游戏邦注：本文作者为Christian Nutt，文章主要讲述Sid Meier新推Facebook游戏《Civilization World》。

就在《Civ World》封闭测试版即将同玩家见面之际，游戏联合制作人Tiffany Nagano接受了媒体采访，谈论这个Sid Meier项目的诞生始末。

Sid meier

Nagano表示，“是的，就和《Civ Rev》项目一样，Sid依旧包揽所有编码工作，所以游戏延续他的一贯风格。”

“《Civilization World》瞄准的是Facebook平台。所以我们把《文明》游戏及其相关系列以及玩家熟悉并喜爱的游戏设置带入了一个新平台。游戏注重体验机制，沉浸性颇高，带有‘再体验一次’的意味，但同时又采用免费形式，内容通俗易懂。”

Facebook游戏《Civilization World》

当然，仅让游戏采用免费形式及依托网页平台是不够的；游戏同时还得具有社交性，否则难保玩家不会转而体验其他同《Civilization World》风格类似的游戏。”

“游戏就本质而言是款合作式策略游戏，游戏玩家不仅相互协作完成共同目标，同时还存在竞争关系。这是一款十足的合作型策略游戏，玩家之间相互协作，共同协商决策，朝相同目标迈进。”

每场《Civ World》体验包含大约200名玩家，且持续2个礼拜左右，在这个“持续的游戏世界”中，玩家携手陌生人及好友共同创建自己的文明国家，并同其他玩家的文明国家作战。

civ world

Nagano表示，其他社交游戏开发商在游戏刚发行时通常仅提供有限功能，随后再根据玩家的要求和反馈参数填充新功能，《Civilization World》将会以尽量完美的姿态呈现给玩家。

“我们呈现给玩家的是完整的游戏，玩家可以从头体验至尾。我们仅仅希望以此彻底检验游戏均衡度和体验长度的细节处理工作（游戏邦注：通过反馈参数和用户反馈）。所以，我们希望提供类似核心《文明》体验质量的游戏内容。”

许多玩家对于《文明》系列盒装产品早已烂熟于心。Nagano希望这款游戏能够博得新老玩家的青睐。

“我想这款游戏对于那些不熟悉《文明》的玩家来说也是简单明了的，且有些元素是同其他Facebook游戏融会贯通的。”

“但对于那些《文明》系列粉丝来说，这些玩家大多体验过原版游戏，且对策略游戏情有独钟，游戏也是颇有深度。正是因为游戏沿用原有的机制，他们才会转投Facebook体验这款游戏，这就是Facebook版《文明》的实质所在。”

Civilization World

Nagano表示，“我们希望展现和谐的完整游戏体验。”

多人和社交模式的《文明》游戏

这款游戏和我们所熟知的《文明》游戏存在共同之处。Nagano表示，Facebook版游戏的创造性之处在于它为玩家提供了多人社交体验。

“游戏延伸了原有的社交网络体验。过去的Facebook游戏更多采用平行结构。这款游戏采用单玩家平行体验机制，玩家遵照个人时间路线展开游戏。但游戏涉及合作体验；游戏要求玩家以颇具意义的方式合作体验游戏。”

Meier目前正在调整这个多玩家体验模式，进而提高体验粘性。Nagano表示，“游戏强调协调，然后是竞争。不同国家间确实常常展开竞争。所以玩家时常陷入战争，入侵其他国家，如果取得胜利，玩家将获得其他国家的技术（游戏邦注：或全部技术或部分技术），Sid如今正在平衡这个方面。玩家有望获得其他国家的技术和文物。”

作为《文明》衍生品，这款游戏融入了不同层次的复杂性。“个人体验、团队合作、团队竞争以及个人竞争之间相互作用。”

开发商同时也要关注游戏体验的平衡性问题，确保不同技术水平的玩家均能够从游戏中收获趣味性。“即便不是最具社交能力的玩家也可以为团队贡献力量。游戏提供多种选择，如果玩家不想加入某个国家，可以选择不加入，但是就会相应失去协作带来的好处。所以高等级玩家通常扮演领导者的角色，帮助游戏新手，或者体验方式过于休闲的玩家。”

除了提供游戏内帮助外，针对玩家的维基百科也将出现于游戏Facebook页面中（游戏邦注：处于体验窗口下方），提供便捷访问渠道。

Nagano承认其他Facebook竞争者有借鉴《文明》机制，但他们对此并不担心。“我们目前的重心是把《文明》元素引入新平台，而不是让玩家觉得游戏就是一款典型的Facebook体验，单纯把《文明》式的体验带入平台当中。我们捕捉的是《文明》的核心体验机制。”

营收渠道

Nagano表示，“有关虚拟交易方面，开发团队探索了这样一个机制：玩家可以通过额外购买劳动成果体验更多游戏。“如果玩家为自己的城市掏钱，他们将获得一大群居民；这些居民分工各种不同工作。玩家将通过‘收获’收集这些资源。收获成果是收集资源的最重要方式，这当然会推动游戏随后的进程。”

Civ Buck

玩家可以等待劳动成果再生，也可以通过Civ Buck（游戏邦注：这是游戏货币）购买更多劳动成果。玩家也可通过Civ Buck提高黄金收益，获得更多解决游戏谜题的机会（这反过来也会增加他们的游戏资源）。

Nagano表示，“如果玩家用尽了劳动成果，下次收获需等待5、10分钟甚至更长。这一间隔时间不仅对于销售Civ Buck意义重大，对于促使游戏迎合Facebook游戏体验模式来说也至关重要——这是个和《文明》体验方式截然不同的模式。玩家可以放心离开游戏页面，花掉一些劳动成果，做出某些移动，回到自己的Outlook或Excel电子表格，10分钟后再回到游戏中。”

Nagano表示，很多测试版玩家都已在不依靠Civ Buck情况下成功创建强大文明国家。

游戏平衡性

游戏设置的平衡性对于卓有成效的策略和富有粘性的多人体验模式而言至关重要。开发团队要十分重视这个方面。Nagano表示，“玩家可以通过Civ Buck采取某些对游戏玩法有影响的行动。但有趣的是玩家每天只能使用特定数量的Civ Buck实施这类行动。”

“Meier希望游戏在加入Civ Buck这个免费货币后还能维持平衡机制。所以这一构思旨在促使玩家能够充分使用现有资源，同时又避免玩家产生花钱赢得胜利的感觉。

Nagano表示，“Civ Buck带给游戏的影响仅限于此，玩家从中能够获得的好处也是有限的。所以这一设置的意图是希望通过游戏决策推动体验发展，这也是游戏制胜的关键所在。”

开发团队同时也在小心避免采用可利用系统。购买资源将会极大破坏游戏平衡性，Nagano甚至还表示，“我们并不希望《Civ World》出现黄金农场主。玩家可以通过付费货币购买游戏市场中的资源（游戏邦注：这些资源来自其他游戏玩家）。

2k games

据游戏发行商2K Games表示，《Civilization World》很快将进入封闭测试阶段。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Interview: How Civilization World Goes Social On Facebook

by Christian Nutt
 
      With its closed beta set to begin shortly, Civ World’s associate producer Tiffany Nagano spoke to Gamasutra about what the Facebook game — which is “through and through” Sid Meier’s project — brings to the table.

“Yes, Sid [Meier]‘s doing all the gameplay code, similar to how he did Civ Rev, so this is his game through and through,” Nagano told Gamasutra at a recent demo and Q&A session in San Francisco.

“This is Civilization for Facebook. So we’re taking the Civ game, the franchise and all the gameplay that you know and love, and bringing it to a new platform. And it’s really about gameplay, and getting that addictive, ‘one more turn’ type feel, but making it free and accessible to millions of players.”

What Civ On Facebook Means

Of course, just making the game free and web-hosted isn’t enough; it has to be social, too, or it won’t draw in an audience that has likely recently found Civ-like fun in other companies’ Facebook hits.

“Really the heart of the game is collaborative strategy, so it’s really about players working together to reach common goals, competing with each other,” said Nagano. “This is really about collaborative strategy, working together and making strategic decisions together, and working towards common goals.”

Each game of Civ World will feature approximately 200 players and run for about two weeks, in a “persistent game world” where players can team up to form their own Civs with strangers and friends — and then battle other players’ Civs.

Unlike many social game developers, which launch with limited features up front and then build upon them in response to players’ requests and metrics, Civ World will be very robust by the time it hits the public, says Nagano.

“What you’re seeing here is a complete game, and you can play a game from start to finish. We’re simply trying to test out more of the finer details of that balance, game length, etc,” with metrics and user feedback. “So, really, yes — it is about providing that sort of core Civ experience.”

Many gamers will, of course, already be familiar with the series from its incarnations as a boxed product. Nagano hopes the game will appeal to both new and familiar audiences.

“I think it’s accessible enough for people who are maybe not familiar with Civ, and probably [have] some of the components that they might be looking for in a game they might be playing on Facebook.

“But for Civ fans who are coming from a love of the franchise, and have played past Civ titles, and they love the strategy, the gameplay is really, really deep. And it really comes down to using the same types of gameplay that they’ve grown to love, and that’s really the heart of it.”

Said Nagano, “We do want to present a balanced game and a complete experience.”

Making Civ Multiplayer Social

So, it’s Civ as we know it — more or less. Where the big creative win for Civ on Facebook rests, then, is in offering a social, multiplayer experience for the franchise, Nagano told Gamasutra.

“It pushes the evolution of… the kinds of gameplay that you’ve seen on social networks. Other past games on Facebook have more of a parallel structure. It’s people working in this sort of same single player experience, just in parallel, in their own timeline. Whereas this is really about collaboration; it’s really about playing with people together in a really gameplay meaningful way.”

Meier is currently tuning the multiplayer experience to make it engaging, Nagano said. “It’s about coordinating… And then, again, competition. Competition really happens between Civs, so when you are in a battle, if you are invading another Civilization, if you win you’ll get their technology — either half or all their technology, Sid’s balancing it right now. You’ll get their technologies and their wonders as well.”

Being Civilization, the game will offer layers of complexity. “There’s this interplay between individual play, group collaboration, and then competition between groups — also competition between individuals.”

And the developers are also concerned with balancing the game to be enjoyable by players with different skill sets. “Even if you aren’t necessarily the most social, you can still contribute to the group. There are [also] options — you don’t have to join a Civ if you don’t want to, but it does mean that you won’t get the benefits of working with other people. So the really advanced players end up taking on leadership roles, helping out people who are either new to the game or whose play style’s a little more casual.”

In addition to in-game help, a user-contributed wiki will also rest on the game’s Facebook page directly below the play window, for easy access during play.

Nagano acknowledges that Facebook competitors have borrowed from Civilization, but isn’t so worried about them. “We really focus on is bringing what makes Civ, Civ, and bringing it to a new platform, rather than having what some people will think is a typical Facebook game, and just throwing Civ-like elements onto it. We’re really taking the heart of Civ.”

Monetization…

As far as monetization goes, the team is pursuing a system by which players purchase additional harvests to get access to play the game more. “The idea is when you lay out your city, you’ve got a bunch of citizens; they’re all doing different things. What you do is you’ll use a harvest to gather all of those resources. The harvests are the primary way of gathering the resources, which of course drives the rest of the game,” explained Nagano.

While players can wait for harvests to regenerate, they can also spend a “Civ Buck” — the in-game currency — to get more harvests. Players can also spend Civ Bucks to boost gold gains and get more turns to solve puzzles in the game (which in turn increase their resources in other ways.)

“If you’re out of harvests, your next harvest will probably be in about five, 10 minutes or so,” says Nagano. This interval is not just important for selling Civ Bucks, but also for making the game fit the play pattern of a Facebook title — a different pattern than Civ fans might be used to. “You could conceivably leave this up, spend a couple harvests, do a couple of these moves, go back to Outlook and your Excel spreadsheet, come back in the next 10 minutes.”

According to Nagano, many players of the alpha have been very successful at building strong Civilizations in the game without spending a single Civ Buck.

…And Balance

Gameplay balance is crucially important for rewarding strategy and engaging multiplayer play. The team is making sure to pay attention to this. “There are some gameplay-affecting actions you can do with Civ Bucks,” said Nagano, “but the interesting thing to note about them is that there’s actually a limit to the number of Civ Bucks you can use in any given day for gameplay-affecting actions.”

“[Meier] wanted to make sure that we could still balance the game while having the Civ Bucks… this premium currency. So the idea is to allow players the flexibility of utilizing the resources they have available to them, but also not having players feel like someone’s buying their way to victory. ”

Said Nagano, “There’s only so much that the Civ Bucks will have an impact on the game… there’s only so much of an advantage that [spending them] really gives you. So the idea is that really the gameplay strategy decisions drive the game, and that’s really what carries the day.”

The team is being careful to not make an exploitable system, either. Buying resources directly would “really upset the balance” and moreover, Nagano said, “we wouldn’t want gold farmers in Civ World.” While players can buy resources from an in-game marketplace using the game’s non-premium currency, these resources are generated by other players in their game.

Civilization World will soon enter its closed beta phase, according to representatives from its publisher, 2K Games.（Source：Gamasutra）