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Colin Johanson阐述衡量MMO游戏的成功标准

发布时间:2013-01-31 09:47:36 Tags:,,,

作者:Colin Johanson

在开始本文前,我有个疑问:你是如何衡量MMO游戏是否成功?

以往,我们很容易便能判断出传统MMO游戏的成功:游戏公司基本上会根据订阅量衡量游戏的表现情况,同时用户也会据此判定该作是否成功。此外,同时在线用户量(游戏邦注:即某段时间内在线玩家数量)也相当重要,但该数据通常不对用户开放,因为同比活跃订阅量,该数据无疑更易暴露出游戏的负面形势。

现在提出第二个问题:如果基于订阅模式的MMO游戏根据付费用户数量衡量成功,那会给游戏设计决策带来何种影响?

MMO game(from arena.net)

MMO game(from arena.net)

答案是,设计师会为此制作保持玩家积极且长时间体验的机制与选项。也就是说,传统MMO游戏设计师会构造出保证玩家长时间体验的内容系统。如果你以此作为商业动机与模式,你会不断获利,这是有意义且明智的举措,你应遵循这种做法。

如果你是基于此设计游戏系统,那你可能会为了制作更多内容而忽略品质问题。比如你会投入大量精力创建升级系统;制定机率极小的战利品发放系统;制作需大批玩家同时在线共同体验的突袭系统;或是成千上万个清除/重复道具收集,刺杀暴徒任务,日常事件;或是获取最佳装备需耗费大量时间等。

然而,假如你并未采用订阅模式盈利,或者你并不是为了吸引玩家长时体验而设计内容,情况又会如何?当看到《激战2》中的内容设计时,我们不禁纳闷:如果开发该作是基于趣味方面将会怎样?

如果我们以趣味性作为判断成功的重要指标,我们是否可以脱离原先做法,根据玩家喜好设计游戏?我们能着眼于制作意味深长且影响深远的内容,而不是为了扩展体验模式一味填充内容吗?我们能制作出有趣内容,保证玩家因为有趣而主动体验,而不是被迫体验吗?一直以来,我都是这样玩游戏。我并不打算透露自己玩了多少次的《Quest for Glory》;该作并没有设置25个日常任务,要求我不时登陆。我会多次体验,只是因为它充满乐趣!

因此,如果以趣味性作为衡量游戏成功的关键指标,你将如何制作游戏内容?如何清楚自己是否取胜?

通过订阅量便能判断基于订阅模式的游戏是否成功;而游戏趣味较难定义。因此,我们不得不围绕有趣概念,从根本上重新确定《激战2》内容的开发进程,一开始,我们都会询问一个相当简单的问题(游戏开发过程中鲜少询问此问题):“你觉得有趣吗?”

MMO(from arena.net)

MMO(from arena.net)

有趣指标会影响到《激战2》早期内容设计的方方面面。其中包括:

*影响战利品收集。通常游戏中的稀有道具并不如其它道具强大,因此它们不必具备最出色性能。稀有道具应具有独特外观,角色在获得时会有种成就感油然而生,但不是在玩游戏中获得。我们不会以装置为诱饵强迫玩家体验枯燥内容,而是将它们设为选择模式,因此,认为追求精美装备有趣的玩家可以为此奋战,而其他玩家仍具有强大功能,而且能从中获得乐趣。

*影响决策。每当完成一个地牢模式,你会获得代币,并用此交换理想奖励道具,获得奖励不再机会渺茫,同时比起完成完成任何才能获得奖励,这种模式更加有趣。

*影响发展。你可以采取多种渠道探索地牢模式,而且具有随机性。因此,在追逐最终目标时,你不会觉得自己反复体验同个地牢模式,反之,你可以混合体验,保持体验过程的新鲜感与趣味性。

*影响自定义。事件与个人故事系统允许你自定义角色。在整个游戏进程中,每个角色会经历完全不同的内容,整个世界总在追寻新故事线时保持新鲜感,其中的事件会不断变化。也就是说,与角色回到曾经地方十分有趣,根据完全不同的个人故事链创建新角色同样是个有趣事件。

*影响玩法。为了追求有趣内容,我们会制定众多玩法决策,其中包括:帮助他人消灭怪兽可荣获经验值与战利品,因此与其他玩家不会形成竞争形势;人人都可从事件中获得奖励,借此购买心仪奖品,而不是随意获得一大堆并不感冒的物品;内容难度会逐渐加深,当玩家增多时,你仍有机会获得奖励;人人都能救活另一个人;因此应视其他玩家为完成目标的助手,而不是竞争对象;人人都可同时在游戏世界中收获资源节点与奖励,而不是与潜在危险对象竞争。而上面这些举措将会赋予游戏更多乐趣!

我们不仅在早期开发中询问“这样有趣吗”;我们还会在整个开发过程中,以不同方式不断探问这个问题。

首先,我们会在QA团队测试游戏时询问该问题。当他们体验完某个事件后,他们不仅要修复漏洞,还要写下改进建议与想法。他们会提交游戏体验反馈:他们喜爱这款作品吗?哪些方面应该改进?还应增加多少角色,提高其品质?他们会直接向事件设计师发送反馈,与他们交流协商,不断完善。在此之前,我从未听过哪家公司的QA团队参与到游戏开发进程,他们的决策可能会影响到游戏更改。他们不单是测试师,还是辅助完善游戏各个方面的开发者,在此过程中,他们应不断自问:“这样有趣吗?”

接着,我们会向整个公司发问,包括总公司与子公司,让他们体验游戏的某些部分,而后提交反馈、评论与建议。借此,我们可以修改游戏内容,然后不忘自问“这样有趣吗?”接着,我们会与alpha测试员继续该过程,邀请上千位员工体验已开发内容,并留下关于内容是否有趣的详细反馈与建议。我们内容设计师会反复阅读内部反馈论坛,获得有利评论,进行调整。

最后,我们会邀请成百上千位玩家体验该作。为了获得关于内容是否有趣的大面积反馈,我们会简化他们回答方式,便于从相关数据中知晓反馈。为此,我们在玩家完成体验后,增加问卷调查。其中均设置一些简单问题,但最重要的当属“在1-5之间,你认为刚刚体验的内容属于哪个等级?”通过此做法,我们获得大量信息反馈,然后进行分组,并在思考如何提高内容趣味性前,注重研究那些未获得好评的内容。

如果采用订阅模式,我们可能会把所有时间倾注在增加更多内容,令玩家不断追求目标。反之,作为以创造趣味为主的内容设计师,我们着眼于修改内容,提高趣味。因为对设计师而言,开发者鲜少有机会让发行商优化作品。(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

Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success

by Colin Johanson

To begin this blog post, let me pose a question: How do you measure the success of an MMO?

Historically, it’s been easy to point to success with traditional MMOs: subscription numbers were the ultimate means a company used to measure how well a game was doing, and customers typically looked at those same numbers as well to gauge the success of the game. The number of concurrent users—how many players are online at a given time—was also important, but that number was usually hidden from users, since it typically painted a less rosy picture of a game’s health when compared to the number of active subscriptions.

Now let me pose a second question: If the success of a subscription-based MMO is measured by the number of people paying a monthly fee, how does that impact game design decisions?

The answer can be found in the mechanics and choices made in subscription-based MMOs, which keep customers actively playing by chasing something in the game through processes that take as long as possible. In other words, designers of traditional MMOs create content systems that take more time to keep people playing longer. If this is your business motivation and model so you keep getting paid, it makes sense and is an incredibly smart thing to do, and you need to support it.

When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!

So if your key metric for success of your game is fun, how do you make content that fits that goal, and how do you know if you’re succeeding?

It’s easy to tell if a subscription-based game is hitting its metric of success, you simply look at the number of subscriptions; fun is much harder to define. To accomplish this, we’ve had to fundamentally redefine our development process of content in Guild Wars 2 around this concept of fun, and it starts with asking a very simple question that surprisingly isn’t asked that often in game development: “Are you having fun?”

This metric of success impacted a lot of our early content-related design decisions for Guild Wars 2. Some examples include:

Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

Fun impacts development. Explorable dungeons have multiple paths you can take and random events. Because of this you don’t feel like you need to play the same dungeon over and over again if you want to chase the prestigious rewards at the end, but can instead mix up that experience to keep it fresh and fun.

Fun impacts customization. The event and personal story systems allow you to get a sense of customization from your characters. Playing through the game, each character can experience completely different content, and the world can always stay fresh and new in the pursuit of new story lines, and an ever-changing dynamic event world. It means going back to a place you’ve already been with a character can be fun, and it means making a new character on an entirely different personal story chain can be fun as well.

Fun impacts gameplay. The pursuit of fun in content led us to make many gameplay decisions, including:Everyone who helps kill a creature gets experience and loot, so you’re not competing with other players; everyone gets rewarded for events with karma they can spend to buy rewards they want, rather than get a random roll of stuff they might not want; content scales in difficulty, so if more people show up, there is still stuff for you to do; everyone is able to revive one another, so you view other players as assets that can help you achieve your goals, rather than people who might get in your way; everyone can harvest resource nodes and get the rewards in the world together, rather than racing other people to them who might steal it from you. All of these things are just more fun!

We didn’t just ask “Is this fun?” in early development, though; we also asked this question constantly throughout our development process, and in a lot of different ways.

First—and this is one of the things that I love most about ArenaNet—we ask our QA team to ask this question when they test everything that goes into the game. When they play an event, they don’t just file bugs, they write suggestions and ideas for how to make it better. They give their feedback on the experience: Did they enjoy it? How could it be improved? How many rampaging rabid raccoons could be added to this event to make it amazing? They send this feedback directly to the designer building the event, and talk and coordinate with them to help make it better. I’ve never heard of a game company where the QA team is so integrated into the development process, where they can enact and impact change on a daily basis in the game. They aren’t just testers, they are developers who help make every part of the game better, and they do this by constantly asking the question, “Is this fun?”

Next, we ask this question of the company as a whole. We do what we call “All Calls” and “Small Calls,” where the entire company, or subsets of the company, play through parts of the game and give their feedback, comments, and suggestions. This helps us refine the content, and the key question we ask during all of this is “Is it fun?” We then continue this process with our closed alpha testers, and let thousands of people play through the content we’ve developed and ask them to leave detailed feedback and suggestions on if the content they are playing is fun. Our content designers patrol the internal feedback forums constantly for comments on the content they build, and make changes based on the feedback they have received.

Finally, we expand this process to the largest possible audience, to our beta test with hundreds of thousands of players. To get feedback on fun from an audience this large, we need to ask the question in a way that’s simple for them to answer, and easy for us to condense the feedback down into simple-to-look-at numbers we can then act from. To do this, we added surveys to the game that occur after you finish story steps, renown regions, events, and dungeons. Each of these asks players a few simple questions, but the most important question we always ask? “On a scale of 1 to 5, how much fun was what you just did?” From this, we print out giant reports of survey information, then meet as subteams and target the content that isn’t scoring well on “the fun factor” before brainstorming, together, on how to make that content more fun and exciting.

If our model was subscription based, we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot. Instead, as content designers with the goal of creating fun, we get to spend this time refining our content and making it amazing. As designers, this is both liberating and refreshing in an industry in which developers rarely get time from publishers to actually polish their games. (High-five, NCsoft!)

So remember: when you’re playing in any of the upcoming beta weekends and that little survey pops up, tell us what you really think. Those metrics truly help us guide our work, and help us get a sense of if you’re truly having fun. At the end of the weekend, jump on the Beta Forums and leave your true honest feedback—if you loved something, tell us why, and if you didn’t enjoy something, please let us know that, too. We really do read and listen to the feedback in the pursuit of making the most fun game we possibly can, because we know if you’re having fun, the game (and our company) will be fine in the long run.

I hope you come out of reading this with a bit of insight into how our content development process is different based on the metric we’ve chosen to gauge the success of our content model in Guild Wars 2. It’s a bit different, and at times we’re flying by the seat of our pants—but most importantly? It’s fun!(source:arena)


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