SWTOR's PvE Challenge

If you can never lose, you can never win.

This thought occurred to me as I was killing some time with Bejeweled 2 on my phone a few days ago.  I decided to try "Endless" mode, not really sure what it was.  I certainly didn't expect it to be a mode so easy you can never lose, such that you can endlessly play the game with no risk of having to stop.  After a few levels I began to wonder what the point was, and why on earth it bothered to keep score.  The score no longer represented skill, it represented time invested, and with no risk of losing it was a fairly meaningless indicator of "winning".

It didn't take long to see the parallels with MMORPGs.  A MMORPG is a game you cannot (with a few exceptions) ever "lose".  There's no game over, no "oh crap, that's too hard, I died and have to start over."  I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way it is.  I know some people long for "hardcore" servers (or games) where character death is, in fact, game over.  I'm not one of them.

It does leave MMORPGs clearly in the land of games you can never lose, and as has been noted many times in the past there's no "game over, you've won!" screen in MMO land either.  However, it's necessary for a game to provide the feeling that you can win or lose, whether or not that's really true in the larger sense, or you end up with a pointless treadmill like Bejeweled 2's Endless mode.  MMORPGs do this by breaking content up in to smaller chunks, and giving you the potential to fail at completing that chunk.  You can't lose the game, but you can lose an encounter.  This gives the illusion of winning by creating an illusion of loss. A quest is an example, as is a dungeon, a raid, or a PvP battleground.  These are all discrete items of content that can be failed within the context of the game without providing a "game over" scenario, yet generate the sense of accomplishment players need to keep playing.

The chance of a player failing at any given task can be considered the challenge of that task.  Quests are almost always a sure bet, unless it's coded in such a way that the player can fail the quest and never get it again.  Group content such as dungeons or raids tend to be harder, and PvP in a way is the most challenging of all, as in any fair encounter you are unlikely to win more than 50% of the time (pre-made groups vs. randoms, twinks vs. normals, notwithstanding).

Tuning the challenge of content, then, is a key part of making an MMO work, not just because players will quit if the game is too hard, but because there will be no sense of winning if the content is too easy.  Quest based games such as World of Warcraft tend to have the lowest point of entry for new players, because quest content tends to be easy, and so players can get into the game and get used to things before trying harder content.  Unfortunately, the trend seems to be for quest content to stay easy, and in some cases (again, WoW is a good example) quests tend to get even easier as your character levels up and you get better at the game, eventually becoming completely trivial content that most players could complete with their eyes closed.  We've just entered Endless mode for MMOs.  Mash the buttons and "win".

One of the reasons I think WoW has suffered in recent times is that the entire leveling experience is "no loss, no win" endless content, and then things get switched up at the endgame such that you can lose, quite brutally, and take your whole group down with you when you try to do the heroic dungeons.  Blizzard's response to the outcry against this was to make the heroics easier, but what they really needed to do was make the quest content harder.  Making the endgame content easier just results in lowering the sense of accomplishment players have by completing it, thus more rapidly leading players to reach "endless mode" and quit at the pointlessness of it all.  The big jump in difficulty between the two modes of play was a serious issue, and while the fix they made was probably the only reasonable one (re-tuning an entire games worth of leveling content vs. endgame dungeons?) it's not going to help the game in the long run.

This all comes back to my recent experiences in Star Wars: The Old Republic, where it feels like quests are actually getting harder as I level rather than easier.  This is good.  As my character builds his strength and I improve my skill at playing the game I should be able to handle more difficult tasks, and I have some hope that SWTOR is going to do this, at least some of the time.  As an example, last week my Jedi Guardian had a class quest that pitted him against a boss level mob.  He had 4 times the hit points I did, and both my character and his companion were defeated 3 times before I found a tactic that worked.  It was a challenging battle, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it at all (lose), yet in the end I managed to do it (win), creating a great sense of satisfaction with the results.  Of course, the potential of losing was an illusion, as I could have simply leveled up some more or found some friends and tried again, so I was never in any danger of NEVER completing the quest, but the illusion of losing was still there.

I had a similar experience last night where a friend and I attempted a Heroic 4 quest (a quest tuned for 4 players) with just the two of us and our two companions.  We almost did it, with careful planning and coordination we got most of the way through it, before hitting a wall at the end in the form of a boss with 26,000 hit points.  We couldn't beat him, so we "lost", but we'll be back with reinforcements, and I know beating that boss will feel good.

So far, in my view, SWTOR has "challenge" down better than WoW, though whether that stays true in the long run is yet to be seen, and whether that is actually a winning formula is also unknown.  WoW has millions of subscribers, and while there's evidence those subscribers are finally starting to burn out, they've maintained those levels for years and made more money than any other MMORPG in history.  It's hard to argue against success, so I'll be curious to see how things sit a few years from now for SWTOR and WoW, and what tack Blizzard takes with their new game, Titan.

SWTOR: The WoW Killer?

Many people are positing that Star Wars: The Old Republic will kill World of Warcraft, that EA-Bioware expects it to kill WoW, and that it will be a complete failure if it doesn't kill WoW.  Then there are people arguing the flip side, that SWTOR can't compete with WoW, that WoW will kill SWTOR, and that nothing will ever dethrone WoW.

To put it simply, I disagree with all of those positions.

The Old Republic isn't going to kill World of Warcraft, no single game ever will.  World of Warcraft is too big, and too many of it's players aren't MMORPG gamers, or even gamers, but rather WoW gamers.  They don't play anything other than WoW now, didn't play anything before WoW, and quite possibly won't play anything after WoW.  Blizzard's behemoth is going to die though, but it will be the slow death of a thousand cuts as people leave for a multitude of reasons and recruiting replacements gets harder and harder in the face of all the other options out there.  SWTOR won't kill WoW, but it will take some of the game's subscribers, and provide viable competition for future recruitment of new subscribers.  Kill WoW?  No.  Wound it?  Sure.

I don't think Bioware expects to dethrone WoW either.  After all, they seem to be hoping for a million or so subscribers, which while hefty by most standards is still only a fraction of WoW's subscriber base.  Anyone officially with Bioware or EA trying to claim SWTOR will kill WoW is just trying to drum up publicity.  Games that seriously claim to be WoW-killers suffer some serious negative publicity when they fail.  Yeah, I'm looking at you Warhammer Online.  Bears bears bears.  Bastards.

I think the argument that SWTOR can't exist alongside WoW is equally erroneous.  If a game like WoW had existed ten years ago, then maybe I'd agree that both games couldn't survive due to WoW's enormous market share.  The MMORPG gaming audience has grown dramatically in the last ten years, thanks in large part to the runaway success of WoW, and we know that the number of people currently subscribed to WoW is far far lower than the total number that have ever been subscribed to WoW.  This is a huge potential market for the game (past subscribers of WoW) as SWTOR will be immediately familiar and comfortable to older WoW players, while bringing the power of the Star Wars IP to the table.  It's not at all hard to imagine SWTOR bringing in a couple of million subscribers without affecting WoW's current subscriber base AT ALL.  I think it will take some subscriptions away, I'm just saying it doesn't have to.

One other thing that I think many people aren't considering when it comes to SWTOR and WoW co-existing is that there's no rule that says people can only subscribe to a single game at a time.  This isn't a binary situation, it's not IF SWTOR = TRUE, THEN WOW = FALSE (and vice versa).  Consider that the average age of MMORPG gamers has been gradually increasing over the years.  The last statistic I recall seeing placed the average age in the 30s, maybe even the 40s.  You know what else increases as age increases?  Income.  Ten years ago most people playing MMORPGs were college students with time but no money, and maintaining a single subscription at a time was probably all most people could do.  As the average age of MMORPG gamers increases, the average income of MMORPG gamers can also be expected to increase, and thus the potential to subscribe to two games at a time also increases.

The downside, of course, is that free time tends to decrease, which would be an argument against multiple subscriptions, except that games like WoW aren't exactly chock full of new content on a weekly basis.  Why continue to sub to WoW for six more months until the next content patch when you could switch to SWTOR, then switch back. Not a constant multiple subscription, but over the course of a year it would amount to much the same thing. I can also easily imagine a growing number of gamers with steady incomes electing to play both games in order to maximize their gaming time.  Most people I talk to who still play WoW only seriously play it a couple of days a week, and spend the rest of their gaming sessions mucking about killing time.  They could very easily be playing SWTOR on those days instead.

Only time will tell, but I think the market is ripe for another big, successful MMORPG, and SWTOR isn't releasing against a whole lot of competition here.  When was the last AAA MMORPG release?  When is the next one?  They've got a wide open window of opportunity here.  I think the market is ready, it's up to Bioware to not drop the ball.

Optimizing the fun away

Well, since everyone else has been going on about the talent revamp coming in World of Warcraft’s next iteration, I thought I’d chime in with my opinion too.  Of course, that was a week or two ago, so I’m late to the party (as usual), but so be it.

As someone that’s a fan of games like Rift and City of Heroes that allow a lot of options and freedom in character building (for class based games), it should come as no surprise that I find the removal of talent trees in WoW little short of abhorrent.  I’ve long complained that Blizzard has been dumbing down WoW and taking player choices away, but they’ve really gone all out for the next expansion.  Making one whole choice every level (WoW talents pre-Cata) was too much, making one whole choice every few levels (WoW talents, Cata) was also too much, so now players will have to make one choice every 15 levels.  Fifteen.  You will make exactly nine meaningfully character development choices over the course of your character’s career – race, class, role, and six “talents”.  That’s it. 

My tongue-in-cheek graph abstractly shows what I think is behind this:

Not a real graph

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it until they pry my Intel Cyber-sphere Neural Interface from my withered dead hands – good character development and investment in ownership requires making meaningful choices while advancing the character.  Allowing for meaningful choices can, in fact, mean allowing for “bad” choices.  Ideally “bad” choices are merely less optimal, but the mindset in a game like WoW is that anything below optimal is bad.  Blizzard clearly agrees, and since Wrath has been endeavoring to remove bad choices.  In other words, less optimal choices.  The end result of which is no choice at all.  Optimal, by definition, is the one best way to do something.  If there’s only one way, there aren’t any choices.

If you want to bore the living crap out of me, give me a game with no meaningful choices, where everything is predetermined.  When I first played WoW back in 2005, it’s biggest selling point for me was the talent system.  It allowed far more character customization than most MMOs out at the time.  I tried all sorts of things.  I tinkered.  I had fun.  The Burning Crusade felt like a solid improvement on it.  I played with lots of  sub-optimal specs, trying to find the one that was the most fun.  I don’t min/max for effectivity, I min/max for enjoyability.  I don’t care if spec A does 10% more damage while spamming one spell over and over than my spec B complex rotation of silly abilities and half-working synergies.  I don’t care that I hardly ever use that heal I spent talent points to get and could be doing more damage without.  But Blizzard cares, and they’ve decided spec B is stupid.  Everyone should use spec A.  So rather than risk people like me playing with spec B, they’ve removed the choice entirely. 

While Cataclysm had already built the coffin (my highest level character is 81, I just couldn’t get interested), Mists of Pandaria will be the nails.  Big, heavy, industrial strength nails built to withstand rust, pressure, cutting force, and weak-willed MMORPG bloggers.

Give it a few more expansions and all WoW characters will only have one button on their hotbar.  It’ll be a big red one called “Win”.  You press it, and you win at whatever you’re doing.  Anything less would be sub-optimal.

WoW - Mists of Pandaria

The blogosphere is alight with the rumor that World of Warcrafts's next expansion will be called "Mists of Pandaria".  The rumor is based on the fact that Blizzard recently trademarked "Mists of Pandaria", a move that has typically heralded their next expansion.

I have two thoughts when it comes to this.  The first is  why assume it's for an expansion?  For all we know this could be a mobile game with a loose WoW affiliation, an iPad app, or their next attempt to make an adventure game in the Warcraft universe.  Blizzard has more than enough resources to work on multiple projects at a time, and just because they haven't really branched out to date doesn't mean they never will.  With WoW subscriptions continuing to decline (down to a "mere" 11 million now) Blizzard really has two options -- give fans something they want to keep them playing WoW, or diversify into other projects and increase the number of revenue streams.  While the former is certainly possible, the latter is too.  Blizzard, for all that I rag on them sometimes, has a history of trying new things.  After all, this is the company that went from making real-time strategy games to the most successful MMORPG in history.  Everyone thought they were crazy when they announced WoW, but (credit where credit is due) they clearly knew what they were doing.

Assuming MMO-Champion is right and this is the next expansion, I can see it working out pretty well for Blizzard.  Adding Pandarens to the game would be massive fan service, and I think WoW probably needs some serious fan service right now.  Plus, an Asian themed continent would give them an entirely fresh setting to create for players that would feel far more like an expansion than a rehashed Azeroth with a handful of new zones.  Add a slew of Asian inspired new equipment from katanas to lacquer armor and watch the drool overflow news sites and forums.

As other bloggers have suggested, have Pandaria be an island continent being invaded by Naga (or something) and the Panadarens have sent envoys to both the Horde and the Alliance for help.  Both sides send armies to try and court this new potential ally, and Pandarens are available as a playable race to either faction.  Heck, make the Pandaren a new race specific Hero class and kill two birds with one stone (new race, new class).  Would it have the "epic conflict" feel of Wrath and Cataclysm?  No, but then maybe the next expansion shouldn't.  If every expansion features a world destroying danger the "danger" will cease to generate any sort of emotion in the player.  This may have already happened, and might be part of why people are leaving WoW much sooner after an expansion than usual.  "Oh, another, bigger bad guy is here to destroy the world unless we raid 672 times and defeat him.  Except if we don't, nothing happens."  *yawn*  By making a more relaxed "interlude" expansion, they have the potential to build up more interest in the next world destroying expansion (Return of the Titans?).

Plus, you know, if they time it right they could do cross promotions with Kung Fu Panda 3.  Free World of Warcraft "Po" non-combat pet with every ticket!  What?  I'm not cynical . . .

Blizzard's Premium Dungeon Finder

So apparently Blizzard has come up with a plan to charge players extra for the ability to form groups with RealID friends regardless of the server they're on.  I'm really not sure what to think.

On the one hand it's bound to be a useful feature to people with lots of friends playing the game who don't want to (or can't) transfer servers.  The ability to play with friends wherever they may be is always a plus.  I can't help but feel that it's not really a fair thing to charge extra for though.  It's the same functionality as the dungeon finder, just focused to those on your RealID list.  I can see that some work would be required as it (presumably) will allow you to group with friends regardless of which server cluster (battlegroup) they're on, which the current dungeon finder does not do.

Blizzard isn't working on a shoe string budget here.  They can't claim that if they couldn't charge for this they wouldn't have had the money to develop it in the first place.  Honestly this feels like a service that should be part of the subscription.  Even without charging extra for it they would likely make money, as an increased ability to play with your friends will lead to increased retention.  Better retention equals more subscription revenue, and thus, profit.

I also wonder why Blizzard is stopping there.  If you're going to charge extra for it, why not go the extra mile and make it cross faction too.  Who cares anymore?  The whole Horde vs. Alliance conflict is a war in name only (WINO?) so if people are going to pay a premium, let them cross that boundary too.  I know the ability to do that might actually tempt me back into the game, as I have plenty of friends playing Horde on other servers, and the ability to actually group with them on my Alliance mains has a lot of appeal.  If they had had that feature I could have avoided transferring my Horde characters to Alliance in order to play with a friend.

WoW - Blizzard Wants Me Back?

In early March of this year I got an e-mail from Blizzard asking me to come back to WoW for 7 days free, to see how awesome the game had become since I quit late last year.  I didn't pay too much attention to it, firstly because MMO companies do this sort of thing all the time and secondly because I don't think WoW has actually changed much since late last year.  It was a "limited time only" offer, and expired (unused) recently.  I don't even have WoW installed on my computer right now, it would probably take 7 days just to download and patch it thanks to Blizzard's high-end super-speedy downloading system.

Just yesterday, I got another of these e-mails from Blizzard, asking me to come back and try the game for 7 days free.  Getting another one struck me as a little odd.  In the years since WoW has been released I've spent more time unsubscribed to the game than subscribed, yet the March e-mail was the first "please come back!" I've ever gotten from Blizzard.  Now I've gotten another one, the very next month?  I apparently have a different definition of "limited time only" than Blizzard.  Of course, I have a different definition than Blizzard for many things, which was part of the problem in the first place.

Now, this is going beyond coincedental to get two such e-mails in two months, shortly after the release of a solid competitor and with two heavy hitters coming (presumably) within the next 12 months.  Is Blizzard finally feeling the pinch?  While I don't doubt they're total user numbers are staying the same or even increasing due to Wrath just recently being released in China and Cataclysm still waiting in the wings for those players, but could their North American and European user numbers (their most profitable customers) actually be falling?  Is competition finally taking a bite out of the MMO behemoth that is WoW?

I certainly hope so, and not because I want WoW to die a burning, horrible, death (I don't).  I hope Blizzard is losing customers because it will force them to actually be competitive instead of just wallowing in their massive profits.  The update pace for WoW is abysmal.  As Tobold mentioned on his blog, they also can't seem to make up their minds on who their target audience is and what kind of game they want to be.  Blizzard hasn't had to, because nobody could compete with WoW.  Why re-invest in the game when it's making so much money with them doing virtually nothing?  If WoW is finally bleeding true subscribers (NA and Euro players) maybe they'll finally stop resting on their laurels and once again fight to make WoW the best game it can possibly be.