Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
with hoards of iron had cornered the market and could charge extortionate fees for
iron objects. Eventually,
Ultima Online
's proprietor could do nothing but adopt an
open economy in which servers add new resources at intervals. One of
Ultima
Online
's designers, Zack Simpson, discussed this at the 2000 Game Developers'
Conference in a very informative lecture called “The In-Game Economics of
Ultima
Online
” (Simpson, 2000).
It's essential in any economy that players not find a way to create something for
nothing; that is, they shouldn't be able to return a resource to the system for more
than they paid for it in the first place. Otherwise, they'll find a way to automate
this process and generate an unlimited stream of that resource.
SECRETS TO SUCCESSFUL PERSISTENT WORLDS
Here are the secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, persistent world of wide appeal:
•
Have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but setting them
up as growth paths is better).
•
Make it easy to switch between paths of advancement (ideally, without having to
start over).
•
Make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and visible and signif-
icant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help).
•
Ideally, make your game not have a sense of running out of significant milestones (try
to make your ladder not feel finite).
Ownership is key:
You have to give players a sense of ownership in the game. This is what
will make them stay
—
it is a “barrier to departure.” Social bonds are
not
enough because
good social bonds extend outside the game. Instead, it is context. If they can build their
own buildings, build a character, own possessions, hold down a job, and feel a sense of
responsibility for something that
cannot
be removed from the game
—
then you have
ownership.
Summary
Multiplayer games are harder to design than single-player ones, online games are
harder still, and persistent worlds are the hardest of all. It's a bit like the difference
between cooking for yourself and planning a dinner party. When you're cooking
for yourself, you decide what you want, make it, and eat it. When you're planning
a dinner party, you have to take into account more variables: who likes what food,
who gets along with whom, and what entertainment should you offer in addition
to the food. A dinner party requires more work ahead of time—but it's a lot more
fun than eating by yourself, too. The flexibility and power of online gaming
enables you to create entertainment experiences that you simply can't produce
in other forms.
