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创造能够同时支持同步性和异步性的多人游戏

发布时间:2012-10-22 17:17:43 Tags:,,,

作者:Derek Bruneau

你会花多少时间去玩游戏?许多人的回答都是“不多”。我们总是很难挪出足够的时间去玩游戏,特别是玩多人游戏:面对这类型游戏,玩家不只需要拥有足够的自由时间,同时还需要确保自己的行程安排能够适应于别人的时间。多人游戏总是要求玩家亲力亲为——如桌面游戏《Johann Sebastian Joust》,而这也为这类型游戏添加了额外的障碍。

某些多人游戏则通过提供异步游戏玩法去缓和这一问题。但是并不是所有人都认可“异步”的定义;我将在此使用这一术语去描述在多人游戏中,未能同时游戏的玩家是如何在此共享游戏状态。《Words With Friends》便是最近一款能够体现出异步特性的游戏:游戏桌面是共享的,但是玩家将在任意时间内轮流进入游戏中进行挑战。

尽管同步游戏也会激发异步游戏版本,一般情况下一款单一的游戏并不允许玩家同时在两种不同版本中转化着。就像我们很难想象《Johann Sebastian Joust》不是以同步形式体现出来。但是是否存在其它能够同时支持这两种模式的游戏?

这也是我们为自己的游戏《Conclave》所设定的目标。首先我们选择了一种适合同步游戏的类型,即在线合作角色扮演游戏,然后通过设定让玩家可以根据自己的喜好而选择转向异步模式。我们主要是受到同步游戏所具有的长期的异步性历史的引导,但是尽管如此我们也不免遭遇了各种问题与挑战。

异步影响

尽管异步模式不如同步模式来得经典,但是它现在已经算得上是一种新型模式了。就像借由快递员和邮差传递的国际象棋通讯赛便已经存在了好几个世纪。

而最近,游戏玩家和游戏创造者更是将通信游戏(PBM)推向一些更具复杂传递方法的模式。在桌面游戏《Diplomacy》发行(1959年)后的几年,玩家们便能够通过电子邮件(而非直接在桌面上)协商合作以及提交决议。尽管游戏中可以包含多达7名玩家,《Diplomacy》仍然能够巧妙地体现出异步游戏玩法:允许玩家进行公开谈判并私下进行管理,游戏将同步处理玩家行动,在玩家提交行动时做出决议。

其它PBM,如犯罪类游戏——《黑帮战争》,拥有更直接的玩家互动以及更多炮弹轰击场景,更是同时容纳了数十名玩家。实际上你可能一下子只会整合少数的一些玩家,从而确保游戏范围更容易掌控。

如今出现的一些新技术更是为开发者呈现出了各种能够体现异步游戏的方法。就像电子邮件和在线论坛的普及更是分别带动了电子邮件游戏(PBEM)和邮件游戏(PBP)的发展。对于那些基于纸和笔的角色扮演游戏(如《龙与地下城》)来说,PBP便是一种大受欢迎的模式,而我们关于这类型游戏的开发经历也深深影响着我们在创造《Conclave》时所做出的各种设计决策。

尽管PBM,PBEM和PBP游戏的出现都是用于缓解多人游戏对于玩家亲力亲为的要求,但与此同时,其它允许共享一个生活空间的玩家一起游戏的异步游戏也变得越来越受欢迎。就像《Words With Friends》,《Scramble With Friends》以及《Draw Something》等手机游戏便不只适用于距离甚远的朋友们,同时也深受室友以及配偶们的喜欢。在此,异步模式能够加强玩家一整天或一周内在游戏中的社交联系,而不需要彼此间去协调时间。

尽管以前的许多游戏都是在同步游戏基础上建立异步性质,但是却很少游戏允许玩家同时在这两种模式间转化着。与其同步性不同的是,《Scramble With Friends》(游戏邦注:以来自艺电的经典游戏《Boggle》为灵感)并不允许玩家同时去寻找单词,尽管每个玩家所面临的是相同的一组字母。

这种设定为开发者打开了一定的设计空间,即应用只提供了一些只能够影响一个玩家对于游戏桌面看法升级元素,但却同时隔绝了其它可能性。在《Boggle》中,玩家可以猜测到其他玩家已经写出了多少单词,这也在无形中增添了游戏的紧张感;而在《Scramble With Friends》中,尽管玩家与玩家是待在同一个房间中战斗,但是他们却很难感受到面对面的竞争感。

混合了异步元素与同步元素的《Conclave》

《Conclave》是一款基于浏览器的合作角色扮演游戏,其故事,机制和外观都是受到桌上游戏的影响。游戏允许多达四名玩家一起合作完成任务的设置便是同时融合了战术战斗和团体决策,而这也是受到游戏故事和玩家角色所具有的技能的驱动。与大多数在线多人角色扮演游戏一样,这款游戏也提供了同步的游戏玩法,但是它同时也支持着异步游戏模式,即让玩家能够在这两种模式间相互转化着。以下便是我们所采用的方法。

Conclave(from gamasutra)

Conclave(from gamasutra)

1.回合制,但是不存在顺序

一开始,我们希望通过支持异步性而引出一个基本的决策:《Conclave》中存在着基于回合制的战斗。

本来我们可以选择一种不同的组织原则——如《Diplomacy》这类型的机制,即玩家能够独立选择自己的行动,之后由游戏同时进行批量处理,但是后来我们意识到桌面游戏玩家和计算机角色扮演游戏玩家更加熟悉回合制,并且基于回合制我们可以更轻松地划分战斗,从而确保玩家能够在不同时间进行游玩。

除此之外,我们还需要确保划分出来的每一块内容都不能过大,从而让玩家可以无需为此投入过多时间,即他们可以随时(只要拥有几分钟的空闲时间)选择一个回合开始游戏。

起初游戏为玩家设定了回合顺序。即在特定的战斗回合中,Amy需要先进入回合挑战,紧接着是Ben,Chris以及最后的Diana。尽管在桌面角色扮演游戏中,回合顺序算是一种最传统的方法(更别说大多数回合制游戏了),但是当我们赋予《Conclave》异步性时,这种顺序却很容易带给玩家深深的挫败感。

也许如此Chris能够拥有较自由的挑战时间,并会更加期待自己的回合,但是如果Amy或Ben未进入自己的回合,Chris便不能开始游戏。也就是在2名玩家的异步游戏中,你必须等待其他玩家进入游戏后你才能开始游戏,而如果是在3人或4人异步游戏中,这种等待范围也将随之扩大。

party log(from gamasutra)

party log(from gamasutra)

关于团队登录游戏的特写,呈现出了玩家在每一轮游戏中的不同顺序中所采取的行动。

所以我们便决定删除游戏中的回合顺序元素。即玩家每一轮将只能进入一个回合,但是他们却可以根据自己的喜好去选择任何一种进入回合的顺序。这种方法除了能够减少玩家的等待时间,同时也将带给玩家其它好处:

在第一轮中处于后者的玩家可以在接下来一轮的挑战中把握最先行动的优势,从而让游戏整体的发展更加顺畅。

当玩家处于困境中时,他们能够选择任何一种顺序而为自己争取到最佳战术优势。回合顺序有时候会推动着玩家接受一种次优的行动:也许同盟们能够让敌人在面对攻击时更加脆弱,但是如果你所面对的是最前面的顺序,这便不能为你带来任何直接的帮助。而如果没有了回合顺序,你便可以让同盟先发挥作用,然后再由你去发动攻击(这时候这种攻击也会变得更有效率)。

当然了,如果未经过适当的权衡,这种改变便不具有任何功效。带有回合顺序的游戏有时候也会让玩家能够更早进入自己的回合(比起一般游戏而言);这是《Conclave》的设计空间所未能做到的。除此之外,缺少回合顺序同时也意味着呈现出一种同步游戏玩法:2名玩家将同时提交他们的回合,从而致使之后的玩家行动变得无效。所以我们便需要采取一些额外的措施去处理这种矛盾的情况,未来我们也计划着通过告知玩家其他人正在进行回合游戏而避免这一问题的出现。

不管怎样,流线型玩法和传统的战术选择也都是有价值的内容。

2.保存时间轴

异步游戏玩法所存在的另外一个麻烦处便在于追踪每个玩家所看到的内容。在游戏中,2名玩家将交替进入回合中,这种设定较为直接;游戏将始终面向这2名玩家呈现出其当前的状态,以确保每一名玩家都不会错过任何内容。但是如果当2名以上的玩家进入游戏并开始进行异步游戏,情况便不是这样了。

event or timeline(from gamasutra)

event or timeline(from gamasutra)

事件/时间轴导航的特写。

让我们继续以上述例子进行说明,假设Amy在玩了一回合的游戏后退出游戏。如果Ben和Diana在Amy回来之前进入了游戏,那么游戏便不可能呈现出Amy当前的游戏状态;最终便导致游戏Diana的回合将遮掩住Ben的行动。在《Conclave》中,团队的敌人也会在战斗中进行回合更替,这便意味着在你进行自己的回合游戏时将会有更多战士在你周围行动着。也就是在你进入游戏“前”以及离开游戏“后”需要破解这些干预性行动。

最终我们便决定以时间轴的形式保存游戏中的每个行动,并以此追踪每个玩家的位置。如果在玩家离开游戏时出现了许多需要他完成的行动,那么当玩家回到游戏时他便会最先看到他所错过的第一个行动;同时玩家还可以通过导航去明确自己剩下的游戏回合顺序。实际上,玩家将与团队一样同步看到这些行动,除非这些行动还未被激活。

根据时间轴去保存行动也具有一大附带好处:玩家将能够回到之前的游戏事件中,并能够随时回顾这些过程。如果玩家遭遇了一个麻烦的敌人,他便可以回顾之前的战斗以获取战术灵感,同时他也可以根据自己之前所作出的任何决策而思考今后该怎么做。不管你是基于同步模式还是异步模式,这一好处都能够发挥作用。

3.设备不可知论

因为《Conclave》并未限制玩家何时或如何游戏,所以游戏中的新行动将随时出现在玩家面前。而如果我们希望异步模式能够带给玩家更多便利,那么这一点便是一大挑战:你需要拥有一台设备能够让你随时访问游戏。除此之外,你可能希望在不同时间使用不同的设备,包括智能手机,平板电脑,笔记本电脑和台式电脑等。也许手机的便携性能让你随时随地玩游戏,但是对于某些游戏而言,离开大屏幕而转向手机上的小屏幕却不是件易事。

作为一个小型开发团队,我们不免怀疑面向多种平台去开发游戏的原生版本是否能够有效地利用我们有限的资源。因为我们计划着不断添加新内容到游戏中并继续完善游戏,所以我们便希望尽可能减少面对所有玩家所做出的改变。

所以我们最终选择了使用HTML5和JavaScript去执行《Conclave》的客户端——确切地说是使用这些技术(获得现代浏览器的支持)中的某些组成部分。我们将所有游戏数据保存于服务器中,让玩家能够在自己中止游戏的地方获得所有相关信息(而不管他们是在何时使用了何种设备)。

这是我们一开始便采用的权衡方法。即几乎任何带有现今网页浏览器的设备都能够支持《Conclave》,其中便包括iPhone和iPad(游戏邦注:因为这款游戏并不依赖于Flash)。另一方面,游戏并不能利用原生应用中所存在的所有功能,但是幸好HTML5/JavaScript应用的开发工具仍然在不断发展着。

幸运的是,《Conclave》的技术和外观要求都不是非常严格,而网页应用的开发工具也仍然在不断发展并完善着。

4.维持玩家间的连接

异步性便是最终挑战:开发者需要确保玩家能够同意并分享共同的游戏节奏。许多PBM和PBP都是通过设定明确的期限而解决这一问题:即PBM《Diplomacy》便要求玩家每周或每个月提交决议,而PBP《龙与地下城》则要求玩家至少每天要发一次邮件。

一开始,《Conclave》便参考了《龙与地下城》的做法。即所有玩家必须在24小时内提交他们的回合;如果他们不能做到这一点,游戏将代表他们的角色采取防御性行动。而当玩家希望离开游戏超过1天以上的时间时,游戏中的计时器将被关闭,并且这也不适合于玩家一个人玩游戏的情况。

adventure hall(from gamasutra)

adventure hall(from gamasutra)

冒险大厅

这算是一种反应性方法,而《Conclave》还采取了其它前摄性方法去与之相呼应。就像在游戏的冒险大厅中,团队成员可以通过填写他们的等级而告知别人他们所想要的节奏和时间安排。除此之外,异步游戏的团队成员将会在发生主要事件(游戏邦注:如开始新一轮的挑战或任务因失败而告终)时接收到电子邮件通知。如此玩家便不再需要继续检查游戏的发展状态。

最后,我们还给予了每个团队属于他们自己的聊天室。当他们进行同步游戏时,玩家们便可以在此进行实时交流;而当他们进行异步游戏时,玩家们也可以在此为其他玩家留言。这一用户界面能够同时带给两种模式的玩家满足感,让玩家们能够更轻松地在此建立友情,并分享彼此的经验,而无需纠结于自己会对方所选择的模式。

下一步发展?

如今《Conclave》正处于公测时期,我们仍然在根据不同玩家的反馈去调整异步游戏玩法与同步游戏玩法间的转变。除此之外,我们一直在努力思考其它能够即时带给异步玩家信息的方法(除了信息推送),并通过提供更完善的UI反馈和设计而缓解同步玩家所遭遇的回合冲突。

我们还希望看到更多能够同时支持同步游戏玩法与异步游戏玩法的游戏(或类型)的出现。

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

Adding Asynchronicity

by Derek Bruneau

How much time do you have to play games? For many of us, the answer is, “Not enough.” Finding time is often even more difficult when it comes to multiplayer games: not only does each player need to have free time, but their schedules need to align. Multiplayer games that expect physical proximity — board games, Johann Sebastian Joust — present an additional hurdle.

Some multiplayer games mitigate these difficulties by offering asynchronous play. Not everyone agrees on the definition of “asynchronous”; here I’m using the term to refer to multiplayer games where the game state is shared but players’ participation isn’t simultaneous. Words With Friends is a recent example of a game that’s asynchronous by this definition: the board is shared, but players take turns separated by arbitrarily long periods of time.

Though a synchronous (simultaneous) game might inspire an asynchronous version, it’s unusual for a single game to allow players to switch between both modes of play on demand. For some, this just isn’t possible; it’s pretty difficult to imagine a version of Johann Sebastian Joust that isn’t played simultaneously. But couldn’t other games support both styles?

That’s what we set out to do in our game Conclave. We took a genre that’s usually played synchronously — the online co-op roleplaying game — and developed a game that allows players to shift to asynchronous play when desired. In this we were guided by the long history of asynchronous adaptations of synchronous games, but that didn’t prevent us from running into challenges along the way.

Asynchronous Influences

Though less common historically than synchronous play, asynchronous play is not new. Correspondence chess, with moves exchanged by courier or postal carrier, has existed for centuries, if not longer.

More recently, players and game creators extended the play-by-mail (PBM) approach to games involving more than a simple exchange of moves. Only a few years after the board game Diplomacy was published in 1959, groups of players were negotiating (and breaking) alliances and submitting orders through the mail rather than over the board. Even though a game might involve up to seven players, Diplomacy lends itself fairly well to asynchronous play: negotiation is open-ended and best conducted privately, and players’ actions are resolved simultaneously, making the order in which they submit them unimportant.

Other PBM games like It’s a Crime — think Mafia Wars, but with more direct player interaction and a lot more firebombing — can accommodate dozens of players. In practice, however, you typically interact with only a small subset of other players at any time, which keeps the scope of play to something manageable.

New technologies have provided additional ways to play games asynchronously. Email and online forums have led to play-by-email (PBEM) and play-by-post (PBP) games, respectively. PBP is a particularly popular alternative for pen & paper roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, and our experiences with it influenced some of the design decisions we made for Conclave. (More on those below.)

While PBM, PBEM, and PBP games emerged mainly as a way to eliminate the requirement of physical proximity, other asynchronous games have become popular even with players who share a living space. Mobile apps like Words With Friends, Scramble With Friends, and Draw Something are played not just by distant friends but by roommates, significant others, and spouses. Here, asynchronicity provides opportunities to reinforce our social connections in moments scattered throughout the day or week, rather than requiring us to coordinate schedules.

Though many of the previous examples are asynchronous adaptations of synchronous games, few allow you to switch between the two modes of play. Unlike its synchronous, physical inspiration Boggle, the Scramble With Friends app doesn’t allow players to find words simultaneously, even though both are shown the same set of letters.

This opens up some design space — the app offers power-ups that affect only a single player’s view of the board — but closes off other possibilities. In Boggle, you can tell how many words another player is writing down, which heightens the tension of the game; Scramble can only imperfectly capture that feeling of head-to-head competition, even if players are in the same room together.

Blending the Asynchronous with the Synchronous in Conclave

Conclave is a browser-based co-op RPG with story, mechanics, and aesthetics inspired by tabletop games. Parties of up to four players work together to complete quests that are a mix of tactical combats and group decisions driven by the story and the skills of the players’ characters. Like most multiplayer online RPGs, it offers synchronous play, but it also supports asynchronous play and lets players switch back and forth between the two. Here’s how we made that possible.

1. Turn-based, but not ordered

At the outset, our desire to support asynchronicity led to a fundamental decision: that Conclave’s combat would be turn-based.

We could have picked a different organizing principle — perhaps a Diplomacy-influenced scheme where players choose their actions independently and the game then resolves them in a batch all at once — but turns are familiar to both tabletop and computer RPG players and provide a convenient way to divide combat into chunks that can be played at different times.

In addition, each chunk is small enough that it doesn’t require a major time investment, making it possible to take a turn whenever you have a few minutes to spare.

Initially the game assigned a turn order to players. In a particular round of combat, Amy might need to take her turn first, followed by Ben, then Chris, and finally Diana. While turn order is a tradition in tabletop RPGs — not to mention most turn-based games — it quickly became apparent that it could lead to frustration when playing Conclave asynchronously.

Chris might have a free moment and be eager to take his turn, but if Amy or Ben hasn’t taken a turn yet, he can’t play. In a two-player asynchronous game, you only have to wait for the other player, but with three or four players the waiting is magnified.

A close-up of the party log showing players acting in different orders each round.

To address this issue we simply removed the concept of turn order from the game. Players can still take only one turn per round, but they can take them in whichever order they prefer. Besides reducing the amount of time players spend waiting, this change has a couple of other benefits:

A player that acts last in one round has the option to immediately take the first action in the next round, further streamlining play.

In a tight spot, players can act in whichever order gives them the greatest tactical benefit. With a turn order, you’re sometimes forced to act suboptimally: an ally might have an ability that can make a foe more vulnerable to your attack, but that’s not immediately helpful if you’re required to act first. With no turn order, you can ask your ally to use the ability and then follow up with your (now more effective) attack.

Of course the change was not without trade-offs. Games with turn orders sometimes introduce special abilities that allow you to take your turn earlier than normal; that’s a bit of design space Conclave can’t explore. In addition, the lack of turn order has an implication for synchronous play: two players might submit their turns at nearly the same time, rendering the later player’s action suboptimal or invalid. As a result, we’ve had to do extra work to handle these conflicts, and in the future we plan to avoid more of them by showing players when someone else is in the process of taking a turn.

Even so, the benefits of streamlined play and additional tactical options are worth it.

2. Saving the timeline

Another complication introduced by asynchronous play is keeping track of what each player has seen. In a game where two players alternate turns, this is straightforward; the game can always display its current state to both players, and neither one will miss anything. That’s not true once more than two players are involved and playing asynchronously.

A close-up of the event/timeline navigation controls.

Building on the example above, suppose that Amy takes a turn and then logs off. If Ben and Diana take turns before Amy logs back in, it’s not enough to show her the current state of the game; the results of Ben’s turn will be obscured or eclipsed by Diana’s. In Conclave, the party’s enemies also take turns during combat, which means that a dozen or more combatants might act between your own turns. That’s a lot of intervening action to puzzle out from “before” and “after” views of the game.

As a result, we’ve elected to save every action in the game as a kind of timeline and track where each player is along it. If there’s a lot of activity on your quest while you’re away, when you come back you’ll see the first action you missed; you can then navigate forward in time to see the remaining turns play out in sequence. In effect, you see the action the same way a party playing synchronously sees it, except that it’s not “live”.

Saving actions in a timeline has a nice side benefit, too: players can go step back through previous events in the game and review them at any time. You can review past combats for tactical inspiration if you encounter a troublesome foe, and you can also review the decisions you’ve made along the way for hints of what to do next in the story. All of this is possible whether you’re playing synchronously or asynchronously.

3. Device agnosticism

Because Conclave doesn’t place any restrictions on when or how you play, new activity in the game can occur at any time. That presents an additional challenge if we want asynchronous play to be convenient: you need to have a device that can access the game whenever you want (and are able) to play. Furthermore, you might prefer to use a different device — smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop — at different times. Mobile devices offer portability so that you can play on the go, but for some games it’s hard to pass up a larger screen when one is available.

As a tiny development team, we doubted that developing native versions of the game for a variety of platforms would be the best use of our limited resources. Since we planned to regularly add to and improve the game, we wanted to minimize the amount of work required to deploy changes to all players.

Consequently, we chose to implement Conclave’s client with HTML5 and JavaScript — to be precise, with the parts of those technologies that are reasonably (and increasingly) well supported by modern browsers. All game data is stored on our servers, making it possible for players to pick up right where they left off regardless of which device they happen to be using at any given time.

Here the trade-off was clear from the beginning. Pretty much any device with a recent web browser is a platform for Conclave, and that includes iPhones and iPads since the game doesn’t rely on Flash. On the other hand, the game can’t take advantage of all the functionality provided to native apps, and the tools for developing HTML5/JavaScript apps are still evolving, to put it kindly.

Fortunately, Conclave’s technological and aesthetic requirements are relatively modest, and the tools for building web apps continue to expand and improve.

4. Maintaining connections between players

Asynchronicity presents a final challenge: making sure players agree upon and share a pace of play. Many play-by-mail and play-by-posts tackle this problem by setting explicit deadlines: a PBM Diplomacy game might require players to submit orders every two weeks or every month, while a PBP D&D game might require players to post at least once a day.

As a starting point, Conclave takes its cue from the latter. By default, all players must submit their turns within 24 hours; if a player doesn’t, the game will take defensive action for the turn on his or her character’s behalf. The timer can of course be turned off for cases where a player expects to be away for longer than a day, and it doesn’t apply if you’re playing solo.

The Adventurer’s Hall (Click for large version)

This is a reactive approach to the problem, but Conclave pairs it with a couple of proactive ones. In the game’s Adventurers Hall, parties looking to fill out their ranks can advertise their preferred pace and primary time zone. In addition, groups playing asynchronously receive email notifications when significant events occur, such as a new round beginning or a quest ending in failure. Players therefore don’t need to continually check the game’s status.

Finally, we give each party its own persistent chat room. When playing synchronously, players can use it to communicate in realtime; when playing asynchronously, they can use it to leave messages for each other instead. Here a single user interface satisfies both modes of play, making it easier for players to build camaraderie and share in the experience without thinking about the mode they’re in.

Where to Next?

Conclave is in open beta, and we’re still refining how we handle the shift between asynchronous and synchronous play based on player feedback. In particular, we’re looking at other ways for asynchronous players to stay in the loop besides triggered notifications, and we’re working to prevent conflicting turns between synchronous players through better UI feedback and design. You can keep an eye on what we’re doing at playconclave.com.

Meanwhile, we look forward to seeing more games — and more genres — experiment with supporting both synchronous and asynchronous play.(source:GAMASUTRA)


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