Musings on Games

Interesting article on games from games from Raph Koster today: http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/01/20/narrative-is-not-a-game-mechanic/

Assuming I properly understood all of it, and wish to unpack it, his basic thesis is this.

Content like videos, music or the like are not a core part of gameplay.  They provide a measure of feedback which can make the game experience better, but they are not the game itself.  A game that relies upon such and does not emphasize the play of the game itself will end up lacking.

Of course, right now, the big thing in gaming is Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Does TOR fall into this trap?  In some ways yes, but not entirely.   The story in the game is certainly one of the primary attractions.  There's some exceptional storytelling involved in the game, and the reveals can be awesome.  That said, I'm sure the second time through the game, the content won't have the same measure of hold over you.  You've seen it, and so it's importance to you begins to fade.

However, there are at least two things off the top of my head which go against simply saying that TOR is a "one and done game".

First of all, is the rest of the gameplay elements.  The rest of the game (combat, crafting and the like) is a strong and robust system.  Now, this is one of those elements where I can see different people having different opinions, but I don't think that TOR matches Koster's warning about a game that is all feedback and little "black box" gameplay.  (Black Box being the way he describes the gameplay/problemsolving aspect of a game) The feedback is big, even huge part of the game ("the 4th pillar"), but that doesn't mean that the "black box" elements are lacking.

Second though, is that TOR (like other Bioware games) have at least to a certain extent integrated the game into the feedback.  You don't simply see the same video every playthrough.  You can shape what you see by your actions and choices.

That said, that is still somewhat limited.  One of the great breakthroughs in a content-oriented gameplay like TOR would be for players to be able to deeply shape the game experience.  Where your choices create ever widening changes in everything around you.   If, as a Jedi, you manage to convince some young Sith to turn from the Dark Side, you might see a cascading change where you see that former Sith grow.  On the other hand, if you are forced to kill him, you become the object of a vendetta by other Sith.  Now, a game like TOR can easily handle that level of branching.  However, it becomes difficult to impossible to create content like that with more than a limited few branchpoints.   If you had 2-3 "world changing" decisions per level... just imagine the amount of writing it would take to cover all possibilities.  What games like TOR or ME or DA do, is they cut the "key" branches down to a more managable level, where you have a very limited number of truly huge choices.

(Also, an MMO like TOR won't let you deeply redefine the universe the way a SP game might.  For instance, imagine a ME-type choice in a situation like this.

Evil General:  "If you do not tell me where your base is, I will launch an orbital bombardment of the planet, killing 99% of all life"
Hostage: *choose*
1. I'll never tell! (*boomboomboom*)
2. It's at 47.1N 55.3E (*base boomed, nothing else*)

That would not be a viable MMO choice, because that would rewrite the entire universe, not only for the player but for every other player.  On the other hand, it could work in a Single Player game.

Now, this is a dilemma that's not faced at all by other genres of game.  Take Europa Universalis III.  If you aren't familiar with it, you start in the year 1399 as the leader of one nation, and from there you go on, with a variety of economic, military and political options to extend your kingdom.

One of the interesting things about that game is that there are literally no victory conditions.  Your goals in the game are ultimately self-set.  Do you want to lead Europe in colonizing the New World?  Have at it.  Do you want to become the Holy Roman Emperor?  Good luck!  Lead Han China to being a viable rival for the European powers before the game ends in 1821? Go for it!

The second thing is that your actions in that game have the profound ability to shape the game world.  The world map by the end of the game generally directly reflects what you've done in the game.

That game works the "blackbox-feedback" loop in a very different way.  You have the "black box" the game problem/play, and a variety of tools you can use to reach your goals.  On the other hand, the "feedback" is largely self directed and defined.  You can look at the map and see how much turf you have, or how you dominate the world economy or the like, but the game doesn't tell you if you are "successful".  You have to decide that for yourself.

A game like HPS Midway is a bit different still.  There is no "story" in the game, per se. (Unless you want to define the "story" as your own view of the game developments).  You start the game and you have a fairly definitive goal.  You want to defeat the enemy fleet.  The "black box" then is the problem of how to use all of your assets to achieve that goal.  At the end, the game then comes up with a score (based on how much damage you did, how much the other guy did to you, and a few other factors) to see how successful you were. 

In Midway, you generally get two forms of feedback.  The first is the immediate feedback "I attached that enemy ship, and got 2 hits, and it's smoking in the water"  The second is the "final" feedback of the game victory conditions ("ok, I sunk a carrier and destroyed 57 planes.  I had a carrier damaged and lost 32 planes.  That's a win."

This is my usual long and rambly self (not that people actually read it), but the article gives some interesting food for thought.