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《Robocraft》团队分享多人独立游戏成功经验

发布时间:2014-04-22 11:09:53 Tags:,,,

作者:Craig Chapple

对于独立开发者来说,在一开始(游戏邦注:特别是对于第一款游戏)创造一款多人游戏始终都是一个巨大的挑战。

当然,这并不是说它们从未获得成功,Facepunch基于Steam的“Early Access”的热门游戏《Rust》便是个典型的例子。但在它诞生之前已经出现了许多失败的例子。

现在,英国开发商Freejam也开始迎接这一挑战,并且,它们也开始尝试免费模式。他们所创造的游戏名为《Robocraft》,现在处于游戏发展初期,创造者将其描述为《我的世界》和《坦克世界》的私生子。

Robocraft(from develop-online)

Robocraft(from develop-online)

该创造团队包含了前Climax的资深员工,有Mark Simmons,Sebastiano Mandalo,Edward Fowler Brian O’ Connor和Richard Turner。游戏总监Simmons告诉我们,尽管是面向Square Enix,微软,索尼和Konami等公司而致力于创造IP,但是开发者们其实想要创造属于自己的作品。

他说到:“致力于一个知名的IP是一件事,但当它们并不是属于‘你的’IP时,你在看到用户享受着游戏的乐趣时将不能获得满足感。这便是我们要解决的。”

他们的首款游戏《Robocraft》是一款团队eSport游戏,让用户能够通过拼凑组块和坦克的各个部件去创造属于自己的坦克。

Simmons说道:“我知道你们在想‘哦不,这不就是另一款《我的世界》的复制品吗,’但说实话我们真的是不同的。”

“我们着手于创造一款关于通过立方体而创造高保真度的战斗机器的团队eSport游戏。立方体能够组成支架,然后用户将添加轮子,喷气推进器,盘旋刀片,激光大炮等待组件。”

当我问到为什么在这款游戏中专注于用户生成内容时,Simons说到:“它能够解答一个问题:我们这样一个只有5名开发者所组成的小团队是如何在不创造出无数内容的前提下呈现出一款基于团队的MMO eSport游戏。”

到目前为止,似乎该团队非常适应于免费模式,即在之前3个月内便吸引了30万用户的注意,其中有2万名用户每天都会玩游戏,并且平均每天会有2500名用户加入进来。

Simmons表示,他们之所以能够取得这一成绩的部分原因便是在波兰等国家,YouTube用户非常多,从而提升了人们对于这款游戏的兴趣,这也再次凸显了用户视频的重要性,让玩家能够创造他们自己的游戏内容,并让他们可以通过你的IP赚钱。

Robocraft (from develop-online)

Robocraft (from develop-online)

但是作为一名独立开发者,你是如何为一款多人游戏吸引足够多的玩家,从而确保玩家总是能够找到某些人与自己一起游戏,同时确保他们能够长期沉浸于游戏中?Simmons认为这便是该团队选择免费模式的主要原因,而他也承认在早期时候他们很烦恼不知道该如何解决这一问题。

他解释道:“如果你使用了免费模式,你便有可能吸引更多用户的注意,尽管他们并不会为游戏花钱。”

“而这么做也有其自身的问题。服务器需要消耗成本,如果你的用户不花钱,那么获得更多用户便可能消耗你更多金钱。幸运的是,我们的用户支付包含了我们的服务器成本,所以我们不需要为此而担心。”

确保拥有足够玩家的问题的另一个解决方法便是:“当我们最初发行时,获得足够多的用户也是一个大问题。为了解决这一问题,我们必须推出一个‘定时器’。从剩下3分钟后开始倒计时,并且每次数到0时我们将发起一场战斗。”

“基于这种方法,尽管网上没有太多用户,他们也能够同时进入战斗中,这能够保证我们每次会拥有足够的用户相互抗衡。当用户数足够高时,我们可以切换到“根据你的意愿进入战斗”的系统。”

就像Wargaming宣称《坦克世界》是免费游戏而不是“付费获胜游戏”一样,FreeJam也宣称他们的游戏是可以“无需花一分钱”便能够尝试的游戏。他承认玩家可以通过购买高级会员而加速游戏,用户也可以购买立方体和组件,但这却只适用于那些通过游戏玩法赚到足够多点数的人。

他解释道:“用户可以直接购买立方体何组件,但前提是他们需要使用Tech Points,即通过玩游戏而挣得的点数去打开该组件的使用许可。”

“这绝不只是投下100美元并直接获得一个特别的机器人那么简单,即使是付费用户也需要通过战斗而前进。用户也可以使用真钱去购买意向道具,但它们将只是具有装饰性,玩家并不能花钱获得具有竞争优势的道具。我们真的在尝试通过‘独立方式’去呈现免费游戏的内容,确保它们足够公平且不具有侵略性。”

现在的《Robocraft》还处于最初发展阶段,开发者计划将这款游戏带向Steam Early Access,即在5天内便在Steam Greenlight获得巨大成功之后。该团队希望能够延续Facepunch,Chucklefish以及Ndemic Creations等英国开发商在Valve的数字商店的成功。

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

Making a multiplayer indie game: How Robocraft attracted 300,000 players

By Craig Chapple

Making a multiplayer-focused game is always a big challenge for indie developers starting out, particularly for their first game.

That’s not to say it hasn’t been done of course, the leading example being Facepunch’s hit Steam Early Access game Rust. But the road is paved with many that have fallen before it.

New UK developer Freejam has taken on the challenge however, and what’s more, they’ve gone free-to-play. The game is called Robocraft, currently in a playable alpha, which its creators describes as the illegitimate child of Minecraft and World of Tanks.

The team consists of ex-Climax veterans and includes Mark Simmons, Sebastiano Mandalà, Edward Fowler, Brian O’Connor and Richard Turner. Game director Simmons tells Develop despite working on IP for the likes of Square Enix, Microsoft, Sony and Konami, the developers wanted to work on their own creation, a story increasingly familiar in the game industry.

“Working on major well known IP’s is one thing, but when they aren’t ‘your’ IP’s then you don’t get the full feeling of satisfaction when the user enjoys your game. That’s what we wanted,” he says.

Their debut title, Robocraft, is designed as a team-based eSport game that allows users to build their own tanks by piecing together blocks and verious tank parts.

“I know what you’re thinking ‘oh no, not another minecraft clone’, but we’re different,” says Simmons.

“We set about creating a credible team based eSport about the idea of building high fidelity battle machines from cubes. The cubes form the chassis, and then the user adds components such as wheels, jet thrusters, hoverblades, laser cannons, etcetera.”

When I ask why the focus on user generated content for such a title, Simons says: “It really started out as the answer to a question: How can our little team of five developers deliver an epic team based MMO eSport without being able to produce tons of content?”

The free-to-play venture has worked out well for the team so far, attracting 300,000 users during the last three months, with 20,000 users playing each day and 2,500 joining on average every day.

Simmons says the developer was able to achieve this in part thanks to well known YouTubers in countries such as Poland sparking increased interest in the title, once again highlighting the importance of user videos and allowing players to create their own Let’s Play content – and letting them make money from your IP.

But being an indie, how do you attract enough players for a multiplayer game to ensure users will always find someone to play against while also keeping them engaged for the long-term? Simmons argues that’s why the team went free-to-play, but admits the problem was still tricky to tackle early on.

“If you’re free then you’re likely to attract more users, even if they aren’t paying.,” he explains.

“It has come with it’s own issues though. Servers cost money, and if your users aren’t paying, then getting more users actually costs you more money. Luckily our user payments are covering the cost of the servers now so we haven’t got this worry anymore.

Of another solution to the issue of ensuring there are enough players, Simmons adds: “When we initially released getting enough users was a major problem. To fix it we had to release a ‘countdown timer’. The counter counted down from three minutes and every time the counter got to zero we launched a battle.

“This way, although there were not many users online they all went into battle at the same time, which ensured we had enough users to fight each other. We switched over to a ‘battle-whenever-you-want’ system when the user numbers were high enough.”

Much like Wargaming claims World of Tanks is free-to-play and not “pay-to-win”, FreeJam also claims their title is playable “without spending a penny”. He admits that players can accelerate through the game by purchasing a premium membership, and users can also purchase cubs and components, but the latter is only available to those that have earned points through gameplay.

“Users can purchase cubes and components directly but only when they have unlocked the license for that component using Tech Points – which you have to play to earn,” he explains.

“There is no way to just put $100 down and get a fantastic Robot right away, even paying users must fight to progress. Users can also purchase a few items which are real money only, but they are cosmetic only, there are no pay for only items that can get you a competitive advantage. We’re really trying to play the F2P thing in an ‘indie way’, i.e. fair and not aggressively.”

Robocraft is currently in alpha phase, and the developers plan to take the title onto Steam Early Access having successfully gone through Steam Greenlight in just five days. The team will be hoping to follow up with similar success of other UK developers such as Facepunch, Chucklefish and Ndemic Creations on Valve’s digital store.(source:develop-online)


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