Richard Bartle Is A Hardcore Killer

21Jun/08Off

Richard Bartle Is A Hardcore Killer

From an interview on Massively, the interviewer asked Bartle about his thoughts on Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, leading into a short blast...

I've already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft.

...which immediately segued into a somewhat more nuclear explosion:

Age of Conan – that's PVP. Wow, gosh, PVP – it's pretty hardcore, PVP, isn't it? No. When you played [older MUDs] you got killed after three months of playing, your character was gone. Yeah, hardcore PVP – yeah, we're hard, aren't we? We're evil. No. You don't know anything.

But of course, if you fixate on the explosions, you miss the interesting bits.

I might have a look at it from a point of view of seeing what things – the class balances are like, seeing how they've implemented the – I really ought to write up a book on how to read a virtual world so that I have a vocabulary in order to explain it to people. But there are a number of things you can do with player versus player, and I want to see the way they've done it not because whether it's cool or not but because of you chose that way. Now, why did you choose that way?

You chose that way because you've got a particular vision for your virtual world. Your particular vision for your virtual world is saying something. You made this the center of your virtual world. That tells me something already in advance. What it tells me is you want to compete with the games that don't have it so that you're carving your niche. But why did you choose that niche? You chose that niche or a particular reason. How did you implement it? You're trying to rip off Dark Age of Camelot?

Well, that probably was a motivation, but there were a number of things you could have done. EVE Online, for example, was player versus player, and it's got player created units or guilds. You're doing it that way, and now you're saying things that way. But when you create it, you're actually saying something through the design. What is it you're trying to say? Why are you trying to say it? How are you trying to articulate something? This is from the designer's point of view what I really want to know. What are they trying to say? Why have they done it this way? Did they know about the other ways?

They're designers. They've got millions. They must have known about the other ways, but they didn't do it the other way. They did it this way. Why did they do it that way?

My immediate snarky response, from working on several MMO teams now, is that assuming that designers have any knowledge of games that came before their current favorite is not a safe assumption, and that what the designer may be saying is simply "I really liked Everquest" or "City of Heroes seemed fun, let's nick those bits", or more regrettably, "Yeah, World of Warcraft, make it more like that, because we like money hats."

But of course, Bartle has a response to that too:

Did you know one in 100,000 people are psychopaths? Well, you do now. So figure out how many psychopaths there are in World of Warcraft. I don't want any of them actually coming around to me in the belief that I am saying dreadful things about World of Warcraft.

Methinks someone received some blistering email...

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Michael
June 21st, 2008 - 14:30

“The interviewer”? Ouch.

Also, from my side of the seat, I really enjoyed the interview. I dunno why the commenter’s pantaloons are so twisted up – if *he* isn’t allowed to be a cranky veteran, who is?
Moorgard
June 21st, 2008 - 14:46

I honestly don’t get why someone would want to talk about or consult for a type of game that he doesn’t enjoy playing. That stuff about not seeing the game as a player really bugs me. Sure, you see things differently once you step over to the professional side of the fence, but designing games should be about love and fun and magic. If you lose that, why do it? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Steven Spielberg actually enjoys watching movies that other people make.

Far be it from me to pass judgment on a guy with such a long, revered history on the basis of a single interview, but this rambling article leaves me baffled. I can only respect analysis and scholarship so much. Personally, I’m much more interested in hearing from people who are actually working on MMOs and trying to make the genre better rather than listening to consultants on the sidelines, no matter how influential they’ve been in the past.
Changling Bob
June 21st, 2008 - 15:02

Context: I’m involved in backstage in amateur theatre. Generally, I do lights.

When I go to see a show, I will notice lights. I will spend as much time looking at the lights as the show itself, how they’re rigged, what they do, whether the operator cocks up or not. Shows are still fun to watch, but I notice the lighting. Hanging around with other backstage people, I’ve also picked up some stuff from them. I notice how the set is designed, the timing of the actors, what the props are doing.

I don’t do theatre for a living, and yet going to a show, however entertaining it is, I will notice a lot of technical flaws, some of them tiny. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Bartle doesn’t find MMOs ‘fun’. I don’t know, but I suspect that they would be satisfying if good, and unplayable if bad, where ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are measured on a completely different scale from the players.
J.
June 21st, 2008 - 15:16

Bartle keeps talking as though he expects MMO designers to actually want to justify their decisions to a world audience.

Maybe they should, but I don’t hear of too many who ever do. WoW’s designers don’t, not really. We were lucky to get the “pallys r easy mode.”
Sinnach
June 21st, 2008 - 15:36

Permadeath? Really? Wow.

Thats like making fun of your friends for not learning to play a real instrument when they’re enjoying a game of guitar hero.
sinij
June 21st, 2008 - 19:21

Killers tend to be intelligent and driven people with ideas, goals and means to see those to fruition. Driven opportunists that just won’t give up. No wonder Killers dominate every game and main outlet of killer’s activity – PvP and PKing- tends to be separated and safeguarded from the rest of the game in order to protect weaker players.

Unfortunately other player types are not as driven, and more importantly not as willing to recover from a setback, ask Killers. As such games tend to cater to lowest common denominator – usually socializers and archivers (what a misnomer, catasses suits so much better).
Darm
June 21st, 2008 - 19:57

His use of Spielberg as an analogy is a little much, and doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.

Spielberg has had enormous critical and finacial success.

Bartle? Any MMORPG history should include his name, but the level of accomplishment is not remotely in the same ballpark.

His point is valid, but he flatters himself to mention Spielberg in the same breath.

Bartle is the Nolan Bushnell of MMORPGs. A pioneer, sure, but anything beyond that stretches credulity. Quite the ego.
J.
June 21st, 2008 - 21:19

Bushnell was a failure as a businessman.

Bartle is the Mendel of MMORPGs.
Darm
June 21st, 2008 - 21:55

Mendel was a monk, didn’t exactly set the business world on fire himself.

Which maybe is appropriate. Bartel, financially, I’m sure is doing better than someone living in a monastery, but he is living at least part of his life as an academic.
DaveN
June 21st, 2008 - 21:56

Someone who has made great contributions lashing out because they see their chosen field moving in a direction they did not set? I am shocked. SHOCKED!
Freakazoid
June 21st, 2008 - 22:08

I wouldn’t say he’s a killer, but he is sure a hardcore question asker.
J.
June 21st, 2008 - 22:14

“Mendel was a monk, didn’t exactly set the business world on fire himself.”

Mendel didn’t set anything on fire, at least not during his lifetime. It wasn’t until after he died that people realized he was onto the mechanics of heredity and genetics in nature (and that he was about half wrong in his theories, but look at what he had to work with.)
Brian 'Psychochild' Green
June 22nd, 2008 - 03:09

Dr. Bartle is greater than all of us for one major reason: perspective. He has it while the rest of us are missing it in various degrees.

Bartle is mostly pointing out that the “ZOMG PvP!” of AoC is really pretty weak if you take it in perspective. And, he’s absolutely right. Here’s what he’s really saying, but it’s too polite in that painful English way to say: if PvP is going to be successful in AoC, it’s going to have to evolve beyond the current weaksauce “no effect and no consequence” system it has now. Just as WoW’s current implementation of PvP is radically different than it was back in the day (Tauren Mill raids, anyone? Whose turn is it to get the highest PvP rank this time?), AoC is going to have to come up with a different system. Yeah, he said, “Permadeath, bitches!” but he knows that he gets more response out of something like that then a reasoned argument. Why? Because the “ZOMG AoC PvP!” crowd isn’t arguing with logic, either.

Moorgard wrote:
Personally, I’m much more interested in hearing from people who are actually working on MMOs and trying to make the genre better rather than listening to consultants on the sidelines, no matter how influential they’ve been in the past.

Says the guy who got “into this business mostly by accident” because he happened to write for a rant site? (Direct quote off his site.) Given that illustrious background, perhaps you should be a bit slower to criticize others simply because you don’t think they’re relevant?

If anyone can’t see Richard Bartle as insightful, then I have to believe they aren’t paying attention or simply aren’t able to think like a game designer. Hell, anyone here could become at least 10x as insightful if they were to just point their domain at Bartle’s site, including (especially?) me. I at least have enough sense not to write someone off because they’ve taken a job at a university instead of disrupting his family by moving out of the country to work at a shitty American company.
Brandon Reinhart
June 22nd, 2008 - 03:56

I fail to parse any information-containing statements in the quoted pieces. This is my problem with everything Bartle writes. It offers nothing useful, never illuminates any mysteries. It only shifts them around, turning old vague concepts into new vague concepts.
Richard Bartle
June 22nd, 2008 - 06:34

>Richard Bartle Is A Hardcore Killer

No, see, when I play an MMO I don’t play as a player, I play as a designer. Killers are a player type, not a designer type. You have a category error here.

Yeah, I know, you were going for the headline…

My remark about WAR and WoW, which seems to have got a lot of attention, isn’t being understood quite how I meant it. I was suggesting that the Warcraft universe is, er, let’s say “coincidentally similar” to the Warhammer universe, not that WAR was a WoW rip-off. However, it would appear that in terms of design WAR does indeed seem to be only an incremental advance on WoW when you look underneath its skin. The atmosphere is different, in a gritty, AoC kind of way, but the gameplay has changed only in evolutionary ways, not revolutionary ones.

My comments on PvP in Aoc don’t look on the page quite as tongue-in-cheek as I meant them to sound. That said, the basic point is still in there: people need to get a sense of perspective here. I was asked the question as to whether I’d play new games like AoC, OK, so why would I play AoC? Its USP is its PvP, which by WoW standards is hardcore but by the standards of 20 years ago is hug-me-in-a-warm-blanket soft. So the main reason people would play AoC, ie. combat and PvP, isn’t as big a deal for me as it may be for WoW players… AoC ’s differences from WoW are in terms of small increments, not large steps, although if all you know is AoC, WoW and perhaps EQ, you might think it was actually a big step. It isn’t. Designers have more possibilities at their fingertips than they seem to realise.

>assuming that designers have any knowledge of games that came before their current favorite is not a safe assumption

Yes, sadly I agree. Too many of today’s designers want to create the MMO they grew up playing, only better. This basically makes them players who want to create games that are better for them, as players, to play. Now although this is a reasonable approach for single-player games, it’s bad for MMOs: there are many different types of player, and they play for different reasons, but they’re inter-dependent. If you build an MMO that’s a honeypot for achievers, but that drives explorers and socialisers nuts, you’re making long-term problems for yourself. However, if you’re a designer who loves grinding for gear, why would you – and how could you – create a game that appealed to the other types? You can check the checkboxes for “something to explore” and “some reason to socialise”, but you’re not putting any of your soul into that; your soul is all going into the achiever mentality. This is why you need designers who can’t play as players, only as designers (or if they can somehow switch off their play-as-a-player emotions, that would work too, I guess).

Moorgard>I honestly don’t get why someone would want to talk about or consult for a type of game that he doesn’t enjoy playing.

Because I enjoy designing. Also, if I enjoyed playing, I would enjoy only one style of playing, not all of the types that you need for a healthy MMO.

>Sure, you see things differently once you step over to the professional side of the fence, but designing games should be about love and fun and magic.

It is – oh, it is! But for me, the love and fun and magic are in the design, not in the play. I want to imbue love and fun and magic in the MMO so the players experience love and fun and magic when they play, but my love and fun and magic is of a different kind to theirs. I’ve done my job if they players see the magic; I have to know how the magic works to create it, though, so I can’t see the magic; I can, however, see the magic of someone else’s design. This is where my fun comes from.

>If you lose that, why do it? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Steven Spielberg actually enjoys watching movies that other people make.

Well yes, but does he enjoy them in the same way that you do?

>Personally, I’m much more interested in hearing from people who are actually working on MMOs and trying to make the genre better rather than listening to consultants on the sidelines, no matter how influential they’ve been in the past.

My experience is that few people working on MMOs want to make the genre better, because they don’t see the genre as a whole: they only see the MMO they’re working on and the ones they played. Yes, consultants may not be at the coal face of design, wrestling with issues of network code or whatever, but we do see multiple designs and are therefore in a better position to see the wood for the trees. I do want to make the genre better – much, much better! My frustration is at the slow pace of progress, caused in part because people think they’re making radical design changes that are only minor alterations to the paradigm. Back in the text MUD days, making genuinely imaginative changes that took the genre in a whole new direction was not only possible but likely (at least until stock MUDs appeared). Where’s that kind of revolutionary change happening now? We’re having to look to indies and Metaplace to show the big developers what’s possible – they just don’t seem to realise the full extent of their creative possibilities.

J>Bartle keeps talking as though he expects MMO designers to actually want to justify their decisions to a world audience.

No, I don’t at all. I don’t even expect them to be able to articulate their decisions other than through their design. However, when I read a design and don’t understand a decision, then naturally I’d want to ask the designer what they were thinking of in case they can express its logical underpinnings. Sometimes, though, the best they can say is “this is just how it has to be”, which is the backstop you always get with an art form.

Sinnach>Thats like making fun of your friends for not learning to play a real instrument when they’re enjoying a game of guitar hero.

No, it’s like making fun of your friends for not enjoying a game of Guitar Hero when they’re learning to play a real instrument.

Darm>Spielberg has had enormous critical and finacial success.
>Bartle? Any MMORPG history should include his name, but the level of >accomplishment is not remotely in the same ballpark.

If Spielberg had got into movies in the 1890s and then given away his work for free, he wouldn’t have had a great deal of critical and financial success, either.

>His point is valid, but he flatters himself to mention Spielberg in the same breath.

I mentioned Spielberg because I was trying to give an analogy that was easy to understand. Film directors have a similar role to lead MMO designers – they’re the keeper of the vision for a vast project involving many skilled people all working within their own artistic parameters. If I’d said “a famous film director”, that would have been less impactful than naming a famous one (and you’s still have criticised me for suggesting I was famous). I wasn’t saying that Stephen Spielberg and I are peers, I was saying that someone who creates a work of art looks on other works of similar art in a different way to the people for whom that work of art was created. I’m sorry that you think my ego is sufficiently large that I regard myself as the Stephen Spielberg of MMOs. I’m more like Louis Lumiere.

DaveN>Someone who has made great contributions lashing out because they see their chosen field moving in a direction they did not set? I am shocked. SHOCKED!

Ho boy, did you ever get me wrong! I WANT the field to move in directions I didn’t set! I want it to move in directions I couldn’t even CONCEIVE of! I WANT to become obsolete, wheeled out at confereces for the sole reason that I haven’t died yet! The reason I want this is because it will mean that virtual worlds have begun to reach their full potential, to become what they truly can be – awesome, glorious, wonderful places where people can be and become themselves: freedom incarnate. What I’m raging against is the fact that we’re running on rails, following existing tracks to destinations we already know, seeing the same scenery and never wondering what’s beyond that hill over there.

Moving in a direction I didn’t set, jeez…

Richard
Random Poster
June 22nd, 2008 - 08:19

>If Spielberg had got into movies in the 1890s and then given away his work for free, he wouldn’t have had a great deal of critical and financial success, either.

Ok that made me laugh.

It is unfortunate that the focus is being set on specific pieces of the article and not the article as a whole.
Ghiest
June 22nd, 2008 - 08:25

I actually prefer the comments you left here, rather than the entire interview you gave at massively
pufbox
June 22nd, 2008 - 10:43

>I’ve already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft.

Because WoW has large siege battles, tomb of knowledge and group quests. When you want to say a game is only making incremental advances you should probably say it’s making incremental advances instead of making yourself sound like an asshat.

I still cannot see how you can say you are “a designer” and not want to actually play the games. Know why Ferrari’s are such awesome sports cars? Yea, the man had passion for driving. I seriously doubt your ability to design when you make comments like this.

And then there’s the part where you claim that unless there is “perma-death” like back in the old days you couldn’t get very excited about PVP. See my last comment please.

Please, please, stop while you’re ahead. You’re embarrassing yourself by actually continuing to comment on here.
blachawk
June 22nd, 2008 - 11:35

Bartle’s endless pontifications clearly show the rift between academia and the real world.
Matthew Rossi
June 22nd, 2008 - 15:52

It’s a shame that Pufbox and Blachawk couldn’t be bothered to read what Mr. Bartle just wrote and instead attacked him ad hominem. You’re missing his points, enormously so.
Fear
June 22nd, 2008 - 17:22

What does any of this have to do with Shadowbane? Oh, and Mr. Bartle, please bring back precasting, kthx.
BadMisterFrosty
June 22nd, 2008 - 18:04

I guess, the issue with not playing games is difficult to explain, because like in Hofstadters game MIU (from GEB). You can “play” it only for so long in a kind of robotic mindset. Once you jump a layer up the hierarchy (aka see it’s design), you see how it works and the game breaks. It would be then litterally stupid or robotic to force your brain back to the game layer again. Though, in games, I do not see that happening for me (yet), as a game may still have something left in it’s multimedia mix even though I know the design. If I could totally foresee those structures, it would be plain o’ boring, thus unrelated to such layers designers have access to (and that’s what some MMORPG veterans say about WOW for example).

Anyhow. Just like Rubenfields comments, Mr. Jennings dug up recently, I do not see why designers are blamed for unimaginitve design. It’s not that we are all Spielbergs or something, so we just say: that’s my idea. That’s how I want it. Give me a few million bucks and any time I need to make it happen.
John Moore
June 22nd, 2008 - 18:20

I read through the interview. It leaves me with one question?

How does someone play 3 characters to level 70, and then claim they can’t enjoy mmos? I tries AoC , gave it a shot, didn’t like it. That’s not a insult against developers of the games. Just my personal opinion. I did not like the pvp. I thought the pushing of buttons in a specific order to get a special attack did not work well in pvp. I found it cumbersome. And I figuered it out while playing. Not after maxing out 3 characters.

I’ve playered WoW also. I’ve leveled each class to 70. I’m bored with WoW right now. Specifically, I think the PvP is weak. So I’m Waiting on Warhammer.

BUT. I leveled a bunch of characters to 70. And I had fun doing it. Thus, I have to say, WoW was a success. It was a fun game. I feel like I got more than enough entertainment for the money I spent on the game. And I will always remember WoW fondly.

Isn’t the act of maxing out three characters an admission of enjoyment?
J.
June 22nd, 2008 - 19:17

“Isn’t the act of maxing out three characters an admission of enjoyment?”

No.

It might be an admission of ability to stay focused on something regardless of enjoyment, but being able to max out characters has long since been removed from the notion of enjoyment by the most experienced MMO players out there.

It’s less about enjoyment and more about obligation and status. Especially when it’s about PvP.
squidboy
June 22nd, 2008 - 20:10

I’m still getting the impression that some people want hardcore PvP, and will attack games that lack it, calling them limited or unimaginative in design.
John Moore
June 22nd, 2008 - 20:27

“It’s less about enjoyment and more about obligation and status.”

lol

Wow. If developers think games are “less about enjoyment”, then someone else needs to start making games. Maybe proctologists. That makes as much sense.

But, the flaw in that statement is you simply redifined enjoyment. If you are playing a game you really do not like for status, then you are enjoying the status.

If you are playing for obligation ( which I assume is as a developer checking out the competition)then you do not have to max out a character three times. If you did it, you received some type of satisfaction from it.

If you feel an obligation to play because of friends, you are enjoying the social environment of the game.

And if you grind parts of the game to play pvp, then the enjoyment of the pvp is grerater than the grind.

Simply, you would not play ( and pay) if you did not get something out the experience.

Bartle got the experience. And then did it again. And then again.

And then bad mouthed the game because he’s a designer. Andthen he says he gets his designer fun just watching someone else play, or by just playing a few hours.

How do you level 3 characters to 70 in a few hours? You don’t. You do it by playing the game. A lot. Even if WoW is more casual friendly than other mmos, it is still a time commitment. And he did it three times.

I think that shows he liked playing.
J.
June 22nd, 2008 - 21:22

“Simply, you would not play ( and pay) if you did not get something out the experience.”

Or you reaffirmed your status as a MMO gamer, if to no one else other than yourself. Came, saw, conquered, canceled account.

I seriously wonder whether you’ve even talked to a MMO gamer once in your lifetime. Who are you, anyway?
John Moore
June 22nd, 2008 - 23:02

“Or you reaffirmed your status as a MMO gamer”

K, don’t mean to start bickering here. But, really? Mmo gamers are gamer zombies that are incapable of knowing what is fun unless someone like Bartle tells them?

You really think mmo gamers will pay for a game they do not like? Gamers may bitch and whine plaenty, but they are playing because they enjoy it.

“Came,saw conquered,canceled account”

No. It was Came, saw , conquered, came, saw, conquered, came, saw, conquered, labled the game flawed because there was nothing to do, cancled account.

It’s like bitching you don’t have your cake because you ate it.

And because players leave a game over time does not mean the game is a failure. That is a false metric. I played AC. I enjoyed it. I left the game. I do not think of it as a failure.

“I seriously wonder whether you’ve even talked to a MMo gamer once in your lifetime.”

yes. Many times, gasp, in game. And I know they are playing for fun. How that fun is defined can be different for different people. It can even mean people will do unfun things to acheive a goal. But only if the goal is satisfying. If reaching the goal is fun.

The idea that people will play and pay for a game they get no satisfaction from is just silly, and not in any way supported by mmo gamers behavior.

Because gamers will bitch and whine does not mean they are going to play a game they do not enjoy.

“Who are you ,anyway?

I’m a consumer. I exist not in the academic theory spewed out by people like Bartle or you, but in the entertainment marketplace developers have to compete in.

It’s the difference between words and actions that I am pointing out.

Saying gamers will play games they do not like are just words. Empty, rather stupid words.

The action taken was playing the game. And Bartle tries to say he played these characters because a reporter asked him how he could talk about games if he hadn’t played them. It’s a fair point. But it does not mean you have to max out three chracters just to earn the right to say the game sucks.

As I said before, I decided I did not like AoC. And I did not have to play 3 characters to max level to know it. I simply played the game.

If you get 3 characters to 70 in WoW, you either enjoyed it, or someone else is paying you to do it for them, or you are very, very stupid. I do not think he is stupid.

I do not think he is stupid. I think he enjoyed the game enough to invest the time in three characters.
Hermes
June 23rd, 2008 - 00:27

>If you get 3 characters to 70 in WoW, you either enjoyed it, or someone else is paying you to do it for them, or you are very, very stupid. I do not think he is stupid.

I’ve been to my in-laws for holiday dinner three times. Clearly, I must enjoy doing so, since I’ve subjected myself to this ordeal willingly multiple times.
Serpilian
June 23rd, 2008 - 02:09

Clearly, you enjoy getting laid, where you wouldn’t be if you didn’t go to your inlaws.
Richard Bartle
June 23rd, 2008 - 03:03

Ghiest>I actually prefer the comments you left here, rather than the entire interview you gave at massively

That’s because I have a backspace when I type, but not when I speak.

pufbox>When you want to say a game is only making incremental advances you should probably say it’s making incremental advances instead of making yourself sound like an asshat.

You’re not looking at the bigger picture here. Yes, there are differences between WoW and WAR, but there are many, many more similarities. When you consider the great range of possibilities that virtual worlds have to offer, it’s as if WoW is one racehorse, DAoC is another racehorse, and WAR is a third racehorse that may or may not be faster than its parents. Where are the cheetahs going to come from?

>I still cannot see how you can say you are “a designer” and not want to actually play the games.

Because if I wanted to play them, that would make me a player. I want to (and do) design them, therefore I’m a designer. Playing and designing are two different things. Composers don’t have to know how to play every instrument in the orchestra; what they need to know is what sound each instrument can be made to produce, and how those sounds fit together.

>Know why Ferrari’s are such awesome sports cars? Yea, the man had passion for driving. I seriously doubt your ability to design when you make comments like this.

Ferraris are great on the racetrack, but useless at moving refrigerators from factories to stores. If all you want to do is drive fast, then you’re going to create a fast car, but you’re going to ignore all the other road users. Virtual worlds have different types of players, and those players have different needs. Some do indeed want to drive fast, but others want a more comfortable, leisurely drive, and others prefer to drive monster trucks. If you are a person whose only interest is in driving awesome sports cars, you’re not going to address the needs of those other people. If, on the other hand, you are interested in vehicle design, then you’re going to look at the bigger picture and design for everyone.

>And then there’s the part where you claim that unless there is “perma-death” like back in the old days you couldn’t get very excited about PVP.

I wasn’t all that excited about permadeath either; as I say, I’m a designer, not a player. Look, the point I was making is that sure, to today’s players there looks to be a wide gap between the PvP in WoW and AoC, but when you look at how wide the gap could be, they’re actually so close that you can barely get a piece of paper between them. Progression in MMO design is progressing at a snail’s pace – mere nuances of difference appear to be major changes. How are we ever going to get the virtual worlds we deserve if designers don’t see (or do see, but aren’t allowed to design) what they COULD be? I’m not saying we should have permadeath, I’m just using permadeath to show how big the canvas is.

>Please, please, stop while you’re ahead. You’re embarrassing yourself by actually continuing to comment on here.

Yes, well, when you remember this conversation having played MMOs for another 20 years and you come back to look at it, then you’ll be in a position to judge who was embarrassing themself.

John Moore>How does someone play 3 characters to level 70, and then claim they can’t enjoy mmos?

I do enjoy MMOs – I enjoy seeing the design and watching it unfold. It’s a case of diminishing returns, though. I had 90% of what I ever got from WoW by level 10. Yes, if I’d stopped playing at that point I’d have missed the piquancy that is STV and the sweetness of ZF, but the time taken to get there is linear and the returns are an inverse square.

I worked up to level 70 for the reasons I said: credentials. My daughter just took her A-level (ie. pre-university) exams: she spent 12 hours a day revising for 2 months, and didn’t enjoy any of it. She did it because she wanted to get to a good university. I didn’t enjoy playing WoW much beyond the early designer fun stage, but I stuck at it just to stop people from criticising me for “pontificating” about virtual worlds without playing them. OK, so I played them, and I have the credentials, but really I didn’t learn much more than I knew anyway – which is exactly how I knew it would be. And of course, I knew that when I stopped at 70 I’d get slated because “that’s when the game really begins”. Yes, I KNOW it really begins there, and I KNOW what it’s like, but I’m NOT going to play all the way through every last instance just to validate the metrics used by raiders to measure their worth.

>Isn’t the act of maxing out three characters an admission of enjoyment?

Did you ever swim the entire way round the Eastern Kingdoms? Was it fun? I did. I even learned something from it: there are no fish on the northeastern shores, which means that every fish school is placed by hand, and that’s interesting (to me) to know. It was mindlessly boring to swim for 4 hours, sure, but no more so than if I’d been doing anything else.

It’s not an admission of enjoyment, it’s an admission of will power driven by the desire to look my students in the eye.

Richard
squidboy
June 23rd, 2008 - 06:40

Pacing mechanisms are part of MMO’s. It keeps players from consuming content the first month so the french can stay in business. There’s also the social part of grouping and raiding to achieve a common objective. It’s a bit different from soloing to 70 in arguably the easiest MMO to level in. Et al.

Nonetheless, I hear some critiques and nay saying, but no suggestions on how to correct this apparent design issue or, more importantly, how to make it better and fun while continuing to make money for the french.
ubvman
June 23rd, 2008 - 06:45

>>>Isn’t the act of maxing out three characters an admission of enjoyment?

>>Did you ever swim the entire way round the Eastern Kingdoms? Was it fun? I did. I even learned something from it: there are no fish on the northeastern shores, which means that every fish school is placed by hand, and that’s interesting (to me) to know. It was mindlessly boring to swim for 4 hours, sure, but no more so than if I’d been doing anything else.

>>It’s not an admission of enjoyment, it’s an admission of will power driven by the desire to look my students in the eye.

You put yourself through “hell” just so that you can berate game devs for being lazy and unimaginative? Heck, I do that anyways regardless if I play the game or not – the joys of anonymous interweb!

You know, isn’t it like going into an experiment with preconceived biases with the conclusion already at hand (WoW is lazy game design – I did it better in the 70’s using vacuum tubes, whippersnappers these days can’t design a good game….). For curiosity sake, Question: At any point, did you have to slap yourself to remind yourself NOT to have fun while playing all 3 chars to Level 70 – just so you can say it was shit and not up to your standards? Did you go out of your way to find the most tedious way to level just so you can say you found the gameplay as bad as swotting for an exam? What sort of quest required you to swim all round the entire Western Kingdom just so you can say its boring?

Come now – are you seriously telling us, there was ZERO enjoyment throughout your entire WoW experience? I find that very hard to believe – and a more than a little creepy if you don’t mind me saying so about the whole thing.
Amaranthar
June 23rd, 2008 - 07:21

Some of you are jumping on Richard unfairly. Read what he said entirely, and you’ll already have the answers to your posted questions.

I completely agree on this subject. It’s not that what’s been done is unenjoyable. Mostly it’s that it’s fallen into a repeating pattern of narrow scope. Sometimes it’s that what’s “new” isn’t new at all, and isn’t done all that well, and is certainly very narrow in scope.

To give some examples:
-Where’s the advancement in AI? Why are NPCs still locked into set patterns that never vary?
-What about player choice, freedom, and range?
-Where is the game world? Why are there so few things you can reach out and touch, maneuver, push around, move, make work?
-Where are more advanced social groupings, cities and kingdoms, worldwide guilds?
-Why can’t we yet burn things down, anything we put a torch to?
-Where’s the natural calamities, floods, avalanches, earth shattering quakes?
-Why can’t we grow fields of crops, breed animals, etc.?
-Why can’t we lose things and still feel like we want to continue playing?
Anticorium
June 23rd, 2008 - 08:53

But it does not mean you have to max out three chracters just to earn the right to say the game sucks.

If Bartle leveled a holy priest to 70 and talked about how difficult WoW was to solo, the goalpost-shifting mouthbreathers would explain that they could ignore him because he didn’t pick a good soloing class. If Bartle leveled an affliction lock to 70 and talked about how WoW was an antisocial game because every challenge was soloable except for the ones specifically designed to require anywhere from 5 to 40 people, the goalpost-shifting mouthbreathers would explain that they could ignore him because he didn’t even try the group game. If Bartle leveled a prot warrior to 70 and talked about how WoW was a needless time sink because tanks have to choose between leveling ability or grouping ability, the goalpost-shifting mouthbreathers would explain that they could ignore him because he didn’t even try arena PvP.

Instead, he picked three characters that covered almost the entire scope of the pre-raiding game so that when he criticized it could not possibly be because he had only looked at one narrow aspect or ignored a third of the Holy Trinity, and now the goalpost-shifting mouthbreathers are explaining that they can ignore him because he leveled too many characters to 70.

Color me unconvinced.
D-0ne
June 23rd, 2008 - 09:00

The problem with most pvp is the lack of consequence for the person who initiates and the person who wins the conflict.

As we all should know, initiating PvP should be a costly event. Pvp should not be a LOL event.

We also should know that winning a PvP incident should carry consequences. Winning a conflict should carry heavy character lifelong consequences when it is unjust. Winning a justified conflict should also carry bountiful character lifelong consequences.

As I piddle around in my little excel file that is my vision of a MMRPG I’m constantly forced to define good and evil and determine what is just.

Just saying, the perspective of a player compared to a designer is very, very different.
pufbox
June 23rd, 2008 - 09:05

>>Know why Ferrari’s are such awesome sports cars? Yea, the man had passion for driving. I seriously doubt your ability to design when you make comments like this.

>Ferraris are great on the racetrack, but useless at moving refrigerators from factories to stores. If all you want to do is drive fast, then you’re going to create a fast car, but you’re going to ignore all the other road users. Virtual worlds have different types of players, and those players have different needs. Some do indeed want to drive fast, but others want a more comfortable, leisurely drive, and others prefer to drive monster trucks. If you are a person whose only interest is in driving awesome sports cars, you’re not going to address the needs of those other people. If, on the other hand, you are interested in vehicle design, then you’re going to look at the bigger picture and design for everyone.

The fact that you totally missed the point here tells me everything I need to know. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Drakks
June 23rd, 2008 - 09:40

The major problem of pvp isn’t really consequence in my opinion, it’s context. If there is nothing driving me to fight another player outside of the cliche “never know what they’ll do” line, it’s going to quickly become as tedious as any other aspect of the game.

Of course right beyond context comes consequence, but it doesn’t even really have to be about the loser so long as there is an actual reason to win. Many games forget to include a reason to win, and substitute it altogether by making it beneficial not to lose – which isn’t the same thing.
yunk
June 23rd, 2008 - 09:49

not seeing the game as a player is similar to not seeing any product as a user. It’s sometimes affects designers.. I know artists , musicians, etc that can’t sit back and just enjoy art anymore, they have to pick everything apart. Even when I was a musician for a living I could still sort out music that I apprectiated for it’s technical merits and music that I enjoyed listening to, and didn’t lose the ability to enjoy it. Too bad for people who do lose it.

But as far as product design goes … that’s why we have useability testing.
John Moore
June 23rd, 2008 - 10:13

“Color me unconvinced”

Ok, you’re so colored.

But my point still stands, I think. He did not have to level 3 characters to max level to understand, critque, and discuss WoWs design and impact on mmos.

If he really is so petty ( and I’m not saying he is, these are Anticoriums words) to think anyone who disagrees with him is a “mouthbreather”, then he should just stay out of all forums. There is no magical world where he can post, and not have people challenge his words and ideas. It is the basis of discussion. If you do not like discussion, do not go to discussion boards.

If a reporter says ” How can you talk about a game you have not played”, then explain you have played, make your points, and let the points stand on thier own merit. If someone else can make a valid counter point, then listen to them. But someone “moving goalposts” is not making valid points. Let your point stand. You do not have to spend 4 hours swimming through empty, virtual waters to get credibility.

Because it does not give it to you.

If you are going to criticize WoWs pvp, then you should have played, and you should understand, WoW’s pvp. But you do not have to spend months of hard core arena grinding to learn the game. And you do not have to get a warrior a full set of pvp epics, and then get a priest a full set of pvp epics, and the get a druid a full set of pvp epics to understand, critique, and disccuss WoW pvp.

Just play the game. And then talk about what you think works and what doesn’t.

If someone wants to say “you do not undersatnd WoW pvp because you didn’t play a rogue”, let them. You do not have to run out andspend weeks playing a rogue just to validate an idea you have about game design.

The idea will stand or fall on the worth of the idea.

So, I hear someone saying they played three characters to levl 70, and they did not enjoy it, but they persevered because they wanted to be able to say with authority that the game is unoriginal. Well, color me unconvinced.

You did not have to play three characters to 70 to get to understand the mechanics of the game.

If you felt you had to, then the game was put together pretty well. If you have to role a hloy priest, and then say “Got ya, you can’t solo a holy prist, the game is flawed”, then the person saying you you didn’t pick a soloing class doesn’t sound like the mouth breather to me.

If you have to role a lock, solo him to 70, and then say” See! I soloed a character to 70. The game is anti-social”, I do not see anyone who challenges your defination of antisoical as the mouth breather.

You simply did not have to play the 3 characters to 70 to do what you claim is the purpose for your actions. You choose to play the 3 characters to 70. You choose to invest the time. Something drew you into the game. I think your actions speak louder than your words.

And in response to Mr. Bartle’s direct question, no.

But knowing there are no fish on the northeastern shores does not let you look your students in the eye. It was simply a waste of time, from the perspective of learning WoWs mechanics, and being able to discuss game design.

But it was fun for you. You did because you wanted to explore, because you were interested, and you got some type of plaeasure I can not comprehend out of it.

I do not see that as a sign of will power. And on no ( none, nada, zilch) level do I think it in anyway compares to the hard work done by your daughter to acheive academic success in her life.
Sweetmeat
June 23rd, 2008 - 10:31

Ok after reading Richards responces, I’m going to have to score it Richard-2, detractors-0.
D-0ne
June 23rd, 2008 - 11:24

Sweetmeat,
It isn’t about keeping score and winning and losing, it’s about thinking.
Bonedead
June 23rd, 2008 - 11:35

I would like to apologize for my younger counter-parts. I feel responsible for all these hardheaded youngins thinkin they know wtf Richard Bartle even means! Sosry.
Todd Ogrin
June 23rd, 2008 - 11:51

I would just like to say I think a vehicle capable of going 0-60 in 2.7 seconds AND hauling household appliances in bulk would be mega-awesome.
Spaz
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:02

Bartle: “I did not enjoy it.”
Insane People: “Yes you did. YOU DID!”

What the fuck? Were you inside his brain? How do you know he really did enjoy it and is lying to us?

I guess that if a movie reviewer sits through the entire length of a shitty movie, that reviewer is required to give it a positive review. After all, if he really thought it sucked ass, he’d have been required to walk out in the middle of it on principle. Since he watched every last minute of it he must have enjoyed it, because people never do unpleasant chores for the sake of professional thoroughness.
John Moore
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:07

If a movie reviewer sits through a shitty movie three times, then the analogy is closer.

But it’s a fair attack. I am saying I think his actions speak more than his words. I can not read his mind. I am not inside his mind.

All I know about Bartle is what he says(writes). Everything I think and every opinion I post are based on what he said.
Bonedead
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:10

No see, once you’ve been WoW brain washed you can’t come back. Some people don’t understand that an MMO addict can easily keep playing an MMO while at the same time wishing they weren’t playing it. I didn’t get to 58 in WoW because I was having fun, I did it because if I didn’t make it to max level then who the hell was I to talk crap about WoW?

Now, I play DAoC still because I do have fun playing it. But I think the WoW story is more suitable for this.
John Moore
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:15

To Bonedead:

Bartle is not claiming to be WoW brain washed.

And you stopped playing at 58. You stopped having fun. You stopped playing.

The idea that mmo gamers are so simplistic that they can not know what is fun and what is not fun is false. And, i would put foward, any game company that relies on players not acting in thier on self interest will fail.
Richard Bartle
June 23rd, 2008 - 12:22

ubvman>You put yourself through “hell” just so that you can berate game devs for being lazy and unimaginative?

No, I put myself through hell so that I can talk about MMOs without having to deflect criticisms about “you never play them, so how does that give you a right to comment on them?”. I didn’t expect that I would in the process open myself up to accusations of being hooked on them. I can’t win…

>Question: At any point, did you have to slap yourself to remind yourself NOT to have fun while playing all 3 chars to Level 70 – just so you can say it was shit and not up to your standards?

What? When did I say that WoW was shit and not up to my standards? Would that be just now, when you put the words in my mouth?

>Did you go out of your way to find the most tedious way to level just so you can say you found the gameplay as bad as swotting for an exam?

I didn’t find the gameplay bad, I quite liked it in fact. I found playing through the gameplay bad, for me personally. Other people clearly love it, because they still see the magic. I don’t see the magic, I just get to respect the magician.

>What sort of quest required you to swim all round the entire Western Kingdom just so you can say its boring?

See, I kinda knew it would be boring when I did it, just as I knew that killing voidcallers (362 of them) to get the pattern for Robes of Arcana would be boring. I didn’t do it just for the right to say it was boring. I did it in the hope that I’d find something interesting there to relieve the boredom. I did see a little tower with a landing dock up on the east coast, too. Oh, and the main map was wrong, it showed me swimming through land at one point.

>Come now – are you seriously telling us, there was ZERO enjoyment throughout your entire WoW experience?

No, but since you don’t appear to have paid attention when I said it last time, I guess I’ll say it again. I did have designer fun, in that I enjoyed seeing aspects of the design that hung together well or that I hadn’t seen used that way before. I also made friends in the game, which made it easier (especially when they realised I’d repeatedly go on repetitive instance runs with them to get some tier 0.5 drop or whatever because I didn’t actually care about not being somewhere else doing something else at the time).

>I find that very hard to believe

Well, I can see why. No need to be quite as sarcastic about it, though.

It hasn’t helped me, by the way: now I get accused of not being in on the WAR beta, and therefore unqualified to make any statements about it at all.

John Moore>But it does not mean you have to max out three chracters just to earn the right to say the game sucks.

It’s not the right to say it sucks, it’s the right to say anything about it at all, at least in the eyes of people who think you have to play before you get to speak. As I said in the interview, this is actually a reasonable point of view – there are many people out there (eg. politicians) willing to spout opinions on games without ever having played them. However, when it comes to designers (and very experienced players), this is not the case: they can fill in the gaps a lot of the time, without having to play through right to the end.

However, because people don’t believe me when I say that, I worked up some level 70s in WoW. Now, they still don’t believe me, and say I must have done it for fun. I end up getting shot either way.

Anticorium>If Bartle leveled a holy priest to 70

Actually, I do have a holy priest at, er, 44 I think.

>If Bartle leveled an affliction lock to 70

I went with destruction, as it happens, because I wanted to try more with my pet.

>they could ignore him because he didn’t even try arena PvP.

I didn’t try arena PvP. If I’m going to suffer, I don’t want other people enjoying my suffering, particularly twinked out RMTers.

It’s as you say: people move the goalposts. However, the number of people moving the goalposts is much smaller than the number of people who criticised me for not playing, so overall I’m better off than if I hadn’t done it.

pufbox>The fact that you totally missed the point here tells me everything I need to know.

Ditto.

John Moore>He did not have to level 3 characters to max level to understand, critque, and discuss WoWs design and impact on mmos.

You say that now I’ve done it; if I hadn’t done it, you’d be criticising me for not having done it.

>There is no magical world where he can post, and not have people challenge his words and ideas.

Why would I want to say something and not have people challenge what I say? Whence progress?

My aim is for people to think about MMORPGs. If arguing with me makes you think about them, great! Even if you disagree with me, great! That way, we may finally get something different instead of retreads.

Not challenging what I say, but challenging my right to say it: not great. Insults are easy, discussion is hard.

>You do not have to spend 4 hours swimming through empty, virtual waters to get credibility.
>Because it does not give it to you.

I know that. You know that. But I can tell you that the number of people who do think I need to play in order to comment is orders of magnitude greater than those who don’t think I do.

>But knowing there are no fish on the northeastern shores does not let you look your students in the eye. It was simply a waste of time, from the perspective of learning WoWs mechanics, and being able to discuss game design.

Mechanics? Ha! Not mechanics, art!

Richard
nerd gone bad
June 23rd, 2008 - 13:19

I <3 Richard