Rocket Bob
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Posted - 2003.11.04 23:55:00 -
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Edited by: Rocket Bob on 05/11/2003 00:00:23
EVE is a massively multiplayer online game. Why play a multiplayer game only to spend your whole time online interfacing with NPCs? It's a collosal waste of resources and potential to turn a multiplayer game into a huge array of players interacting with content instead of players playing with other players. Every MMO has NPCs to fill in the gaps that can't be fairly or practically filled in by human players, but the ideal goal for any serious MMO design and for any serious MMO player is to totally remove them from the gameplay. EVE seemed, at first, to be a game that was developed to cater to those players who didn't want to waste thier online time ****ing around with AI scripts. The PVP everywhere aspect, emphasis on corporations and the obstacles to solo-ing which are huge relative to other MMOs seemed to be designed to encourage multiplayer interaction, teamwork and the forming of communities.
However, for some unknown reason, agents and NPC missions are continually empasised as an important aspect of gameplay. Those of us who play multiplayer games to play with other actual players beat our heads against the wall at the very thought of doing agent missions. Those who do swallow their pride and commit to endless hours of boredom doing these missions, forsake player interaction for the promise of some future reward which often are most valuable only in the broader multiplayer context. The message here is that to excel in this multiplayer game you must first go stay in a corner of the game world by yourself working a virtual treadmill. HOW UTTERLY RIDICULOUS.
Here's a novel idea for the developers who are so bent on the torturous idea of doing virtual work for an evenly distributed reward: make agent missions require multiple players! Have groups of players complete logistics missions that are much too large to be completed by a single character. Have NPC targets much too hardened for only one player to capture or destroy alone. Have one faction's agents sometimes require players to sabotage another faction's missions and return home with some token of proof--or even more open-ended and interesting: have agents assign missions to cause players who work for enemy factions to lose standing with their agents. This way players must work together or against eachother to meet shared goals. Suddenly the boring, stagnant system of player-NPC interaction is turned into a great engine for both multiplayer interaction and storyline involvement.
From the developer's standpoint, single-player agent missions as currently implemented, must represent a terrible return on investment. Players are forced to reuse the same content over and over to complete a finite number of mission types, they will always turn to something else for progression and fun, if given the opportunity. That might just include leaving for a different game!
Game items with general interactive features always have a greater return on investment in devloper hours than any kind of scripted content. If you simply give players some tools they will do interesting creative things that are more valuable to them than any kind of scripted quest completion.. Look what happened with cargo containers. Containers are one of the very few items in EVE with general player interactivity. They exist in the world independent of the player's self and they are accessable by just about everyone. Would CCP have ever guessed that some or a group like XFI would create advertisements at high-traffic jjump points by meticulously arranging cargo containers? Did they forsee containers being huge advantages in player battles? Did they have any idea that the demand for secure, anchorable containers would be extrordinarily high? So much so that many players make good
money simply by doing the footwork to bring containers to markets where they are not already
for sale.
Don't make NPC agents the interface point for players to become better "crafters"--not without first making thier missions multiplayer-oriented. Yes, make the manufacturing chain longer. Add skill bonuses and randomness to the outcome of each stage. Add variablity to the quality and utility of each "final" product. Allow crafters to leave their mark on the items they make. Put the tools and elements and incentives in the game for the players to work out their own complex social structures and to make their own lasting marks on the game world. Good luck.
Rocket Bob out.
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