Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Player Socializing
Online games offer opportunities for social interaction. The social aspect enhances
the players' enjoyment of the experience. Girls and women have traditionally
shown less interest in interactive entertainment, especially games for personal com-
puters, in part because these tend to offer solitary activity. Women represent a
much greater proportion of the online game market than they do the single-player
game market, partially because they enjoy interacting with others.
At the moment, most games offer only limited social interaction with conversation
restricted to typing text (
chatting
), which is awkward while you are trying to play a
fast-paced game, but more and more games include voice communication. When
enough people get broadband access, online games could include video as well. A
time might come when we see players dressing appropriately for their roles in the
game so that they'll look cool on camera.
NOTE
For further
discussion of this
topic, please read
the excellent and
insightful
Community
Building on the
Web
by Amy Jo Kim
(Kim, 2000).
As the creator of such an online game, you're more than just a game designer; you
must also be a social architect. This is actually your toughest challenge, far more
difficult than designing the core mechanics of a single-player game. An online game
isn't an experience that you lead a player through; it's a petri dish for growing social
situations, and it's nearly impossible to predict in advance what will happen there.
Human Intelligence Instead of Artificial Intelligence
In single-player games, the player competes against the computer, so the computer
has to have enough artificial intelligence (AI) to be a good opponent; building the
AI for a complex game presents a huge programming task and one that is difficult
to get right. But if the players compete against each other, as they do in most online
games, you don't usually need as much AI. The players provide all the intelligence
required in many situations.
You can use AI in an online game if you want to: You might include nonplayer
characters (NPCs) who need to behave intelligently, or you might design a game in
which all the players play cooperatively against artificial opponents. Several popular
games have limited NPCs but have some large opponents that the online players
must work together to combat.
Guild Wars
, for example, encourages this type of play.
The AI-controlled enemies are challenging to beat with a team of online friends and
impossible for an individual. But many online games rely on their players to provide
most of the intelligence in the game, and this can make the game easier to develop
in that respect. A real-time strategy game, for example, still needs AI for its individ-
ual units when played online, but players supply the strategic and tactical thinking.
Online Gameplay Versus Local Multiplayer Gameplay
Multiplayer gameplay, whether online or local, offers great flexibility to the game
designer, allowing purely competitive (everyone for himself), purely cooperative
