Crowfall

Draegan_sl said:

Why don't you just save your time and effort and just say you don't like PVP games and don't bother posting in this thread again? FPS and MOBA games have these same exact elements and their maps never change. The changing element to this game is the changing rulesets and the added human factor. Not sure how you don't mentally grasp that.

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Wish you'd follow your own advice in regards to old school pve games..

Tuco_sl said:

The biggest risk with that is even though the hopium they're peddling makes it sound easy to create randomly generated worlds players find interesting, it's not. Anyone who has played Minecraft extensively knows that once you've seen a few chasms, nether forts, abandoned mines etc you've seen them all. After the 10th Daggerfall dungeon the feeling of exploration is basically gone. And because Crowfall will likely be a small outfit making a lower budget MMO I really don't want them solving the very real world-building problem that comes with using randomization. I want them making a coherent PvP game with good combat mechanics and excellent PvP rulesets.

All that being said, I think randomization is a great component to sandbox games, and any player control is a critical component to sandbox games so I'm glad to see they're pushing that frontier.

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While it's true that Minecraft gets "sameish", I think the fact that it's still not the *exact* same still makes repeat trips (to a new cave, mineshaft, etc) enjoyable. Each time I see a cave or a village or whatever, sure, I know the basics - but I don't know the specifics. You don't know what you'll find in there. It makes the exploration still fun (even though, sure, not as fun as the first time you found a mineshaft - but you're probably still excited to see what chests might be in there, and you don't know what the next junction will bring). Compare that to today's MMO, where each dungeon run is 100% exactly the same. Or each time you enter the Commonlands, the same mobs will be taking the same paths.

There's only the smallest bit of RNG to the current model, and it's "will it drop my loot or not", and EQ's "will the named spawn this time or not". At least in this model, you don't have the entire everything memorized. It makes the trip to search for the chest fun again, along with a possible payout at the end.

TLDR: No, still not perfect, but still soooo much better.

Edit: Or worse, ugh, those terrible copy/pasted little caves in WoW.

Tuco_sl said:

Don't be so quick to believe that. Creating art assets with a voxel based game is very non-trivial, even if all they're doing is creating a templates for a randomization engine. Those templates are expensive as is modifying the randomization engine.


I wouldn't call procedural content the future, in fact it's the past. The first RPG I played was rogue. Daggerfall was an incredible game. All randomized content. I'd say the future of MMOs is randomized content being given to players to modify and control. I don't know how much control will be given to player to create customize buildings and landscape in Crowfall, but having different changes to the world everytime you log in is very compelling.

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First, I think we all understand nothing is cheap when making games. But in the context of crafting a world by hand, creating templates and algorithms for randomized worlds is going to be much cheaper just by the shear amount of people you need on your team doing it.

Secondly, I never said that and only that is the future. It's what you can do with it that makes it part of the future. Like you said having procedural content allows you to create destructive worlds and changing environments. It allows you to do things in a game that has always been static. That content doesn't have to be whole continents and landscapes. It can be things that are generated on top of static land. It can be as little or as vast as you can build it.

There's no need to be hostile here and etchazz is welcome to post his opinion here. He touches on a very serious problem that will be very difficult for Crowfall to address. The question you have to ask yourself is why do MMO gamers enjoy the early game so much? Is it really that much fun to log into a newly released game and grind bear ass quests for 40 hours straight to hit the max level? Do I really enjoy farming mobs/resource nodes ad nauseum to get my epic mount? Do I enjoy going to level 12 in minecraft and start a grid pattern of mining to get diamonds? Did I enjoy mining resources for days to build our castle in Shadowbane, Age of Conan and ArcheAge? No, the act was not fun but it was enjoyable because I was making permanent gains to my character that would enable me to do the shit I want, likely to kill other players. If you turn those permanent gains into temporary gains that effect decreases, and now I have to look more closely at whether I actually enjoy the leveling/gearing process. This introspection is not one that many MMO gamers can walk away from with the desire to keep playing.

What's the solution to this?

1. You need a fun combat engine that is intrinsically fun to participate in. This is very difficult to do in MMOs for a variety of reasons, especially ones with large pvp fights.
2. You need to have PvP at almost all levels of the game. The resource generation has to involve risk that allows PKs to capitalize on. You never want it to be common to find Irondick Mine, set up shop and mine it in peace, because after the 5th iteration of a campaign, Johnny Headshot is wondering what he's doing with his life and why he's sitting there watching progress bars. Johnny Headshot needs to be able to make gains from going out and PKing fools and taking their ore. Meanwhile Timmy needs to be able to make gains from mining whilst simultaneously fighting off Johnny Headshot.
3. You need some way to make permanent gains within campaigns that extend past them, this is likely their target for their eternal kingdom.


Those three things are somewhat obvious and from their words they are thinking about it, but all three are very non-trivial to implement. #1 especially in an MMO, #2 especially in a randomly generated game and #3 especially in a game with resets that have to count.

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As to the rest, I think etchazz is a big boy and I think he can take care of himself. If he needs a daddy to save him from the big mean man on the forums I'm sure you'll be the first person he PMs. Until them, I don't think he needs a whiteknight.

Now to the actual content of your post. You're correct. The very act of collecting, racing and doing bland content is not the fun. It's the result and team effort you get for being successful at a greater goal in the face of equal or greater competition. MMOs and it's players are not some special snowflake of gamers. You can take examples from every single other genre that pits players against each other; it's why I mentioned MOBAs and FPS games. For example in League of Legends you spend the first 10-15 minutes of each game farming minions with last hits. In of itself it's incredibly boring and tedious. However you're doing it in a race and competition against another person. In many games there are tedious activities that in a vacuum are boring, but in the context of the game at large make them enjoyable in their own right.

And just like your kill score in an FPS or the final build of a champ in League that took you 40 minutes to build, you lose it all once you win/lose. These things are in a lot of games out there. That's the crux of the whole design. Crowfall needs to give you a sense of victory that you don't mind losing gear because you're ready to do it again next time.

I think you have to take a step back from just labeling this game for "MMO gamers" like they are some kind of insular crowd. There are plenty of gamers out there that enjoy all sorts of different games and as long as your game design is thorough, it will be well received, I think.

Solutions:
1) Yes absolutely.
2) If you don't have PVP everywhere the game is a failure. Their words are risk vs. reward. They have to produce this or they will fail.
3) 100% this. Every game has some kind of persistent reward structure. MOBAs have a ranking system that players pride themselves in. FPS have records, KDA ratios and tournaments. Traditional MMOs have the gear you have and the stories you can tell. Crowfall must create a system that even if you're losing the campaign you can do enough in the game that carries over to the next campaign and your time is not entirely wasteful. Every WvW game that has released in the last few years has not done this at all.

I'm with draegan on this one, time to break the mold boys, I just hope it isn't smoke up our asses.

DONE! Im in, take my money.

Voxels brew

It's not impossible for them to make a server that doesn't get reset, so I don't really see the problem.

I do hope they're committed to significant geological formations in their proceduralness. Shadowbane was procedural too, and it was basically just one flat plain, the whole thing. We need valleys, rivers, mountain ranges, cliffs, ditches, hills, etc. to eek out defensive positions. The best you could do in Shadowbane was position your wallsjust soin proximity to water that would fuck up the enemy approach. Some people benefited from geometry bugs that would even partially sink their walls in water.

I am hopeful, especially hearing that they're going with voxels. The idea that we COULD use sappers by freeform digging a hole under their walls is appealing. I don't know if anything like that would be available at launch, but the potential is there to be achieved if they get a healthy game running. That someone could plan their fortress on bedrock and make digging a hole under them nearly impossible makes me hard.

im not looking forward to generated maps. I play a lot of strategy games, most of them multiplayer with friends or online communities. How many of these use the randomly generated maps available? None because maps that arnt designed by people have terrible imbalances.

All in all, crowfall is just starting to promise to much. I dont believe they can pull it off so im going to wait and see rather than hype myself up.

Byr_sl said:

im not looking forward to generated maps. I play a lot of strategy games, most of them multiplayer with friends or online communities. How many of these use the randomly generated maps available? None because maps that arnt designed by people have terrible imbalances.

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I know they're talking about how they want this to be part strategy game, but it's a third-person control-a-single-character type of game. In a RTS when one of you starts in the top right corner, and the other in the bottom left, and that's immediately your base, then yes, the map needs to really pay attention to balance. When it's randomly generated, and people will all (assuming) spawn in at the same spot, it doesn't matter. Whoever finds the first resource node (or whatever) and can start defending it will be very important I assume. But the concept of balance isn't there, because the initial starting positions are all the same.

Now if it turns out to be something else, where one person can spawn with 800 mines around them, and the next guy is in the middle of a desert with nothing, then it'd be an issue. I doubt that's going to be the case though.

Bruman_sl said:

I know they're talking about how they want this to be part strategy game, but it's a third-person control-a-single-character type of game. In a RTS when one of you starts in the top right corner, and the other in the bottom left, and that's immediately your base, then yes, the map needs to really pay attention to balance. When it's randomly generated, and people will all (assuming) spawn in at the same spot, it doesn't matter. Whoever finds the first resource node (or whatever) and can start defending it will be very important I assume. But the concept of balance isn't there, because the initial starting positions are all the same.

Now if it turns out to be something else, where one person can spawn with 800 mines around them, and the next guy is in the middle of a desert with nothing, then it'd be an issue. I doubt that's going to be the case though.

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I would still expect worlds to be big enough that you wont be able to scout a large amount of one before your guild wants to set up a home base. It will just turn out some guilds set up in places that suck.

Also you never have every player spawn at the same point. Thats just a disaster waiting to happen every time a company overlooks it.

You still have to balance out the map's resources somehow. That doesn't mean every place has uniform allocation, but that each region's strengths and weaknesses have their counterparts somewhere else in the world. EVE's mineral system is based on that, but I'm less aware of their moon balance, if it's regional or what. There can still be hotspots, but if the northern forest is worthless then no one will be there, and the designers have a responsibility to make each area have some kind of appeal. The disparity in resources is supposed to encourage disputes, as you have to fight to gain territory that gives you access to those things your region lacks.

exactly, the world should help drive player disputes/interaction in general. I feel that takes a persons touch rather than a generated one.

I agree it can't be 100% generated or Atleast there has to be parameters to POI placement.

I don't think they can or even should strive for perfectly balanced maps. There just needs to be some sort of basic logic and chance in where points of interest are placed. You don't want the most easily defensible area always also having the most valued resources.

However, I do think imbalances in the map will create more interesting and varied gameplay. If they tune the procedural logic too much, the points of interest will become too predictable.

The other half of that is how the game mechanics will make up for map imbalances. I believe they discussed how those in the lead will suffer diminishing returns.

Agraza_sl said:

Shadowbane was procedural too, and it was basically just one flat plain, the whole thing.

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From my understanding, Shadowbane maps weren't procedural generated, although that was the original goal.

I think their way of describing it has a fresh map on civilization. Nothing has to be perfect or fair.

Grumpus_sl said:

DONE! Im in, take my money.

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In Crowfall Deer hunts you.

Remember when Voxels were as much bullshit as Virtual Boy? What was that Voxel army shooter FPS back in the day that looked like ass?

I loved the VirtualBoy and its library of like 10 eye-damaging games.

P.S. Bow-wielding deer looks so fucking awesome.