Ruminations on the Elder Game

Interesting post over at Psychochild's place. Not so much the actual article itself as what takes place in the comments but, you know, that's what you get when you set people to brainstorming. Among several interesting “problems” and their respective solutions (I'm particularly intrigued by the idea that increasing encounter difficulty through simply ramping up the numbers is inferior to something more creative and tailored. Because, you know, it's one I've had myself. Too often the PvE design seems focused on coming up with new tricks and ways of bending the rules when a lot more could be accomplished by exploring the possibilities within the established ruleset. But, you know, tossing in a few more Ataxes or a global debuff is a lot easier than coming up with some complicated environmental scripting.) several of the respondents focus on the idea of the elder game and how MMOs do a poor job of transitioning players into their various end games. Quests aren't good training for raids, the AI is poor for learning PvP skills, and there's little to no emphasis placed on the economic power game that often goes overlooked.

It's not just in MMOs, though. As mentioned in the infamous State of the Game article, when you head into PvP in Guild Wars, you pretty much have to forget everything you've learned in PvE and relearn a whole new game – or vice versa these days. As the skills and techniques in one area or the other are widely different even though they share the exact same rules and effects. But, the other day for whatever reason, I decided to load up my old copy of Warcraft III (Short review: Liked it but Heroes pretty much ruined the game for me.) and it's the same there, too – the single player campaign is nothing lik what you'll encounter on BattleNet. And, if anything, it actively teaches you the exact wrong things to do. Just like any FPS where the single player mode is bolted on almost as an afterthought to the multiplayer experience. Our games are designed such that they don't play the same in different stages of their lifespan. And they're not very good at teaching you how to shift between one or the other.

And, to me, that's an interesting problem. Because most of the solutions offered (And, indeed, that I can think of.) involve changing the young game into something more resembling the elder game. Teaching and training in steps and bounds as players progress towards their ultimate destiny. In other words, building in rails to drive the player along on a predestined path. But, you know, for everyone who says “the game begins at 60” (Or, 70 these days, I guess. In GW it's lv20. But you hit that in like a few days. My friends think this low level cap is a bad thing because it's limiting. I think it's great for precisely that reason.) there are nearly as many who become bored with the raiding or whatever else it is to do when you hit that elder game. The game they like to play is the one they've been playing – leveling up – and they'd much rather roll up a new character than go through the end game hassles. Would these sort of players be happy if the overall game experience was more homogeneous? Would leading them gently through the preparatory curve from the very start somehow remove their distaste for the end game?

I'm not sure. But I, personally, believe that in games with as many players as these online games we're so fond of these days, it's best to simply create the tools for players to create their own games. Let them play how they want, when they want (And make sure nothing gets too out of hand, of course). It's all about choice, in so many words. And altering the structure of these games so that the early levels are much more of a training course for the later would, I think, remove some of that choice. Although having more capable players around to participate in the high-end, whether that's PvP or PvE or emote-offs for all I care, would add more options for everyone involved. So, I think the outline of a solution involves multiple paths. Many options leading a player and their chosen avatar down any number of roads. Rather than treating the game as something monolithic where everyone is going to end up in the Molten Core or, say, in the Celestial Tournament and structuring it as a series of handholds towards that goal, it should be a sandbox where players can explore and build towards whatever their chosen goal is. Introduced, along the way, to the various concepts and destinations, but given control over their ultimate destination.