Easy to Learn/Hard to Master

[Chrisidon]

This is a term I've heard bandied about ever since I started looking at HJ and game design in general. Sometimes (often) the meaning is nebulous, but the concensus is that a game with these properties is the most desirable.

I've put my mind to finding an example of this in an MMO and I've had difficulty. The original EQ1 had some of this in the beginning, but that might also have been a product of it being a new game and new industry with a lack of widely-know spoiler sites. I've expanded my search outside the Internet and I've come to the conclusion that Chess is the best example I've ever seen of absolute 'easy to learn, hard to master'. It only takes a few minutes to learn how the pieces move, but mastery is a thing that only a few will ever achieve.

So bringing this back to the realm in which we are gathered here for, which is role-playing and especially role-playing games online, what constitutes easy to learn and hard to master? For that matter, what can meet this definition and still not be dummied down by spoiler sites?

For myself, I have no ideas right now, but as I think about it I get the feeling there's a way to do this that my mind just can't grasp right now.

 

[Kuzzle]

You can't "master" an interactive, online world. The reason you can master something like Chess is because Chess is like math; It depends solely on its own rules, not thoughts, emotions, and personalized interpretations of a given situation. If, however, one truly does strive to make a game immersive, they strive to make it impossible to master. The object is not to win, but to see the world through your character's eyes.

Something like that, anyway. It's garbled in my head, and for some reason, typing doesn't seem to sort my thoughts out right now, so... Take what you get, you greedy scoundrels!

 

[Ainilome]

I have a habbit of playing a game for a few weeks, and through looking at sites and forums knowing every twist and turn of the game. Like, knowing what all the classes do, how best to craft, what you do at end game, knowing the name/rewards/walkthrough for key quests, tracking down every bit of lore I can get my hands on etc. A lot of the time, within two or three weeks I'm answering questions about gameplay that vets of the game don't know. It always leaves me feeling a bit of "Ok... now what?" It does give you the feeling of having "mastered" the game.

There's only been a few games I've played that kept suprising me. That weeks after I began playing I was still finding neat little things I didn't know about. EVE was one... Saga of Ryzom had it's moments. The king of them all though was/is DragonRealms. Months later and I -still- finding out things I could do that I'd never heard of. I remember being bewildered at the picnic sitting on the empath room floor, had to track down where those baskets came from and how they worked. Or when after weeks of braiding grass to learn mech lore some said. "Give it a pull." and suddenly I had a bundling rope, or a lead rope. It was constantly suprising me with new things.

Simple gameplay wise I can't think of anything "easy to learn but hard to master". Most of it's just plain easy to learn.

 

[Chrisidon]

Simple gameplay wise I can't think of anything "easy to learn but hard to master". Most of it's just plain easy to learn.

Do you think the way Dragonrealms has its mechanics hidden (few numbers, no graphical 'click here' interfaces) contributes to that overall feeling of complexity?

 

[Chrisidon]

You can't "master" an interactive, online world. The reason you can master something like Chess is because Chess is like math; It depends solely on its own rules, not thoughts, emotions, and personalized interpretations of a given situation. If, however, one truly does strive to make a game immersive, they strive to make it impossible to master. The object is not to win, but to see the world through your character's eyes.

I'm looking at this in the whole way of raw gameplay, not so much the interactions between players. Though then again, because you have an active, thinking opponent makes Chess hard to master, because you can be a genius and still fall prey to your opponent's deceptions.

You do, however, get me thinking. With games like WoW and EQ, the world is largely static. You learn how to beat a boss, collect his loot, rinse and repeat so you can take on the next hardest one. If the game was about player interactions, people wouldn't feel that they have to do this; the people who don't feel that pull towards the end game tend to be the ones who socialize (note: I'm saying feel the pull, not attempt to act on it) and don't need to kill mobs and take their stuff to have fun.

So how does one solve this? I'm starting to think a new model of business is needed: one in which static content is available, but dynamic content, pieced together by people and adapted on the fly to changes, is the majority of gameplay. There are a few problems with this idea though: technology and cost.

The problem I see with the technology is that it isn't quite ready for this in a graphical format. I remember reading on the official HJ board not too long ago a thread about how players don't interact with events very often because they feel the outcome is predetermined. It takes work on the part of GMs to get things together in graphical games. You can't blow up a major part of the landscape on the fly in today's current games (and even if you can do it with the HeroEngine it needs to be programmed in there) nor can you change territorial control without modifying respawns (generally not available 'on-the-fly'). It would take a lot more programming prowess and processing power than has been used on the market thus far to get graphical to the same level as text or pencil-and-paper as far as flexibility.

The problem I see with cost is that in order for a large-scale game to be interactive to the point where most every player can feel that they're doing something special would require a lot of staffing. This is not to mention the cost of bleeding-edge servers the technology above would cost. People cost money. In order to have a staff that is willing to put in 40+ hours per week planning the sweep of the story for a game server, to create the areas needed for that story to take place, and to actually run the events would be considerably costly. Volunteers are all well and good, but they can't provide the same amount of time as a paid employee can. More people working on the same thing will either decrease the quality or require a QC process before it can be put out into the world. I think most people can see where I'm going here. My main point is that $15/month (industry standard) would not be enough to provide the level of interactivity and frequency of those interactive events required of the new model.

Ye gods, how long did I just spend on that one? Well, hopefully somebody can sift a useful seed for discussion out of that while I find a place to put this soap box.

 

[Ainilome]

Do you think the way Dragonrealms has its mechanics hidden (few numbers, no graphical 'click here' interfaces) contributes to that overall feeling of complexity?

It likely does, I think the insane number of commands in the verb system adds a lot to it. It's full of suprises, the things you can do. I had a necklace, a moonstone lily dangling from a delicate chain. Had it since the third day I was playing, was a gift. A month or so later I'm wearing it as well as holding a flower. I type >SMELL LIL meaning the flower I was holding. Lo and behold I smelled my necklace... and it had a scent. I was dumbfounded, spent a good twenty minutes trying different commands on it and found four other verbs that made it do things. I had a pair of thigh high boots that got in from the cleric chest, another flub of commands made me discover that the boots had a pocket... and there was a lockpick tucked inside.

A world full of secrets, or rather... a world full of so many THINGs to do and see that it would be near impossible to collect all of them on one cheat site is a sure way of giving a game a sense of "What will I find next?".

And now I really want to play DR again. *sighs*

 

[HJ-Diviana]

It likely does, I think the insane number of commands in the verb system adds a lot to it. It's full of suprises, the things you can do. I had a necklace, a moonstone lily dangling from a delicate chain. Had it since the third day I was playing, was a gift. A month or so later I'm wearing it as well as holding a flower. I type >SMELL LIL meaning the flower I was holding. Lo and behold I smelled my necklace... and it had a scent. I was dumbfounded, spent a good twenty minutes trying different commands on it and found four other verbs that made it do things. I had a pair of thigh high boots that got in from the cleric chest, another flub of commands made me discover that the boots had a pocket... and there was a lockpick tucked inside.

A world full of secrets, or rather... a world full of so many THINGs to do and see that it would be near impossible to collect all of them on one cheat site is a sure way of giving a game a sense of "What will I find next?".

And now I really want to play DR again. *sighs*

You know, honestly, there are tons of stuff I still don't know about the game.

I'm pretty sure that most verb lists aren't quite comprehensive either. There are plenty that try, but most of them can't cover quite everything. I know there was one somewhere that had a list of verby items, but that didn't even have most of them.

For example, Div's Shadowsilk Cloak has a hug verb. I don't know that many people know it does (besides most people not having one), but that it's just assumed that it is only a cloak. I accidentally found out

I also have an awesome blanket in my Vault that will allow her to literally throw a temper tantrum on the floor. All I have to do is lie down and kick it.

 

[Ainilome]

Hehe, I have atleast three verb lists bookmark. All of them have verbs that the other doesn't have. Even the official list is missing some (though I'm sure on purpose) as well has those that they flat out say, "Nope, sorry. Not telling you what it does. Figure it out yourself".

I didn't know about the different ways to dismantle a lockbox depending on your race and class for months, and even now I still struggled with my cleric trying to figure out her way. Racial and class handshakes! That was a fun one to figure out too.

Hehe, I got stuck in the kitchen upstairs from the empath guild for a half hour the first time I was there because I couldn't figure out how to get out. Tsuim got stuck in the gap in the thieves guild (not that there is one.) for almost as long. Made great RP when she finally found her way out in a state of panic, she now warns everyone in the common room not to go near that wall cause it eats you.

Damnit. Rambling about DragonRealms again. I blame Divi

 

[HJ-Diviana]

There are race/class handshakes? oo;;

...

 

[Kuzzle]

There are race/class handshakes? oo;;

...

For some reason, I'm tempted to go "Word.", but I'd have to slap myself so hard I'm wind up in a coma.

 

[Homeslice513]

For some reason, I'm tempted to go "Word.", but I'd have to slap myself so hard I'm wind up in a coma.

Word 2

I was all about the Barbarian handshake and how they put out their cigars

 

[Kuzzle]

Word 2

I was all about the Barbarian handshake and how they put out their cigars

Lemme guess: In their fallen victims' eyes?

(Or, more likely, in their hands.)

 

[Chrisidon]

Trying to steer this somewhat back on topic:

How would you do this sort of 'surprise, look what you can do!' sort of thing into a graphical game?

 

[HJ-Diviana]

Not tell you how to do it

 

[Valendros]

I've been playing Gemstone for a few months since re-activating my 11 year old characters (My youngest character... the Empath just Titled [level 20]... and he still has his glaes spider charm from the move from AOL... LOL!). I've been getting more and more jaded with Simutronics and remembering all the reasons I left to begin with... I started waning on my dedication to playing HJ...

Then I just started reading that post... Took a while with all the DR musings... I'm reading and reading and reading and all these long posts and descriptions about immersion.

Then a GM comes in with 7 words that lock me back on the track where I am 100% absolutely sure that not only will I play HJ, but I will play it for a long, long time.

 

[Ainilome]

There are race/class handshakes? oo;;

...

Yup! I can't remember the verb now :/ But I remember wondering if the racial trumped the class so I did it to an elven empath friend of mine while on Oramiwe and they did the traditional elven greeting of laying on hand over the other.

I think the Barbarian greeting involves punching each other.

 

[Valendros]

In GS there's racial verbs all for specific races... Like Dwarves can communicate in grunts, and Etherians can bow in many different ways... But alas, I'm a Dark elf and Half elf, I don't get anything cool like that with such mundane races...