This week's edition of the MMO Underbelly allows Sanya Weathers to pry into the world of Content Design and how it's really done. Check back each Friday for another edition.

Content design and quest design are closely related, but considered to be different teams. Well, that’s true at the MMO studios that haven’t completely given up on telling stories with “words.”

But don’t take that the wrong way. Telling stories with words is important, but content people are telling stories, too. In the last two days, I’ve played LOTRO, Free Realms, and watched someone play a little WOW. All three of those titles use animations, text, and pathing commands to create a sense of a living world, with NPCs interacting with each other in natural, interesting ways. As Mike Finnigan, a former content lead (now a QA lead) told me, “Quest designers usually have to be good writers and can fashion a story with text. Encounter designers fashion a story with the tools they have, [and they] know how to manipulate the tools to make things look cool.”

Read it all here.

I couldn't even begin to imagine what goes into some of the more elaborate quests that some MMOs have. Great article, Sanya!

A Very nice read! Well done Sanya.

I've been reading your articles for years Sanya, since my first dealings with DAOC.  I think Mythic lost something great when you moved on.

Love these articles and your insight, as well as your personal "flavor."  You should write a book about the MMO industry.  I'd definitely add it to my bookshelf.

Great article and I look forward to hear more. These articles interest me greatly because it has been a life long dream to make my way into the game industry ever since I was a child. Over time I have kept my goals and aspirations very realistic and I understand it is hard work and can get quite tedious. Your articles help put more perspective for would be developers, and I appreciate that.

Well off to polishing my demo reel.

Sanya, again another great write up that helps explain the inner workings of the MMO gaming community.

At the end of the first page you made a statement about finishing up the last 25% of the content in the last 2% of the calendar.  In my opinion this is one of the key statements about the way gaming companies approach creating games.  Back in the old days of pen and paper RPGs the GM/DM would come to each session with the materials fully prepared.  I personally played in a group of about 20 to 30 people that met two times per month.  Our playgroup had 3 different DMs and each couple of months we would rotate our groups between the DMs.  It was very rare for one of them to show up unprepared for a session, and the few times that it did happen it was usually due to extreme circumstances, such as a medical emergency or family emergency. 

It would seem, just from the comments made, that gaming companies are not putting the effort into the games they are creating during the initial phases.  Project planning and implementation, along with employee selection, can make a huge difference in the success or failure of any project.  I think this is even more pronounced in an environment that relies of the capabilities of so many individuals working on a singular project.

The short of this is something I was told alot back when I was in the army - "Piss poor planning makes for piss poor performance!".  With some better initial planning and management gaming companies would probably have less of a crunch at the end of implementation.  I also know that in a programming environment, bugs can come out in places that seem to have perfect coding, and these bugs can really have an impact on the timeline.  Gaming companies know this and should plan accordingly, ie - dont set a release date that is based on everything running smooth with very few hiccups.  Along with this, gaming companies should be a little more willing to back off the release if they run into major problema rather than releasing a game that may have been rushed to completion.

Most of the forums and sites that I visit all seem to have the same messages comming from the player base.  WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR GAMES THAT SUCK!  There is even a TV commercial out about this very subject.  Games that are unfinished and unpolished just plain out suck, specially when you have to pay for the game and the monthly subscriptions.

I would willing pay an extra five dollars a month and ten dollars upfront for the release of a truly great game that was well thought out with meaningful content and interactive storyllines.

Originally posted by Elricc

Most of the forums and sites that I visit all seem to have the same messages comming from the player base.  WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR GAMES THAT SUCK!  There is even a TV commercial out about this very subject.  Games that are unfinished and unpolished just plain out suck, specially when you have to pay for the game and the monthly subscriptions.

I would willing pay an extra five dollars a month and ten dollars upfront for the release of a truly great game that was well thought out with meaningful content and interactive storyllines.

The only way that will stop is for people to stop paying to play games released in beta shape. Despite the outcry from the community when it happens too many people sub anyways. It has become such common practice that it almost seems companies do it deliberately. They know they will lose a lot of subs in the short run but that they can con enough to pay the bills to get it to the point where they might win back some gamers months/years later.

Originally posted by finnmacool1

Originally posted by Elricc

Most of the forums and sites that I visit all seem to have the same messages comming from the player base.  WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR GAMES THAT SUCK!  There is even a TV commercial out about this very subject.  Games that are unfinished and unpolished just plain out suck, specially when you have to pay for the game and the monthly subscriptions.

I would willing pay an extra five dollars a month and ten dollars upfront for the release of a truly great game that was well thought out with meaningful content and interactive storyllines.

 

The only way that will stop is for people to stop paying to play games released in beta shape. Despite the outcry from the community when it happens too many people sub anyways. It has become such common practice that it almost seems companies do it deliberately. They know they will lose a lot of subs in the short run but that they can con enough to pay the bills to get it to the point where they might win back some gamers months/years later.

The other problem is that most of the players don't want storylines in their quests and don't bother to read them when provided.

As for paying to play a game in beta? /shrug, development on an MMO is never ending; content should be periodically revisited and revamped, it just needs to happen more frequently when the game is young. Heck, why not make if official; charge people $15.00 to start playing the game a month before launch with the explicit understanding that their characters will be wiped. Give them a few days head start after the character wipe and before launch as compensation.

Originally posted by Nightbringe1

Originally posted by finnmacool1

Originally posted by Elricc

Most of the forums and sites that I visit all seem to have the same messages comming from the player base.  WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING FOR GAMES THAT SUCK!  There is even a TV commercial out about this very subject.  Games that are unfinished and unpolished just plain out suck, specially when you have to pay for the game and the monthly subscriptions.

I would willing pay an extra five dollars a month and ten dollars upfront for the release of a truly great game that was well thought out with meaningful content and interactive storyllines.

 

The only way that will stop is for people to stop paying to play games released in beta shape. Despite the outcry from the community when it happens too many people sub anyways. It has become such common practice that it almost seems companies do it deliberately. They know they will lose a lot of subs in the short run but that they can con enough to pay the bills to get it to the point where they might win back some gamers months/years later.

 

The other problem is that most of the players don't want storylines in their quests and don't bother to read them when provided.

As for paying to play a game in beta? /shrug, development on an MMO is never ending; content should be periodically revisited and revamped, it just needs to happen more frequently when the game is young. Heck, why not make if official; charge people $15.00 to start playing the game a month before launch with the explicit understanding that their characters will be wiped. Give them a few days head start after the character wipe and before launch as compensation.

Hey  if people want to willingly fund the development of a game to release quality more power to them. As long as they are aware in advance and recieve no meaningful in game benefit post wipe.

As far as the tried and true smoke and mirror argument about mmo's never being "finished", sorry that dog dont hunt any more. Huge difference between a game being released with minor bugs,dialogue errors,etc and a game with major tech issues (constant ctd, major mem leaks,etc.) and primary aspects (combat,crafting,skill development,class balance,leveling,etc.) being broke.

Problem that players dont read quest text is because they know its the same pos of bringing 10 boar meat, killing 10 more trolls etc... Who would wana read this kind of crap?!

Back to the article,

" And one producer on an unlaunched MMO, but with five other titles under his belt, says, “When you play games, don’t just mindlessly consume the content. If you find something fun, sit down with a notebook and identify the feelings you had, what caused you to feel that way, the pace, the animations, the risk vs. reward, all of it. You can’t build something cool unless you know what makes people think something is cool.”""

Wonder really how many devs does that anymore...

Great write up again Sanya....

Excellent article, shows the true nature of game dev., especially the 15+ hour days and having to accept Criticism without being offended.

Most game dev employees have some prima donna in them, with giant egos and visions of creating their magnum opus, otherwise they wouldn't be working there, The amount of "company politics" and in-fighting can be a real bitch sometimes.

Really, the definition of fun comes down to the producer – that person is in charge
 

Yep, the Producer in gaming is like the Director in films, product quality depends almost entirely on that persons skill and talent. or lack thereof.

Originally posted by Elricc

you made a statement about finishing up the last 25% of the content in the last 2% of the calendar.

Man is that ever true, so much time is wasted in the front end of a project.  Half the problem is human nature, people will come in whenever they feel like it, screw around half the day, go home early and miss milestones because there is no pressure early on with a multi-year project. 

The other half of the problem is senior devs and producers who let people get away with this crap because they refuse to be The Bad Guy in the dept., afraid to offend the star players.  The result on EVERY project is Crunch Time - literally working 20 hour days, 7 days a week, sleeping on / under your desk, for the last 3-4 months before the drop-dead release date.

And then after release half the good people quit because they're unwilling to put up with such bs on yet Another project.

I wonder why the game world and the 'mechanics' aren't created first and then the content after, I imagine it would be a much more creative process if a content creator could manipulate his npc's in a realtime environment .

Great Artical Sanya!!

You highlight here one aspect of why so many games are unfinished at release.  This is doubly compounded  with IP holders that are trying to tie in all aspects of some Media launch event with the MMO.  For instance a movie, book, card game etc, etc. all being pushed at the sametime by marketing.

MMO's are a seperate orgainism that should be concieved, grown fully and launched without strings to fly on thier own meret.  They have potential to bring incrediable long term attention to a given IP and make revenue as a cash cow.  The trouble is IP holders vision is limited to the box currently on the shelf mentality.

Thanks for your article, you provide us with things we could never imagine going on.

And I have a bet on that major MMO title with the small race scraped, it makes me think about WoW's racing track in Thousand Needles, I just felt something empty in there when there was all that racing atmosphere going on and we don't get to play in it and just get some bring X quests and many of them making you go to many other zones to grab stuff.

Lame game design happens for 2 reasons in my opinion:

1. Lead crew lacks the creativity / knowledge / self-management to make a great game.

2. Important tasks such as CONTENT DESIGN get passed on in a factory manner to people other than the lead crew. It only

deludes the vision and creates a reason for the producer scum to exist.

I'm not saying leads should make the whole game (I totally would, hell..the only other employees i'd have would be

an army of codemonkeys doing EXACTLY what i tell them because stuff like AI is creative and i wouldn't trust anybody with it but i

don't know syntax so that's their job, and forget anyone even touching the art), i'm saying leads should at least make sure to be

in charge of what happens in game and never let lowers have any influence..   What? Makes it a boring job for employees? So is

pencil pushing in the office, but people do it cause it pays good so employees can shut up.

Originally posted by nuififun

I wonder why the game world and the 'mechanics' aren't created first and then the content after, I imagine it would be a much more creative process if a content creator could manipulate his npc's in a realtime environment .

Because the mechanics are clockwork coding that is practicaly copy-pasted seing as the most complex thing that could ever

happen in any game today would be a triggered, scripted event.  The content (models, animation, etc) allways takes longer

thereforeis priority.   It's allready possible to manipulate npc's real time.. Many engines feature the ability to select an object in

the editor, and drag and drop a script on it...

Excellent article.  It seems to me the crux of the issue is the insipid practice of quantifying and/or qualifying "fun".  As big as the game industry has gotten, and as much of a treasure chest as MMOs have become to all the treasure-hunting gaming companies, the job of figuring out exactly what "fun" is has become completely validated as a legitimate position.  Do they have a Director of Fun?  Senior Exec V.P. of Fun?  CFO (Chief Fun Officer)?  The whole thing is symptomatic of what is wrong with gaming today.

What's fun to me is not what's fun to 99% of the content developers out there; that much has been shown to me by what's been released and what's been overwritten.  Yes, I realize that the job of most of these designers is to determine what is fun to the most people, not to everyone.  But, as has been stated a few times in this thread already, successful release absolutely requires a polished product.  Put enough different content in the game and people will find their own fun; make the product appeal to a wide enough range and people will find their own fun; includes the tools and people will MAKE their own fun.  But in today's ADHD world of gaming, nobody wants to play a game they have to load 3 times because the damn thing crashed on the startup screen.  And nobody wants to be TOLD what is fun.  We're the customers, we'll tell YOU.

I'd say if the developer has talent, fun will be dictated to the masses and not the other way around.

When the player can't recognise an obvious pattern of what the game is going to be like before actually playing it, that's when the

player is most open to an experience whether positive or negative.. How to achieve that? Easy: Don't advertise gameplay

elements the player allready expects, as key features on the box. Make them have a vague presumption of what the game genre

is so they decide wether to play it or not, and then force your take on the genre upon them. So that in the end only your creativity

is the defining factor, not wether what you advertised met their expectations.

If that doesn't work...Accept the fact today's players want to be spoonfed, and forget about videogames ever being a serious

medium.

Who the hell goes from Lead Content Designer to QA?

That's going from head chef of a restaurant to operating the fry machine at McDonald's.

Originally posted by Nero0130

Who the hell goes from Lead Content Designer to QA?

That's going from head chef of a restaurant to operating the fry machine at McDonald's.

Therein lies one of the problems.  QA is too often regarded as the minimum wage training area for people who will grow up to get a 'proper' job in the industry, rather than what it really is - a vital part of making a good product that holds an ever more restless MMO audience.

Despite the hype about "we got 1, or 2, or 200 million the players at release date", it's far more important to keep them, but shoddy product loses players and wastes the potential of the game.