Grind Quest: Skills, Goals, and Feedback

Three games and their feedback:

Borderlands:

The goal in this game is to reach the vault and reach unimaginable riches. Side goals would be to reach max level, and slay all the bosses.

A feedback loop in this game is the growth of player level from slaying monsters and completing quests, increasing level of quests and monsters. This builds up to allow you to use shinier weapons and mods, eventually bringing you high enough level to beat the final boss.

One of the skills required in this game are proper hand-eye coordination for shooting baddies in the face/chest/genitals. Another skill required is the ability to understand talent trees and their benefits for you as a player. A final skill worth mentioning is proper timing and when to use certain guns/gun types at certain points.

Terraria:

The goal of this game would be to beat all the bosses and acquire all the loot.  Side goals would be to build a very pretty house!

A feedback loop in this game is the ability to only mine certain ores with certain quality pickaxes. This enforces you to acquire the previous tier of ore to move onto the next. Eventually this brings you to max ore tier and introducing you into slaying bosses for gear.

One of the skills required in this game would be the ability to understand yourself on a 2D plane, as this entire game is you on a 2D surface. A follow up one would be building aesthetics, as this game does have a heavy building component to it.  A final skill worth mentioning would be basic understanding of how to structure a strategic character. As to beat some of the end-game bosses you need to know how to equip balanced accessories, armour, and weapons.

Tetris:

The goal of this game is to last as long as you can, defined by the game mode you’re playing. Example to this would be complete 150 lines, last 2 min, get 40 lines as fast as you can. Side goal would be to beat previous records.

A very basic feedback loop here is the constant of giving the player pieces, and the player placing those pieces. This progresses the game forward as long as the player places them correctly.

One of the skills required would be placement forethought. Looking at what piece you currently have and what’s coming down the line. Another skill worth mentioning is remaining calm during the heat. Pieces will eventually start coming down very quickly and you need to not panic.

Other skills:

Other skills that are interesting to the player I haven’t already mentioned would be: reaction to certain enemy types and knowing how to deal with them. An example of that would be in Dark Souls, and learning how to dodge certain moves, or where to attack certain enemies.

Until next time,

Jordon

Grind Quest: Objectives

Top 10 games (in no particular order) and my opinion of their objectives:

• World of Warcraft: 
• Get to max level, grind gear, spend time with friends, waste a sh*t ton of time.
• Dungeons and Dragons Online: 
• Get to max level, grind gear, spend time with friends, waste a sh*t ton of time.
• Lord of the Rings Online: 
• Get to max level, grind gear, spend time with friends, waste a sh*t ton of time.
• Guild Wars 2: 
• Get to max level, grind gear, spend time with friends, waste a-little-bit-less ton of time.
• Halo 3: 
• Stop the Covenant from destroy the universe with your friends. For the third time.
• Minecraft: 
• Grind blocks, get gear, build structures, spend time with friends, waste a sh*t ton of time.
• Terraria: 
• Grind gear, get blocks, build structures, slay boss monsters, spend time with friends, waste a sh*t ton of time.
• Tetris: 
• Achieve the highest score you can (Grind blocks, get lines, waste time)
• Borderlands: 
•  Find the vault alongside a few of your friends. (get to max level, grind gear, spend time with friends)
• Pokemon (series):
• Collect and train pocket monsters, level the monsters up to defeat gym leaders with aspirations of beating the champion. Also completing against friends for fun.

I'd define the kind of game that appeals to me as: Multiplayer games that let me spend time with friends, or people in general. More specifically, RPG’s but it doesn’t have to be. Tetris is the only game I can truly say is one of my favourites that doesn’t follow under this umbrella. I suppose the only way it relates is that it allows me to complete with my friends on a score-based level.

Though I realize I define the objectives of the game sarcastically (as most of them are MMo or Online in general), but that’s how I see the games are when it comes down to it. I know that there is no true end objective that I can reach in many of the games I play; however that isn’t why I play games. I play games to soak up a universe, level up, get kick-ass loot, all alongside my friends or other players. In other ways, I realize that I mostly just like comparing myself to others and the real feeling of “completion” is whether I’m better than my friends. I suppose what’s different in this situation of “completion” is that it can be taken away from me.

If I had to put myself in a box with a label and pretty red bow, and call myself a particular genre of gamer, I’d go MMORPG. That is where I’ve spent my most time, and is what I have the most passion for when I play it.

-Jordon

Blog Quest: Designing a Grappling hook

            Today, much like yesterday, I decided to do some thinking.  This time around it was towards one of my Game Design and Production 2’s Blog Quests “Design a game item.” I was contemplating which game would deserve a strategic new item that would improve but not change the core of gameplay.

Hey, why not a grappling hook.

 I’m aware that grappling hooks are a bit commonly used in many RPG’s. Doesn’t mean I don’t want them in all of them! So I’m going to propose and make reason to add one into a little(ish) MMo called Dungeons and Dragons Online. 

In case you’re unaware of what Dungeons and Dragons Online is (if you are, skip this and maybe the next paragraph), it’s a MMo that focuses itself on team-based dungeon adventuring. There are literally a handful of quests designed to be solo played in the game.  It comes packaged with your generic D&D RPG leveling & gear grinding, where the combat in the game is semi-reflex action based (think Guild Wars 2). However due to some latency issues, the reaction time of the game sometimes allows you to hit something (much) larger than its hit box.

One more thing needs to be explained before I introduce my idea for the grappling hook into DDo. It’s DDo incorporation of skills and their influence of your characters performance. Such as the swim and jump skill. The jump skill as you increase it with items or by leveling actually increases your jump height in game. This in combination with the ability to grab onto ledges/cliffs – which you can do in DDo - are common mobility tactics in the game, allowing you to escape from a charging ogre by leaping and grabbing onto the edge of an overhang.

I’m not only saying “let’s introduce a grappling hook for the lulz”, I’m going to try and preach a more interesting mechanic. I suggest adding a “Grappling” skill to the game, as well as different grappling hooks. This goes well with the already implemented weight a character has, as well as the fact players can already manually grab edges, so the feature would just piggy-back off that code.

The Grappling skill is like any other skill in DDo, where increasing this skill allow you to use better quality grappling hooks (much like the bard skill perform in relation to bard songs).  The higher the skill gives you more lean-way into how much over the weight limit a particular grappling hook can carry. I was contemplating allowing the higher the Grappling skill to increase the accuracy, however then there would be no use using it until later in the game when you have it high enough not to miss all the time.

The different grappling hook items would allow you yet another item to swap and pick between.  The item itself would determine the distance it could fire (20-300 meters), how fast it launches (a simple “Slow-very fast” rating), how heavy a player it could carry (200 lbs – 20 t), and whether or not it could interact with enemies/friendlies.  The interaction would be a “special feature” unique or semi-unique to each hook.

How I’d implement the grappling hooks as loot wouldn’t be in the random chest loot, but more as chain or raid rewards.  This allows for some special, highly customized rewards that can seem cool and unique.

Here are a few example of what I mean;

Starter/low level grapple:
“The Rusty Claw. Grappling skill min: 5. 20 meter range. Slow speed. 400lbs capacity. On Enemy hit: Stuns enemies on a failed Fortitude 15 save. Chain type: Iron”

Med level grapple:
“Dock Loader. Grappling skill min: 20. 100 meter range.  Fast speed. 5t capacity.  On Target hit: Drags target toward user. Chain type: Iron”

Epic level grapple:
“Heavens Reach. Grappling skill min: 45.  300 meter range. Very Fast Speed. Unlimited Capacity. On Enemy Hit: Pushes target to max distance, knocking them over on a failed Reflex 30 save. On Friendly Hit: Pulls target towards you instantly. If you have divine healing powers, you remove them of ailments.”

This introduces a new feature of moving enemies and players around the field of combat which currently, doesn’t exist. This could allow you to drag enemies into a pit, a trap, or a variety of features that are a staple to the grappling hook feature.

Not to mention how hilarious it would be to do all that, to your friends.

-Jordon

Blog Quest: The Emotional Contagion of Warcraft

            Salutations, internet-type people. The past week I’ve been celebrating my 20^th rotation around this planet and it has caused me to do some thinking. Now yes, that included the mopey thoughts involved while leaving the teenage years. Such as I can now say “I’m in my 20s…” and pretend anything following that line is supposed to give some sort of fresh youthful perspective on a topic I’ve only recently learned about. I’ve been told that this next decade is the one I spend working, leaving a solid foundation to build upon for the rest of my life. I can say with absolute certainty that these words are so common for someone my age it’s borderline plagiarism.

            I don’t feel any different, though. I feel the physically the same as I did back when I was 17, and what I love in a video game hasn’t changed sense I was 13.  I remember way back when I started playing World of Warcraft at the fresh age of 12, winter 2005, on a computer that had the technical specs of my phone.  The graphics were fresh and the combat gave me the RPG feel my nerdy little mind drooled for. Little did I know this game would be enthralling me into my 20s.

            I know what you’re thinking. “Oh FFS, this guy is going to tell another tale of how WoW has changed them as a person, and how it gave him friends, a love of game’s and their design, and a sense of purpose. He’s going to rant about how it changed, and probably for his opinion of ‘- to shit’.”

            I was thinking about it. I’m just going to allude to it as how it’s affected me over my teenage years. Now I did play it for a collective of 300+ days (7,200+ hours) worth of time, 124 of that on a single character. In case you’re unaware of the /played command in the game; I’m referring to in game time spent logged in, playing. So it isn’t that I think I don’t qualify to judge the game changes amongst the millions of other users. It’s just that I don’t want to. It’s been done and I’ve already performed a few blogging cliché’s today.

I know what you’re probably thinking. “That’s a lot of time” and some more cruel thoughts that I may or may not deserve. Hopefully though, you’re thinking “Why”

It’s the lore. The pantheon, and the stories derived and explaining them make me nerd all over the floor and walls. I could - back in my Azerothian scholar days - recite to you the entirety of the creation of Azeroth off the top of my head. I could explain the history of the titans and the sealing of old gods, the dragon flights, their purposes and leaders. I read every quest pre-Cataclysm to see if I could learn more about the land and what I was doing.  The lore captivated me and kept me in a literary head lock.

The hero to anti-hero transition of Arthas Menethil will forever impact me as a designer.  If you’re unaware of this story arc, I insist that everyone either read the book “Arthas: Rise of the Lich King”, play “Warcraft 3”, or play through to the Icecrown zone in “World of Warcraft”. I just can’t do it justice.

            As I further progress into my 20^th rotation around the sun, I’ll continue to think about my Warcraft years and remember the simplicities when all I was concerned about was saving Azeroth from the burning legion.

            And killing those bunnies with fire blasts.

-Jordon