作者：Frank Cifaldi

暴雪的游戏设计执行副总裁Rob Pardo曾在游戏开发者大会（GDC）的演讲中通过列举了《魔兽世界》在创造出吸引人的多人游戏体验上的成功和失败经验，以此和我们分享了暴雪的硬核游戏设计理念。

Pardo为当前的游戏设计师提出了许多宝贵的建议，但是他同时也强调这些教训并不一定适合每一间工作室，所以开发者最好亲自进行实践并最终总结出属于自己的特定规则。

以下是暴雪自身的一些宝贵规则。有些经验看起来再平常不过了，但是往往却很容易遭到忽视。

游戏玩法优先

暴雪的硬核游戏设计原理便是围绕着有趣的玩法理念进行设计，而不是基于技术等其它元素。举个例子来说吧，为了能够确保游戏更有乐趣并保持平衡性，《魔兽争霸III》相比《魔兽世界》在游戏世界传说中发生了显著的变化（尽管仍有反对人士坚持这种传说的不可侵犯性）。

魔兽世界(from gamefaqs.com)

Pardo也指出他的意思并不是说设计优先。他解释道设计师总是很容易陷进一个陷阱中，即创造出大量自己喜欢但却违背了玩家意愿的内容。

易于学习，难以精通

更确切地说来是，Pardo在暴雪推行的目标是“易于学习，但却基本不可能精通。”因为几乎所有的暴雪游戏都是多人游戏，所以该公司更应该深刻关注着多人游戏所表现出的深度。

Pardo说道：“当我们推出《魔兽世界》时，大多数玩家都表示游戏容易上手。《魔兽世界》的确是一款真真实实的硬核游戏，只是我们希望它具有比其它同类型游戏更强的易用性。”

Pardo表示，暴雪的设计渠道是最先设计游戏深度——因为这是游戏设计过程中最复杂的部分。他还建议，比起最后再担心游戏中的多人玩家元素，暴雪选择最先完善这些元素并将其整合到单人玩家战役中。

让所有内容都很强大

Pardo表示：“我们希望游戏中的每个单位和级别都能够让玩家感觉到它们的无止尽性。”

Pardo继续说道，平衡级别的终极目标便是能够让玩家感觉到每一个新的级别都比之前的级别更加有趣。而这种运用不只是针对于游戏玩法，同时也是面向于游戏角色和传说故事。

“我们的所有角色都是50英尺高，”Pardo说道，“而这种情况只可能发生在1万年前的世界。”

体验而非告诉

这便是基于写作原则的“描述但不告诉”的游戏版本。暴雪明确通过游戏玩法去阐述游戏故事而不只是通过文本进行描述。

Pardo说道：“我们虽然会使用像文本和画外音等工具加强故事的表现，但是却不会明确告诉玩家故事内容。”

创造额外奖励

Pardo表示，作为游戏设计师，我们总是会纠结于如何惩罚玩家而不是奖励他们。如果是聪明的设计师，他便会仔细揣摩玩家的心理并将惩罚有效地转化为额外的奖励。

Pardo列举了《魔兽世界》的休息系统：玩家会因为玩太久的游戏而遭到惩罚，即他们在玩了几个小时的游戏后经验值会从100%下降到50%、

“在测试期间玩家们便强烈抗议这一理念。”Pardo说道。

但是该如何进行调整呢？只要将这种惩罚转变成奖励便可。即玩家现在可以从200%的经验值开始游戏，并在受到惩罚时经验值降为100%。虽然机制不变，但是却能够让玩家感到获得了额外的奖励而不只是受到惩罚。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年3月11日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

GDC: Blizzard’s Core Game Design Concepts

by Frank Cifaldi

In a lecture Thursday at GDC, Blizzard EVP of game design Rob Pardo shared Blizzard’s core design concepts, offering examples of places where the World of Warcraft developer succeeded and failed in creating compelling multiplayer experiences.

Pardo offered a plethora of advice to the designers present, stressing that these lessons may not necessarily gel with other studios and suggesting that everybody go through this same exercise to set down their individual design team’s rules.

Below are a few of Blizzard’s rules that we found particularly helpful. Some may seem obvious, but often it is the obvious advice that we tend to forget about first.

Gameplay First

Blizzard’s core design philosophy is to design around the core fun gameplay concepts, rather than working around other aspects such as tech. By way of example, significant changes had to be made in the world’s lore between Warcraft III and World of Warcraft in order to make a more fun and balanced game, despite pushback from some who felt the lore was sacred.

Pardo was quick to point out that he doesn’t mean design comes first, as it is easy to fall into a trap where designers come up with things they like that don’t work so well for the players.

Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master

More specifically, Pardo says the objective he pushes at Blizzard is more akin to “Easy to learn and almost impossible to master.” Because almost all Blizzard games are primarily multiplayer, the company must focus a significant amount of depth to the multiplayer.

“When we shipped WoW, people say we dumbed everything down,” said Pardo. “Actually, WoW is a really hardcore game, it just happens to be more accessible than a lot of other games.”

Pardo says that the Blizzard design pipeline is to design the games depth first, because it’s the hardest part of design. He suggested that rather than worrying about the multiplayer component of a game last, Blizzard tweaks that component first and feeds what they learn into the single-player campaign.

Make Everything Overpowered

“We want to take everything to 11,” said Pardo. “Every unit and class has to feel like this unit and class can not be stopped. That’s the feeling we want to give.”

The ultimate goal of balancing classes, said Pardo, is to make players feel like every new class they play with is better than the last one. This applies not only to gameplay, but to characters and lore as well.

“All of our main characters are fifty feet tall,” said Pardo. “And if it happened in the past, it happened ten thousand years ago.”

Play Don’t Tell

This is of course a gameplay-tweaked version of the “show don’t tell” writer’s mantra. Blizzard makes a point to make sure story is told through gameplay, rather than just being told through text.

“Use things like text and voiceovers to enhance the story, but not tell it,” said Pardo.

Make It A Bonus

As designers, say Pardo, there is a natural tendency to worry about punishing the player rather than rewarding them, but a clever designer can play with a player’s psychology and turn it into a bonus.

Pardo related an example of World of Warcraft’s rest system: when the game launched, players were punished for playing too long by having their experience gain percentage drop from 100 to 50 percent after a couple hours of play.

“Beta players universally hated this idea and were screaming bloody murder,” said Pardo.

The fix? Turning this into a bonus scenario instead. Players now start at 200 percent experience and drop down to 100 percent. It’s the exact same mechanic, but now it’s a bonus instead of a punishment. (source:GAMASUTRA)