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I've posted several times in the past over the whole casual vs core vs raid issue -- if you haven't read those posts, please try to.

Now, I'm going to go somewhere I don't like going, and that's being critical or a competitor (or at lesat, what could be construed that way -- I certainly have nothing but respect for the guys at Blizzard, and I also truly think that, based on what WoW was meant to do, that it's a great game).

Blizzard targetted more casual gamers, and one of the ways they did this was to design the game with very fast character advancement. Looking at their success, this most certainly worked (although this is one of several factors, all of which IMHO were brilliant planning on their part assuming the business model I think they were going after).

Along with very quick leveling, they also knew they had to make a lot of content because that content would be devoured quickly, even by more casual games.

The question is, how long did they mean for the average player to subscribe? What if they were looking at things more from a single player perspective, that people will quit after some time, and then buy the next expansion even if that means there is a gap?

It works with single player games. You finish the game and if it was good and the game did well, you look forward to buying the expansion or sequel and in the meantime play other new gams that are coming out.

I don't know how MMOG players will react, though. I think a lot of people want to keep playing contiguously with new content being added at a decent frequency. Sure, the power gamers always run out of content too early, but the priority is to expand the game not too often, nor too late, and to keep your core playerbase happy.

Or at least this is what we tried to do with EQ, and what most MMOGs have done.

This all leads to just how quickly advancement should be. The easy answer is a sweet spot between tedious and too easy and quick. The difficulty lies in the fact that that sweet spot varies depending on the player. This is why I think it's so important to identify your target audience and then stick to your guns. You can't please everyone all of the time, but I do think you can keep most of your players relatively happy.

With WoW I really see a different approach. I don't know if it's a big concern on their end if some percentage of gamers are running out of content. One could even argue that if someone quits before they are too attached to an MMOG, they leave much happier and much more likely to buy your next product. Conversely, many who leave an MMOG after several years don't leave so happy because regardless of what made them finally leave, they still feel an attachment to the game because of how long they played it. If this is true, than I don't see why many WoW players wouldn't just move on to another game for a while and then buy the expansion whenever it comes out.

Again, this is speculation, and it's also not criticism. How to make a game for the more casual player has been a problem MMOG developers have been faced with for quite some time. Many of the retention mechanisms that work with core and hard core gamers seem to turn off some casuals. It's a bit of a catch-22. So time will tell if Blizzard's different strategy is a good one. Certainly they deserve credit for reaching out to so many people and growing this gamespace immensely. They are also, to my knowledge, the first to bridge the gap between the West and Asia. MMOG developers on both sides of the pond have been struggling with how to design a game that is appealing in both regions. We've failed. The Koreans have failed. But now look at Blizzard... they're even getting a foothold into China.

Obviously, we're not making WoW and nor did we have similar goals and a similar business plan when it comes to Vanguard. Some people call WoW and EQ-clone, but look carefully at the differences that do exist. I think they're very key.

We feel that our target audience wants a more challenging game, and one that will keep them interested for months and years. Jeff's quote also indicates that this is also moreso the type of game that we personally want to play (although I know for a fact that he had a blast leveling up to max in WoW (and CoH for that matter)).

Now comes the controversial stuff, if I've not already gone past that line in the sand.

How does the developer design a game to keep people around for months and years. I will tell you as fact, even though we've been accused otherwise, we don't put in time sinks and boring grinds just to frustrate people but still somehow keep them around. Nobody here, both personally and professionaly, wants to frustrate people, much less implement mechanics or content just to annoy.

The solution is to make the journey through the levels fun. It shouldn't feel like a treadmill. You shouldn't feel you have to grind, or have no choice but to grind. But that's much easier said than done. I think we have some great ideas and so far, at least for myself, I don't feel a treadmill or grind at all. But then I'm not everybody, and I know that. This is why we've comitted to having casual, group and raid content, even though we are open about Vaguard being more challenging relative to most recently released MMOGs.

One of the big things is content. The faster the character advances, the faster content is devoured. I've heard accounts from several people that they only saw some major dungeons in WoW a couple of times before they out leveled the area. That said, I think they put a lot of effort into making sure there was a lot of content and rewards, compensating pretty well for the quicker advancement.

We are comitted to making the game as fun as possible and for people to enjoy leveling up and not feel like they just need to grind to see the end game. That means a lot of work and also some hopefully innovative ideas. I honesty believe we're pulling it off, though.

But here's my last controversial blab:

Some people simply demand character advancement to be at a certain pace. I don't criticize them at all (although they criticize us, and call other players catasses). I'll be blunt: not sure if Vanguard will be for them, though we'll try nontheless. The term casual gamer can mean so many things. It can mean my grandma who is not really a gamer at all. It can mean someone who loves these games but only has so much time to spend in-game. It can mean people who prefer to solo and don't care as much for grouping. It can mean those who do not enjoy playing a game with others who have more time or comiment and watching them level more quickly, experience more areas, acquire more loot, etc. This latter group demands to experience it all too, just as much as the power gamer does.

Vanguard, as I've said countless times, is primarily targeting the core gamer. We can argue about what that means, but to me it's the people who really enjoyed playing games like EQ, and enjoyed playing them for a long time. some asert that these people no longer exist, and that EQ was only so successful because they had no other choices and perhaps didn't yet realize that they were not really having fun. Obviously, we disagree.

But we are also targeting more casual gamers (and raiders). But not my grandma, and probably not the type of person who simply cannot tolerate watching others achive more quickly than them. Those who prefer to solo, yes, you'll be able to solo or play in smaller groups and still achive. Those who don't have as much time, especially long contiguous chunks of time, Vanguard will hopefully be for you as well. Long epic tasks don't have to be contiguous. They can be broken up. I think MMOGs can do a lot better here.

So that's it. We think we can make a game that is compelling for years without making it seem too much like a treadmill or a grind. will we execute flawlessly? I doubt it, but we've learned a lot, especially identifying mechanics or other situations that are time sinks but really don't add anything to the game. In the past, we've made mistakes in this area. As I've posted before, there are a lot of areas where we had downtime that was excessive and/or unnecessary. There were also situations where people felt compelled to do the more boring thing to advance more quickly instead of what would have been more fun. We VERY much want to avoid this with Vanguard and learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others.

I covered a lot. Plase don't hesitate to ask questions, especially if I wasn't clear on something. The danger of making these posts is that they can be misunderstood or taken out of content. Especially, say, when bits and pieces of what I say are posted on other boards whose readers either know very little about Vanguard or nothing. Add to that those who blame me for some of the problems in the past (and some of that blame I deserve). My fear is that they would take some of this stuff the wrong way (and I've seen it happen already).

Not sure what to do there except keep posting and also reaching out to other communities. Some of you already do that and I appreciate it.

Taxx wrote:Brad is a self-righteous idiot and I will never buy another of his games. He doesn't give a shit about what is best for his playerbase, he cares about his game the way he wants it and that is it.

Aradune Mithara wrote:You have given me the opportunity to slightly derail and tell you about playing beta 0 Friday night.

So, the latest patch is pretty stable (Brad, you're admitting to some annoying bugs in beta 0? yes.) We're excited. We log onto an area in Three Rivers. There are seven of us... I'm playing a 16 warrior, there's a 17 cleric, a 16 cleric I think, a 17 ranger, a 13 warrior, a 18 warrior, and a 19 sorcerer (man the last guy plays a LOT)).

Oh, before someone asks: currently no group limitation. Will likely be 6 or 8. On Friday we had 7.

So we decide that a. with so many people on, we're probably the most powerful group ever assembled in Vanguard (that really earned their chars) and b. with the build being stable that we'd see how far we'd get into the depths of Khegor's End.

Khegor's End is technically a mini-dungeon. But it's the biggest mini-dungeon and is easily the size of other MMOG's big dungeons. It's a little linear at first, so we'll have to play with it once more testers are in (pro-instancing people, resist yourselves ), but is great for one group.

We spend 6+ hours, never wiped, but had about half the party die about 3 times. Once because I screwed up, and twice because I think the clerics crashed (is bad, btw, when your healers crash out). I was trying to flank a mob to get extra damage with one of my warrior abilities, but drifted into another spawn. Ah well.

So we did CRs. Rezzes are broken but fixed soon, so it was even more challenging. And we kept going. I'd just received a killer 2 handed axe from a rare named dwarf outside the dungeon (the story is these renegade dwarfs stole this huge mine from the citizens of Bordinar's). And we're playing with some good players (who were putting up with me). About half were testers and half were Sigil folk.

We made it to the bottom and let me tell you, yes I'm biased, yes you could take this as marketing/pr drivel, but I mean it -- most fun I've had since some EQ times on FV and playing Sojourn/TorilMUD in the early 90s. The interaction, cooperation, strategy, difficulty, reward, etc. was a total blast. And this is at levels 15-20! I'll try to get some screenshots up so people can dissect them and call them too brown.

Anyway, my point: I think I'd call that a core gamer situation on a Friday night. And it was solid.



__________________
Brad McQuaid
CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Exec. Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.

Taxx wrote:An unbending "vision" of a game that clearly at times can be BORING and then the fans are basically told "fuck you, this is how I want the game"....no thanks.