State of the Game - Part 4

by Scott Lewis

Over the past few weeks we've been discussing long term reward in online games, particularly as it relates to the goal of keeping users. We've touched on some of the problems in designing for the long term and discussed in-game money and equipment as flawed motivators. Today we explore content and challenge as a linked pair of motivators, possibly the only ones that can really keep a user base in perpetuity.

Before we jump into content, let us quickly discuss the notion of level and character progression. Put aside for a second that some mmorpgs don't have explicit levels. Level serves as a general meter of character power and, in nearly all cases, has some ceiling at which players are expected to be balanced for play in the most challenging areas of the game. Raising this level cap is effectively a more pure form of giving out better equipment. It represents an across the board increase in character power at the top end. Making such a step will extend play time in the sense that additional time is required to attain the last few levels. However, it will also compress playtime as the formerly high end content becomes easier and easier for ever smaller groups of players to conquer. This phenomenon is particularly troubling when players at the new level cap assist those near the old cap, effectively shortening the total time it takes the lower level player to progress through content.

One of the most extreme examples of this can be found in the original Everquest. The two Dragon bosses that represented the last fights of the base game eventually became so easy that the designers had to put in arbitrary code preventing high level players from participating in the encounters.

Increasingly higher levels, then, are an ineffective reward unto themselves. This is not to say they should be avoided in design. In fact, they are a necessary component of content addition. It is important, however, that higher end content be sufficient to mitigate the distorting effect that higher level characters will have on formerly top tier content.

Having explored so many motivators that are ineffective or, more properly, only partially effective, we turn our focus to the only one that works on the long term. Content. The basic reason players participate in online games is to do things. Reward systems exist primarily to denote things accomplished and to provide players with the means to do other, more difficult, things. It stands to reason that players will eventually grow restless and leave once they have exhausted the range of reasonable things to do. It falls to designers, then, to continue updating online games in such a way that the highest level players are continually provided with new things to do.

A brief soapbox moment ensues. A recurring complaint that arises whenever players see the scope of a new expansion (update, etc.) is: "Everything is for the high level players. What about those of us who are halfway through the game." This argument is not only rather selfish in its basis it also misses the point. Players who are halfway through a game have half a game in front of them. Likely far more than half, actually, as the time investment in online games is significantly weighted toward the high end. Players who have already exhausted the existing content, however, have nothing in front of them and a rapidly dwindling supply of reasons not to jump ship to the next new mmorpg that shows up. It is precisely these high level players that new content must serve.

It is notable; however, that rational argument is not always the best way of interacting with the online community. The wise designer will likely throw out some amount of shiny baubles to mid level players. Said designer should avoid at all costs any change that will significantly impact the power of mid level players, however as this will simply result in a compressing of the game play experience as noted above and actually make players stay for less time on whole. Particularly troublesome are content areas for mid level players, as these will likely be flooded with players significantly too high, resulting in their rewards being far to rapidly dispersed among mid-high level players and compressing total content even further.

We have the idea; at least, that continually expanding content provides the most powerful tool for designers to use is keeping a game's player base. Next week we will examine the aspects of content expansions that make them more or less effective at their goal.