How Can We Make People Play Less?: Ethics of the MMORPG Designer
Author of this post: Ciro Continisio | About Blog Authors »
There are a lot of “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games” (MMORPGs) on the market. They are games whose center focus is the leveling of the player’s character. Almost everything in the game is built to provide experience points or items that allow leveling, thus giving access to new content, whether it be dungeons, challenges, or cities to explore. This new content is built so it will provide experience so players can level up, and move on.
It’s like a subdivision in stages in linear games, the big difference is that MMORPGs have to last a lot longer, since players usually pay monthly subscription fees to play. To slow down the leveling process developers often provide small repetitive challenges, and the whole experience is called “grinding”. Grinding is the act of going over and over through the same tasks (killing, fetching things…) just to level up and gain access to higher level grinding. It is tedious but, alas!, players do it just for the reward of leveling. So there’s an enormous wave of people who play MMORPGs for hours a day just to get to the next level.
I was trying World of Warcraft for pure research reasons, when I found that I played for almost 10 hours consecutively. While I can stop anytime, a lot of people can’t. In recent times it has been found that the most affected are Asian people, with Korea and China at the top. China government even introduced laws to limit game time: they punish players who play more than three hours a day by reducing their character’s stats. Is it right? I don’t know. Is it necessary? Maybe.
This brings to the purpose of this article, and take a deep breath because I’m going to condense it all in one single phrase: how can we actually limit game time for those people, at the same time providing enough excitement so they don’t stop paying their subscriptions?
What is Good
Not a lot of games took some action to prevent the bad behaviour. I have at least two examples of a good trend, but nothing so good that will make you jump from your chair to go and buy the games for your children (not for the features I’m going to show, at least).
Offline Grants
In World of Warcraft, when a player logs out in a city or an inn, his character is said to be “resting”. When rested, that character will get twice the experience points from killing monsters for a short period of time (and there’s also a limit in XP). The length of this bonus depends on how much time he has spent logged out. So while the game doesn’t actually say “don’t play, please”, they give something for taking a few hours of rest.
In EVE Online, players continue to get Skill points even if they aren’t logged, but that’s about it. Other things, like resources, have to be gathered while playing.
The blue experience bar that indicates that the player is rested
(notice the limit just at the end of the blue fill)
Day/Night Cycle
I read that in Korea and China, common places to play are very popular. They are often basements with no windows, so player can’t feel whether it’s day or night. While World of Warcraft has a clock in the user interface, and in-game day and night mirrors the one in real life. This is good because if after playing at night, the player sees the sun rising, it’s time to go to bed.
Proposals
Let’s tackle the issue seriously. Here are some proposals of feature that can drive the player away from the game, at least for a while.
Fatigue
It’s a simple concept and I think some game implements it already, but let’s take it to the limit. The character could act like a real human: he has a limit of fatigue, which tells him how much distance he can walk, how many enemies he can battle, and so on. When he exceeds this limit, he has two options: going to rest, or struggle to keep alive/awake.
By going to rest, I mean the player has to actually log out and turn the game off. We have to make this become a routine: the player has to know that the maximum time for an uninterrupted game session is (for example) 7 hours. After this, his character will have significant problems in fighting and succeeding in physical challenges. For instance, a certain dungeon may be full of chasms to jump, and the character should be rested to take all of the jumps and physical trials without falling in the holes. The outcome is that when after 6 hours of play the player sees the character is not performing well as he was doing in the first 4 hours, when he arrives to the entrance of the dungeon he knows he has to camp there and wait for the next morning (in-game morning).
Of course game time should not mirror exactly real time, after all a human can stay awake without problems for 24 hours and more and we don’t want a player to play that much. We could scale down things: a 7 hour wake time, then at least 4 hour of resting. If the player doesn’t log in after 6 hours, his character is REALLY rested, so he’ll resist for maybe 8-8,5 hours, but no more. In no way a player can extend his gaming time.
If the player tires to play more, he will initially see his player’s performance decreasing slightly. Then more. after some time, the character will start to walk very slowly, and refuse to run. After one hour more than the “fatigue mark”, the character faints. Maybe he’s not going to faint in the middle of a battle (due to adrenaline), but just after it. The struggle has worn out his last energies, and now he’s going to rest.
Long Journeys
Because players have a limited time before going to sleep (log out), they need to develop a special ability, and that is to weigh up every situation and see if they can make it. For example, one could look at a map and say “The next inn is about 200 kilometers away, so I can’t make it now. I have to find a place to camp, a safe spot for the night and build a small refuge”. So the very process of setting up for the night could be a challenge. If not done well thieves will rob the character, wild animals can kill him, and so on. If something happens, when the player logs in he’ll find his character waking in late morning with nothing in his purse and a bad bruise on his head.
The MMORPG Mabinogi already gives the possibility to make campfires
This could be an interesting addiction for a game, and people can go questing together and then, when it’s time to sleep, set up turns in which their characters will guard the camp. This is a perfect thing for instanced dungeons or quests, were small groups need to play all together. In this scenario trips have to be slower, so people can understand the fatigue of running for 20 kilometers without resting. There can be items sold at shops which allow the player to spend the night away from an inn without risks, like tents, wood for the fire, and such. There could even be a specialization (or profession) so the character may be entitled “camp master”, so he has the task of letting the other camp and sleep without problems.
Not So Much Grinding
Grinding is boring but it’s what takes the most time in a MMORPG.
So let’s shift the focus of the game and instead of taking XP and level as the main goal, let’s create something that isn’t related to how much time the player stays online. The EVE example is good: we can create abilities that take time to learn, the character learns them even when the player’s not online (like if he was training or studying), but the rate at which he can learn things is fixed. He can’t learn more than one ability every 14 days, so when he has learned one (after 7 days of studying) he has to wait for other 7 days doing something else (small quests and minor grinding, and logging off). When he returns in-game on day 14, he will start training again, and get other game content to taste.
Another thing is to make challenges that are not impossible because of one’s level, but depend on some other parameter. For example there may be tasks that require player to act together at the same time, so the player has first to search for people who are willing to go with him and face the task. I’m not talking about something that the player can do alone if he gets stronger, I’m talking about something that can’t be done on his own, like pulling up a door-opening and going through the door without releasing it. This kind of puzzles (something that is very well done in the Zelda series and similar games) could be the key to player satisfaction, instead of XP alone.
Another example is a big maze of underground caves that have to be charted. The player starts with his group of 4, full of food and torches. After a full gaming session they have drawn a map of about 30% of the caves complex, and they have to get back to avoid spending the night inside (it could be deadly for some reason). So they have to meet again on the following evening to continue their charting work, because they need to resupply at the local market.
Or again, just before starting a journey, the player can be stopped by a storm. He has to wait in the inn for the following day when the storm will cease, and set out safely. In the mean time he can only spend a little time chatting with the other customers in the inn, and then go to sleep (log out).
Different Designs, Same Pace
After all of this one could argue: so where’s the fun?
The ultimate goal of a MMORPG is to reach the last level of XP and/or beat the final boss. I don’t know how much it typically takes to reach level 60 in World of Warcraft, but let’s assume it’s 6 months. With the constraints I suggested, the game could last forever. If the pace at which experience points and rewards are dealt is similar to other RPGs, players will get quickly annoyed by the fatigue system because it prevents them from having their “daily reward”, like a new level or some powerful item.
To prevent this, games incorporating the fatigue system should envision a really rapid progress system and give rewards more often than similar games. Take a look at this graph though, because a picture is worth a thousand words:
In the fatigue system, rewards come once every 2, 5 hours of play,
whereas in normal MMORPGs they come every 5 hours
As the timelines show, the player will get rewards at the same pace as the other games, thus opening two possibilities: the game is shorter (because you’ll get to the last level in less gaming-hours) or the developers have to provide more content in order to make up for the increased speed. Of course the second choice is the best one, but which route to take ultimately depends on the size and budget of the team making the game.
Conclusions
I let my imagination run in writing this article, but whether those ideas are good or not in this form can only be told by some real testing with real players. Some solutions may seem Utopian, but the bottom point is that something must be done. There’s a lot of players who don’t recognize when to stop, and I think it’s in the developer’s hands to do something about it by providing better ways to taste the game at a slower pace, so granting the player more time to spend on his matters or with his family.
I imagine that by implementing this slower pace, game fees have to be slightly reduced, like from the average of 12-13$ to 8-9$. I think that the money lost from subscriptions will be gained and doubled by the subscriptions of gamers who didn’t want to play because they feared the addictive component of the game, or players who left the game because the game harmed their real life in some way. So the publisher’s cash register is full and everyone is happy.
I only hope this will be a starting point for some developer that wants to create a new breed of “ethically good MMORPGs”.
September 10th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Woah, this article was great, thanks for posting it!
Nicely written, full of good observations and well structured.
I hope you’ll write more stuff in future…
Let me quote one of the clue point (imho) of what you wrote, I would like to invite people to think about this:
“There’s a lot of players who don’t recognize when to stop, and I think it’s in the developer’s hands to do something about it by providing better ways to taste the game at a slower pace, so granting the player more time to spend on his matters or with his family.”
This statement deserves attention, people…
Nicely done!
September 11th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
No.
Just… no.
I have been a serious PC gamer, both single player and multi, for 12 years. Games which adopt this sort of model do not work for me, psychologically. They are *WAY* less satisfying than games whose rewards are linearly related to the amount of time you spend in them. You can’t kluge or hide or design around the fact that making people take a break is going to make the game less fun. By getting everyone to advance at the same pace (whether by automatic, fixed leveling a la EVE, or by faster rewards with a fatigue system, a la WoW), you are basically giving everyone the exact same, static path through the game with no variation, no option for distinguished play, no option to amaze your fellow guildmates by the fact that you gained 8 levels by playing through the night.
If you design a game like this, I will have only one recourse: play a game which doesn’t incorporate this kind of philosophy. No matter how much I like the game’s content, I would *QUICKLY* (within a month) bore of such a game. Yes, you may get my $49.99 for the box, and yes, you may get Month #1’s fee, if you’re clever; but I have a built-in, instinctive sensor for this kind of artifice and I find it an absolute dealbreaker.
But this design philosophy has logical flaws unrelated to my own desires and playing habits.
There is a distinction between the situation where a person HAS a real life or a social life which needs attention, and the situation where a person does NOT have this kind of real interaction and does not want it.
In the former case, I can agree that *the person* needs to make their own, willful choices to tend to their family, their job, proper sleep, etc. at the proper times. It is important to medically ensure the mental health of each person; an addiction where you are compelled to compromise your personal life for a game is a problem. But a game designed as you described will not help them live their lives better or attend to the people they need to attend to.
Due to the fact that game developers cannot tell what the player is doing (or SHOULD be doing) at any given time in their life, the 5 hour limitation still allows a hazardous scheduling of gameplay:
1. Joe Schmoe plays for 5 hours during his workday on his work computer. Perfectly allowed by the game developers. He then gets some work done for the remaining three hours of his workday, because his character is fatigued.
2. Four hours later, he’s finished work, gotten home and eaten dinner. Instead of spending time with his wife and kids, he gets back onto the game, playing into the evening, and then goes to bed. Again, perfectly legal under the 5 hour system.
3. Jane Doe is on a week’s vacation, and would like to spend some quality time with her guildmates in the game. They have been very kind to her, and she would like to help several people (who all log in at staggered hours of the day) advance, since she has nothing better to do. Jane is single and her house is neat and tidy, so there’s nothing she really needs to be doing. But the 5 hour time limit results in her saying things to her comrades such as, “Sorry, Phynxion, but I’ve just finished helping Wexia level from 6 to 14, and that took me about 4.5 hours… my character is going to faint soon, so I won’t be able to join the raid to tackle the Big Horrible Monster.” Then, because she has been playing all day during her vacation (as she loves to do), she has to log out and twiddle her thumbs (or do something even less stimulating, like watch TV) from 5pm to 9pm, while her guildmates wonder where she is, and try to scrounge up a group without her.
These are not contrived situations. In games with systems similar to the ones described in this article, I have had problems just like this. I personally would like to see developers take a renewed interest in putting play time decisions back in the hands of gamers, where such a decision belongs; because no designed or artificially contrived system will ever be able to properly regulate peoples’ entertainment time in a way that guarantees a happy, fulfilling, productive life.
Comment #1: You want a quote? Take that last sentence of mine.
September 11th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Very well written article. I can’t say I agree with the premise, though. The so called “addiction” is psychosomatic (obviously implied since there is no physical connection between the player and game). That kind of issue should be resolved on an individual level, not a grand scale of refactoring a design concept.
It’s escapism, not addiction. Ethics, in my opinion, do not come into play. People choose their games, just as they choose their TV shows, books, and music.
While I know this next statement is a stretch, it’s still worth stating if only for debating purposes. The claim that current MMORPG game design can have a negative effect on a person’s mind leads to a slippery slope of blanket claims.
If this design can cause addiction, what’s to say that other video games don’t cause violence, uncontrollable sexual urges, desire to use hard drugs and steal vehicles?
I like the article, and I think it was well presented. I just don’t see how current MMORPG designs are responsible for an individual’s lack of will power…
September 11th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Hi guys and thanks for the feedback.
@allquixotic:
If you had played for 12 years I assume you’re at least 23-25… I tried to tackle the issue for people who are far younger, like teens 14-15 years old who spend a LOT of time with MMORPGs. Of course they could and should decide for themselves, but since those games are so compelling, sometimes they simply can’t.
My ‘rules’ do not want to eradicate evil from games (if there’s any) but to be a starting point to help people not fall into the trap. For every person who does not play MMORPGs to an exent in which they hurt their social life, there’s 100 who do. Take a look at this…
http://eqdailygrind.blogspot.com/
EVERY post and every comment is the story of someone who (or that was related to a person who) wasted a part of his/her life.
About the economical matter, I never wanted to creat rules to make deceiving games, who are only good for one month. I wanted to make something (and for this I don’t mean the fatigue system) that could actually move players’ interest away from grinding, and so making the amount of time spent playing less important.
That’s the final goal: the time you spend shall not be proportional to the success or growth of your character.
@GameDevMich:
I do not see videogames as evil, I’m a big player myself. I only think that while MMORPGs of today are good, there’s a better way that can make them more… enjoyable by everyone (younger included) without risks.
People can choose what they want, sadly I know that the fatigue system is brutal for the player, I only think that if ALL the games had something like this, then maybe the player would accept it. It’s not a totalitarian restriction like.. no sex or drugs content, it’s only a set of rules to help the less strong.
My girlfriend pointed to me that in the bookselling world, the big majors from time to time make a meeting and put down some sort of big rule, and then the others have to follow… so they define a new standard and even if it may seem worst than before, it’s the standard now and everyone has to live with it. I hope games will create new safer standards. Maybe… a cap of 7 hours would sound more reasonable?
September 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Boy am I glad there will always be indie game developers — if anything like what you’ve described actually _happens_, indie games will be the only ones I ever play!
Please, please realize that the following statement is *exactly* what completely ruins the fun of a game for me, and its presence in the game is completely detectable and obvious:
“That’s the final goal: the time you spend shall not be proportional to the success or growth of your character.”
Games which have this property are not games I will play. I want a reward for my time; I want greater reward if I put in more time than Joe, not the same reward. Otherwise the game boils down to a speed-governed treadmill. Advancement feels like it’s just a matter of how long you’ve been pouring money into monthly subscriptions, not how much effort you’ve put in. No — I’d much rather run as fast as I like on my treadmill, thank you.
I don’t know how to logically or pathologically refute this design goal any more than I already have; I just wanted to be absolutely clear that it’s this goal which I do not accept, for the reasons stated in my previous post. It’s particularly important that you understand the two situations that do not fit well into this design; unless you come up with a way to prevent people from playing games when they should be doing other things, while still allowing people to play extensively on vacation or a long weekend when they *needn’t* be doing other things, you’re not doing anybody any favors by trying to prescribe a time-limited playing schedule. And besides, if someone is determined not to get anything done, they can always play another game, or sink into the couch and watch TV, or just go to sleep.
As GameDevMich said, I think your article is well-presented and informed, but you are portraying a world where I won’t be able to find a game that I find lasting appeal in, essentially. And the reasons for introducing this are, in my opinion, not sound.
As a gamer, I ****really**** don’t like this direction. It’s the same kind of mindset as the folks who started doing DRM on music: “At first, they won’t like it, but if we make it universal so that you can’t feasibly buy music without DRM, people will accept it.” Well, you know how far that got — there has been consumer upheaval and riots in the street by DBD about DRM.
Basically, I’ll never accept games like this. Paternalistic game designers will get zero of my money (once discovered), and I will be vocal in letting the community know that I do not approve of their methodology.
I think you should focus your idea-generating energy on how to make games feel less like a treadmill. How can you take immersion to the next level? How can you take dynamic content to the next level? How can you speed up the development and deployment of truly novel content (not algorithmically-generated content) so that the game will have a continuous breath of creative energy for players to experience? I hate grinding as much as the next person, and if you can come up with design elements that will keep me interested (and playing for as long as I like, thanks) which do not involve grinding, I’ll enthusiastically laud your advancement of the theory of game design, and recommend that Bioware hire you.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Great article! There are a lot of ideas I like, esp the fatigue system and moving away from grinding, while some that still needs to be fleshed out. A lot of comments above are discouraging it, but I feel if implemented correctly, it should work well with different schedules of different players.
I def agree that level grinding is tedious and should not be part of any game. Why have players cycling through the same quests or objectives over and over again just to gain levels? Couldn’t a new path, a new object, or even a “side-quest” work better in a MMORPG? I quoted side quest because most of quests in games like WOW ARE side quests. However, in a universe so populated with characters and mystics like WOW, its unbelievable to not to be able to involve players in a minor character’s personal quest. It can be both intriguing, easy to develop, and, most importantly, break out of the “kill this, walk there” or “walk this path to talk to that person” pattern.
MMORPG can def be addictive and should be handled with care by the developers. I do not like the comments saying it is only an individual issue — that’s exactly what cigarette and firearm companies are saying too. True, the ultimate responsibility falls to the individuals; however, now we are seeing what our games are doing to some people, should we not try and address it?
September 12th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Anyway I know that this limitations are unpleasant, but I think in some case they’re necessary. I understand that you would not play the game… so I don’t know how to keep people away from the game when they play too much.
I never meant to implement a fixed growth in experience, whether you’re connected or not. I only made that progress bar to show that due to the longer pauses, the growth has to be accelerated to give the player the same number of rewards-per-day (where reward is a rare item, a level of XP, and so on).
Maybe you could unlock the fatigue system (removing it) if you’re over legal age? (this would require that the unlocked infatigable players have a slower growth). You know there’s a serious problem with young people and MMORPG. What’s your solution?
September 12th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
“Anyway I know that this limitations are unpleasant, but I think in some case they’re necessary.”
That is the root of my problem with your proposal Ciro. I do not want a standard passed and enforced in the industry of game development that limits freedom of both the gamer and developer. The industry is already self-regulated via the ESRB, which works beautifully.
However, that is the ONLY regulation there should be in terms of content. Once an organization decides limitations for the rest of the populace, that is where I’m willing to stand up and fight. By admitting a game can have unhealthy effects on a person’s mind, you are providing ammunition to those opposed to the protection of video games’ content and development.
“You know there’s a serious problem with young people and MMORPG.” No, I do not know there is a serious problem with young people and MMORPGs. If there is a problem, it’s the responsibility of the player and the parent, not the developer.
I’m not being naive. I realize how much time people spend playing MMOs. I’ve tried every single one out there, but none kept my attention long enough.
I understand the grind-to-reward-cycle. Grinding for levels has been around since way before WoW or even graphical MMOs. Dragonrealms (text-based MUD), Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire 2, Final Fantasy VII, etc. Those all provided the opportunity for the player to play for hours on end trying to build levels.
I believe we are at ends: you think there is a problem, and I do not. Not sure if there is a middle point of agreement, but I’m open to the concept =)
September 12th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Ok, if the point is that you don’t want to be limited ok… I can’t do nothing about this.
What I’m trying to say is that I neve wanted to turn the screen black and say “hey the time’s up”, but incorporate those limitation into the gameplay (and the fatigue is only the starting point, but I talked a lot about this in the article itself in the ‘Long journeys’ and ‘Not so much grinding’ sections). I think strategies like this may give the time limit an actual “meaning” in-game, a reason to be.
If you are against limitations at all there’s no debate. I understand that limits are bad, and I myself wouldn’t like them in my games. So… I have no solution…
PS: you too read those comments in this blog, and then tell me there’s no need to do something about it… (it’s not a provocation
)
http://eqdailygrind.blogspot.com/
September 12th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Thanks, Ken. I’m with you in this “let’s do something about it” crusade. Your words made me think… Can we possibly implement different degrees of restrictions? So parents can enable them for their sons based on how passionate they are about MMOGs. I think three levels like “moderate”, “high” and “no restriction” should suffice. Maybe eve the last two alone.
They could be turned on and off with a password, and when enabled, they could use the fatigue and other techniques to reduce the unsatisfaction created by the time constraints.
September 15th, 2008 at 8:32 am
“Anyway I know that this limitations are unpleasant, but I think in some case they’re necessary” – The argument isn’t really about limitation though. It’s about constructing other forms of gameplay in which pause or patience are a virtue and equally enjoyable and there are plenty of examples of that. Games in which rushing around doesn’t help but hinder, both in the physical and computer game worlds. (And I’m not talking Myst style).