This Week’s “RMT Is Rilly Cool” Story

I’m squarely on the anti- side, but I see it as a fundamental game design problem.

In any game that’s not 100% instanced, there is, in fact, competition for resources. If I’m at spot X obtaining the gold/plat/sword/resource there, you aren’t.

Obviously everyone has discovered that if you have more force (either by guild or multi-boxing) you can control the production of more game money/loot. Therefore, in many (most?) games, organizations have formed to do so.

Whether those organizations sell the results for real money or keep them in-game for their own purposes is almost irrelevant. The fact that a bit of content *can* be monopolized means that it *must* be monopolized, because one person’s failure (through reluctance, perhaps) to do so means another’s opportunity to do so. In order to retain the power to go after game resources, one has to be able to take them first, fastest, and if necessary right over the objections of others.

Only (to date) instancing has permitted “you *and* I win” rather than “you and *not* I win” and instancing comes with its own host of issues (namely, that all the above behavior holds sway without even a chokepoint to keep items from flooding the game).

The real money just adds an additional incentive to monopolize anything that can be taken.

Now as it stands this is all very open in a sort of Randian (as in Ayn) fashion. On the poker table, this behavior is fully accepted and expected. Nobody expects that the guy with 450k in chips is going to be nice to me because I only have 30k and am struggling; if he does falter, I’ll soon be the one with 450k and he with 30k, and I’ll squash him.

However, this isn’t poker. Somewhere, theoretically, these games are “role-playing” games and the role that’s described on the box is not Donald Trump but Rilly the Elf or Foo the Wizard. I have yet to read a fantasy novel that had Our Heroes approach the Tomb of Nasty Things only to see a merchant’s tent set up out front with a “Sword of the Tomb, $35″ sign. Theoretically people want to act out this role of elf or space captain or whatever.

I say ‘theoretically’ because although this is the game the designers design and the developers code and *some* of the players buy, apparently the majority of the MMOG playerbase is much more interested in this other game that has nothing to do with adventure but is about solving shortest-path puzzles through the content.

So, my impression is that the games where this second sort of game is successfully curtailed have been relative failures, subscription-wise. So (and the industry people may or may not speak to this) there must be a huge pressure to cater to the farming market, because those guys buy 18 accounts and exhaust the content and keep your company hopping and developers busy, whereas the guy who games for the sake of the game buys one copy (and his other money goes to the farmers so as to keep up).

“There\’e2\’80\’99s no reason why the \’e2\’80\’9cspend time for no reason\’e2\’80\’9d games can\’e2\’80\’99t allow \’e2\’80\’9cspend money for no reason\’e2\’80\’9d as well, since that\’e2\’80\’99s what a large portion of the MMOG public seems to think is fine now. You\’e2\’80\’99re a shrinking minority, just like those people who want unrestricted PvP.”

This is partly true. The number of people who want to play the game as a game is increasing, but the number of people who are playing the money game is growing much more quickly.

There’s plenty of room in the market for plain fun yet.

I’ve taken your advice, Bruce. My favorite game is not one where farmers control the economy and the lifecycle of the game. Not surprisingly, it’s also a small speck on your current charts.

Speaking of those … I would *love* to see a breakdown by game of subscribers by country. I know it’s not possible, but that would be VERY enlightening.

Weasel is right.

The current MMOG designs intentionally try to retain customers through a design model that requires long hours of repetitive play.

As part of the incentive to endure this process, players receive not only the larger numbers of levels, statistics, and items, but also access to more interesting areas of the game. We get done with bats and rats and move on to orcs, and finally to dragons (or whatever).

There are sound reasons for this design. One, a player should grow accustomed to the game so as to be an asset to his team later (because it’s fun to play well, and frustrating to self and others to be over one’s head). Two, no design team can possibly produce new quality content fast enough to compete with thousands or millions of players, and the business model of MMOGs requires that players at least stick around for X months to make the business profitable. Three, it provides a continuity of story; as in the archetypal Campbellian hero story, people start as the wide-eyed fool and end as the wise, strong hero-king.

However this, to use the chess analogy that’s been floating around, is like being asked to learn chess by starting with only a couple pawns, and then after some time being given more pawns, then a knight … and only after months of play then being allowed a queen.

This annoys people, who want to get to the game they paid for in less than forever; so they shorten the process, EULA be —-ed.

EULAs are toothless; accounts galore can be tracked and banned, but if farmers are making millions, what’s a few $40 boxes? Besides, no matter how earnest the enforcement, every farmer caught and banned probably means nothing more than a bit more money for the game company. Analogies could be drawn to other enforcement efforts in the real world, which I won’t write about for fear of derailing the thread.

Now despite being firmly on the “game should be a game” side, I hardly blame the players (who don’t like treadmills); the designers (who are trying to make a game which shows a profit, and does not have reviewers and players squawking about ‘finishing’ in days or weeks). Even the farmers I only blame *because* their effort gets in the way of other players’ gaming; other than that they’re providing a service somebody wants.

As a stopgap I actually like SOE’s method; give the people who want to buy their way in their own sandbox to play in, and let the people who want to play the ordinary way do so. (It’s partially effective from what I’ve seen; on regular servers farming is not gone, but it’s much reduced).

The real issue is that nobody has really tackled the baseline design of MMOGs (that Campbellian hero’s journey thing) and truly answer the question of what the Hero does once he’s a Hero.

Some designs answer with PvP. Once you’re a Hero, beat the snot out of other Heroes. This just feeds right back into the treadmill, because Hero+ beats Hero, and Hero++ beats Hero+, and so forth. Whether you enjoy PvP or not, this is *not* an answer to the question of farming.

Others just up the ante; in expansion XLIII the heroes, having already destroyed the known pantheon of deities and overthrown time and space, now find themselves faced with … pirates! (by a remarkable concidence, these pirates are just tough enough to challenge god-slayers and universe-rulers, but for whatever reason have elected to sit around on their pirate ships). Back on the treadmill!

IMO a solution which truly stops the treadmill will, as players near the end of the existing content, starts turning them from content consumers into content providers. When you’ve amassed a million gold pieces, your life is no longer one of a carefree adventurer. You could buy a small hamlet, and maybe you have! Or you’ve constructed a wizard’s tower … and being like most wizards, a dungeon underneath. Are you a merchant? Then you need a shop, and employees, and have less and less time to go hunt dragons.

(You’ll find this theme in many fantasy and SF novels; the hero of the first novel becomes the guide, the mentor, the villain of a subsequent novel while someone else takes the limelight).

In short, start giving players responsibility, which gives them something to do AND gets them producing content. The trick, of course, is to keep that content creation in line with your game theme and outside of areas which would bring a shower of lawsuits down upon your company…

Solve this and you’ll not only have a robust, dynamic, world instead of a treadmill, you’ll also have the content creation nightmare alleviated and the farming problem under control.

Perian: “You could go for a \’e2\’80\’9ccentral planning\’e2\’80\’9d model”

No thank you! We have enough of that insanity out in Arr Ell (RL).

Well, actually, the whole economy of every MMOG is centrally planned; wealth enters the game at points designated by the designers (usually mobs) and leaves through necessary expenditure points (money sinks) also designated by designers.

However, you’re talking about what happens after that.

My point of view is just that in so far as outside sales affect my gaming, I care. Here are some ways it does in various games:

- Organized loot collection (farming) inflates the as-designed rate of influx of items and money; therefore prices of key items inflate, and generally characters are more powerful than designed; therefore designers account for this in later content, with the result that players must participate in the DRM or be unable to play later content;

- Content intended for and appropriate for my character is monopolized by farming concerns;

- Expectations of the player base include that characters will be equipped in a fashion only possible for people buying their equipment, resulting in lost opportunities or scorn if one doesn’t choose to participate in that routine.

(Probably more, but I’m mostly through a good quantity of Sapporo and, well…)

Anyway as my earlier post asserted these are all consequences of the design. It’s a matter of opinion as to whether this is BAD design; certainly it’s successful commercially and popular. It’s bad for *me* because I want to play within a self-contained economy. Frankly, if my interests lay in buying and selling for profit, I’d spend my spare time on ScottTrade or something. I really don’t know why the other people who *do* enjoy mucking around with MMOG economies don’t play the stock game instead; maybe the competition’s too tough there :p