[MUD-Dev] Level Grind - alternative

[Brendan O'Brien]

As a word of warning, this may get fairly long...

As is the case with just about any other person who has been playing
these types of games for a long time, I am also extremely sick of
the tedious level grind.  At this point, it has become the single
biggest barrier preventing me from signing up to play any new MMO.
I simply no longer see the point in wasting time killing rats and
rabbits in a new game just to trudge through the same boring
treadmill I put up with in the previous 5 games I played.  Sure,
there is always a new generation of players coming in who are used
to this type of system (but not yet sick of it) who will continue to
replace those who quit, but I really think developers are missing
the boat when it comes to expanding this market.

The eye-opener for me was a couple of years ago, while I was trying
to introduce my wife to Dark Age of Camelot.  I walked her through
the character creation, taught her some of the basic controls, and
sent her off into the world (with me looking over her shoulder).
After spending about 15 minutes killing the snakes and rats around
the starting area, she was already getting fairly bored.  "What
next?" she asked.  Well, I tried to explain that she was really too
weak to go anywhere yet, not to mention too poor to buy anything at
the shops in town.  I did my best to convince her that this was
standard practice to get players to spend time learning and
developing characters.  I understood that it really wasn't fun at
all yet, but that it would get a lot better at higher levels...

As I explained it all to her, I really began to listen to exactly
what I was saying.  It became very clear that she would have no
interest wasting weeks or months of playing a weak, boring
character, just to get to the more enjoyable portions of the game.
I think those of us who grew up playing in these environments tend
to lose sight of how this actually looks to a newcomer.  We do our
best to power through to beginning stages, because we both expect to
be required to so and know that it really will get better
eventually.  However, when confronted by the wife asking a simple
question "Why?", I couldn't come up with a reason that even made
sense to me.  "That's just the way it is with these games," wasn't
about to get her excited about playing again.

Well, a few months went by, and I had long since given up trying to
get the wife into playing these games.  However, one day, while she
accompanied me on a business trip, we went to a Dave & Busters type
of bar / restaurant and found an arcade game called Derby Breeder's
Cup (or something like that).  Essentially, in this game you start
by picking the parents for your new horse and then begin to train it
up from scratch, with races against computer horses and other
players in between training sessions.  Your horse may not have much
of a chance in the first race, but it would get stronger and faster
as you improved its skills through training.  Interestingly enough,
the stats of the horse would be saved to a card, which you could
take home with you and use to play at any other location with this
game.  It certainly had enough similarities to saving a character in
an on-line game that I began to take notice.  Not only that, but my
wife sat down and played for over 2 hours and had a blast right from
the start!

Now, I certainly don't want to imply that this game should be the
model for character advancement in a persistent world.  However, I
saw enough similarities to start my mind working on how this could
be applied to potentially grab players from outside the established
rpg niche.  If I could design a game that my wife would get involved
in, it should really be able to grow outside of the standard market.
Combining my tastes (as a competition-based gamer) with her tastes
(one who enjoys a less-complicated but more fun game), this is a
portion of what I came up with:

  1) Characters are developed in a family-based system.  You select
  the general traits you want for the starting parents, and the game
  will randomly create children based on these stats.  Stats are not
  equal for all characters (some will be naturally stronger or
  faster than others), but the player will be far more important
  than the stats.

  2) As your family evolves, children will grow older, get married,
  have their own children, and eventually die.  Any direct relative
  can become a player character, but only a certain number may be
  active at a given time (probably in the 5-8 range).  Non-active
  characters may be sent into marriage with other families, allowing
  players to arrange marriages with families of other players for a
  variety of reasons (forming alliances, friendship, money, etc).

  3) Advancement: The initial advancement occurs during the
  childhood of new characters.  While they would be too small to
  actually adventure and hunt effectively, players could send their
  children to various schools to help them develop.  Different
  schools would be focussed on different aspects of their
  development, with some for mental research, some for more physical
  activity, and some with a more broad spectrum.  The idea is that
  much of the development of a character will occur during the years
  of their life while you are not actively using them.  In other
  words, the player could be out hunting orcs with the father, while
  the son is studying to be a mage back in town.  They will continue
  to improve on their own until old age begins to take its toll.  A
  character can be sent back to training facilities to stay sharp or
  improve a bit more quickly, but he would never need the training
  to get in the way of the actual adventure.

  4) Advancement part 2: While characters become combat-ready very
  early, there are other types of advancement besides skills and hit
  points.  Reputation and valor are significant goals in this game
  design, as achievments by a given character are meant to be very
  important.  Since all characters will die at some point, what they
  do during their lives becomes more important.  Are you Torrin the
  slayer of multiple dragons?  Perhaps Lourid, the simple farmer?
  How about Vayn, father of 3 who gave his life protecting the town
  from an undead invasion.  Plaques, statues, and family heirlooms
  are a small sample of ways you can enable the legacy of the
  warriors to live on.  Instead of relying on a boring treadmill to
  be the focus of the game, the purpose instead is to have fun on
  dangerous adventures.

  5) Power gamer vs. casual gamer: The common complaint is today's
  games is how to balance the level grind between players who spend
  8-10 hours a day playing the game, and the casual gamer who has
  nowhere near as much time on his hands.  In this design, there is
  very little difference in combat effectiveness between the
  characters of either player.  Without the treadmill, both would be
  ready to go at a very young age, allowing the casual gamer the
  opportunity to compete on a more even playing field.  Also, since
  characters age based on the time spent in-game, the casual gamer
  would be able to enjoy his character for just as much play time as
  a full time power-gamer.

  6) Power gamer part 2: Your typical power-gamer is generally very
  competitive by nature.  In current games, they are far more
  willing to spend the time on the treadmill because it is the only
  way they can really differentiate themselves from the rest of the
  pack.  With this design concept, the question must arise as to how
  to keep them entertained enough in order to satisfy their
  competitive urges.  While striving for valor and enhanced
  reputation will help a bit, most gamers of this type need to know
  there is some way they can be better at fighting than your average
  player.  In current games, you see this come out with character
  templates for both skills and equipment, along with discussions on
  fighting techniques in games that actually involve more player
  skill (such as Puzzle Pirates).  As my intention would be to put
  less emphasis on skills and equipment, with more importance placed
  on player skill, I would certainly want the latter to be the hook
  to keep the competitive gamers going strong.  However, by player
  skill, I do not mean twitch-based fighting, as I have never really
  felt that was appropriate for most rpg's.  The skill I'm looking
  for is more mental, with a wide variety of combat strategies
  available for the players.  The days of pressing the attack button
  and watching the fight go by need to end, and there are a
  significant number of ways in which to do so.  I won't go into
  more detail on this particular item, other than to say it would be
  extremely important to test thoroughly to ensure combat remains
  both fun and exciting.  Since you don't need to kill hordes of
  critters to level up quickly, you should be able to allow more
  time to be spent in actual combat without frustrating the players.
  Most fights I have been in which took longer than normal were much
  more fun in the end..  as long as we weren't wasting prescious
  time from our level grinding techniques.

  7) Death: As you probably noticed if you bothered reading this
  far, death is permanent.  While I would never even consider such a
  course in a treadmill-based game, it seems much more natural in a
  game where characters will die from old age anyway, leaving their
  children to carry on the family name.  The pain of losing a
  favorite character would be offset by the opportunity to continue
  on with his offspring (and not losing much if anything in the way
  of combat effectiveness).  Furthermore, while death from combat is
  possible, I would not want it to be very likely.  Most normal
  creatures would be satisfied to incapacitate a player, without
  bothering to go through with the killing blow.  However, the most
  deadly and dangerous creatures could be known for their ability to
  deal the death blow quickly and effectively, making those who
  succeed in killing them truly worthy of their valor.  In general,
  I would want the death blow to take several seconds to land, with
  any hit allowing for an interrupt to the process.  Therefore, if
  Joey falls while fighting a group of orcs, the rest of his group
  can try to fend them off while the healer drags his unconscious
  form off to safety.  However, if they are unable to get to him in
  time, the orc king may succeed in killing his long time enemy
  (likelihood to be killed by a certain type of creature could be
  directly tied in to your reputation for killing them).

Anyway, I could go on forever, but I doubt anyone really needs to
read much more of my ideas.  I'm open to any questions or comments,
as my main goal is to try to open more minds to the idea of getting
away from the standard treadmill we have all grown to hate.  This
certainly isn't the only solution.  It's just one that I would love
to be able to try.  ;)

- Brendan
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