Goals and Achievements
Have you ever signed up for a web game and played for about 15 minutes, stopped and asked yourself what the hell is the point? I have. Too many times. And this is because the game lacks a way for the player to feel like they are are growing or making any form of impact on the world. I know I have discussed this before, but I am going to try and go deeper than I did then.
I’m going to break this post up into two categories: Round based strategy games and persistent RPGs. This is because I feel that these different styles need to be approached with the fact in mind that we required customized needs. Not every game is going to have the same goals, since that obliviously isn’t something that will help you stand out but hopefully this will help the creative process.
Round-based strategy games (RBSG <- I’m coining that acronym 
)
So just to be clear, a RBSG is a game that lasts a month or two (sometimes longer) where players usually battle for high ranks. And it works. Many good games of be based of that, but I feel there is always room for improvements. One of the first things, is persistent accounts. Many of the RBSGs I’ve played require the player to sign up each round with a new account. This eliminates the possibly of players having a personal record to show off their accomplishments. So when a round ends, their latest stats are record to their profile and during the next round people can view where to placed the round before.
And why just record their networth rank. Make it so that their total kills are shown, or their efficiency at research or maybe their attack/defense ratio. Giving players multiple ways to compare themselves to their friends/enemies will just provoke more competition; that is, if your game is design to allow for more than one style of play.
Persistent role playing games:
A RPG that doesn’t have any resets. You character never resets.
Games like this get very, very tricky when you start trying to plan out different ways for players to reach achievements. This is part of the reason you want to design a semi player driven goal system. But I’ll touch on that in a little bit.
So with a RPG where your character does not reset, the easiest way to compare your character to others is by level or rank, or total stats, or best equipment. And these are tried and true methods of competition, but it brings nothing new to the table. A lot of this for a PRPG will depend on your design since these can vary a bit more than a RBSG.
You also need to take into consideration that new players will be joining a long time existing world, and they still need to have goals. And this is where a player driven goal system comes into play. A well designed game will allow for players to play the game differently from others, which means that won’t all be trying to achieve the same thing. For instance, in a RPG, I may be trying to get the Sword of a red headed amazons Shin while one of my friends is attempting to collect all the dung beetles in town so they can make a hight level potion to attain a new skill.
As you can see using just number of skills or best armor wouldn’t do justice in a situation like this. Which is why I feel that each player should have a dynamic profile to display their goals/achievements. So if I were a warrior, I would go into my profile and want to show of my equipment, stats, and my current quest. So I would have a series of check boxes that I could click to display that. While my mage would want to display their best spells, their rank in the wizards guild, which spell they are currently studying and what quest they are performing.
As you see, developing your game with all this in mind and that you want your players to possibly play the game in a new, you can promote competition beyond just seeing you can be the biggest, strongest and spend the most time online playing the game. I think is a step that PBBGs have been needing to take for sometime now and hopefully they will soon enough. I personally will be developing my games with these thoughts in mind.
jmucchiello said,
December 9, 2007 at 2:24 am
As a suggestion, when you make up a new acronym, how about including some existing PBBGs that you think meet the definition. What existing games qualify was RBSGs?
Xalthorn said,
December 11, 2007 at 11:23 am
I’m encouraged by this post actually. As far as I am aware, my current project addresses these issues as it has both persistence of character and something akin to a round based gameplay, although each player is in their own ’round’ rather than the game resetting for everyone at the same time (which can sometimes put people off playing if the round is more than half way through).
To avoid this being a shameless plug of a project that isn’t even live yet, I’ll continue by commenting further.
A persistent strategy game, unless it has an amazing new game engine, is doomed to fall into the ‘fat cat’ syndrome where the longest running players sit pretty and generally immune, being able to destroy any would be challengers.
I’ve seen games try to address this with bizarre combat mechanics that allow brand new accounts to wrestle their way to the top within a day or so (I did it with alarming ease), but this whole toppling and rebuilding mountain effect only served to annoy and frustrate me, so I walked away never to return.
If you have a persistent game, players need to feel that their achievements won’t be destroyed at a moments notice, with nothing to show for it.
Rather than a dynamic profile (where you could omit certain details and therefore not be compared against other people), why not simply allow for people to see how they compare in each attainable score?
Everonia (www.everonia.com) does this, they have high score charts for each profession and a few other things so that you can see how you compare to the other players in the aspects you’re worried about.
bardicknowledge said,
December 11, 2007 at 3:50 pm
@ jmucchiello – Good point.
RBSG – StarKingdoms, NukeZone, Earth2025, TEQ to name a few.
@Xalthorn – I’ve been trying desperately to think of a way to have a strategy game without resets, but I can’t figure it out. Maybe I will write a post about it later ^^
The dynamic profile I think would really only work for a RPG where there are many ways to play. In a strategy game I think you are right, and make it so that all scores can be compared.
So, I’m curious about the ‘individual rounds’ idea… how does that work?
Xalthorn said,
December 12, 2007 at 10:07 am
I have a strategy game design on the back burner where I was going to treat it like a long term role playing game.
If you play an online roleplaying game long enough, you see players come and go, guilds and alliances come and go, and you can probably identify eras or spans of game time where certain players or guilds were dominant and where their time ended.
Why not take the same approach to a strategy game? The main difference is that you have to establish and support certain game rules to make it work.
As long as the design allows for revolutions/coups and methods of taking out powerful players if enough people worked at it properly and sensibly, the player power base will shift and change.
However, there needs to be a sensible way for a player to retire gracefully and have his achievements recorded, rather than simply being the biggest player who was then wiped out with nothing to show for his two years of gameplay.
That’s one of my biggest complaints with such games. Everything about a player is the territories they own and the armies they have. These can all be destroyed or taken away overnight leaving a very depressed player.
If a player is left to feel depressed because everything they worked hard for over the previous two years has all gone with nothing to show for it, the game has failed in my opinion.
As to my ‘individual rounds’ idea…
It’s really straightforward actually. From the ground up, I’ve planned this game to be very simple, with easy to understand game mechanics. Mainly because I will also be providing rules to play the game offline in assorted ways (table top etc).
Without filling this post with too much detail, I’ll try and summarise the general gist.
A player creates an account. This is their persistent identity that will identify them throughout the game. The player is in charge of a kingdom.
The player then creates/recruits a hero. For all sorts of story reasons, the heroes are only able to venture into the magical dungeons whilst of a certain age and can only venture into the dungeons once a month. By some amazing coincidence, this all totals to 100 adventures maximum.
At the end of those 100 adventures, the hero is forced to retire (they can’t get in the dungeons any more). However, everything they achieved/unlocked/gained is still owned/unlocked for the kingdom.
So the idea of an individual round is that although the hero has a limited career, and will retire after 100 adventures, the heroes are all of different ages and do not retire at the same time.
The highscore tables will show what the heroes achieved through their career, giving a way for players to compare against each other.
The longevity of the game will come from the achievements that a hero can gain for the player. These will unlock extra hero races, dungeons, craftable items, etc.
bardicknowledge said,
December 12, 2007 at 12:31 pm
That is a great idea! Will kingdoms/heroes be able to interact with each other?
I wonder because I have played games in the past that have only offered a single player experience. This is something I really dislike when it comes to web games. For me, the main reason I play web games is for the interaction with other players.
I really like your idea though. It has a lot of potential.
jmucchiello said,
December 13, 2007 at 3:56 am
Not a strategy game (or a web game), but have you seen Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (puzzlepirates.com)? They have persistent worlds 2 and 3 years old without reset. Their wiki contains histories of people’s endeavors in the game. YPP benefits from being focused on puzzling and that being in crews and flags is encouraged by the design.
Xalthorn said,
December 13, 2007 at 11:35 am
@bardicknowledge : The simple answer is yes.
A slightly longer answer…
One aim of the kingdom is to give an individual player a chance to have something that they can call their own, can customise, and can invite other people to come and look at and chat with (including hosting parties and general madness).
As a result of this, the kingdom is the central part of the player’s persistent account. The other games will unlock assorted achievements for the kingdom. This will include such things as new buildings, scenery, people, etc.
You can then plan out your kingdom (build stuff, destroy stuff) to get it to look how you want. The building will take time which would be timed in adventures (as the adventures are meant to show time passing). So one building may take 5 months (adventures) to build and each time you come back, you should see it in a different stage of development.
It means that you can set things to be built by your kingdom and then toddle off and play the game. As you play the game, you may unlock more achievements, but either way, your planned builds will be underway.
The kingdom will also have a way of utilising money that can be earned by playing the other games. For example, you go into the dungeon and make it out alive (hooray to the hero). Some of the treasures you gain can be converted to cash for the kingdom. The kingdom would then be able to finance more builds and research.
It also means that rather than the kingdom being a fixed layout with shops and stuff, the player is in full control of what goes where. If they want to build a magical fantasy place with pastel coloured buildings, lots of water features and cute animals playing in the flower meadows, then they can. If on the other hand, they want to build a grim, dark, foreboding place with ramshackle buildings and lots of gothic architecture, they can do that as well…. As long as they have unlocked the features.
It all adds to the purpose of playing the actual game.
As to the heroes interacting.
The game can be played by one player with one hero, one player controlling many heroes (to a party limit) or by multiple players playing one or more heroes (to the same party limit). The dungeon adapts its encounters to suit the amount of heroes in it, and everyone gets their own treasures (rather than splitting) so it *should* balance itself quite nicely.
In other words, a single hero will face relatively small groups of monsters, but a full party will expect to deal with much more dangerous opponents as they should have the versatility to deal with it.
As a final note, because the actual game is broken down into relatively short careers, players should feel able to spend time in their kingdom, kicking back and having fun with friends without feeling that they are being left behind in the general game.
No-one can have a hero playing past 100 adventures and there is only so much that can be achieved in that time. I guess it can be compared to meeting up with friends at the bowling alley each week and playing a few games here or there. The players who play more often may be more experienced, but they can still only score so many points in a given game.
Much more of a pick up and play game with longevity rather than an intensive ‘must play at all hours’ competition.
(sheesh, I don’t seem to be able to write small posts, do I)
bardicknowledge said,
December 16, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Next time you same your writing a small post, I’m not going to believe you lol.
Anyways, that sounds great. I myself don’t like the type of game where you have you be online 24 hours to be the in the top 1000 players.
I think you really have an interesting idea there and it could pan out to be a great game. Would kingdoms, say be able to trade with each other or maybe have battles with heros? I just like lots of player interaction in the games I play/design
Xalthorn said,
December 18, 2007 at 8:53 am
Trade will be possible to a certain extent.
For example, you will never be able to buy or trade something that has to be earned (titles, achievements, etc).
But there is nothing wrong with having shops in your kingdom that stock valuable treasures that your hero brings back. However, you won’t be able to affect the price too much. It will be based on external factors that will be affected by supply and demand.
It’s just another measure to stop players feeding their friends or their own multi accounts with too much stuff for free.
Peter said,
December 20, 2007 at 2:27 am
mmmm, I am not into the whole stradegy portion of a game myself. I think you should start off either a peasant or a aristocratic class individual. I can’t see how you can just start off as a king for one thing, and that doesn’t give me a challenge personally at all! When speaking of time, I think it’s nessessary, but this does limit people as well. For example: I would make travelling and mailing other players slower rather than convenient for all players. You can like walk let’s say from the capital city to an outlining village in 2 hours regular time by a certain formula, which will be on a downloadable file for new beginningers or a viewable file either way the player wiches it to be in their case. Mailing is not the same typically unless you have a faster post office and depends on the distance from one city to the other. The only thing is that you may travel from one town to another an have a ratio from the encounterment of a monster of humanoid or whatever by a variable of your stats and or magic or items. For example: you may wear invisable cloak, which prevents random encounters in the game from all except for mgicians or etc. Another thing about freedom in a game. You must limit indepndence or veteran players could kill the younger players instantly. For this, I would implement the system fighting betweeen veterans and newbies at another ratio of levels. Like, lv. 10+ or above cannot encounter someone that is less or more than that level. This limits the empowerment or individuality of newbies, but it’sa safe guard. Oh, one more thing about monster difficulty. It should be more random and not given about the level of monsters that are in a given area, but if a player shares informtion that is up for them whether it’s dependable or deciving information hence the disclaimer being believe fellow players or information at your own discretion while playing the game. I hope someone learns something from this post.