Innovation

[WyldKarde]

Everyones' holding on tightly to their ideas I've noticed, but I'm curious what makes game A or game B any different from the usual pablum with snobbish elves and drunken whoremongering dwarves. From our position as independent game developers, we're in the unique position to innovate.

Larger companies with thousands of employees, shareholders, and pension plans to pay into can't innovate. It makes about as much sense for them to innovate as it makes for us to copy them. Design Documents are business plans and a good business plan follows a proven business model, which means that the big companies are going to do something similar to what's already been done.

"Me Too" development (they call it "reverse-engineering", but copying is copying) and you can see successful and quasi-sucessful companies doing it every time something cool comes out. Wizards developed Neopets in response to Pokemon. Search engines and browsers come out every week trying to snatch away Google's stranglehold on information delivery or cut a few limbs off the technological octopus that is Microsoft.

I read the posts asking if this will allow for vehicles, space travel, heffalumps, and a glass of warm milk before bedtime, but very little offering what the developer is contributing to the legacy of this project. So far, and I understand this is likely due to the 1000 word limit on the developer registration (lord knows I can't stifle myself to that degree) everything reads like "Everquest...with Robots!" and "The Spanish-American War...with Elves!"

So what new and innovative features are going into these games?

We've gotta bunch so I'll toss a couple of ours out there.

A layered social system that allows players and NPC's to gain reputations that impact NPC reactions in the gameworld.

An information management system that allows "rogues" to buy, sell, steal, and hide information. Misleading or misdirecting information can even be created to confuse the enemy.

A layered skill system that allows for the creation of skillsets instead of following a class. Want a magical theif acrobat? Okay. A necromancer barbarian samurai. Uh....sure. Combine skills to create the character you want instead of one the developers thought up and made into a "class".

And...I guess that'll do. I just keep looking at the little promise in the upper left hand corner of the screen and wondering where all the changes are. At the end of the day, this thing is just a tool. It's on us to create something revolutionary with it.
_________________
"It is the duty of the writer to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit a harmonious or inspirational tone."

E.B. White

[Prometheus]

I think a lot of us would like to introduce our ideas as fully fledged (monetizeable) games.

And there's actually good reason to keep many things conceptually similar, at least in fantasy games. Fantasy has never been about innovation. It's about taking an old story and retelling it, it's about going from the familiar to the fantastic and back again, it's about developing mythology that isn't new, merely forgotten, and exploring eternal verities.

Can you have innovative game mechanics? Absolutely. Are they going to be worthwhile if they don't help tell the story, or bring across the ideas? Nope. New for the sake of new, weird for the sake of weird, may get the Novelty crowd in for a while, but if it's not beautiful or emotion-evoking or important in some way, it won't accomplish anything long-term.

Another reason to have "snobbish elves" and to a lesser extent "drunken whoremongering dwarves" is that fantasy, not being realistic like current-day-based or historical fiction, lacks a shorthand with which to draw a world subtly and with only a few strokes. Unless you want to spend all your time telling (boring) people about the details of your world and what makes it different from the real world or what makes it different from other fantasy worlds out there.

The trick with barbarian necromancer samurai and other such flexible class structures is balance. The vast majority of players not only want their favorite character template to be available, they expect it to be pretty much as powerful as all the rest of the classes in the game... and at every level, no less.

But I think the main thing about discussing innovation here is the proprietary angle... there's just not a lot of trust going on. We want first crack at making a buck off our ideas. Things will be a lot different around here when we've actually got games up and running, I think.

[WyldKarde]

I agree with two of the points made, being that the biggest issue facing game developers are trust and balance. But those have always been the case.

Trust is simple on this end, our system is custom. Saying what we're doing threatens nothing because we never explain how it's done. The metrics, the math, the system. Only those on the dev team know the crunchy bits.

So I'll give you trust, no one gives away everything.

Balance can be a beast too, and why most developers use an established system (usually pen-and-paper) instead of trying out a new one. The wall is erected here usually because what will work in the future is what has worked in the past. Unfortunately everyone does what worked in the past.

As independent game developers we don't have to follow that trend though. We want to make a few bucks, but a watered-down WoW isn't the way to do it. Let's see a game with features that the big boys wouldn't dare attempt for fear of their stockholders wetting themselves.

But back to balance, that is a big one and one that everyone, ultimately, has to work out for themselves. Our system of balancing through the physical limitations of the flesh works for a game without technology. In a world where technology seeks to go far beyond the physical limitations of the flesh, it wouldn't work. In a world with formal education as opposed to an archaic system of guilds and apprenticieship, the skill system doesn't work.

...that reminds me, the next games are going to require retooling...

So, down to the one point I have to argue. Fantasy (or any genre) being resticted to a certian conceptual vantage point. As a writer, I can really sink my teeth in and shake on this one. Wizards, the publisher for D&D, shares this viewpoint and has suffered for it as the formerly Drizz't-heavy fantasy section in my local bookstore has been overrun by TOR (known as "Taking Over Rackspace" in some circles...a nickname of which they are not ashamed) books.

Fantasy is growing up. Admittedly, it's doing it in the clumsy, awkward way that most of us did, but it's growing up. Gone are the stories of brave knights doing battle with evil magicians heavy with the classical themes of western civilization and the old church. I just finished a fantasy novel that was a stirring allegory of the Vietnam war with young soldiers questioning the motives of their presiden...er...king sending them into a war without purpose.

And there's the sex. Fantasy has had a lot of repressed sexulaity to it. Conan the Barbarian took it a long way but so far most writers have been too timid to pick up the torch. I long for the days of the illiterate warrior king.

Okay, let me stop ranting before I make a third reference to Bush and get all political and preachy.

Anyway, fantasy can go a lot further. More nations had histories than Europe. Stories of magic, bravery, and powerful forces beyond the ken of man abound. Fantasy worlds aren't restricted to the verdant hills of England.

One day we will put swords on the moon.
_________________
"It is the duty of the writer to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit a harmonious or inspirational tone."

E.B. White

[Prometheus]

Frank Herbert put swords on the moon more than a generation ago (and EverQuest did it again with Shadowns of Luclin). But the Dune stories wouldn't have had any legs if they hadn't been telling the tale of someone coming-of-age as a messianic figure.... There's very little new under, above, or beyond the sun.

Personally, I think fantasy was a bit more grownup when the whole field was just a couple of eccentric Oxford dons writing stories for kids. It's what you do once you're mature yourself-- you convey those thoughts, those ideals to others, especially kids. But my opinions on what constitutes a "mature" game or story probably differ a great deal from others'. Maturity isn't about sex-- there's a step beyond that, raising a family, teaching them, and transforming the world into a good place for that family to be.

Coming-of-age stories don't stop at 18, or 21, or whenever. Tolkien and older authors deal with this implicitly. A good modern author that deals with this in a more direct fashion is Lois McMaster Bujold (who also put swords into outer space, come to think of it.) Her main characters spend most of the story coming of age in pretty much every book she's written.

(Hm. I wonder if she'd be willing to put her properties online? A Dendarii Mercenaries game might do rather well. I know I'd love to work on it. Might even be able to adjust people's expectations of whether or not bad things should ever happen to their characters, which would be a breath of fresh air to MMOs.)

As far as fantasy rackspace goes, look how much of it is going to Franchise Fiction ("franfic") these days. Even the innovative Salvatore (A good dark elf! Who'd have thought?) is still strongly represented on the racks around where I live. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Star Trek, they're all taking up a few dozen shelf-feet at my local Barnes & Noble. About as much as Tolkien, Pratchett, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, and a couple other authors combined, actually.

Oh, and there are also a few dozen shelf-feet dedicated to manga. Fushigi Yuugi, Rurouni Kenshin, and other storylines are showing how eastern histories can be a rich source of material (though I've yet to see a good manga based on China's "Three Kingdoms" period, despite the fact that it's as popular there as our Knights of the Round Table stories.) But read them and tell me if you don't agree that the stories they tell have a lot in common with western fantasy.

Ok, this was more of a ramble than a post.

Please don't mistake my disagreement for hostility. This sort of stuff is fun to talk about, and I'm very attached to my opinions.

[Drahkar]

And something important to note, how much space various books take on a shelf is less about the community wide interests in the books and more about the generalized markets for that specific book in your area.
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Lead Business Manager & Technical Developer
DarkMatter Productions

[DeepFreez]

In terms of telling stories throug games there realy is no 'innovation' If you believe some theorists its not possible to tell a new story.
Why do people play games in the first place? I suspect for a large part it it the "surprise and delight" factor. The fantasy genre allows for a lot of leeway in this regard. Just note that just having snobbish elves and dwarves with guns will not surprise and delight any more. What you DO with your snobbish elves and dwarves with guns in your world must surprise and delight.
The thing to remember is that in a game, the only place to innovate is not the story or the setting. Look at The Sims where the story is created by the player.
I believe that the place to innovate is in the mechanics. The most succesful independant online game that I know of is Puzzle Pirates. They came up with a great new mechanic. A Tale In The Desert introduced some inovative mechanics too. Interesting to note that neither of these games are grapics intensive.

Now to my short list of things that I believe we as independant developers can explore:

Dynamic worlds
Dynamic stories
Semi-persistant worlds
Meta rules
Primary focus

Dynamic worlds have been discussed elsewhere.
Dynamic stories is where your game world runs a "story simulation" that tries to create dramatic situations for the players to participate in.
Semi-persistant worlds is where your world story has a defined beginning, middle and end. After the end the world ceases to exist and a new world is created. This new world can have refferences to the old one and make it richer. How long one world lasts is something that can be played around with. Anything form days to years seems feasible.
Meta rules are rules about rules. Instead of coming up with yet another leveling system, make rules about how character progression functions and let the players shape it. You stil have balancing through the meta rules, but the manifestation is open. This might allow you to have different ways to advance your character in different parts of the world.
In most online games the primary focus seems to be combat. Crafting etc serves to advance combat. How about trying it the other way around. Combat serves crafting. Or explore the "no combat" idea a bit more, like ATITD.

What Multiverse will allow us to do is to not worry too much about the immediate infrastructure of servers and clients and spend more time on exploring new mechanics or telling the same old "man against evil" story again.

[augmento]

all my ideas are in my kaneva channel http://augmenton.kaneva.com under the game concept forums, my main idea is to focus on 3 zones, a village for socializing, an arena for pvp, and an arcade with mini games. i plan to have those available online for May 2006. I will then slowly expand that.

my main thing is scripted offline mode for player characters and almost no true npcs in the traditional sense. i will start a new thread here for that.

[Prometheus]

Heh. It's tough to have a graphics-intensive independent game. I hope the MDevs aren't locking us into a system that requires a couple dozen graphic artists to make the game look right.

How well is ATITD doing these days, by the way? I heard about the idea over on the SWG beta boards way back when, and it sounded interesting.

[WyldKarde]

Aww shoot, I love thematic discussions. Usually, we get bound up in mechanic and can lose sight of what'll make the game fun. I absolutely love discussions on story too. I'm not really a ranter, but I'm pretty out there with my ideas and I (like just about every game designer...and especially every writer) got into this because in the middle of a game (or a book), I stopped and realized I could do better.

And you should see us discussing gameplay features on our dev boards. Looks like a flamewar.

With story though, I've gotta cry out for something new. Not something new to literature. The game industry can't have grown arrogant enough to believe that it's taken the torch from literature and that the scribes need to "step their game up".

"King Lear" on the 360 son. It's gonna be the new hotness.

But I've been stabbing goblins for twenty years. I've been adventuring through the same idyllic fields even longer. I've killed Tolkien's orcs, played as Gygax's Hobb...er, Halflings, and dozens of variations on that theme.

I'm saying, what about a new theme? We had to hammer out our own system just to create a new mechanic so that in the end, we could have our own theme. Not system for system's sake (It's like D20, but with seven-sided dice!!!), or a new mechanic for the sake of a new mechanic (Instead of training, players will "practice" It's different because it's...er...practice), but both for the sake of creating a unique experience.

I was just wondering, who's out to create something new, and who's out to make the next Pokemon MMO? I see a lot of questions about space...cool. I've seen questions about unique weapons and bizzarre damage systems...cool. I'm positive that everyone's got some cool features hidden away, I just want to see the boasting, the pride, the challenge to the status quo that someone up there better move or be moved.
_________________
"It is the duty of the writer to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit a harmonious or inspirational tone."

E.B. White

[Prometheus]

One reason swords-and-sorcery / fantasy work so well is that there's so much versatility to the system. You can actually have someone who does damage with only their fists, wearing no armor, be as effective as someone in full plate with a battle axe, and people will buy it. Need a nifty effect that works on a specific game mechanic? Just call it magic.

The possibilities are, while not endless, are extreme.

This has been a failing of SciFi games for a long time. It's tough to convince people that anything beats the BFG / Rocket launcher / whatever packs the most punch. And having someone in light armor survive an attack from one? Unbelievable. And hence, not good fiction. And if you present "nanotech" or something like that, people will just call it magic dressed up in SciFi terms. Which isn't real fair to the devs, because underneath it's all just the ones and zeros that a computer can handle.

Honestly, a fantasy wrapper fits best around what computers are capable of, or at least what gamers expect from their 3D online games.

I see what you mean about Pokemon, though. That was a system that hit some basic human obsessions -- collecting and competition -- and made it big. We need to understand our underlying systems -- the computer, and player psychology -- to uncover more of these winning combinations. Though it's a different mechanic entirely from the Kothuria create-a-character-and-upgrade-it-forever model. Can we really make something truly different, unless we change something fundamental about the engine?

(King Lear on the 360... LOL! Though I suspect MacBeth would translate better into a game. I forget, does one of the Rome games already do Brutus vs. Octavian?)

[DeepFreez]

I suspect at least part of the reason most games look the same is because they "solve" the same mechanic problems. If you are going to kill X you will need Y and be enabled to use it. You want to kill X because that will give you Z to eventually kill K. Rinse repeat.

Granted, this is a very succesful formula, but to be innovative we have to question it and explore alternatives.

What ATITD did was to change this into: In order bo build X you need Y and be enabled to use it. You want to build X, because that will give you Z to eventually build K. Rinse repeat. Lo and behold, it works. Granted there are some flaws in the implementation, but this is exactly why it should be explored further. There is a workable solution out there.

Here is another mechanic that is actually quite fun to play. It comes from an obscure board game called Odysseus. There is only one central character, Odysseus. The players are the greek gods trying to steer him on his quest by influencing the winds. The god that is the most succesful in steering Odysseus where he wants, collects the most points.

This leads one to think that an online "god game" is in fact viable. Instead of having an avatar, you have a presence that goes unnoticed. As you progress you get more ways to influence the world and have your will done.

How about a Cluedo type detective mechanic?

PS The flaw in ATITD is one that many other games also suffer. Grind. My suggestion to try and solve grind is to give the world and thus the characters a fixed and semi-predictable life span.

[Palamedes]

[cliff]

[Palamedes]

But thats just it.. Multiverse isn't just an MMORPG engine.. it's a MMOG engine.. so any game can be created..

Why not make a game that is a combination RPG and FPS? - this is what we are doing, btw..

If you can grab elements of each game type you can "innovate".. =)
_________________
-Pal
The Bit Twiddler

[cliff]

OK, fair enough... but your statement implied a more direct comparison.

Although I have to actually disagree with the statement anyway... I do not think an extremely skilled and experienced player has the same chance of doing or failing as a new player. The experienced player in an FPS always has a leg up over the newbie.

On the other hand, I don't think the real goal here is to make it so a newbie has as great a chance of success as an experienced player, but that a casual player has a comparable chance of success against a power gamer.