Have you ever been frustrated by the static world you find in so many massively multiplayer online RPGs? It's as if your actions don't matter. If you kill a monster, then log back in a day, or even a month later, that monster will still be there. The same goes for quests. If you go on one to save someone's lost dog, that same creature will still be lost even after you return it. That faceless feeling is the number one problem we avoided in the design of our upcoming game.
Wish will support tens of thousands of players simultaneously in one seamless gameworld, with no shards. This unto itself, while a technical achievement, does not mean much to the average player, unless the game is designed in such a way to take advantage of it. From this fact was born what we are calling Live Content.
Many MMORPGs have attempted to run GM events, but in the end, most have failed, citing too much manpower required to entertain too few people. Furthermore, they are all faced with having to coordinate their story over multiple instances of the same world. We at Mutable Realms have solved these two major problems. With one world, we need only one team and one story, and with the birth of Live Content instead of GM events, we entertain as many players who wish to take part, not just a small minority who happen to stumble into the right place at the right time.
Traditional GM events happen on a micro level, a single event in a single town to tell a single story. Often, they are scheduled, so that you know if you log in on a certain day at a certain time, a little bit of story will be thrown at you. In contrast, our Live Content happens on a macro level, creating an ever-evolving world, with a web of unique and interesting challenges for players to take part in.
Where many new games are headed towards a more single-player RPG feeling, with the heavy use of instancing and personal content, Wish is going in the exact opposite direction. We have always been disappointed that somewhere in the translation of pen and paper role-playing games into massively multiplayer online games, the focus had been lost. The emphasis has shifted to items, levels and mechanics, and away from what these games were really all about - socialization and a good story. Wish realigns the focus, and puts it squarely back where it belongs.
We began by examining the role of the traditional MMORPG quest. At E3 2004, many eyebrows were raised when we confidently proclaimed that in Wish, no quest would ever illogically repeat. Players do not enjoy running back and forth across the world, nor do they enjoy camping for monster spawns along with 10 other people who also need that monster to finish the same quest. Quests have become tedious time sinks, where the reward is all that matters, and the experience is simply something you had to trudge through in order to achieve it. Again, the focus has been lost.
Questing in Wish concentrates on the journey over the reward. One way we have done this is to create a concept called open questing. Open quests are a type where any number of players can participate, but only one group can succeed. Does this mean there is a chance you will fail? Definitely! That is the entire point. To me, nothing worth achieving is a given, and providing a mechanism whereby players can fail makes success that much more enjoyable. Furthermore, by virtue of being unique, there is much more at stake. In the traditional static quest, if you slay the dragon that had plagued your city, you simply join the line of hundreds, if not thousands of others who have also slain that same beast. In Wish, you will forever be known as the one who slew that dragon, because it is dead. |
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Open questing is then supplemented with some random generation of simple quests. With an enormous databank of variables and archetypes, we are able to create a system where there is always fresh and unique content for players to work at, should they choose. However, randomly generated quests are not the intended meat of the system. They exist as the minor events that populate life, while the handcrafted quests take things to another level, tying directly into the world's many ongoing stories.
Live Content, as we have designed it, happens on a very high level. This means that you will not frequently interact directly with a character that is controlled by a Live Story Team member. To do this does not scale to tens of thousands of players, unless we have tens of thousands of storytellers. Instead they deal with high-level tools that allow them to set the wheels in motion. This creates situations where the players must step to the front and lead. Let me give you an example:
The live storyteller can open the day by sending a series of raids. This is supported by an ongoing plot arc, and is a part of the daily routine. These raids will take a matter of minutes to plan and initialize. They can be as simple as a straight out attack, or as complex as laying siege to a town, an event that could last for days. In under an hour, he can queue up a myriad of distinct encounters for all parts of the world that will occur throughout the coming days, entertaining hundreds in several time zones. He can then supplement these with quests, handcrafted ones that can tie into certain situations. For instance, one of his raids could be a siege of a major city. The monsters will venture forth, encircling the city and cutting off supply lines. This activates a quest where an NPC traveler sneaks into town and tells the players that if they can build for him 10 swords of a certain rare material, he can enchant them. The attackers are naturally vulnerable to these swords, giving the defenders a great advantage. The quest is undertaken, the players meet the goal, then equip their best warriors, and the siege is lifted.
The above is just one example of how a Live Storyteller could entertain hundreds of players over the course of an entire day with a reasonable effort. The players would have a wealth of raids, each with its own unique puzzle and rewards. Furthermore, each encounter can have many outcomes. In the above situation, the players could use brute force, they could capitulate to the invaders' demands, or they could even fall and lose their town to the enemy. It is all up to the players to play it how they will.
Our overall goal is to create a cohesive and deep world. We do not want to run a single storyline at a time, but rather a wealth of them, both big and small, that play out all over our world, and cater to people of all skill levels. Live Content is not just for the end game, but rather an integral part of Wish at all levels.
In the second part of this article, we will explain how these and other concepts foster a sense of community, allow players to have a lasting impact upon the game world, and create a system where the primary characters in the story of Wish are the most important characters of all, the players.
Dana Massey
World Designer, Wish
Mutable Realms
Originally posted June 18th, 2004 on the RPG Vault. |
