Solo and Group Gameplay in a Star Trek MMORPG +

Once again: Do soloers have any place in a Star Trek MMORPG or not?

Well, before considering this question one last time, we'd better address (once again) that old canard that "if you don't want to play with other people, shouldn't you go play a single-player game?"

Well, couldn't I just as easily say, "If you like real-time social interaction so much, shouldn't you be playing a game in a room with other real people instead of sitting by yourself punching keys on a computer?"

The fact is that both social and solo players contribute to multiplayer gameworlds. Direct, real-time social interaction (in the game world) with other players has value in a massively multiplayer game world, but so does indirect interaction, such as collecting resources, trading in auction houses or with NPCs, and placing structures in the world. What soloers do has real, measurable, and cumulatively important effects on other players of MMOGs.

This belief held by many newcomers to MMOGs that only direct, real-time, highly social interaction "counts" is, IMO, a mistaken belief based on looking at MMOGs in terms of one's own interests instead of seeing them as places that need to serve the entertainment interests of different kinds of people. To restrict MMOGs to only highly gregarious people would exclude the real contributions that soloers make in helping to keep these gameworlds dynamic.

Now, having addressed that, let's turn to the specific case of Star Trek Online. To start with the obvious, having more soloers flying around in starships will help the gameworld feel more alive with activity. More importantly, who do you think will do the crafting (pretty much always designed as a solo activity in MMOGs) if the game is designed to tell soloers, "Get out -- we don't want your kind here"?

I think there's a reasonable balance that can be struck here. I see no problem in requiring several real players to fill the key duty roles in the largest player-operated starships in Star Trek Online. That kind of social interaction was an important part of Star Trek and it ought to be reflected in the gameplay of a Star Trek MMORPG. But I would also hope that many small- and medium-sized ships could be handled by solo players, perhaps with NPCs filling the non-Command stations in the mid-sized ships. I don't believe any useful purpose would be served by choosing to exclude these solo players from the game.

What I am sure of is that excluding them would put a large and unnecessary dent in the game's revenues....

Solo and Group Gameplay in a Star Trek MMORPG +

Originally Posted by Crazyfist:
And besides, NPC crew will make you feel lonely.

Hmm.

Having an NPC crew might make some people feel lonely, but not everyone.

Having an NPC crew will make me, for example, feel secure that my gameplay's not going to be interrupted by one of them unexpectedly going AFK for a potty break or supper, or that one of them will go linkdead in the middle of a firefight or a difficult negotiation.

Having an NPC crew will make me feel happy that I'm not expected to change my gaming habits to log on when someone else wants, or to go where someone else wants, or do what someone else wants to do, or to play the game the way someone else prefers to play it.

Of course, if the gameplay is designed such that NPC crew are absolutely hopeless compared to real players, well then, we may all wind up preferring to ship out with other real people.

But it won't be because having an all-NPC crew made us feel lonely.

Solo and Group Gameplay in a Star Trek MMORPG +

Sean Howard has a bunch of interesting gameplay concepts over at Three Hundred Mechanics. (No, it's not the story of the Battle of Thermopylae as told by various car dealerships.)

One of these concepts addresses the way that current MMORPG designers seem to think that just because it's a MMORPG, all players are supposed to want to interact with strangers and must be given special rewards for doing so. In this entry, Sean discusses a way to allow solo (one player), duo (two players), and group (3+ players) challenge levels and rewards to be leveled so that people can play they way they enjoy playing. Basically, he proposes creating character abilities and objects to behave differently depending on whether you use them in solo, duo, or group modes.

It might be interesting to consider how this idea could be applied in Star Trek Online. Anybody want to take a poke at this?

Originally Posted by writerguy731:
what he seems to be proposing is three independent methods of character advancement (I'm a lvl 53 solo player, a 12 duo, and a 26 grouper) and item/equipment enhancement categories (this sword has 20dps solo, 15 dps group). I have to admit... I don't like it. Not nearly as much as I like CoX's solution, to a far degree.
...
I wouldn't dream of proposing that I should single-handedly be as strong as a group. It makes much more sense to me to balance the challenge of the area/quest to the capability of the player/group (CoX), than to balance the power of one person to many people. In the end, it's a system that will only serve to discourage grouping.

I knew there was something bugging me about the idea of making objects and content "modal" as an across-the-board approach, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. (Other than "it creates a lot more work for developers.") In very limited amounts this might be interesting, but it's hard to see it working well as a general solution.

As a systems-guy, I'm much more inclined toward the approach you describe for CoX -- a dynamically scaling challenge level sounds like a more effective solution. In such a formula-based implementation you've got to very thoroughly test all possible inputs for pathological conditions, but with the proper checks in place a dynamic solution can be a good way to go for everybody, developers and players alike.

Like Sean I'm not personally fond of grouping. Relying on other people is disappointing; having to commit to someone else's schedule just to play a game is frustrating; and the hypercompetitive designs of current MMORPGs all promote the childish "LOL noob!" attitude. Not for me, thanks.

But that's just me -- grouping is obviously something a lot of people enjoy. Furthermore, it's an appropriate use for a "massively multiplayer" environment. So regardless of whether I personally want to do it or not, grouping needs to be actively-supported element of these games.

And yet I (and my fellow non-groupies) ought to be able to enjoy these games, too, shouldn't we? Is our money not as good as anyone else's?

It seems to me that a design that's appealing to both soloers and groupers, that rewards each approach to play without penalizing the other, would be a Good Thing... but it also seems pretty hard to come up with such a design. There doesn't appear to be any one magic bullet feature that'll work here, but there are several things that I can think of that might help:

• content whose challenge scales dynamically to the number and capabilities of players


• conscious design of many/deep opportunities for cooperative play (not just competitive)


• indirect and asynchronous grouping (sort of like the difference between forums and livechat)


• small (and equal) amount of special content exclusively for soloers, duos, and groups

I'd be interested in hearing what other ways people can think of for helping both soloers and groupers enjoy the same game.

Originally Posted by writerguy731:
On a related note, Flafingers, you asked how group/solo skills might be applied to Star Trek Online, and that did remind me of something I'd proposed in the past - that increasing rank should not be a requirement for rewards, but that increasing rank should skew the player's skills and capabilities towards group bonuses/abilities. In this way, an Admiral would be practically powerless without "subordinates" but a group of Lieutenants wouldn't be helped nearly as much by the addition of another Lieutentant as it would by a Captain.

That depends on whether you're thinking of this in terms of direct responsibility/interaction with subordinates, or as a hierarchy. I see the rank of Captain as the most appropriate place for direct, hands-on group leadership. Admirals would be the strategic "power behind the throne" -- not personally leading groups, but defining the goals that groups then try to achieve.

This extends the tactical -> operational -> strategic model I've yapped about so frequently. Rather than seeing Ensign to Admiral as a progression from solo play to group play, I think of it more as a three-level hierarchy: from hands-on power (Ensign to Lieutenant Commander) to organizational power (Commander to Commodore) to influence power (Admiral). In other words, I guess I'm defining "group" to be collections of 2-150 or so people (the so-called "Dunbar's number" which, as Raph Koster has suggested, is the practical upper limit on the effective size of guilds), and then creating a new category equivalent to "faction" whose departments and sectors would be managed by admirals who obtain and use influence across multiple groups ("fleets" in ST:O).

In a way this is really just a variation on your suggestion, in that admirals would still be group leaders. But it's a significant variation in that admirals would lead groups whose members are themselves leaders of other groups. So rather than directly controlling thousands of officers, admirals would possess a kind of indirect leadership ability that depends more on the influence they can wield than on direct operational power. They'd have to be able to think in large strokes and plan ahead, because nothing would happen immediately; their policies would need time to be converted into operations by captains and then implemented by lieutenants... and that's pretty much the keystone of strategy, isn't it?

Which is what I'd hoped from the start that admirals would do in Star Trek Online.

Solo and Group Gameplay in a Star Trek MMORPG +

I see choosing to explore on one's own not as "losing" power and resources, but more as not gaining power and resources as quickly as someone who groups more often. Seen this way, soloing is not so much a punishment as a conscious tradeoff.

All that said, two more points on soloing. First, it might be useful to reiterate the observation that nobody really solos in a massively multiplayer online game -- you just interact indirectly with other players, rather than directly. When you leave messages describing what you've seen while you were out exploring, or buy or sell from a Bazaar or Auction House, you're actively participating in the game. The fact that it's not direct interaction with strangers doesn't make it any less valuable to the other players in the game. It's still a useful form of contribution; it's another way to be part of the community of players.

Second, although I prefer solo play myself, and hope that there's some of that in a Star Trek MMORPG, I acknowledge that for it to feel like Star Trek, the group play experience is absolutely required. Whether on a ship or on an away mission, nobody in Star Trek is truly on their own -- they're part of a team, almost a family. That's always been part of the storyline of Star Trek, and an online Star Trek won't feel right if it's designed to be too soloable.

So while I personally prefer not to have my success depend on other people honoring their commitments (I hated being given group assignments back in school :) ), I can't imagine ST:O feeling right without being designed to encourage and reward grouping.

It would be amazing, and satisfying beyond words, if Star Trek Online could be designed such that the Barclays of the world could be made to feel welcome and useful in a pick-up group heading off to run a mission.

That would not only be true to the spirit of Star Trek, I think it would produce a very good game.

Solo and Group Gameplay in a Star Trek MMORPG

Originally Posted by CINC-UFPForces-Cardassia:
Is it preferable to you to see many starships in a given area, providing a sense of the "realness" of Starfleet? Is it better for the universe to be busy, rather than empty? And from a technical perspective, if you prefer the latter, is it more preferable for the game to use heavy instancing to create that sense of isolation - in balance with all the inherent drawbacks that instancing can create?

This is a great question.

For once, the answer actually seems pretty simple. Instancing is primarily a way to minimize spawn camping, killstealing, and similar pathologies that spring from designing a MMOG to be loot-centric. But if Star Trek Online is designed to be about things other than how much loot one can accumulate in the shortest amount of time, then instancing becomes a lot less useful/necessary.

(Note that even if all player characters belong to the same Starfleet faction, that doesn't mean there won't be competition among players and player groups. There will be Achievers in a Star Trek MMORPG just like any other MMOG, and Achievers will always find a way to keep score. They'll find ways to compete against each other. But as long as the score markers aren't cumulative things like loot or money, then instancing as a way to minimize competitive interference is still not necessary.)

Finally, on the general question of how a massively multiplayer game should "feel"... absolutely it is better for the areas in a game that are supposed to feel crowded to be busy with players. SWG was the most fun by far the first few months after it launched, because that's when every city was buzzing with activity. It was tremendously exciting; there were people all around you having fun; it made you want to join in.

But it should be noted that there's a fine line to walk here. Yes, it's good for places that should plausibly be full of activity to appear to have lots of people doing things. But too many players in one place is likely to conjure up the Lag Monster, and that's not conducive to fun. (This is something that tends to happen over time in MMORPGs with active player economies -- players eventually cluster in one or two locations because they are where buyers and sellers learn that each other can be found. That tendency needs to be fought with ongoing design tweaks to avoid lag in some places and ghost towns everywhere else.)

On the other hand, not everyone wants to be surrounded by other people all the time. Some -- like me -- want to be able to explore strange new worlds, to be able to discover places (and objects, and processes) that ten thousand other people haven't already rummaged through and posted on a Star Trek Online wiki somewhere. So in addition to crowded places, there need to be empty places. There need to be opportunities (for those who want them) to get away from the crowd.

So I'm in full agreement that ST:O will score a win by setting up multiple places that players will, over the long term, want to congregate... as long as not too many people congregate there, and as long as there are quiet, empty places as well.

Player-Defined Organizations +

Following the notion of player-generated organizations in online games, how about letting them form "criminal" player organizations within the gameworld? This could be a good example of how letting players create their own in-game organizations could work in practice.

So let's imagine for a moment that there was a good MMORPG based on Star Wars, where there are two (but only two) player factions. With a generic player organization building tool, you could create "Jabba's Tail," a third player faction whose members were dedicated to helping expand the criminal empire of that vile gangster, Jabba the Hutt.

Members of a criminal organization would be able to rise in one of two branches: Muscle and Graft. Their minimum requirements might look something like this:

MUSCLE

Rank	Requirements
Eliminator	3500 Jabba faction, Master elite combat profession, acceptance by Boss
Enforcer	2000 Jabba faction, Novice elite combat profession
Thug	1000 Jabba faction, Novice elite combat profession
Brute	500 Jabba faction

GRAFT

Rank	Requirements
Operator	3500 Jabba faction, Master Smuggler/Bounty Hunter, acceptance by Boss
Racketeer	2000 Jabba faction, Novice Smuggler/Bounty Hunter
Fence	1000 Jabba faction, Novice Smuggler/Bounty Hunter
Chiseler	500 Jabba faction

These requirements are constant -- you have to maintain all the requirements for a rank to keep that rank. For example, if an Enforcer dropped below 2000 Jabba faction, his rank would revert to Thug. If another Enforcer dropped all her skillboxes for Novice elite combat professions, her rank would be reduced to Brute.

In addition to these eight ranks, there'd be two others: Gangster, which is your starting rank within the organization and which has no requirements (other than applying to join), and Boss, which has the following minimum requirements:

• 4500 Jabba faction
• mastery of an elite combat profession, Smuggler, or Bounty Hunter
• at least 25 million credits in personal assets, and
• no existing Boss

And just to make things interesting, let's have two additional rules: 1) Anyone at the rank of Racketeer, Operator, Enforcer, Eliminator, or Boss can -- like Jedi -- be the target of a bounty. 2) Any Boss who dies as the result of a bounty loses so much face with Jabba that he or she is immediately penalized 1000 points of Jabba faction. This automatically drops him or her to the rank of Operator or Eliminator, whichever is appropriate (or provides a choice if both ranks are possible). The moment this happens, whichever Operator or Eliminator has the largest personal fortune (and at least 4500 Jabba faction) is elevated to Boss.

Now, notice something interesting here. Let's say you and I are both members of Jabba's Tail. I'm an Eliminator with 5000 points of Jabba faction, and you're the Boss. Furthermore, let's say I've made a lot of money. What's to stop me from spending some of that money to put a bounty on you, such that when a BH nails you and you drop below 4500 points of Jabba faction, my wealth enables me to become the next Boss?

Can you imagine the paranoia and gang mentality that the members of such a group would have? Every Boss would have to surround himself with trusted lieutenants... but what Boss would be able to trust all his lieutenants?

Heh-heh-heh....

It's important to note that although this example of an underworld player organization is specific to the Star Wars universe, the basic model could be applied to any NPC faction in any MMORPG. If you retain the rank structure and just change the NPC faction type required to any criminal NPC faction, then this system becomes the model for any "criminal organization."

As a final sweetener, there's one more improvement I'd like to suggest for the entire player organization idea: Allow player factions to work just like NPC factions in terms of earning or losing faction points. If you do something to hurt another player faction, the game automatically deducts points from you related to that player faction; if you help one of them, you gain points with their faction, and so on.

As a corollary to this, it would be fun to have consequences for improving or worsening your standing with another player faction. Perhaps if you drop below -3000 with a player faction, any member of that faction can place a bounty on you. Conversely, if you rise above 3000 with a player faction, you gain a badge: "Friend of [player faction name]" or some or mark of recognition. (You don't want to provide financial or loot perks, since then you'd just have people forming one-person organizations and raising their faction with each other just to gain special perks for each other.)

Under these rules, the lifespan of a member of a criminal organization would probably be short... but very interesting.

Player-Defined Organizations

Introduction

Most MMOGs these days offer some form of long-duration and many-person groups. Whether they're called guilds or clans or corps or player associations, most MMOGs now offer some in-game tools offered to support these in-game community institutions.

However, something few MMOGs offer is to allow players themselves to define the forms of these institutions and -- more importantly -- the functional rules by which members advance within them. Instead, player associations are generally free-form and loosely defined aggregations of players, with all power to control the existence of the association held by one player. Players can simply say, "OK, you're the duke, she's a countess, and we're all knights," but basically you're just hoping everyone goes along with this kind of roleplaying because that's the only way it can currently be done.

This works, but I wonder if it's not missing some useful opportunities to make these associations a more active part of gameplay. What if these roles could be defined by players for their organizations? Even better, what if they could also define the rules by which players shift into and out of organizational roles to fit the organization's goals for gameplay?

"Player Organizations" is my name for this more general version of the player association concept. Here's how it could work.

Concept of Operation

Any player would be able to use a template to create a table of organization. You'd be able to specify the number of levels, the number of people allowed at each level (the "span"), and the names of individual levels (and possibly even groups of levels). Then you'd pick (from a predefined list of rules and triggers) the advancement criteria for going up to the next level.

For example, one person might create a T.O. on a military model: one Field Marshal [Army] who gives orders to two Generals [Brigade], each of whom gives orders to two Colonels [Regiment], each of whom gives orders to four Captains [Company], each of whom gives orders to two Lieutenants [Platoon], each of whom gives orders to four Sergeants [Squad], each of whom gives orders to eight Soldiers. That would give you an organization capable of holding 1207 people -- more than enough for most purposes, I'd think. If you needed more (and if you're the Field Marshal), you could always change the organizational definition to extend the span at one or more levels.

Rules of Advancement

In addition to the names of the ranks, the designer of a Player Organization would also be able to determine the rules for advancement. These would be selected from a predefined list of rule types supplied by the developers to avoid questions of subjectivity, as well as to reduce roleplaying requirements. (Although anyone who wanted to handle rank advancement purely through roleplaying could do so -- advancement rules should be optional.)

Moving up a rank in a military organization might be based on:

• kills [something specific to a military organization]
• XP earned in a particular skill or special organizational XP box
• agreement of a majority of players at the next rank
• available opening of the appropriate rank

The system itself would monitor "counting" or "trigger" rules to determine for each member of the organization (to whom those rules apply) whether the target has been met. Other rules would require organization members of the appropriate level and role to decide whether the terms of those rules have been met. The combination of these rules would allow the members of organizations to effectively control advancement within the organization. This would solve one of the problems with current "guild" systems, which is that the one person at the top of the group has all the power and responsibility for controlling position within the group. A Player Organization system would allow this power to be devolved into the organization. Players would not be required to do so; they could duplicate the existing guild approach if they chose, but at least they'd be able to create more egalitarian organizations if they wished to do so.

Organizational Diversity

Military organizations are an obvious application of the Player Organization system, but the beauty of the system is that it can be used to create any kind of organization.

Another person might want to form a crafting guild, and would set up her organization based on Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master levels with appropriate advancement rules. Yet another person might form an Entertainer's Union with his own set of levels, titles, and advancement rules; another person might form an organization like a modern business with a CEO, board of directors, VPs, Directors, Managers; and so on. The Player Organization system could accommodate all these and more.

Here's an example of how a player organization interested in crafting and selling products might be designed:

SUPPLY	PRODUCTION	SALES	CORPORATE
CTO	President	CFO	Chairman
VP for R&D	Director	Regional VP	Board Member
Resource Mgr.	Project Manager	Sales Manager	Investor
Supplier	Crafter	Account Rep.	Shareholder

(Naturally, at the top of the heap there'd have to be a CEO.)

So if you were interested in sales, you'd start off as an Account Representative talking to other players about the products available from your organization, and picking up any in-game skills that might be useful to that end. If your sales figures were good enough, then when a Sales Manager position opened up you might be considered for that position, at which point you'd get some kind of nice perks in addition to the new title. In return, you'd wind up spending more of your time helping to manage the activities of several Account Reps, and you'd be responsible for their sales to your Regional VP, who in turn oversees all sales in two or three areas and reports to the CFO of the entire organization.

Again, you could have similar hierarchies for any kind of player organization: military, commercial, entertainment, whatever.

---

It would be helpful to have a way to display these titles/roles within the game. This public recognition would help encourage players to use and participate in the organization-designing system. The system as I've described it would also allow you to have objective rules for moving up in the hierarchy, which is always better than "well, maybe I'll promote you... if I feel like it."

(Actually, one of the tricky bits of my idea is the mechanism for providing rules and perks for promotion. I think it would be possible to pre-define some specific kinds of promotion rules -- number of kills of enemy type X, for example, or Y accumulated experience points in skill Z -- that the organization's designer could associate with a rank/title. But this part of the system would need to be hashed out in more detail.)

Just for giggles, here's another kind of organization you could have:

ROYALTY

TITLE	#	REQUIREMENTS
King	1	5000 royal faction, male avatar
Queen	1	5000 royal faction, female avatar
Prince	2	4000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by King or Queen
Princess	2	4000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by King or Queen
Duke	4	3000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by King or Queen
Duchess	4	3000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by King or Queen
Count	8	2000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by any higher rank
Countess	8	2000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by any higher rank
Baron	12	1000 royal faction, male avatar, acceptance by any higher rank
Baroness	12	1000 royal faction, female avatar, acceptance by any higher rank
Knight	24	600 royal faction, acceptance by any higher rank
Squire	40	250 royal faction, acceptance by any higher rank
Page	60	acceptance by any higher rank

Note 1: The # denotes how many of each rank can exist at any one time, and is another kind of requirement.

Note 2: Acceptance by a higher rank is only required if at least one person holds the indicated rank. If no one does, then acceptance is automatic.