Gaming My Way

Now that I’ve caught your attention, let me say that while I like the fact Darkfall is treading a lot of new ground, I still can’t recommend it as the MMORPG to play, even if it does pull off all of its goals. I’m certain the game will appeal to a large group of gamers though if they pull it off. The reason for this will be apparent later. However, I do think that it could be a valuable proof of concept for a lot of things I would like to see in the genre.

For more info on the game, you can check out the Darkfall homepage and Darkfall Wikipedia page.

First, I want to talk about the good, and there is a lot of it. First off, this will be the first MMO I’ve heard of to make use of true real time combat. They’re going with an fps style, so it will require you to actually hit your targets, as well as allow you to dodge your opponents, with your own skill, and not some predefined stats. The game does have stats of course, and it will likely still have fights which are clearly one sided, but at least you should have a fighting chance even if your stats are heavily skewed. I hope this is the case at least.

Now honestly, I’d prefer more of a Zelda lock-on style of combat, but perhaps that can come after Aventurine SA proves it’s possible to do any form of real time combat in an MMORPG. Of course, they may not prove it possible, but I’m definitely pulling for them in this regard.

Next up, there are no levels. Instead, the game uses a system in which the skills you use get better over time as you keep using them. This, along with the FPS style of combat, has me thinking someone took the idea of Morrowind or Oblivion as an MMORPG to it’s inevitable conclusion. Either way though, the lack of levels in the game will hopefully cut out a significant amount of grinding, though I imagine people will just grind skills by repeatedly using them whether warranted or not. Hopefully this will be less necessary than grinding xp in most MMOs is, and I also hope Aventurine can come up with a way to make sure the system isn’t abused other than the Terms of Service. As an additional bonus of this skill system, it won’t be possible to permanently mess up a character, since you just practice what you want to get better at and then you improve.

Prestige classes are a cool idea, especially if they’re implemented the way I imagine from the desription. Basically, join an organization, take an oath or perform a service, and gain power by abiding by that oath and continuing to lend your services to the organization. Hopefully, this is how the devs will implement them. It will still be possible to leave the class if you realize you’d rather be something else, so even this won’t prevent you from trying a different build on the same character.

Now, for the bad parts. First off, being a new MMO making the most of current technology, it will in fact have a monthly fee. Par for the course, but still something I’d like to see become non-standard with the genre. I still can’t justify giving up four to five new games a year for just one, no matter how good it is, or how great a deal it is in dollars/hour. This won’t be an issue for anyone who’s willing to pay for subscription based games though.

Next up, they have “unrestricted PvP.” Some people will love this, but I think it’s a bad idea. Too many people love a fight they know they can’t lose, and there should always be a way to opt out of PvP against a clearly superior group, even if that method is being within a “safe zone.”

On the upside, town guards will attack players who initiate attacks on others, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe in town, just that the fight is harder for the attackers in town than it is out of town. On top of all that, when you die, everything on your corpse will be lootable, meaning that not only can you not avoid fighting griefers, but then they can take all your stuff. Is it realistic? Absolutely. Will this appeal to some players? Definitely. It’s just not for me, and I can’t imagine playing such a game.

Now, there is one disadvantage to PvPing when unprovoked: evil points. Certain actions will make you become evil, such as unwarranted killing and using certain types of magic. Apparently, it’s not hard to become evil, but redemption or becoming truly good takes a lot of work. If you’re evil, many npcs, and likely players too I imagine, will attack you on sight or refuse to deal with you. With this penalty in place, I hope that a lot of unwarranted PvP will be curbed, but it’s not enough to convince me it’s a good idea.

Still, I think it will do a good job at doing what it wants to do, which is to create a more realistic fantasy world than is typically found in an MMORPG. And I have high hopes that some of the better ideas, such as real time combat, will be snatched up for another MMO that will be more fun for a casual crowd, as well as those who want to play the game instead of worrying about being ganked by a large group of people with more gameplay experience or those who don’t want to lose what they worked hard to gain in the first place. Of course, time will tell if Darkfall can deliver what it promises, so we’ll have to wait and see. Either way, I commend them for trying something different.

There’s a lot that goes into making a memorable game. However, some people get too caught up in certain aspects of a game to really enjoy the other aspects. As you might have guessed from the title, there are three major aspects of a game I want to talk about: the rules and mechanics set out by the designers, the fun that both the players and the GM have playing the game, and the vision the players have for their characters and the GM has for the campaign. Also, these views are relatively new for me, as I used to be a very hardcore follow the rules kind of person, though I do still have an appreciation for them and their importance. I see a balance of these as more important now, and it’s not an even balance either.

Let’s start with the rules. I think the rules should serve primarily to arbitrate disagreements amongst everyone, whether those people are the players or a player and the GM. Ultimately, the GM still has the final say, though this ability of the GM should only be used if the rules are unclear, or unknown at the time. If unknown at the time, the group should figure them out so everyone knows what to do next time the situation comes up. In general, the rules should simply be used to clear up any given dispute… such as whether someone is hit or not, if they’re dying or not, if they can trick any given npc into doing something for them, and so on. In fact, most of these “disputes” about what happens will likely be between the player and GM.

If you look at rules in this light, it’s even more important than usual to have the GM outline any house rules before the game starts, rather than during the game. With this view, the rules become about fairness for everyone including the GM, so it’s not really fair to the players if the GM changes the rules in the middle of the game.

Next up, we have the vision for the campaign and the vision for each character. It’s very likely that the players will have visions for their characters that conflict with GM’s vision for the campaign. Each player’s vision for their characters might even make it difficult for other players to pursue their on vision for their on characters as well, if the characters are radically different. For instance, the GM has a vision of a stealthy group of spies piecing together some riddles to find a villain who wants to take over the country. However, one player has a character who wants to aspire to take over the country, and another player wants to be a Vin Diesel style action hero or something. These are not likely to mesh together well if you just run with it.

Now, you could actually work all this together though. The player of the action hero could agree not to mess up stealth missions too often, though he might do everything with a flare that makes the missions more risky. As an example, he might shoot locks off doors instead of picking them. The GM will give the action hero a chance to do full on combat once in awhile as well, perhaps in a mission in which the PCs are betrayed. And the player who wants his character to take over the country might have stopping another person’s rise to power as one of the stepping stones of his own rise to power.

If the GM were to fight the players at this point though, it could lead to the action hero blowing all the stealth missions, and the PC who wants to take over the country allying with the villain from the outset. For some people, this might be fun, though it would likely just end up dragging the campaign down. Particularly the GM, who would see his campaign devolve into a high action, low stealth game.

So getting everyone to work together can lead to everyone’s vision being mostly met, and everyone having a good deal of fun. Which naturally leads me to my last point. The fun of everyone involved is more important than any one person’s vision or the rules of the game. If people aren’t having fun, it doesn’t matter what your vision is, since no one will want to play the game next time it runs. If the GM has no fun, he won’t want to run the game himself next session.

Now, this fun part is where those pesky rules I mentioned earlier come back in. What happens if the GM’s idea of what should happen and the players’ ideas of what should happen are different? You go by the rules, roll all the dice, and see what happens. Then you accept the result and move on. You also do this for any point in the story where you want uncertainty for everyone involved, such as a fierce combat. But, for things that are dramatically appropriate, you just let them happen as long as everyone is in agreement. In this way, it also behooves everyone to make compromises and let other people do cool things, because if you do, they’ll be willing to let you do something cool when you think of something you’d like to do that the dice are likely to say you can’t accomplish. If everyone agrees it’s appropriate though, you get to do it anyway.

So, those are my new thoughts on how to run a story driven game. Put everyone’s fun first, by realizing it’s a game, and compromising on the vision of the game and characters each person holds, and using the rules set out in the game to arbitrate any disputes that come up between the players and GM, as well as to keep tension high for everyone. This is how I hope to run my next game, which I hope to start relatively soon, so I’ll see how it goes when I get to start it up. Naturally, these views don’t hold for all games are gaming styles, but I think they should work well for telling a cooperative story.