Developing Online Games: An Insiders Guide (Nrg-Programming)

When examining under these circumstances, one wonders if it is worthwhile to examine the problem from another angle. It becomes clear that the goal of designers may well be to design a game that hard- core players feel compelled to play less ”admittedly a stance that most designers are unprepared to take.

Ultima Online ( UO ) was the first major MMP to recognize that and to experiment with changing the paradigm of player advancement dramatically. In UO , a player advances significantly faster during the first hour after he/she logs on. The results were starkly positive: Players would still log in daily, but they would spend only an hour advancing their character. During that time, they were guaranteed to see meaningful advancement of their character and were ensured a taste of success. After they had done their daily advancement, players would either log off, feeling good about their success, or they would engage in the more fun and less work-like aspects of the game's design: role-playing, socializing, and exploring the world, for example. Both of these possible outcomes are better than the days of the endless treadmill.

This is not to say that UO 's implementation of power hour didn't have problems:

• It was introduced late ” Since power hour was introduced well after the launch of the game, players who had gotten their characters up in levels "the hard way" felt that power hour had made their hard work suddenly meaningless. Most of the player criticism of power hour centered on this point.

• It discouraged party adventuring ” The clock for power hour kicks off the moment you enter the game. Given that it can take a significant amount of time to get to your friends to join a party and get that adventure rolling, most players would choose to adventure alone for power hour to maximize benefits.

• It was unrealistic ” Fans of realism can be starkly offended that the game rules can change so arbitrarily for no apparent good reason, but the designer has to do ultimately what is best for the health of the game. At any rate, any good designer should realize that game fiction is the most flexible tool in the designer's toolbox, and should use the background story when possible to describe and rationalize the limitations of the game.

• It reduced player attachment to their characters ” Because players had spent less time developing their characters, those characters theoretically would be less powerful "anchors" keeping the player in the game. One could argue, however, that casual players might have more attachment to their characters, as they could get them up to a higher level.

• The parameters weren't quite right ” Some have argued that power hour still creates a gulf, only now between the player who can play daily and the weekend warrior . Others have argued that players can push their stats up too high during power hour, making it too easy to create a new character. Both are certainly arguable, and both points are also certainly tunable in a new system with the same principles.

• It only affected stat advancement ” Power hour did not affect gold gain, and as a result, power-gamers would switch to this as a goal to endlessly acquire. However, some designers have actually argued that that is optimal, as you have then given casual gamers goals they can meet, while still providing hard-core gamers with a separate track that they can run on.

Despite these negatives , power hour was perceived to be a strong success among the team that was supporting UO , as it was extremely effective in empowering casual players and reducing the overall tedium of the game. This was despite a huge amount of skepticism about the feature among many designers at Origin ( myself included) before the feature was implemented.

However, the lesson from power hour is simple: If there is a particular play pattern that you feel is ideal for your game, then don't just hope players don't act that way ”enforce the behavior in code. If you don't want players to advance too quickly, cap them. If you don't want players to spend all day online macro-ing, then limit the effectiveness of such tactics. If you feel it's important to have control of these aspects of the game, then take control of them.