Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[kcxiv]

I like the old days of /tell guildcleric i need a heal fast! When i see the WoW raid interface with every single person in the raid on their screen i was like, you know what F being a healer in that game. I couldnt imaging having to focus on just that the whole time. That doesnt seem fun at all.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Lonin

That being said, I think there is data that has become necessary in today's MMO genre (locations, mob hitpoints, maps, experience numbers, spell effects, etc) and then there is data that can actually impact gameplay significantly when known (aggro numbers, mob loot tables, mob locations, etc). The latter information should not be part of a player's repertoire of information made available to them and the former should definitely be part of it.

The problem is, any information that is important enough that it affects the user's experience in a significant way - like aggro mechanics, mob loot tables and locations - will be found empirically if your game becomes popular. WoW doesn't make aggro mechanics or mob loot tables available through the UI or scripting in any way, and as far as I know there has never been any documentation available as to how aggro (for example) works. However, players are able to experiment and record enough data to have an encyclopedic understanding of it nowadays.

Also, I find some of your mandatory information odd. Why should players get exact numbers for mob HP or EXP gain, but not aggro? I haven't played WoW post-TBC, but in 1.X you couldn't get exact numbers for mob HP remaining, just percentages, and things were OK. What about mob stats and abilities? (Some MMOs give that, some don't.) It seems to me that where you draw the line is mostly just tradition and convention.

Originally Posted by Gaereth

The ability to modify how the game looks via mods and how the player functions(not how the game itself functions) adds an aspect of ownership to the game.

When you start adding a feeling of ownership people feel more connected to the game itself. When you can customize what you see on screen to a level you like, when can tinker with stats and gear offline, when you can talk to people online when you aren't there, people become more connected to the game.

Right on.

A lot of people mention that mods are basically mandatory in WoW to do a lot of things. That's certainly true to a point; although a superhuman would never need mods, many mods effectively make people more reliable, quicker, and smarter, and many raid encounters are balanced around having a team which is extremely reliable, quick, and smart.

It seems like there's a disconnect here:

We all agree on point

A) The default UI should be minimal and simple in order to avoid overloading new players with options and information.

And we agree on point

B) The UI should be extremely modifiable so that experienced players can easily present information to themselves in an efficient manner.

So what follows?

C) Therefore, a well-designed modified UI will make players much more efficient and capable.

D) To balance raid encounters to be difficult but achievable, you need to assume that the players doing them are fairly skilled and able to fulfill their roles near the best of their ability.

E) Therefore, difficult raid encounters need to presume that players are using well-designed modified UIs.

F) (Corollary) If a raid encounter is balanced around being difficult for players using the default UI, it will not be nearly as difficult for players using a well-designed modified UI.

Where is the hole here? I don't find this to be as much of a problem as some people seem to. I'm not sure why a raiding MMORPG player would want to use a UI which made it more difficult to do their job, and I think it's fair to assume accordingly that raiders are using a good UI.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Fog

The problem is, any information that is important enough that it affects the user's experience in a significant way - like aggro mechanics, mob loot tables and locations - will be found empirically if your game becomes popular. WoW doesn't make aggro mechanics or mob loot tables available through the UI or scripting in any way, and as far as I know there has never been any documentation available as to how aggro (for example) works. However, players are able to experiment and record enough data to have an encyclopedic understanding of it nowadays.

Also, I find some of your mandatory information odd. Why should players get exact numbers for mob HP or EXP gain, but not aggro? I haven't played WoW post-TBC, but in 1.X you couldn't get exact numbers for mob HP remaining, just percentages, and things were OK. What about mob stats and abilities? (Some MMOs give that, some don't.) It seems to me that where you draw the line is mostly just tradition and convention.

I probably got too specific there. Put more simply, I meant to say give as much information as possible, but not too much. That sounds like a really vague request though, hence my attempt to clarify. All the examples I gave could go either way honestly, it's more about what information can really have adverse effects on the gameplay, and the information that is more benign like the type of stuff you tend to see on websites like wowhead and allakhazam's. You don't want any of the former but a lot of the latter IMO.

[Fayvren]

I guess my question is whether or not the games should provide this or allow players to provide it? Players will always mod, that's a cool thing, some of the UI stuff players come up with is pretty incredible and from what I have seen a lot of players have used that path to get a job in the industry. The more I see how the mods work the more things I see and think the publisher should have included in the game. Now that treads into the arena of development priorities and feature creep. The cost vs reward aspect of development is something we drill very deep into with everything we are doing now, and will continue to do in the future.

One of the major reasons that mods became so important in Wow is the pacing of combat. You have debuffs that will literally wipe the raid if players dont react in under 5 seconds. At first it was decursive, decurse the raid by spamming a single button so it was removed. Then once that was taken out, all sorts of unit frames to show who was cursed, who was in range etc etc. The game is in some ways unplayable without being able to see everyones HP everyones buff / debuff status. The same can be said for healing. You need to have a heal land within a second of some players taking damage or they die.

While raiding my UI looked like a console of some air traffic controller. At some point that's just way overboard. Keeping track of a billion numbers and trying to filter out whats going on because if we don't do it at lightning speed we'll wipe really isnt that fun. Ideally the pace of combat should be slowed and decision making should come into play. Literally all the UI mods that are required on raids are there because if you are half a second late or half a second early, ur entire raid is doomed. Pacing and speed shouldn't be the reason that encounters are hard. Look at turn based games for instance, they can still manage to be hard even if you have all the time in the world to think. That's how MMOs should be designed. Not this mass twitchfest where everyone is trying to numbercrunch and monitor 40 things at a time.

[Cadrid]

While I feel modding is an important part of any MMO now-a-days, the issue with WoW was that it became a tactical advantage instead of a matter of convenience and personal appeal. Mods that blare "YOU ARE THE BOMB!" offer such a huge bonus that it will lead to an encounter becoming almost trivial in a matter of days, whereas one that lets you more easily view general information (such as damage meters, combat info, etc.) still depends upon player skill and experience to be utilized properly.

I guess my argument, in its most basic form, would be that mods that "play the game for you" are a negative, while mods that help you understand the game better are perfectly fine. If a title is built with the intention of keeping mods in the realm of parsing and aesthetic appeal in mind, the game won't require mods like those found in WoW. It's when free reign is given to the modding community that developers have to craft encounters and gameplay with the assumption everyone is using a certain handicap.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

While I feel modding is an important part of any MMO now-a-days, the issue with WoW was that it became a tactical advantage instead of a matter of convenience and personal appeal. Mods that blare "YOU ARE THE BOMB!" offer such a huge bonus that it will lead to an encounter becoming almost trivial in a matter of days, whereas one that lets you more easily view general information (such as damage meters, combat info, etc.) still depends upon player skill and experience to be utilized properly.

Wait, what's going on here? "YOU ARE THE BOMB" is just a more user-friendly way of displaying a magic effect which is already displayed in the default UI. A player can look at the sidebar and see, with 100% reliability, whether they are the bomb or not, because the little debuff icon appears.

The reason "YOU ARE THE BOMB" makes it easier is because the status of that debuff is very important, and the default presentation of the buff bar isn't very eye-catching, so by moving the notification from a little buff icon appearing in the middle of a bunch of other icons to a notice in chat (which most players are usually watching carefully) it's easier for a player to pick out immediately.

It seems to me like "YOU ARE THE BOMB" is exactly what mods are best used for - making the information a player wants to see available to them in the manner they would prefer to see it.

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by Fog

Wait, what's going on here? "YOU ARE THE BOMB" is just a more user-friendly way of displaying a magic effect which is already displayed in the default UI. A player can look at the sidebar and see, with 100% reliability, whether they are the bomb or not, because the little debuff icon appears.

The reason "YOU ARE THE BOMB" makes it easier is because the status of that debuff is very important, and the default presentation of the buff bar isn't very eye-catching, so by moving the notification from a little buff icon appearing in the middle of a bunch of other icons to a notice in chat (which most players are usually watching carefully) it's easier for a player to pick out immediately.

It seems to me like "YOU ARE THE BOMB" is exactly what mods are best used for - making the information a player wants to see available to them in the manner they would prefer to see it.

The difference between this and a mod that displays your damage/resists/etc. is that this makes it so the player has to pay minimal attention to what is going on around them. Instead of having to look at their character or keep tabs on what debuffs they have they are hard-locked on maximum DPS. There's almost no player interaction when a mod goes "DINGGGGG!" and tells you to run away.

If a game is made with these kinds of events in mind then the icons will be displayed in a manner that makes visibility of debuffs prevalent and convenient. It would simply take some effort by the player to keep an eye on what is going on around them.

To give a more specific example, if the default WoW UI had separated debuffs and buffs into different groupings, being "the bomb" wouldn't require (at least not as much) a mod to tell you so. Icon design, sizing based on danger factor, and visual clues would help replace the overt "GTFO!" message of some mods.

[Northerner]

Being "THE BOMB!" should make your character visually represent that status clearly enough that even a moron is aware of the situation. Regardless though, I like UI Mods and use and modify many of them myself. I do agree for certain though that they need to be controlled to some degree to avoid excessive botting and other bullshit. As well, of course, your default UI should be good enough that many of the addons we see in WoW would be obsolete. It wouldn't hurt if your default combat system didn't encourage things like /stopcasting macros, stance-switching fear macros and other staples of WoW.

As a developer though, you'd be foolish to ignore a massive free coder base that is willing to spend hundreds and thousands of hours polishing the UI. People like making mods and hell, it would cost you a hell of a lot to get results not nearly as good in the end. So open it up a bit and let them come up with what they can. If it proves to be too potent (decursive perhaps?) then you can disable specific functionality at a later time. Huh, I never thought I'd hold WoW up as a model for how to implement UI policies but in retrospect, most of it has worked out reasonably well.

[Duppin]

I actually managed to miss the big flashing YOU ARE THE BOMB on my first MC raid. I felt like such a schmuck, I had my raid UI covering where it popped up and didn't notice it because I was busy clicking frantically to keep people healed (I was using a mod that let me click on raid windows to heal someone).

I needed a mod that shot a jolt of electricity into my ass, or something, I guess.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Duppin

I needed a mod that shot a jolt of electricity into my ass, or something, I guess.

I'd be careful what you ask for, they probably make that product.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Cadrid

If a game is made with these kinds of events in mind then the icons will be displayed in a manner that makes visibility of debuffs prevalent and convenient. It would simply take some effort by the player to keep an eye on what is going on around them.

To give a more specific example, if the default WoW UI had separated debuffs and buffs into different groupings, being "the bomb" wouldn't require (at least not as much) a mod to tell you so. Icon design, sizing based on danger factor, and visual clues would help replace the overt "GTFO!" message of some mods.

I agree with this, but what is the practical difference between having visible, obvious, and perhaps customizable debuff notifications - and having something go "ding! you have a debuff!" in the middle of your screen? The fight is equally easy or difficult either way. (And if it's not, then someone will probably mod it to display the easier way.)

Designing encounters that are based around more complex mechanics than "get a debuff, run away" is the other answer, but it's difficult to churn out a sufficient number of clever fights like that.

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by Northerner

As a developer though, you'd be foolish to ignore a massive free coder base that is willing to spend hundreds and thousands of hours polishing the UI. People like making mods and hell, it would cost you a hell of a lot to get results not nearly as good in the end. So open it up a bit and let them come up with what they can. If it proves to be too potent (decursive perhaps?) then you can disable specific functionality at a later time. Huh, I never thought I'd hold WoW up as a model for how to implement UI policies but in retrospect, most of it has worked out reasonably well.

Now that you bring it up, I think having a stage of Beta testing dedicated to the modding community might be in order, somewhere between a Closed Beta for bugs and Open Beta for server stress-testing. Enough time and resources should be given to a reputable community of modders so that they can push the bounds of the tools available for public consumption and then the developer can preemptively decide where to draw the line. This way people can have the freedom to view the UI in a comfortable way without game-breaking/encounter-nullifying mods being given to the public and force either a revision of development strategies, or a tightening of UI restrictions.

(EDIT) Fog: I guess the explanation lies a bit in the "oldschool" mentality I played MMOs with; don't baby the players, make them learn what is happening and how to act. Yes, having cues about what is going on is similar to an audible/legible instruction, but it's not the same. If you're dedicating yourself to the fight then you will notice a variation in the norm, whereas waiting to hear "DING!" while watching TV seems to be more in the realm of botting; all you're doing is following pre-rendered instructions.

[Traldan]

But remember, if you're aiming high, you have to be appealing to everyone...and in some cases, this may mean a large amount of UI-modding freedom. Vanguard tried to go the 'looks-only' route, and people still clamored for more functionality and mods - the "I want it like WoW" problem.

However, Vanguard's UI modding community developed very nicely, with one or two Sigil employees interfacing well with the community and the ui developers...at least for the first few monthes of the game and the last few monthes of open beta. After that, things sorta went downhill.

[Zhakran]

The whole concept of "I want it like WoW" is only because just about every fucking game out today copies SO MUCH from WoW, that when certain parts of it(i.e., the User Interface) are *not* like WoW, people bitch to high heavens, and with good reason, since most of the game's mechanics would benefit greatly from similair mods that you seen in WoW.

That's the whole damned problem right there, is NO ONE can even make a game that doesn't in some moderate or large fashion try to be "WoW: Our Edition".

Hell, even Vanguard, which was supposed to be all old-school EQ has much, much, much more in common with WoW than it does with original EQ. LOTRO is another great example, it's basically a WoW ripoff with really nice graphics. It had some good decisions and some really bad ones, but in the end it tries to be a good little WoW clone, and falls short because it's not WoW.

I even played EQ2 recently, tried it out, and no it's not as much of a WoW clone as LOTRO and Vanguard are(impossible, since it came out before WoW), but it reeks of having borrowed much in the way of gameplay from the MMO Champion.

If you designed a game such that you WOULD NOT WANT OR NEED the mods that people are accustomed to in Warcraft, then, amazingly, people wouldn't bitch about things not being just like WoW. If your game presents things in an original and different way, and doesn't have the exact same or similiar pacing to WoW, then you can stop worrying so much about "falling short of how WoW did this."
(this all of course assumes the game is...fun)

If you however design a WoW Version 7.83x with very similiar combat pacing, abilities, mob difficulty, advancement paths, grouping mechanics, health bar presentation, debuff durations and effect, etc, etc then guess what, people are certainly going to expect it to have all the customization, and all the headaches associated with it, that World of Warcraft does.

I really just hope that whatever type of game GMG makes, even if it sucks to high heaven, they really do something DIFFERENT, no no no, *actually* different from WoW, and think outside the box. If I see another upcoming MMO screenshot with the little player icon with a class icon and level number and a green lifebar in the upper lefthand corner, and a "Blizzard-inspired" list of little ability icons across the bottom of the screen, I am just going to hurl.

[Traldan]

I agree with you, to a point, Zhakran. But these base UI concepts - a hotbar with abilities, a player health bar, etc...they're obviously not WoW creations...WoW was not the first to do them. WoW just had a certain specific layout that seemingly every game since has been eerily similar to. Which makes sense. If you want YOUR game to appeal, you make the base functionality similar...if the user has less trouble interacting with the game, then ideally they will spend more time focused on the actual content.

That's not to say I think that the 38 game should be another with the WoW-style UI. Personally, I loved the way the EQ2 UI behaved. I liked the modularity of it, the ability to resize any window, the right-click menus, all of it. It felt responsive when you used it (unlike the VG UI). I like that the default UI had very few frills, just simple functionality. Yes, it had its quirks and there were things that UI mods did better (smaller hotbars, a stars bar, etc), but in general, the UI was much more ideal as a default than the VG UI or the WoW UI.

My point is, using what's been done before and done well is NOT a bad thing. I just feel that these new games coming out need to be more selective and careful about what points they choose to emulate, and from where. If WoW does something REALLY well, then hell yes, use that as an inspiration or a guide. But if you can improve something, do it