What's wrong with current BBGs?

[Ramblurr]

Some very interesting discussion here. I agree with Grim and JonO on certain points.

When it comes to FH, rather than spend my time rewriting 80 pages of rules, I want to spend my time enhancing the interface. This is because I agree with Grim, that in today's world a player should be able to gently ease into the game if the interface is well designed, which makes the need for a player to read and comprehend 80 pages of mediocre unnecessary.

As a game maintainer, the FH manual is very helpful, because it spells out each and every game mechanic, hence my propensity of calling it a "manual" rather than "rulebook".

In many ways the PBM interfaces of old are similar to command line DOS and *NIX interfaces. They are considered 'expert' interfaces, because if you know what you want to do and how to do it, the action is very easy. For everyone else, these interfaces are opaque. You look at the neon green cursor blinking on a black backdrop and recognize the sheer power that lies behind it, but just can't figure out how to convey your goal to the unforgiving prompt.

The FH rules *are* terrible, but with the right rules the game mechanics are fairly simple and straightforward. I have half a mind to write up a field guide to FH myself.

Yes! Yes! Do it! Or just help expand the How do I... article.

[JonO]

For everyone else, these interfaces are opaque. You look at the neon green cursor blinking on a black backdrop and recognize the sheer power that lies behind it, but just can't figure out how to convey your goal to the unforgiving prompt.

Someone once called that scenario the ultimate existential challenge.

[Cortrah]

If PBM want to convert successfully to the on-line media I think it can do far worse than look to games like Farmville or Mafia Wars. Yes we all agree they are repetitive, shallow and maybe even boring however they have got right far more than any PBM todate regarding success online. What is so wrong with getting a simple basic PBM game working online successfully and using it's model and platform as a base to increase depth and complexity?

First this is an excellent conversation and I'd like to thank you all for it.

While I agree with what Gads is saying here in principle, I wonder if the solution is really to go another route.

I am basing my response on a specific experience playing "Lords of Ultima" a friend showed me this game a while back and during a lull I tried it out. It had a lot going for it, nice graphics, a nice little soundtack in the background, some strategic complexity. It was definitely sticky. It's definitely successful. But as a player I felt like a patch of mold growing.

I think this particular game suffered from some common problems, that though a good formula for success, made it no fun.

A) the whole "grow your virtual tamagachi" thing got old after a while because the design was so focused on keeping you constantly engaged for short term gains. The effort, while easy, was continual. My time is worth more than that.

B) I played for a week or two but never even managed to get into a real fight because the design really didn't give you much incentive for fighting with others ? It was much more rewarding to raid a dungeon rather than another player. This probably helps the success of the game, but kept it from being fun in my mind. I want to play with human allies against human opponents who are trying to win.

C) Because it was free it meant that there were a ton of folk out there that really weren't even interested in playing the game. They were playing "Web Forum" it was like gathering all the folk who don't consider their time to be worth anything together to talk about whatever. While your patch of mold grows in the background.

D) Finally the kicker, if you ever got into a fight, the arms war mechanic from "Magic the Gathering" was there to pit your wallet against your opponent's. So the idea is clearly to get everyone to be precious with their free game and then get them to pay a bunch for it at the end. Really the worst case scenario.

It reminded me of public free concerts. Sure they can be free, but they can also be so mobbed and standing room only with folk that are really there for the beer and fried food that if you really want to see the band you'd do better to buy a ticket and get a seat in a nice theater with good sound.

This game was like enduring the atmosphere of a free public concert but if the band were to every starts playing you would have to pay a lot of money to hear then anyway.

I think the key strengths of the PBM style is that it's turn based so that you can play when you have time, that it's players against players - not killing 100 giant frogs to get to the next level - and that the game moves at a pace that allows the players who are interested to write up stories.

Whether it's browser based or not, good UI or not, difficult to learn or not. Those are the aspects that call out to me. I'd rather pay money and have my time respected, than play MMO's like WOW or Lords of Ultima.

I think Ilkor sounds pretty exciting, but what I think will really make it fun is if it attracts a lot of folk who do blogs on their character's adventures like the space faring stories you guys were putting up.

The more you can even require roleplaying the better, though I don't have any ideas offhand on how you could do so.

[Gads]

Hey Cortrah,

Thanks for picking up this thread, it is a very interesting topic and something that is on my mind alot as we develop Ilkor.

As I read your comments I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything. I had to re-read what my own quote was about!

Maybe I didn't explain myself well enough as I think you've gone off on all the elements of those games that I really dislike!! :-)

I totally, 100% believe that the on-line media is the way to go. I also think the game needs to be turn-based and I've blogged on this a number of times already explaining in some detail how I think this can be achieved online, balancing the best of the internet with traditional PBM.

Depth is also a key element to Ilkor. It isn't going to be a game that you can succeed in in a couple of weeks or even months. We've already worked out that to reach 15th level, the player would have to have played for at least 4 years. The player isn't going to be able to achieve this my buying his way up the ladder, nor spending hours online, nor clicking on an 'attack' button 100 times. The only way to advance will be to find a strategy that works for your style of play, to interact with other players and to plan ahead for the long term gains not the short.

As you can see advancement is going to be slow, as will the pace. We however hope the depth of the game and it's richness in detail and history will help the players immerse themselves into the roleplaying and storytelling, get involved in shaping the history, populate the guild libraries with info to share with others and to study strategy.

The games like Farmville and Mafia Wars have done alot right however, despite all the game features that PBM gamers tend to dislike. I think we need to look beyond the game mechanics, features and playing style and see the game strengths. For example, their architecture is amazing to learn about, how they host the game, how they handle load and are able to scale, their caching and datastore implementation, the way they make use of the various cloud based internet services. It's seriously hardcore stuff. It's not rocket science, nor is it expensive to achieve, but they have been there and done it. It is something we should learn from.

The same goes for their marketing. The games integrate with many of the social media services out there, especially facebook. They also ensure that their games can be accessed by almost any browser and phone. The introduction into the game is also generally well put across, often shielding the beginning player from some of the game's complexities and guides the player through the setup and early stages of the game.

There is also plenty more we can learn from such games (revenue stream - the newer games have some very interesting ideas here) but maybe that is for another discussion.

So it makes perfect sense for companies like ours to look long and hard at such games and see what we can learn. For me there is no doubt that they have succeeded online while PBM to-date has not.

[ixnay]

I for one am very curious to see how the Facebook version of Civilization pans out. It is supposedly in closed beta. I am an avid fan of the series, and the developers are (in my humble opinion) among the best game designers out there. So it will be very instructive to see how they make a turn-based single player (or hot-seat) game like Civ transition into a 100-player-per-game Facebook app.

[Gads]

I agree. It's going to be very interesting and a prime example of what I've been trying to say. For such a popular and successful PC / Console game to consider Facebook as a platform for their next version of their game says a huge amount.

I for one am very curious to see how the Facebook version of Civilization pans out. It is supposedly in closed beta. I am an avid fan of the series, and the developers are (in my humble opinion) among the best game designers out there. So it will be very instructive to see how they make a turn-based single player (or hot-seat) game like Civ transition into a 100-player-per-game Facebook app.

[Cortrah]

Yes I totally agree and think you guys are hitting a great mark.

I think my main thought is that the one thing more than all the rest that can ruin an online game though is that it needs "some" barrier to entry.

With that game because it was so easy to enter and so easy to play and free, it didn't seem like half of the folk wanted to play the game, just talk about their girlfriends or where they should go to college or trying to sell you sports memorabilia.

I was amazed as a developer at how well they eased the player into the game with their tutorial. It was very expertly done. You basically press "OK" and "Continue" and read a sentence, then get a reward, read another, click, reward. That was incredibly well done.

But I'd just like to say that I think that I'm willing to pay for good players in a good game, and I value my time a lot. I'd pay a lot more for a better game and better players and I think it's worthwhile to think about how to organize that editorial process.

One simple way to do it (in general, not nec with Ilkor) might be to charge just a bit more for folk who want an integrated weblog to go with their gameplay for storytelling. That group would inhabit one world, the group that is just interested in the strategy aspect pay less and inhabit a game with each other. Most folk can find a free weblog somewhere, but the folk who are willing to pay extra know that all the others they are playing with are willing to pay a little extra because they intend on posting stories. Just a thought.

[Gads]

But I'd just like to say that I think that I'm willing to pay for good players in a good game, and I value my time a lot. I'd pay a lot more for a better game and better players and I think it's worthwhile to think about how to organize that editorial process.

One simple way to do it (in general, not nec with Ilkor) might be to charge just a bit more for folk who want an integrated weblog to go with their gameplay for storytelling. That group would inhabit one world, the group that is just interested in the strategy aspect pay less and inhabit a game with each other. Most folk can find a free weblog somewhere, but the folk who are willing to pay extra know that all the others they are playing with are willing to pay a little extra because they intend on posting stories. Just a thought.

That is a nice idea. It could work. :-) It could be something that would work for Ilkor. I'd have to give it some more thought how we'd implement something along those lines but it would certainly fall into our revenue strategy. Thanks for the idea!

We intend to offer Ilkor for free, no catch, no limited features, limited time to play, limits on levels or something like that. We are also hoping not to have to go the advertising route where the interface contains google ads. Instead we want to eventually offer a number of 'value added services' which are optional and will only enhance your gaming experience. Non of these services will aid you in progressing further or quicker in the game. So the idea of paying for additional 'storytelling' richness is not a bad idea at all.