describe would entail.
I mean I could be wrong here and people who currently play a game like WoW might embrace a more challenging type of game play...but I seriously doubt it.
I think the trick here is to have this kind of depth without the players actually knowing it. If you can pull that off then you'll have done something.
I remember when people played AC that first year many were clueless about where to put points in stats and what it all meant and ended up gimping their character. AC had lots of depth and wasn't all that complicated but if it is an example of what a game with depth in just character development alone...then be prepared because a lot of players will have a difficult time if they don't read the instruction manual that comes with a game like that.
Mon Nov 12 2007 6:31PMthe problem is that every single thing in a game has to be programmed and coded.
"How do you want to go through the game to acquire a barony? How do you want to make your bows? How do you want to raise your falcons? How do you want to feed your NPC town? How do you (and your friends) want to take out that stone giant?"
Every possible solution to those problems has to be coded and programmed, not to mention tested, balanced, and polished.
It is currently impossible to create any game with that kind of depth with modern technology, unless you have terabytes of free space and thousands of programmers/artists/writers/testers/etc.
The only way we'll ever have a game as you describe is with the use of real A. I. A.I. that is self aware. A.I. that can choose and adapt and create, not simply A.I. that can respond, which is all we have now. But at that point, is it even a game anymore?
As quoted from a doubtful Jedi trainee...
"You ask the impossible."
Mon Nov 12 2007 10:14PMWell, one thing that could be made easy and would add depth to a crafting system would be giving players a trial-error system. The players would have for example iron, wood, steel etc. and they would like to make a fine sword. Well most RPGs have a certain recipe with which the combination would work, but i would imply on a system without a recipe. You could just add 3 hunks of iron and one hunk of wood to make a shabby sword or add 1 hunk of iron and 2 hunks of steel with the 1 wood and you would do a better sword. But the thing is that normal player would be happy with any sword. The player who likes the best of the best would have to find the best combination to get the best sword in the game and try to master it this way. It`s just an example of i would do this if i had a choice.
And if you look for another game which has depth might be Neverwinter nights 2(not the singleplayer of course). It allows only a few people to play so its not a massive online RPG but with the GM system that it has no game can compare to it. Most mmorpgs are static, unchanging worlds and thats the biggest problem(exception given for EvE which is static but players move the world). For example:
There is a nice city and players go there to shop, chat, find parties etc. and there is an event involving a raid on the city by zombies or some other monsters that are usually killed. There is a question asked the players if they wish to defend the city or not. If not then the city might be destroyed and the city becomes a new playground for the greenblooded.
That is kind of a bit longer to code for big mmorpgs but i guess it is an option not just to add more continents/items/levels/pets or wait for new players to join in(and old to leae coz of nothing else to do), but you would have a totaly changing world.
Overall nice topic. Sorry for my bad english.
Mon Nov 12 2007 10:57PMTeala, remember that the critical point here is ease of learning and difficulty of mastery - without any requirement on the players to develop mastery. Like the World of Warcraft players that you mention, I just want to hop into the game and start bashing away on monsters with a bunch of other people in a dynamic environment. That's what I'm shooting for.
Because there are no levels, my day one character joins in on the 'raids' that the most skilled players are working. But we're not doing dungeon crawls for personal gain. We're doing them to clear out the monsters that threaten our flanks and our supply lines as the player community collectively advances across 100 miles of terrain, fighting all the way. We gain for a common goal.
Every encounter is filled with unknowns. We've never been in any of the 10,000 dungeons, cave systems, ruins, valleys, cities, camps, and forests that the game developers have procedurally-crafted and hand-reviewed to be thrown at the players. We don't know the geometry of the encounter. It might just be a supply depot with a couple orcs guarding it or it could be an underground barracks. Or worse.
We encounter tough commanders in nasty strongpoints every now and again. Ultimately, we're after the Evil King in his own stronghold where we'll fight the final battle. It'll take years to work through. That'll give the developers time to come up with new and interesting things for the players to experience.
You also mentioned "intricate game mechanics". I'm guessing that you're thinking of the arbitrarily complicated systems that game designers always seem to come up with. Something like: the players have to learn to use fire on certain monsters, unless it's morning, in which case they should use smoke weapons on them, and that the monsters will summon smoke pets that happen to be healed by smoke weapons, so the groups need to be organized in two parts, one to fight and one to pull off the pets, crowd control them somewhere while the mages use area of effect spells to take them down.
That's the complexity stuff rearing its ugly head. Those are new rules, not variations of other rules that are easy to learn (aka intuitive). If the rules of the game universe are complicated, then players can never infer anything from what they already know. That makes the game harder to learn.
Mon Nov 12 2007 11:09PMheerobya: "the problem is that every single thing in a game has to be programmed and coded."
Not if you do it right :)
Procedural generation, fractals, simulations, rules systems and such are compact ways of creating a wide range of outcomes from a small code base. The systems that you've seen in current MMOs tend to be code-intensive because the designers have to keep careful control of exactly what happens in every encounter. The stuff that I'm talking about can let players pursue things with far greater freedom.
The artificial intelligence has to be good enough to give a large NPC population a set of goals that they want to pursue. I also want to use a technique not currently employed, which is NPC Wranglers. NPC Wranglers are game employees who handle the guidance of groups of NPCs in real time. Not by driving them around or talking to player characters, but by handling strategic decisions that the NPC intelligence isn't up to.
For example, the mayor of the town needs to give the citizens a directive to prepare for a festival. So a Wrangler pushes the appropriate buttons for that. The festival directives get worked into the system and suddenly a festival is the focus of attention in that town.
Wranglers would also ensure that the combat stays interesting in the war zone. The players wouldn't just be fighting the monsters in constant stand-up fights. The Wranglers would be sure to regulate the flow of monster units coming up, and would do things like having a squad sneak around to the side of the player area, or decide to throw archers or cavalry at the players instead of their usual diet of foot soldiers.
Mon Nov 12 2007 11:33PMHuli, how about an entire game system just for crafting blacksmithed items? No game-defined recipes. If you want to make a sword, you learn how to make one almost for real. Selecting a piece of iron, heating it to the right color in a forge, hammering it at places of your choosing, shaping it, tempering it, etc. It's an in-depth game just for blacksmithing. The idea is to create a blacksmithing system for those who enjoy blacksmithing, not for those who enjoy swinging swords. If somebody needs a sword, they should be able to get one, just like a blacksmith should be able to find steel.
As for events, I think most players like the idea of a changing world. I made some comments about that in my replies above.
There's no need to apologize for your English. It's better than many Americans, and it's miles better than my Slovak :)
Mon Nov 12 2007 11:45PMJB47394: Most players don`t like to be blacksmiths to be honest. So if you had a game with a lot of in-depth jobs as a blacksmith, fighter, thief, mage, trader you would give the player a choice. He could become a very good blacksmith to craft a very good sword or become a decent fighter with a sword. It is almost like in EVE. The only difference is, you have to spend time in-game to know what to do to become a good mage for example. The system in EVE enables the player to click on a skill and go offline while the skill "learns itself" which doesn`t give the player any wisdom in the game mechanics and sometimes slows the player down(like 2 days waiting for a skill to be learned). Most of the players do a lot of jobs in the mmorpgs at the same time. They try to find something else to do because mastering a certain job should be hard and done just by the hardcore gamers, who take the job in the game serious.
As for me i tryed many mmorpgs just to fing the system of the game(pattern) and sadly most of them are shallow. Ones i liked the most were Ultima online and EVE but the magic is all gone now because there is a ton of games out there who have all the same content with nothing extra.
Tue Nov 13 2007 12:20AMWhat you are talking about is NPC/mobs without scripts but instead with behavioral patterns. NPCs/Mobs that will react to situations. "If this happens, I will do X or Y."
It still ALL has to be programmed and coded. In order for NPCs/Mobs to make a choice, in any situation, every choice and consequence STILL has to be coded.
If you think you can do dynamic content without it, you are just wrong, I'm sorry my friend. The most advanced A.I. gives us the illusion of dynamic choice, but in order to have NPCs/mobs do the kind of things you describe, it either A) has to all be programmed or B) have to have self aware A.I. which is currently impossible.
I'd say the most dynamic and intelligent A.I. which responds to player action the best is from Fable. Though Fable does have it's limits, of course, it's probably the MOST like what you describe.
The easiest way to create a world like you describe is to better control the respawn of NPCs and mobs. With some advanced scripting/coding (still developer intensive) you could create a game where if you kill a NPC or Mob, it's gone forever (or maybe just for a long time.)
That way a raid that clears out all the Mobs in a enemy fortress would actually clear it out, thus advancing player control of the land. A guild could take up residence in that fortress, and using free placement of crafted structures/objects (like SWG / UO housing) you could dynamically alter the game world.
Have NPCs have children and age, they NPC may die due to old age or a player bandit raid my kill him/her, but their son/daughter will grow up and take over their shop, or the dead NPCs widow.
THESE kind of things are possible, but still, only through extensive coding and scripting.
Tue Nov 13 2007 10:05AMHuli: "Most players don`t like to be blacksmiths to be honest."
I agree. Blacksmithing is merely the cliche crafting example. People might be more interested in blacksmithing if there was anything to being a blacksmith. In MMOs today, being any crafter is a matter of wandering through dangerous parts of the world to collect materials that are dropped into a recipe, a button is pressed and a crafted item pops out.
Huli: "The only difference is, you have to spend time in-game to know what to do to become a good mage for example."
Just like playing online Chess, or Bejeweled or Tetris or any other game of skill. An important realization here is that it's not important to become a good mage in order to enjoy the game. It is not a gating factor to being able to visit a certain town, go on a voyage on a ship, etc. Note that my mages don't use magic to do damage. They use magic to change the circumstances under which other skills are used. They make the ground slippery under enemy feet. They create crosswinds to alter enemy arrows. They heat metal without a forge to help blacksmiths. And so on.
Huli: "The system in EVE enables the player to click on a skill and go offline while the skill "learns itself" which doesn`t give the player any wisdom in the game mechanics and sometimes slows the player down(like 2 days waiting for a skill to be learned)."
Right. Eve Online uses their character skill system for at least two reasons:
1. As a content staging mechanism. Players can't hop into battleships on day one. They have to wait while their character accumulates the skills. In truth, financial concerns would accomplish much of the staging effect, unless a new character has a benefactor who provides a battleship out of the blue.
2. As a means of encouraging character diversity. If it takes devotion to accumulate the skills for driving a battleship, a covert operations ship, an electronics warfare ship and an advanced miner, then the player is forced to choose. But only in the near term. After enough players have been in the game long enough, everyone becomes quite advanced on a wide range of skills. Specialists always retain at least a modest advantage over generalists.
Huli: "[Players] try to find something else to do because mastering a certain job should be hard and done just by the hardcore gamers, who take the job in the game serious."
In current games, hardcore gamers don't master a task, they just grind it out. I want players who really enjoy their ability to play a certain part of the game world to be able to plumb the depths of that part. Mastery of a part of the game does not mean that the player character accumulates power or wealth or anything else. It just means that they have the enjoyment of doing something well. An accomplished Bejeweled player doesn't gain anything except the enjoyment of playing Bejeweled well.
Tue Nov 13 2007 10:31AMheerobya: "The easiest way to create a world like you describe is to better control the respawn of NPCs and mobs. With some advanced scripting/coding (still developer intensive) you could create a game where if you kill a NPC or Mob, it's gone forever (or maybe just for a long time.)"
No respawns. An NPC dies and it's gone.
heerobya: "That way a raid that clears out all the Mobs in a enemy fortress would actually clear it out, thus advancing player control of the land. A guild could take up residence in that fortress, and using free placement of crafted structures/objects (like SWG / UO housing) you could dynamically alter the game world."
Raids (intended to be constant and ad hoc) do indeed clear out enemy-occupied locations. New lands are brought under the control of NPCs. Players are playing the role of foreign mercenaries and advisers, unable to own lands, etc. They are simply skilled, hired labor. The check is in the mail.
When new lands are brought under control, an NPC lord is assigned to develop the land for the crown. The lord takes on advisers (the player characters) to 'help' him. At that point, the game becomes one of Caesar III, composing and running a medieval village that may or may not grow into a city. Crafters have a ready demand for anything that they might want to make, and it'll be put to actual use. NPC families will consume food, sit in chairs, wear clothes, live in houses, use tools. It's all crafting fodder.
Tue Nov 13 2007 11:03AMlol, actually, I had this old game in DOS, called Darklands or something...
It kinda seemed like all this was in there, but you couldn`t really tell by playing the game. it was cleverly programmed to look as if the lands changed over years.
I agree that the GameRealms in any MMO are way too static, nothing ever changes, it`s EXACTLY the same place as last year, with EXACTLY the same mobs as last year, that run right into my fireblaze trap EXACTLY like last year.
It makes the game boring pretty soon... PvP is the only thing I enjoy, because then you have an opponent that doesn`t try the same pattern over and over again... or well, so I hoped, but most people seem to learn from the game... sadly enough.
-.- I know why the lower levels are dull like this, because else the game would be too hard for starters...
But above at least half of the maximum level cap, there`s nothing changed, only the number of hitpoints jumping around.
No creatures actually tried to backstab you by walking past innocent and then jump up at you when you try to rest or trade or whatever.
It`s all -a PC comes in x distance, go straight to him and kill.- programmes...
If you ask me, they don`t change these details because they`re lazy.
this is a 1 line action, making strategy or seemingly strategy might take at least 100. But it`s only done once. unless you manually want to change strategy every now and then. and it makes the game WAAAAAY more interesting.
Making self learning AI, with true strategy... heck, I`m not even going to guess a number of lines that would take. But that is definately hard, and I agree most game producers don`t want to spend time and money forever untill the game comes out.
Tue Nov 13 2007 1:07PMEven if that would make game playability much more interesting when you`ve been on that same little world for over a year.
come to think of it, here`s a small depth charge.
it doesn`t affect strategy, but it could make the game a bit more dynamic (at least then you`ll be distracted from depth of the combat system).
when you go to the store, to get ingredients for the NPC, being the xth player that brings ingredients because there aren`t enough... -.- I mean, you could be the millionth one, are those NPC`s greedy or what.
I`ve NEVR in my life had it, that the NPC would say, "y`know what, go look somewhere else for work, I`ve just been stocked".
things like that would be fun to have in a game.
You could then return to the npc that advised the quest and that NPC "would have to look for something else". Not as a static way, but as a way of, "go look around if you can help someone, and it would feel a little less as "one of those tutorial chores, get ingredients of an ointment for the alchemist, next get iron for the blacksmith, next get meat for the butcher" in that order, every time.
Just as a difference, for being the xth player, or because of a certain time of day. or because the stock ACTUALLY ran out or is below x.
That would certainly make a game more interesting. the land around you evolves because of players` actions, not even YOURS, but also someone else`s.
Ofcourse, it would be a %$@ if you`re new, you want to stock up HP potions and grind something, but the shop is out of potions...
Tue Nov 13 2007 2:12PMBut I guess for that there`s always a fallback, player characters sell or trade too, and you could alwways put in a more expensive store that always has "needfull things"
Innovation would be nice, but make no mistake, there is quite a bit of depth already in or available to many of the MMO's on the market. I recall in early beta of City of Heroes that the AI had been programmed to use their skills situationally. This proved to be more challenging to the testers than initally considered and so it was adjusted "downward" to make for easier gameplay. Later, this adjustment was added back to the game as a "feature" but even then equipped with a slider to support those of lesser skill and ablility.
Terrain modifiers have been attempted also, water and ice have been around since EQ1 and movement in and of iteself has represented a huge window for skill, still, there always seems to be a way for the layman to achieve the same level of success as the master provided one or two key individuals who know what they are doing are around. I think that the problem lies in the short game.
Using Chess, as you did, as the example, yes, the layman can pick it up but only to lose to one even marginally a bit more skilled. MMO's are programmed so that no one has to ever be halted in their progress. The bar stops at easy, there is no better player than the newbie only those that are more efficient. The point of seeking depth becomes moot and only useful for bragging rights while the majority is free to bulldog their way through the content to the same if not very similar end.
All this to say that I don't think that the depth is missing, the depth is what keeps me playing. It is the reward vs depth ratio that is out of whack and kills the spirit for me, and I think, others.
Wed Nov 14 2007 12:29AMjesad, all good points.
Artificial Intelligence: The AI that I want to be brought to bear is focused on the development of the NPC community, not of the monster effectiveness. The monsters are tough, but mostly stupid. They exist to be defeated in volume. The challenges that the NPCs will provide are primarily situational, things that any player is expected to react to. Changes in equipment, changes in spacing, changes in terrain, etc. The player characters don't die, so they have ample opportunities to figure out efficient ways, inefficient ways, fun ways, and just plain screwy ways of approaching those situations.
If I want to give a challenge to those interested in combat, I'd switch to letting players fight each other. In that area, I'd rely on laddering, just as is found in Chess, Go and other games of skill. The World of Warcraft battlegrounds are an example of that - but without the depth that I'd like to see.
Terrain Modifiers: They have been attempted to be sure. Dark Age of Camelot and Lord of the Rings Online have line of sight restrictions in the very least. These are the sorts of things that need to be expanded; intuitive use of the terrain. And I remember the slippery hallways in EverQuest. :) That was a gimmick. Underwater fighting? No thanks. I'm just thinking about standard, historical implications of use of terrain. Holding high ground. Flanking. Solidity of objects. Slippery or uneven footing. Slow climbing of steep slopes, as opposed to a complete inability to climb them.
jesad: "It is the reward vs depth ratio that is out of whack and kills the spirit for me"
What is an example of the "reward versus depth ratio"?
Wed Nov 14 2007 10:27AMJB47394: What is an example of the "reward versus depth ratio"?
Using Chess, as you did, as the example, yes, the layman can pick it up but only to lose to one even marginally a bit more skilled. MMO's are programmed so that no one has to ever be halted in their progress. The bar stops at easy, there is no better player than the newbie only those that are more efficient. The point of seeking depth becomes moot and only useful for bragging rights while the majority is free to bulldog their way through the content to the same if not very similar end.
That was my example.
Fri Nov 23 2007 11:16PMjesad: "That was my example."
So you're suggesting that the problem is not the inclusion of depth in MMOs, but the fact that even having skill doesn't result in any change in the game because the unskilled will get to the same endpoint - only more slowly. By analogy, the unskilled bull their way through the walls instead of skillfully locating the doors and windows. If they all end up at the same ATM, who cares?
That is a problem when what players have in mind is getting through the experience to a reward on the far side. When I apply the concept of depth I'm implicitly applying it to a game where the application of the skill is the entertainment. Playing Chess or Go is the entertainment, not having won.
That greatly adds to the lifetime of an MMO's content because players want to experience it over and over again (well, hopefully), regardless of the player skill level. Without depth, experiencing the same content over and over again is repetitious and boring. The players aren't applying themselves. They're just going through the motions.
Sat Nov 24 2007 4:22PMMMORPG.com writes:
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