Whats up people, it's PinFX (old e-mail no longer active), and I'm once again blessed with a lot of free time in my last semester of university. Here I am back with another topic in MMORPGs. This time I'd like to talk about one MMORPG that has arguably broken a lot of the "rules" when it comes to following commercially viable guidelines in MMORPG game design and been extremely successful. From a small company, the creators of EVE slowly expanded their online universe to today's incredibly successful levels. CCP's Eve Online is the opposite of most MMORPGs that come out today, targeting quite clearly the "hardcore" gamer over the "casual." The game's mechanics, though recently upgraded to increase accessibility for the "new player experience," has a steep learning curve and often leaves new players confused and lost. Yet the game is populated with a significant amount of players, mostly older players and mostly players who invest a significant amount of time into the game every week. EVE ONLINE's subscriber count has been steadily rising over the years and continues to increase at an impressive rate. Within a few hours of entering the game, a seasoned MMORPG player will quickly realize that he is playing something very different. Some will quickly become bored with the tedious aspects and the lack of action, yet others will be sucked in and emphatically claim that EVE is somehow superior to other MMORPGs they had played. So what are the elements that make EVE so different for players? Why is it that this vast game universe gives players such drastically difference reactions? What are the benefits and downsides of EVE's type of MMORPG design? What elements in EVE can future MMORPG designers learn from? And of course, how can it be better? My Post here will suggest answers to all these questions. Moreover, it will make a claim that many of the elements of EVE's design will be essential to the success of future MMORPGs. I encourage a discussion and of course would like the opinions of players who have played man MMORPGs, with EVE among those MMORPGs. I cannot stress this next point enough: this is not about your preference of which MMORPG you prefer. It is a structured discussion about game design. PvP in EVE I hate to have to do this, but I TOLD YOU SO. In many threads posted on IGDA a couple years ago, I asserted that the next evolution of MMORPGs lay in the implementation of several general concepts: Primary focus on PvP, "meaningful play," non-combat oriented character development, heavy death penalties, limited resources and competition, and player-generated content. It just so happens that EVE has all of these elements. It has been widely agreed upon in previous discussions here on IGDA that player-generated content is central to the lifetime of an MMORPG as well its development of a unique player culture. My previous assertion was that PvP is one way in which player-generated content could be exploited. Competitive PvP in online games that are not MMORPGs, such as Counter-Strike, Starcraft, WC3, etc. have all been examples that PvP is an element that can take the replayability and depth of a game to new levels. EVE's heavy focus on PvP fully takes advantage of this, with a wide array of game mechanics geared towards PvP-centered play. Central among these mechanics are two concepts: heavy death penalties and limited resources. A system of limited resources constantly pits players against each other. CCP allows no players to play in isolation. Even miners and mission-runners (your usual grind for money solo players) playing in the protected "high security" game areas are still vulnerable to the harassment of malicious players. Astonishingly, every spaceship and item in the game either comes from the dropped "loot" of NPCs or is built, from scratch with basic mined minerals, by players. The result is that EVE boasts one of the most complex and healthy economies among all MMORPGs. By limiting the resources of ore in high security space, CCP has pushed players towards the low and "no security" areas of the universe, where richer ores and lucrative "moon mining" are available at greater risks. The results of this game mechanic are that organized player groups have dominated no security space and also the market for high-end ships, weapons and modules which are constantly in demand. The potential income able to be generated from securing your own space and setting up a robust industrial structure, when converted to real-world numbers, is comparable to real businesses. Of course, such an occurrence is rare, but still worth mentioning. The distribution of limited resources, or more specifically the placement of resources in locations connected closely to PvP, makes the value of every ship and item meaningful. That is, to accumulate wealth, a player must not only grind alone, but also deal with competitive market forces, malicious players, and other player factors. EVE also has some of the toughest penalties for death among all MMORPGs. With the economic system described above, losing a ship in PvP becomes a financial blow that presents real risk. One unfortunate result of this system is that most players in the game are revealed to be conservative players who rarely like to take risks. However, the investment of skill and finance into a PvP conflict dramatically raises its meaning to the players involved. Though death is by no means a game-ender for players, and can be absorbed, excessive expensive ship losses can break a player's ability to field well-fitted combat ships. Note that in my discussion of PvP I have not even mentioned how the combat actually plays out. Though EVE does have a very well-balanced combat system, in the context of this discussion, it is almost irrelevant. The important point here is that each PvP encounter is meaningful, both in terms of achievement and loss to the players involved, as well as "real" investment of players into a fight. Players are given much more meaningful conflicts that are essential to the development of the game's history as well as the player's experience. In other words, PvP no longer becomes just another mechanic or part of the game, it becomes central to the role playing aspect and is part of every player's story in the game; PvP itself is player-generated content. Sadly, met with this pre-requisite of "real" investment, many players choose to create stories where they run instead of fight, this is an unavoidable side-effect of heavy death penalties: players simply do not like taking that many risks. In this system, the high-risk takers are heavily rewarded for their guts, and the conservative players slowly punished through the long run. The balance between risk-taking PvPers and more docile mining-industrial players is, as exepcted, disputed by both sides. The most telling evidence is that high-risk takers, if organized, reap the greatest rewards. Non-Combat Character Development In a previous thread, I asserted that non-combat oriented character development presented the ability to harness a vast and untapped market of potential MMORPG players. With "carebears" being constantly criticized in combat-oriented MMORPGs, CCP intelligent put these carebears in charge of the economy. Mining, industry and production are central parts of the EVE universe and are managed by carebears. Certainly, carebears are still criticized by PvPers for being passive, but they are clearly defined by the game itself to be as such. Industry is given its own CCP employees to be taken care of, and instead of "PvE" carebears can are given a real role in the world that is at the same time essential to PvPers. Flaws of EVE EVE is hardly the end-all-be-all of MMORPGs. Despite its successful integration of non-combat and PvP elements, the game is still overwhelmingly a combat-based game. NPC "missions," or basically your average quests, are still the primary source of income for many players. In other words, the grind of "farming" money is still there and has not been completed replaced by "meaningful play." It is very important to note here that there is a small percentage of players in the game who do not "farm" at all. Many pirates, for instance, live off ship "ransoms" and the salvaged parts of their victims. Other large alliances based in no-security space have a dramatically different gameplay experience with robust industrial structures and wage wars with other alliances in large-scale capital fleet battles and economic warfare. For these players, EVE has provided a meaningful gameplay experience that is, in the author's opinion, unmatched by other MMORPGs in how it was formed almost entirely by the players themselves as well as the entirely unknown direction these experiences could go. Unfortunately, the grind is far from removed in EVE, and for the vast majority of players, is still a major part of their game experience. Furthermore, the focus on heavy PvP design and fierce competition, when combined with the gameplay tendencies of the average player, make for in many instances very slow gameplay. It should not be mistaken that PvP action in the game is some of the most exciting MMORPGs have to offer. However, EVE play is often characterized by large timespans of waiting. Since the developers had all of these complex and innovative game elements to balance and maintain, the "PvE" content suffers. In other words, since the grind is still there but is not the main focus, it will be even more boring to players. In Conclusion EVE has a huge number of players who have played for several years. It also has impressive statistics in players who come back to the game after long breaks. The reasons for this are obvious: the meaningful gameplay generated by EVE provides almost infinite playability. However, with the inability to break away from the necessary 'grind' in MMORPGs, and an inability to generate a system of non-combat gameplay that is NOT separate from combat (all industry is geared towards generating combat products), EVE actual play is not that interesting when averaged out. It would be accurate to say that, despite this, the interesting conflicts of EVE make it a constantly engaging game experience that does not decrease over time (as much as other MMORPGs). Certainly, it would be fair to say that EVE does not simply provide content to be consumed as in other MMORPGs (ex. grind quests to level cap, participate in closed pvp systems, be dependent on expansions for more interesting gameplay). EVE's experience that players enjoy is not content that is created by the developers, but something that they create themselves. Thus, it could potentially be played by a player forever. Since its launch in 2002, it has retained many of its older players, but only time will tell if its unique elements will make it last longer than other MMORPGs of more traditional molds. Yet in the mind of this author, it contains elements of design that can be taken and expanded by MMORPGs to much more intensive levels. Cheers, -Pin

Erik, thanks for the thoughtful reply.

Firstly, I want to agree with what you said and bringing in the comment from that other user was very relevant. Indeed, MMORPGs can never prescribe a fix-all panacea to provide unlimited gameplay; they will always rely on further releases of developer content and events to expand. This is a very good point, and PvP in no way resolves this issue (nor could this issue ever be fully resolved).

However, my argument is that, in EVE at least, PvP has allowed for their to be an exponentially larger "well" of content, even if it is not infinite.

The fundamental statement here is that by pitting players against players, there is an automatic generation of "fresh" content that occurs when players interact with each other. The richer and more complex that interaction, the more intensive this generation of "fresh content." Obviously, a developer puts no effort into allowing players to interact with each other, but the point is they can, through design, influence the richness and depth of player interaction.

A developer may choose to invest production resources into either PvP or PvE content. Let's use WoW as an example. By investing in PvE (raids), players are given increasingly difficult challenges to overcome. As you said, this delays the progression of linear gameplay, allowing developers more time to extend the "ending" by adding more content. Yet, in the end, this is only increased linear content. When investing production resources into PvP aspects, this is not an investment into linear content but rather an investment into the complexity of player interaction. Thus, as WoW invests more development time into PvP aspects such as Alterac Valley, players are given more of an incentive to continue playing.

Here is the key: fundamentally, MMORPGs are competitive. More fundamentally, MMORPGs are about interaction with other players. Even with PvE, such as WoW raids, the X factor in a player's desire to run a raid successfully more than once is competitiveness: they want to be better than the next guild or have an advantage in PvP. At the same time, even carebears play the game over single player RPGs to be able to have the social environment. In other words, the most basic form of player interaction desired by players is social interaction, and the second most basic form of player interaction is competition: the ability to relate your own status in the game world with the status of another player.

With this in mind, PvP is simply the most direct method is implementing player interaction, providing both social interaction as well as competitive play (in the most direct form possible). However, PvP is not the only method and this is where the argument with EVE comes into play. As you said, the economy is outstanding in EVE, this is a direct outcome of player competition. Inflation is not rampant within EVE because all resources are limited and must be competed for. Fundamentally, this is the flaw of MMORPGs such as WoW, they can never be truly and fully competitive games because they were not designed to be such from the start. Though on PvP servers it is possible to be harassed while leveling up, the incredible level range and diversity of player power based on level make this kind of harassment not competitive but almost entirely in the realm of "griefing." (This is another symptom of linear-based MMORPG designs [non-linear designs such as EVE allow relatively new players to make a big difference in PvP]) Just to repeat and reconfirm: EVE makes the competitive PvP factor CONSTANT throughout the entire game, and by doing so it creates a rich and complex platform for player interaction that potentially provides huge amounts of replayability and "fresh content."

So to sum up, EVE is certainly "dipping into the well," but as you said it by no means has the "final solution." The specifics of the PvP are not as relevant as the fact that the entire game is essentially "PvP." That is, the design of the game acknowledges that MMORPGs are fundamentally games about competition between players and therefore is able to take advantage of this fact. Unlike WoW and other MMORPGs, which as you said most of which have PvP systems "disconnected" from the rest of the game or "tacked on," EVE's PvP is not only central to the game but permeates through every other aspect.

Cheers,
-Pin

I think the crux of Eve is that they attempt produce content at such a speed that it is impossible for a player to max out. however this makes for a hard start for novice players, since they see themselves at the bottom of a well of skills, and because it takes so long to get good its hard for the new players to catch up with the old ones. diminishing returns stops this to an extent but in some ways it doesn't affect it enough.
Now of course the older players SHOULD be better then the new players, we don't want to make a game like a private Ragnarok Online server that only takes three months to level up to the max and then just cakewalk through the game killing everything that crosses your path. To my knowledge there is no real way to prevent having one of these scenarios. WOW attempts and succeeds in treading the middle ground which is why its so successful, but its not a solution, its just a compromise.

In my mind Eve succeeds in a lot of ways, its PvP system is innovative and freeform their economy is completely player drivin and one of the best economies in an online game, and its gameplay is fun and open ended.

I was thinking about it and I think I might have a sort of solution for the skill level/ time playing conundrum. give players the ability to give their friends skillpoints. this would allow new players to level faster and catch up with help, while still keeping high players above the others since you need to have skillpoints in order to donate them. now this system could be easily abused and would need a lot of fine tuning but it might work.

OK, so finally got some time to put this reply in. Going to respond to all 3 previous posts here.

Tsakara, Washu actually put in many of the responses I would. In terms of player-power level, EVE actually does a VERY good job of allowing new players to quickly be able to take useful roles in teams and become active in the game. Furthermore, their character development is setup in such a way that there are not only a few basic "stats" that are constantly rising as you progress. Rather, the skill training in EVE is much more focused towards role specialization. As I said in response to Erik earlier, the overwhelming problem of player-power range that you bring up is a symptom of linear-based content development. In the case of EVE, since they have invested so many resources into non-linear play, the result is a game where player power range is hardly an issue at all. Thus, the problems you are mentioning actually do not exist in EVE.

Erik, when I was talking about "social environment" and "competition" I never intended to say that they were the same thing. I definitely agree that when players are looking for a "social environment" this is hardly the same as looking for competition. Your comment about players being competitive as opposed to MMORPGs themselves I think is right on the mark. At the same time, underlying both of these concepts of competition/social environment is a broader goal of "social interaction" that I think is absolutely fundamental to the concept of an MMORPG. That is, MMORPGs rely on social interaction to transcend other genres of games (RPGs, Strategy Games, etc.) All the different aspects you touch on here and it seems the main point of contention has to do with PvP vs. other possible forms of player interaction. Personally, I would argue that since players are competitive, competitive play is always going to be the most effective way to exploit player interaction. On the other hand, its definitely true that MMORPGs have a lot of untapped potential for entirely non-PvP and non-competitive player-generated content. Just to cite a few examples: Zelda-style Graal Online which allowed players to submit their own maps of houses, arenas, guild houses, etc.; Lord of the Rings Online's music system that allows users to pick up an instrument and play them based on key-mapping; and of course Second Life which people almost argue is NOT an MMORPG because it has no competitive play but is a world entirely created by players.

Definitely, I agree with you that to fully "tap into the well" we are going to need more non-PvP oriented play or at the least non-Combat oriented play. As I talked about in my original post, the industrial aspect of EVE is entirely non-combat oriented and you could argue in many ways non-PvP. It becomes a sort of economic PvP at a certain point but still its important to note this aspect as a part of the game that is non-combat but still requires player effort, character development and basically full-game-time play to be successful in. Just like PvP, it is not a "tacked on" or "side game" as "crafting" often is in other MMORPGs. There have also been other MMORPGs that have been based on non-combat oriented play. For instance, Korean MMORPG developer Nexon (Nexus TK, Shattered Galaxies) made a puzzle game. Again, these are still non-combat aspects that are focused on competition. I want to say there is a part of me that wants to assert that, like LOTRO's music system and Graal Online's map submission system, there is a lot of room for adding in non-competitive player-generated content systems that are definitely going to be part of the future of MMORPGs. At the same time, I am hesisitant to suggest that such a non-competitive concept could form the basis of a successful MMORPG platform in the near future. Indeed, you could argue that Second Life has already broken this mold, but as you said, players are competitive, and after all players make or break MMORPGs.

P.S. Just wanted to note that I'm using a lot of quotes around some terms. Often in the past MMORPG discussions such as this have been off-railed by largely semantic arguments which are frustrating and should be avoided :)
P.P.S. Sucks with the rating, I rated you positive though haha

Washu, thanks for elaborating on a lot of the systems in EVE that make it work so well. It's really important to remember that, despite this being a discussion of EVE's innovative MMORPG concepts, those concepts sit on a foundation of many game mechanics that most designers could learn from. The specific mechanics of EVE that are not related to its MMORPG aspects are all astoundingly well-balanced. Even removed from an MMORPG context, they would excel in terms of design. Also its really interesting to note that a lot of "veteran" gamers play EVE. I've argued before that there is a rising number of older, more mature players who have seen a lot of what game designers have to offer. This growing player base is, in my opinion, a largely untapped market of gamers who demand games such as EVE which are essentially more challenging and definitely "different" from all the games they played before.

I think increasingly, designers will have to compete with other designers to think up more complex and interesting designs in order to compete for this player base, which will continue to have higher and higher demands. This is a very debatable statement that I'm making here and it's kind of unrelated, so its definitely something to save for another thread. Good to think about though.

Cheers,
-Pin

[Edited by - PinWang on March 26, 2008 3:00:39 PM]

Hi,

I'll like to make some points as a 3 years old Eve player that currently lives in a major 0.0 alliance. I really enjoy the game, but I think there are some points that didn't go very well in the game:

- Movement: Eve space and way of movement (stargates) is terribly flawed. CCP seems to be taking steps to address it including more ships capable of using jump drives (the new T2 Battleships), but it's a long way of till they solve this problem.

- Lack of interest in space: Eve is very big, but most of the space in Eve is useless. That detail limits PvP to the only "important" places: stargates and PoS/Stations mostly. And as such, those events most times become lag-fests with hundreds of players, blank screens and node crashes. That is not fun at all.

- Death: death penalties in Eve are too harsh. Combine this with the movement/lack of interest in space/lag and PvP becomes too frustrating. It's great when it goes well (even if you lose), but it's so hard to find a good match and it can go bad with so many reasons that it doesn't balance out. PvP is central in Eve but it's too hard to enjoy it (although when you achieve it, it's very satisfaying).

- I'm not so sure resources are so limited in Eve as it has been said in this thread. Currently, most big alliances can field really impressive cap fleets and even amazing numbers of supercaps (Moms/Titans). CCP has acknodleged that this is a problem as too many people can now pilot capital and supercapital ships (specially with carriers and fighters that are lag beasts).

Just some points I wanted to express.

Quote:

Quote:Death: death penalties in Eve are too harsh.

couldn't be farther from the truth.

That you like it (as I do too) doesn't take out the fact that death penalty in Eve is too harsh. For 2 parties to get a fight you need:

- the 2 parties in the same physical space.
- the 2 parties willing to fight.

With the current state of Eve space, to get a fight you have to resolve most times to those "extra-funny" gatecamps where you sit for hours waiting for someone to come. Or to the even more funny PoS-siege-lag-fests. You can go around on enemy territory and you will get to gank some miner/ratters,... But nothing to tell about. You won't get a real fight unless another party wants to fight with you.

And for both parties to engage, both parties must think they can win. Or 1 party must be so bored of running around without getting a fight that they won't mind suiciding for 15 mins of pew-pew.

When you die in Eve you lose implants, rigs, equipment and if you are in a tech2 ship your insurance is like nothing. A lot of money can disappear for a bad decision, so people are very careful when choosing their fights. If Eve death penalty wasn't so hard people would be more willing to engage in not so clear situations or even in a little disadvantage (something that only happens now when people are utterly bored).

What's the fun in engaging when you are sure you are going to win? What's the fun on ganking a miner/ratter or the poor soul who crosses a gate without proper intel? A really interesting fight is something really hard to get in Eve and death penalties are part of the reason it's so hard. Ofc I like more Eve death than WoW death, but Eve mechanics can improve a lot, there's a lot of ground between those 2 extremes.

Following the way open by Eve, I have really high hopes on AoC, who seems to be pretty similar in the core aspects (economy run by players, PvP is central in the design,...).

Regards