In the land of D’enbee, the noble Prince Djon sets off on a quest to curtail forces of the Death Metal army. He is watched over by the patron diety of the land of rave, the great Sky DJ, whom lays down phat beats of inspiration. Armed with the power of magical glowrods, the prince seeks the power of the Prismatic Glowrod in hopes of finally defeating Death himself.

Neon Prince is a side-scroller on rails in a world where medieval fantasy meets the modern rave scene. The player most collect glowsticks scattered throughout the level to overcome obstacles and defeat enemies. When the player finally finds the prismatic glowstick, he gains the power he needs to defeat Death and win the game.

via Extra Credits : Non-Combat Gaming.

More and more players have been playing all by themselves. Some don’t like to ever group up, avoiding “forced grouping” as much as possible. Why? Saylah says, “The reasons why people solo in MMOs is as varied as the players themselves,” and I’m largely inclined to agree. I do, however, think that asking “why” is still a good idea. Why do, or what are some of the reasons that, so many players like to play by themselves?

• The player doesn’t have the time to group.
• The player feels that a others would be a hindrance.
• The player can’t find an adequate group.
• The player wants to be alone.
• The player wants to progress at their own pace.
• The player doesn’t feel a group is needed.
• The player feels finding a group is a hassle.
• The player wants to challenge themselves.
• The player is keeping up with friends.
• Likes MMO gameplay, but dislikes the multiplayer.

If we can eliminate all the rational reasons for a player to want to not group, it stands to reason that the player will only have reasons to group. Of that list, of which I’m sure is only a fraction of the reasons people avoid grouping, only a couple of the reasons are truly unavoidable.

If the player doesn’t have time to group, we need to make grouping not take up extra time. We could probably solve this in several ways. One way is to make grouping fluid and natural.

If players are grouped together automatically, they don’t have to spend time looking for a group. No one would want this automatic grouping to hinder the player’s explicit choices, so let’s make different kinds of groups and let the player be in both. So if a player decides to go kill some giant snakes for a quest, he’s automatically grouped with allies in the area that are killing the same creatures. Meanwhile, he’s in his regular party waiting for more.

The can design the system around grouping penalties. A robust party forming tool can solve most issues with finding adequate party members. An automatic party system as described above would let players play at a pace they want, with party members coming and going based on proximity and activity. By keeping a group finding mechanic streamlined, simple, or automatic as above, players should find group-making a fairly hassle-free experience.

If a player wants a challenge that he doesn’t feel he can get with a party in his current area, alternate instances of varying difficulties may be a solution. A specially designed open-world difficulty setting could spice up gameplay as well. Maybe an option set at party formation would trigger enemy creatures to always call for backup or seamlessly power up.

It’s important to note that we don’t want to punish the player for opting to play alone. It’s the player’s choice, and the player should have fun playing however they want. Like I said before, some players, some times, just want to play by themselves. That should be okay and supported at some level. As long as an individual playing alone doesn’t hinder the experience of the multiplayer-friendly, it shouldn’t be frowned on.

The older I get: the more money I have, the more games I want to play, and the less time I have to play games. When I was younger – in high school and most of college, I spent most of my free time gaming. I played single player and multiplayer. …

Of course, I graduated, got a job, got responsibilities, blah, blah, blah – you know the story. …Of course, I still buy games, even though I don’t play them as much. I’m not sure why. Maybe I think that sometime I’m going to have a bunch of free time and get all caught up on all the games I wanted to play months ago. Maybe I’m hoping a new game will capture my attention the way games did when I was younger. But it probably isn’t going to happen. All those games I own will probably just continue to sit on the shelf after I open them and play them for an hour or so before moving on to something else.

After reading Luke’s article on his blog Mispeled, I felt a stir of like-feeling within myself. He articulated my feelings on gaming better than I ever thought necessary. I’m glad he did, because this article is the mirror I needed to take a look into. Check out his article Enhancing the Idea of the Game as an Event. He has a lot more to say.

Dusty Monk over at Of Course I’ll Play It has been playing Star Trek Online beta and has come to the realization that Cryptic Hates the New Player Experience. Check it out, it’s a good read.

Why are we so accepting of a mechanic that mirrors such an unnatural process in real life? Repeating death and resurrection is a bizarre mechanic for a medium that, generally, tries to mimic the real world. Why do all the players’ characters get saved by the spirit healer in World of Warcraft and yet truely important individuals like… I just realized where respawns come from.

My point here is that death is a rare thing for an individual to experience in real life, and I think many games would be better off if death were a bit less frequent in-game. I don’t mean to say that MMOs should be so easy, it’s difficult to die. I mean that the games should promote a mentality that dying is bad or rare instead of just something that happens every day. I think running an instance would be a bit more interesting if you could only die once, or if it were a bit more like Left 4 Dead 2 where a bit of teamwork would be required to get someone back.

Some games have a more unusual take on death. It’s not an MMO but the FPS Prey had a fun and unique mechanic of resurrection. Tommy, the protagonist, had to fight wraiths to replenish his health and energy. Diablo II was well known for its hardcore mode, where your character could only die once. After that, said character was unplayable. Designing a game with such an philosophy on in-game death would certainly require ground-up planning, but the rewards for such a design concept would include a richer gameplay experience and deeper player-character bond.

In a typical free-to-play model, players are able to spend real currency on in-game upgrades. These upgrade often range between a simple glow to a weapon more powerful than anything the player could otherwise gain by any other way. Other cash items often include consumable items that will increase the experience, loot reward, or in-game currency reward by a percentage for a limited time. This is all in contrast to the western popular typical subscription model wherein players subscribe by the month or longer for full game access equal to all other subscribers.

Additionally, there are shades of grey often ignored or not considered. Name changes, character transfers, and cosmetic changes are sometimes permitted with a fee. World of Warcraft is one of those games that have RMT, but are not considered to be in the same league of cash shops. Guild Wars has several RMT options, including additional character slots and the unlocking of skills and cosmetic pets. The fact is they do have RMT, and players often do spend money in excess of their monthly subscription for things that improve their experience.

Critics of RMT often contest two main issues. The first issue being a matter of cash shops being an existence of pure greed. The game maker just want to make as much money as possible. That’s true. If you have a problem with the fact that a company wants to make as much money as possible, you have an issue with capitalism. The other issue is more of a matter of game balance, and that is that these items and abilities gained through spending real money make success in-game a matter of having enough cash. This is a sentiment that I can begin to agree with.  A hallmark of an unbalanced cash shop would be when the player feels they need to spend more than they would in a subscription game, just to be competitive or when a player can buy so much in a cash shop they can totally outshine or dominate the non-paying players.

I can’t help but think back to an article from a recent Blog Post Spotlight on Character vs Player rewards. The main point being in comparing in-game rewards that benefit the player vs in-game rewards that benefit the character. To keep a game balanced and fair, RMT should be limited to player rewards. By that I mean, cash shops should, in general, limit themselves to cosmetic changes to the game if the designers want to keep players in the western market happiest.

An exception to this would be, what I consider an excellent example of a game with a free-to-play/cash shop business model, Dungeons & Dragons Online. Magic items bought in a DDO Store are restricted by level. You can’t buy something in the DDO store that you couldn’t get with a few hours of gameplay. Other things available in the gamestore include common experience/reward increasing potions and unique modules of dungeons and quests. Dungeons & Dragons Online and their DDO Store nail a difficult balance of free-to-play, RMT, and subscription, and they’ve seen great success in it.

Properly designed, a cash shop can bee a boon to both players and developers. There are, however, a lot of people that will completely dismiss the so-called free-to-play model. Games can certainly find success in a heavy microtransaction based environment, but you don’t have to alienate a whole demographic of potential subscribers or break an otherwise balanced game.

Overused is a new column where I will point out a device that has been overused in MMOs. These mechanics and gameplay features may be used as a crutch, the status quo, or just plain too much. Overall, they’re used when they don’t have to be, and often shouldn’t be.

Don’t bother trying to dodge that arrow. Zig-Zag all you want, you can’t avoid it. Taking cover from that fireball flying through the air won’t do anything. You’ve been targeted.

There are many reasons for using a targeting system like that, but that doesn’t make that physics-defying arrow any less aggravating. Escape from the sticky target is rarely a possibility once You’ve been clicked on, tabbed to, assisted to, or victimized by “/target”. One moment in line of sight is all that’s needed for projectiles to phase through matter and strike you or send a swarm of pets your way despite your best escape efforts.

It’s a lot easier to create a system that determines valid targets when you don’t have to consider the physics of projectiles in your code; easier and less strenuous to calculate. The alternatives include systems that are more resembling of a first person shooter, and are often considered to be more skill based in gameplay. Personally, I’m a fan of the way Fallen Earth seems to have done it. In a sort of hybrid of the two systems, targets are determined by checking what target is in the crosshairs when the attack is made.

This is all well and good for weapons whose projectiles cover their ground nearly immediately, but what about those slow moving arrows and fireballs? Are the only options for projectiles a sticky targeting system or heavily physics based collision system? I say no. It seems to me that you could determine if a projectile hits or not based on if a target intersects the projectile’s motion vector or arch at the time projectile reaches that same point. The projectile would just be animated along that path, and hit detection becomes a matter of a simple linear or quadratic equation rather than a more complicated physics reaction and collision. There you have accuracy of a shooter combined with the CPU usage of a typical sticky targeting system.

Let me know what you think. Do you like the common tab and sticky targeting in many MMOs? What are your favorite targeting systems used in MMOs?

This appearance satisfaction is a type of player reward. Titles, badges, fireworks, achievements, and non-combat pets are all player rewards too. In contrast to character rewards, which almost always affect gameplay and game balance.

Today’s Blog Post Spotlight comes from Spinksville. The article is titled Rewarding the Character vs Rewarding the Player and it’s a great insight into what really motivates people.

8. Stand out.
Don’t make something that looks or feels exactly like an existing work. When people experience something new they’re more forgiving of its design, and in the end your creation will get more attention. This should be obvious, but somehow goes over the heads of most designers. If you notice a trend in aesthetics or play mechanics: DON’T DO THAT. Avoid trends; innovate and break new ground. Stop making goddamn ninja and zombie games and if you’re making a shooter don’t put it in space. Seriously.