[MUD-Dev] [ssows] thinking about EQ2 - kill locking (fwd)

[J C Lawrence]

------- Forwarded Message
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:54:30 -0500
To: ssows at groupcare.com
From: Bart Simon <simonb at alcor.concordia.ca>
Subject: [ssows] thinking about EQ2 - kill locking

Hi all,

Just wanted to pick up on Lisa's comments about kill locking. I am
dumbfounded by this feature - if there is any case for game designers
contracting ethnographers for useability studies it is this.  In story
after story player remarks about those lone ranger types who ride in
save the day when they are just about to bite it. Players seek to build
their reps and their game identities this way and these unplanned events
are what make for the truely heroic episodes of the kind memories are
made (absolutely right on Lisa).

In review after review of EQ2 I am reading that the game is actually
turning off the hardcore players because "accidents" are less likely to
happen. Despite what Lisa's friend is saying - they are calling this
EQlite - - dissing it as a commercial cash grab for non-serious casual
gamers. If Sony misses the hardcore and the casual audiences they will
fall right through the middle with this one.  Anyway, linked to kill
locking is that all the strategizing for dealing with group aggro
(pulling one, rooting another, mezzing a few - botching the job then
pulling out the beautiful save) is gone because mobs are linked in a
group and they all go at once... and really fast too. This is linked to
kill locking -- its a mode of guarenteed satisfaction obviously meant to
prevent kill stealing and accidental death but with the unintended
consequence of reducing spontaneous sociality.

We should be careful though to distinguish between our game playing and
reviewing selves and our analytical selves. I won't fault EQ2 designers
for anything - they are professionals and they make reasoned choices and
the minute academics start trying to write 'how to' books for game
design is the minute our fledgling field of game studies goes down the
tubes (IMO).

Sorry, that rant was directed mostly at myself -- my analytical point is
this... there is something to get at here in terms of the difference
between what we might call intended sociality (you know you must group
to kill mobs and rituals develop for doing this) and unintended
sociality (Lisa's random altruistic moments... note that even the lone
ranger thing can get ritualistic and many lone ranger types complain
that they come to be taken for granted with folks walking up saying
nothing just expecting to be buffed). It would seem that EQ2 game design
is consciously or otherwise trying to funnel all social behavior into
the intentional category. Online gaming as a from of totalitarian social
engineering anyone (hah - Jonas I know you love this stuff so i'm always
thinking of you when I say this :-) ?

This desire by online game designers to get a handle on "the social"
aspects of their games and how they are managing this could be a key
next generation innovation to explore... especially if we back-track it
from games to military, business and education simulations (i'd throw
reality tv in there too) which use online games as their model.

cheers,
bart
------- End of Forwarded Message

--
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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