OpenBracket

You are creating a PBBG (persistent browser based game). You have your game core designed and it may be a great idea… one of the best of all time! But, you’re player’s interaction with each other sucks. You’re game fails. Simple. Player interaction in PBBG’s is one of the most important things to be considered and is often overlooked or it feels like it was an after thought.

“But I have factions/gang/group/clans” or whatever you want to call it. Sorry, but that isn’t enough player interaction. True players can interact with each other, but thats on a very limited scale. Usually at max 20 people, and even then you don’t normally need to interact with your ‘gangs’.  I personally think more emphasis should be on uniqueness among characters somehow, be it skills, units, territories…  And make it so that for a gang to operate smoothly they need all or close to all of the difference traits.

So, we now have determined that most games don’t have enough player interaction despite gangs, forums and chat.  We have also covered making players unique in some way and make each unique future useful.  What else could you possibly add? How about a market? Or mini games that involve more than one player? Make the players input on topics matter, like voting for something within a ‘gang’. Or make it so that wars are often and require everyone to communicate.

But lets go back for a second to forums and chat. These are also important things that shouldn’t be over looked. You should make it very obvious and extremely easy for players to post on the public and private forums.  I personally love TornCity’s idea. When you log in the first page is the 4 newest threads from the announcement section. I would  personally expand this to cover all sections instead of just the one. Also, the forums are ingame, which means members only need to log in once, aren’t taken out of game and are simple to use.  You can also apply this to your private ‘gang’ forums, by having your gang home page display the newest 3 or 4 threads. Also, a shout box for the public or for gangs are great. It’s a quick and easy way for people to yell back and forth at each other.

As to a chat setup, please, please go with IRC. Using IRC gives your players the option of how they wish to connect to the chat. For example FutureCriminal uses a flash based chat which means you HAVE to use the crappy flash based chat service.

I will state again: Player interaction is the most important thing to these games. You could have the best single player ever but if I can’t play/chat/interact with others I frankly don’t care.

So keep this all in mind next time you are designing your games. This WILL help if you design this with the core of the system.

And as always, comments are welcomed!

So you have finally finished coding your game! YAY! Celebrate. Drink. Be merry. Do whatever you want but walk away. One of the hardest parts of having a PBBG is not planning, or coding but maintaining player interest.

You may be wondering how you can do this. In reality, the idea is simple, but putting into practice is where it gets difficult. The idea is simply this: evolution. Ensure that your game is not constantly evolving, but pretty damn close to it. To many great games have fallen because the creators have just released the game and went no where with it. You want to be releasing new content, new updates, new events, new whatever you can once or twice a month if you can. This also depends on the game you have. For instance if you have a round based game you will want to wait until the end of the round before making changes but if you have a never ending RPG, you while want to release minor updates at least once a month and major updates every 4-6 months. By major I mean changing the way people play the game.

But, there is another side to this coin. So you planned out updates and features to add later. This doesn’t mean that people will stay with your game. Look at TornCity. It has evolve a LOT since it was released three years ago, but they add new features everyone month or two, but there is nothing to maintain player interest. Ya, the new features are cool, but the game play is stagnant. This is why you are not suggested to release game play updates every couple months, but it’s damn near needed to keep older players interested. I’ve been playing TC for 3 years and there has almost be NO changes to the game play. Almost NONE! Most of the older players are quitting since there is nothing left for us to do.

You do not want this to happen. I do not want this to happen. You have a duty to your players that have invest the time and money into your game to keep the game fun, interesting and involving as long as you possibly can.

Yes, you will eventually reach a point where you can’t make any more changes and you should be willing to accept this (don’t give it up entirely, but just switch focus). When you finally see that time coming, switch your focus from evolution to creation. Take everything you have learned and make a new game. Don’t make the same game with a few different features, colors, names. Make a totally different game with a different kind of game play entirely. If you have a loyal community, 70-90% of them will likely try your new game. The style may not grab them, but it will grab a good number, probably about 40% of the ones that try it from your other game will stay. Thats a large community for a new game.

So remember these points: create, evolve, and create.

As always, comments, input, questions, criticism is welcomed. I hope this has helped you or guided you in some way.