作者：Edward DelCastillo

新的社交游戏运动向我们昭示了视频游戏领域中还有众多未曾探索过的内容。数年来，随着硬件的逐渐演变，我们创造出了更好的图像效果。一直以来都是以桌游、卡片游戏和纸笔游戏核心的社交性在电脑游戏中找到了自己的位置，产生可以同《光晕》和《魔兽世界》相媲美的多人体验。在这片领域中，我们探索着那些为人所熟知的概念，即相比独自一人，人们更愿意同他人一起玩游戏。

即时战略（游戏邦注：下文简称“RTS”）题材也属于这个类别。诸如《命令与征服》和《魔兽争霸III》之类的游戏使得整个社区的粉丝通过玩游戏和在官方论坛上发表帖子而相互认识。所以，那些已经有数年游戏社交性设计经验的人毫无疑问地成为了今日社交游戏设计者。下面，让我们来看看这两类游戏之间的共通点。

命令与征服(from dvhardware.net)

自然的游戏循环

多数RTS设计师认为，“双脑”方法对RTS来说最为重要。这是所有游戏中最为精密和复杂的游戏机制。设计师创造出了整个“生态循环”，玩家在其中必须收集资源，建造基础设施，使用基础设施来生产战斗单位以及更多的资源收集单位，攻击敌人，单位死亡后用收集的资源生产出更多战斗单位。这便是RTS如何利用左右脑来创造趣味游戏体验的典型方法。收集、建造和复原是一方面，花费、战斗和摧毁他人是另一方面，这两种思维同时出现在游戏中。对我而言，这种设计感觉起来平衡、自然而且很容易理解，因为从某种程度上来说与现实世界很相像。

这种想法也可以运用到免费增值社交游戏中，经常有人抱怨称此类游戏缺乏深度或有意义的游戏可玩性。解决方案就摆在我们面前，创造完整和自然的生态循环，深化游戏，让玩家认识到他们的选择能够对游戏产生影响。

嵌入盈利模式

RTS游戏中有着最棒的经济微模型。对多数RTS游戏而言，收集、购买和出售是非常重要的部分，对多数社交游戏来说也是如此。RTS设计师在构建游戏时必须理解经济原理，就像免费增值和社交游戏的设计师那样。无法掌控游戏中的金钱流动方式会带来毁灭性的伤害。如果某个单位过于便宜，那么所有人都会去购买。而如果过于昂贵，那么这个单位久而久之可能就会被玩家遗忘。对社交游戏中的道具来说也是如此。费用过低会让游戏失去控制。开放式经济系统的设计师不理解此类原理有多重要，因为多数道具通过让玩家变得更加强大而与游戏产生联系，它们通过等级来进行平衡。如果你设计的是循环样式的游戏，那么经济上的错误可能导致整个游戏系统失控。

叠加游戏系统

在社交游戏和RTS题材游戏中，简单化造就了游戏的复杂性。如果你分析这两类游戏的动作，你便会开始发现发挥作用的是某些非常简单的系统。它们将这些简单系统分层堆叠起来以深化游戏体验，这种做法让两类游戏都变得更为有趣。比如，相对比只能够移动单位的RTS游戏而言，能够移动单位并用这些单位来战斗的RTS要有趣得多。《FarmVille》中的情况也是如此。随着系统以线性方式分层堆叠，其对用户认识的影响呈指数化增长。也就是说，对玩家而言，5个系统看起来像是6个，如果是10个系统看起来就像是20个。结果便是，最终系统的数量多到已经无法让玩家将其各自分清，玩家会认为整个游戏比自己所看到的要大得多。《魔兽世界》便是最佳范例。你可以将这款游戏解构成许多个系统，但是当你在玩游戏时，这些系统的叠加会让你感觉游戏比实际上看起来还要大得多（游戏邦注：《魔兽世界》的系统尤为巨大）。

farmville(from shinyred.co.uk)

快速的游戏玩法

我曾经阅读过一篇文章，称苍蝇是地球上进化最快的物种。他们认为原因在于苍蝇可以大量繁殖而且寿命都非常短。由此产生的结果是，在人们的寿命期间苍蝇可能会繁殖出数千代，在基因突变中自然地选择最适合的个体，使得整个种族向前进化发展。如果我们将生命周期和突变的可能性作为短期内迅速进化的关键因素，那么我们可以将游戏循环的长度视为生命周期，将玩家选项可能的变化视为基因突变。在RTS和社交游戏中，游戏循环的发生都非常迅速（游戏邦注：但原因不相同）。这使得我们可以很快速地寻找到设计中的误点。而且，RTS游戏中展现出的玩家选择频率特别高，这使得我们可以比其他游戏题材更快地理解玩家行为和偏好。

信息传播也是个问题。在社交游戏中，我们必须尽量简单地将大量知识尽快传播给玩家，这样他们才不会感到厌倦。RTS游戏的情况也是如此，但是原因在于足够快速才不会让玩家的单位被杀死。缓慢的信息传播在其他题材（游戏邦注：除第一人称射击外）游戏中很常见，但这种速度和传播特点不适用于社交游戏。

密集的社交行为

许多游戏都成功筹建起了社区。事实上，可以说所有很棒的东西都会很自然地构建起粉丝社区。这种情况在RTS游戏中体现得尤为显眼，我刚好亲身经历这种情况。或许玩RTS的过程很激烈而且需要一定的技能，但是该题材是世界上最为活跃并且粉丝群体最为忠诚的游戏。即便在15年前我们发布《命令与征服》时，考虑如何支持庞大的粉丝群体便是游戏开发的一部分。那还是在互联网并不普及的时代里。对RTS设计师而言，理解并同粉丝一起工作是高级训练的一部分。那些身怀此类技能的设计师将其运用到社交游戏中，与粉丝接触并且做出最为精确的分析。

通俗性的玩法

我曾经玩过一款主机动作游戏，后来被迫离开游戏一周时间。当我有时间再玩游戏时，我发现自己完全没办法继续玩下去。我被迫从新开始，结果没有打通整个游戏。这些游戏采用的是线性的难度进程。一旦你开始之后，你就不会想停下来，直到打通整个游戏。RTS的情况有所不同。在90分钟甚至更短的时间里，你就可以完成一个游戏循环。确实，游戏可能需要更多的时间，但是新循环中的原理同之前体验过的循环相同。这种做法的强大之处就在于其通俗性。这意味着，玩家回到RTS游戏中会更加简单，不像射击或动作冒险游戏。在设计社交游戏时，通俗性可以算作是秘密武器。如果我不知道自己在做什么或者我接下来要怎么做，那么我就有可能离开游戏。

结论

游戏行业中最具硬核性的题材与最不具硬核性的题材如此相像，这确实极具讽刺意味。看到RTS设计师将他所掌握到的所有技巧绝妙地运用到社交游戏中，这种感觉确实很棒。技巧的移植很自然。它让我看到游戏不只是线性的，更像是循环统一体。如果你愿意的话，可以将其称为“游戏循环”。

作为有着悠久RTS开发历史的公司，看到我们的设计师能够接受社交游戏并且可以将他们的技能正确地运用到该题材中，确实很令人欣慰。题材间的通俗性使得我们可以正确理解并且服务我们的新粉丝，同时在为玩家社区所接受的框架内引进深化的游戏机制。所以，当玩家们在Facebook、Google+或智能手机上寻找优秀游戏之时，我们已经做好吸引他们的准备。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

From Real Time Strategy to Real Time Social

Edward DelCastillo

The new social games movement is an incredible display of how much is left to explore in the art of video game creation. For years we explored better graphics delivered through rapidly evolving hardware. Sociality, so long a central part of board, card, and pen & paper games found its home in high-score screens and, interestingly enough, epic multiplayer experiences like Halo and World of Warcraft. In these incarnations we explored the unsurprising notion that people might rather play with others than alone.

The Real Time Strategy (RTS) genre also falls into this category. Games like Command & Conquer and Warcraft III created entire communities of fans that got to know one another through playing and posting on official forums. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people who have designed socially engaging games for years are the ones that I’d pick to make a very organic transition to the social games of today. Let’s cover some the cross-compatibilities below.

[A Natural Cycle]

Most RTS designers agree that a “dual brain” approach to RTS is the most tantalizing. This is one of the most sophisticated and complex game mechanics in all of gaming. The designer creates a full “circle of life” in which the player must gather resources, build infrastructure, use the infrastructure to build fighting units and more resource gatherers, hunt the enemy, lose units, and then replace them with the resources accumulated. It’s a great example of how RTS hits both sides of the brain to become a more interesting game experience. Gathering, building, and healing on one side; spending, fighting, and destroying on the other — all in one tight package. To me, this feels balanced, natural, and inherently easier to understand because it’s similar to the real world in a way.

This kind of thinking fits right in to freemium and social games, which are sometimes blamed for the lack of deep or meaningful gameplay. The solution is right before our eyes: to create a complete and natural circle of life, deepening the game and increasing the player’s perception that his or her choices matter.

[Commerce Built-in]

RTS games have the best economic micro-models out there. Gathering, buying and selling are an important part of most RTS’s and the same is true for most social games. RTS designers must understand the fundamentals of economics when they build their games — just like freemium and social game designers. Not having a grasp of how money flows in your game can be disastrous. If a unit is too cheap, then that’s all anyone will buy. Too expensive, and it gets forgotten. Same is true for items in social games. Charge too much for tractor fuel and the player base will grow uninterested. Charge too little, and it will short-circuit the game. Designers of open-ended economic systems don’t understand how important this is because most of their items only tie back to the game by making the player more powerful which is balanced in the level. When you have a game that lives in a cyclical pattern, one mistake in the economics can cause the game to spin out of control or lose all its energy.

[Layered Systems]

Simplicity leads to complexity in social games and in the RTS genre. If you distill the actions of each type of game you can start seeing some very simple systems at work. What makes both more interesting is that they create layers of other simple systems on top of each other to deepen the experience. For example, an RTS that was only about moving units around would be less interesting that an RTS that is about moving units around and fighting with them. Same is true for FarmVille. As systems are layered in a linear fashion the impact on human perception is exponential. Meaning that, as a player views it, 5 systems feels like 6 but 10 systems feel like 20. The result is that eventually the number of systems overwhelms the player’s ability to tell them apart and his sense of the game changes to seem like something much bigger than it actually is. The best example of this is World of Warcraft. You can deconstruct it down to its many systems, but when you’re playing it they overwhelm you and give you the feeling that it’s even more massive than it actually is (and WoW is pretty massive).

[Gameplay at the Speed of Light]

I read somewhere that the fly is one of the most rapidly evolving creatures on the planet. They attribute this to the fact that they produce so many offspring and live very short lives. The result is that in one human lifetime there will be thousands of generations of flies – mutating and naturally selecting the fittest to carry the species forward. If we consider lifespan and possibility for mutation the key factors to a rapid evolution for a moment, we can attach lifespan to the length of one game loop and mutation to the possible variations in player choice. In both RTS and social games, the game loop happens very quickly (although for different reasons).This allows us to find errors in the design very quickly. Also, player choice is at an all-time high in RTS which allows us to understand player behavior and preference much quicker than in other game styles.

There is also the issue of information transmission. In social games a great deal of knowledge must be passed as simply and quickly as possible to the player so they don’t get bored. In RTS the same is true, but it must be done quickly so the player doesn’t get killed. Slow information is the norm in other genres (with the possible exception of first-person shooters) and that speed and complication of delivery won’t work in social games.

[Intensely Social]

Lots of games have been really great at gathering communities around them. In fact, it’s easy to argue that anything great naturally creates a community of fans around it. This is exceptionally true for RTS games – I’ve seen it happen from the front row. Perhaps it’s the intensity of the play or the skill required to play but the RTS genre has one of the most active and loyal fan bases in the world. Even 15 years ago, when we launched Command & Conquer, considerations for how to support the fan base with infrastructure were part of the game’s development. And those were the BBS days (pre-internet as we know it). Understanding and working with fans is part of advanced training for RTS designers. Those with such skills at Liquid have been applying them to the social games we’re working on, interfacing with fans and making the best of all the analytics we have access to.

[Approachable Play]

Once I was playing a console action game and was forced to leave it for a week. When I was able to get back to it, I couldn’t play it anymore. I was forced to restart from the beginning and as a result never got around to finishing the game. These games are linear difficulty progressions. Once you start, you don’t want to stop until you’re finished. RTS is different. In the space of 90 minutes or less you’ll have played an entire play session. Yes, there will be much more to the game, but the fundamentals repeat and each new session starts you in the same way as the last. The power of this is in the approachability. Because more of the learning is mental rather than muscle memory you lose it at a much slower rate. What this means is RTS is easier to come back to than something that is more dexterity-intensive like a shooter or action adventure title. When designing social games, approachability is a secret strength. If I can’t figure out what I was doing — or how — I’m going to stop playing.

[Conclusion]

It’s definitely ironic that one of the most hardcore genres in gaming lends itself so well to one of the least. To see how well a willing RTS designer can apply everything he’s learned to social games is a beautiful thing. It’s very natural. It makes me see games not as a linear scale but more of a circular continuum – a “Circle of Gaming,” if you will.

As a company with a long history of RTS development, it was wonderful to see our designers embrace social gaming and be able to apply their skillset right out of the gate. The compatibilities between the genres allowed us to properly understand and serve our new fans while introducing deeper game mechanics within socially accepted frameworks. So, when gamers are looking for a great game on Facebook, Google+ or smartphones, we’ll be there for them. (Source: Gamasutra)