Guild Wars 2

General “game design theory” topic.

Hypothesis:

• A game can be judged by how much chatter it generates between players, especially on internal guild member forums.
• Lack of chatter means a game, however fun, is becoming routine, which will translate into “boring” eventually.
• What are the secrets to creating a game that’s interesting enough to generate a lot of chatter between players 4 months after launch?

SWTOR, for example, died quickly with relatively little chatter generated. There just wasn’t a lot to talk about. Early on you talk about your class and class interaction and tips on leveling and zones but after 4 months that’s all been hashed over. Nothing more to discuss. You might still be logging in and playing and having fun but there’s nothing to talk about. (“Today I logged in and had a great time doing basically the same thing I did yesterday.”)

I have a growing suspicion that what you need to keep a game interesting are goals that require a minimum of 24 hours to achieve. For example, no matter how interesting a particular Stonemist Castle battle might be, it’s not going to generate much chatter because it’s a fleeting thing. It starts and ends one way or another over the course of a couple of hours and unless there’s something really new that someone is doing (trebuchet in a spot you hadn’t seen before), there’s not much to talk about.

Pirates of the Burning Sea was probably the best game for this. Day-to-day strategy could change based on the state of port ownership and which ones were under attack. If my oak production port is being attacked tomorrow, we may have to discuss what to do about oak if we lose it. We may have to discuss which areas we should patrol and which areas we should attack tomorrow because it’s not going to be the same as today. What’s more (something EVE lacks here), the actual combat mechanics are interesting enough (and get tweaked by the devs frequently enough) that there’s usually something to discuss there: dealing with rageboarders or stern campers or what’s the new hot ship this month. Battles were also lengthy and costly so it was kind of a big deal — it was worth discussing if you could pick up a new tip that would save from you losing an expensive ship.

POTBS never really became routine. (The only reason I quit, really, was the need to always have exactly 6 players online… I never got bored with it, it’s just that sometimes I’d log in and not be able to play.)

Games like Rift and GW2 will always have their days numbered because ultimately you just run out of things to talk about. (And half of Rift discussion was actually just complaints over raid rules so I’m not sure that should count.) Even if the games are fun and mechanically interesting to PLAY, it’s too minute-by-minute to really come to the forums to discuss, which means it’s starting to become routine and “fun” + “routine” will become “boring” eventually, which means people will quit soon.

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How busy are YOUR guild’s forums? On my guild’s forums, GW2 is actually doing pretty good with over 10k posts, relative to SWTOR which died after only about 1.5k posts, however, the post rate has slowed to a crawl over the last month. We still have a good WvW presence, but there’s not a lot to talk about. There’s no real day-to-day strategy to discuss because WvW strategy is minute to minute or hour to hour, not day to day. There’s nothing worth planning 24 hours in advance because everything on the map will have changed hands three times between now and then anyway.

I’m afraid that what WvW lacks is goals that can take more than an hour or two to accomplish.

I think it needs things that require 1-3 days. (Weekly scores don’t really count because that’s not exactly a “goal” so much as the result of playing well from hour to hour. There’s no long term planning required.)

Well i usually find more motivation go wvw when i level alt and get all best shinies on.

I would have written less, but I ran out of time.

In a stagnant area, you’ll always have routine. But it’s the people (in PvP) who make the situation anything but routine.

People figure out new ways to attack or assault. Strategy comes in many forms. Decoys, diversions, stealth assaults (those darn golems!), and supply starvation are just a few of the strategies I’ve seen in this game.

The big keeps have multiple entry points. Walls and gates are everywhere (some requiring more effort than others), able to be broken down for the sieging army to come charging in.

Both offense and defense have to figure out what to do to stop each other, and that is where the variety happens.

I find WvW very entertaining in that there’s so many different ways to gain points on the maps. Sure, the basics, the core, is all about area control, but the defense and the offense are what spice the WvW game up.

You’ll find the folks who just get tired of the game. PvE will ALWAYS have routine. Eventually you’ll know what this mob is going to do. Eventually you’ll find the pattern to a fight, and find the most efficient way to defeat it. And it will take months for them to find a new way to challenge you.

The biggest MMO producers have had the problem of challenging folks. Some have failed. Some have succeeded (partially, of late). But you’re going to become bored with a game eventually.

The good news: GW2 is free. You can come back, look at it, and it won’t cost you an extra dime.

The bad news: ANet might not put content out as often as others because of the fact that this isn’t a monthly game. This could be countered by the fact that of the in-game store, which has plenty of incentives that don’t imbalance gameplay. If the in-game store succeeds, then this “bad news” might be moot.

Sporadicus.1028:

People figure out new ways to attack or assault. Strategy comes in many forms. Decoys, diversions, stealth assaults (those darn golems!), and supply starvation are just a few of the strategies I’ve seen in this game.

Yes, but we don’t actually talk about them, because all of these are now routine and do not require more than about 15 minutes worth of planning.

Except for Friday openers, nobody says, “Okay guys, tomorrow we’re going to attack Dreaming Bay, and here’s the plan…” You can’t have that discussion 24 hours in advance because you have no idea what the map will look like tomorrow. Everything is short term — minute by minute or hour by hour at most.

I think when you look at long term “WvW” games, you look at EVE or Battleground Europe. While never scratching the surface of WOW’s popularity, they nevertheless have been around for about a decade and continue to add subs and employ full dev teams. These games have elements that you log in and read about and discuss well in advance of the event. Today we patrol HERE or defend HERE or attack HERE and tomorrow we’ll do A, B or C depending on X, Y, Z.

We can’t talk about tomorrow in a game like GW2 because while the WvW is certainly fun and action packed, it’s so fleeting that there’s no planning to be done more than about an hour in advance.

I think long term player retention will be difficult without something that keeps players talking. (Complaints about thieves don’t count.)

You think too much about overall tactic. You could think tactic how to wipe 40 player zerg if you only have10 player group. Everybody just run round in huge blob and cap stuff. Well i do that too, but i would like to try something else.

I think you want some longer term goals to keep a lot of people interested. Obviously Anet looks to be adding those in February.

Whether titles, accolades, cosmetic item rewards, maybe more options for commanders on the map, etc. Unfortunately we know there will also be hard number item rewards, but as a necessity to keep pace with PVE no more than that hopefully.

Slamz has some good points.

Mainly, it’s too easy to capture/loose ‘x’. You think about other games that when you took a point, you could hold it for days… sometimes weeks. From there, you built strategies to dominate the rest of the map.

In GW2, this has been brought down to an evening…. and tomorrow, you have to do it all agian.

I think it can be boiled down to this: A sense of Achievement.

This is what keeps the pve’rs raiding…. “o.0 shiney”.

Having said that, Junkpile, you bring up a VERY good point. If PvP (and I mean it in it’s original sense… WvW/RvR) is ‘the thing’ you like to do as a guild, the focus shouldn’t be as much on dominating the map and point capture, but roaming the map and destroying thier zerg w/ your limited numbers.

IE: Realm Defense: Flank & Destroy!

There is always sustained conversation about this due to it’s nature: it’s against other players and those playstyles change.

You can see that on all the forums…. “How do I kill a Thief?” / “What’s the best build to defend against a Messmer?” / “Need help w/ Build.” / etc etc.

I don’t agree with that more chatter means better gameplay. If i may compare it to any other sport (like Football/soccer ) or any bordgame (like monopoly ).
The first thing people should be discussing about is: when wil you be online. Not much discussion needed for this.
Secondly: the leadership, as long as they can find ways to motivate people / keep on teaching people the tactics, then there wil not be much to discuss but it stil wil be fun to play. Again, not much discussion needed here. Good guides are more important.
Thirdly being skilled and tactically formed should give you an advantage over other less skilled and tactical formed players. The longer it takes to “learn” a certain tactic the better it is. This game isn’t been around long enough to show it’s merits ( it has promisses but i think it’s far from there yet ). Once again, not much discussion needed here. More and better guides however are needed.

Having a lot of chatter about a game means to me no more then that, having a lot of chatter. The depth of game can maybe measured somewhat by this but not much. If it wil survive in the long run, and i am talking 10’s of years here not years like so many. I would rather take the amount of guides as measurement.

My conclusion: chatter isn’t enough of a measurement to see if a game is fun enough or has depth enough to last for decades, no videogame has been around long enough to proof this ( not even WoW ).

Create Ramelot.

Nerf thieves before everyone quits.