作者：psychochild

就像我之前所提到的，为了尝试新的Dungeon Maker系统，我重新回顾了《无尽的任务2》。今天我将在此详细阐述我最近的一些工作任务，以及《无尽的任务2 》的“Dungeon Maker”具有何种创造性？

我将详细分析这一特征，并且像往常一样我也必须做出申明：我当然理解为了延长游戏“寿命”而在游戏中添加一个全新的系统。我也意识到开发者为了做到这一点不得不应对各种各样的难题。当然了，我并不想贬低他们的工作，我只是想要对他们的特殊设计进行研究，也就是我希望能够花些时间深入分析那些没有多大成效的部分。

Dungeon Maker(from everquest2.com)

关注建造而非玩游戏

我曾经在之前的文章中讨论过在Dungeon Maker的地牢中玩游戏的情景。玩家最初在运行地牢时只拥有少量的怪物角色；并且为了达到平衡，游戏也不允许他们使用这些角色。运行地牢能够让他们所创造的角色获得经验值和货币奖励。当然了，在他们真正进入地牢之前他们并不知道自己能够获得什么；他们可能会认为这是一栋危险的建筑，走进去只会浪费时间，或者只会认为这是一个布局奇特的建筑罢了。

让我们进一步讨论如何建造一座地牢。

随机掉落物品

我发现的第一个问题便是我们面对的选择非常有限。在游戏初期我们能够选择的怪物只有半兽人和豺狼人，也就是Shattered Lands of Norrath中一些最平凡的敌人角色。除非你愿意付钱购买珍品版本（但是也未能添加多少内容），否则你能够选择的地牢元素便非常有限。这就意味着玩家最初所创造的地牢都极为相像。

当然了，玩家也可以选择在兑换商店花钱获得更多选择。如果你希望获得更多不同的怪物，你也可以通过杀死怪物而获得一些随机掉落的怪物（你也可以从拍卖系统中购买怪物，但是因为你不知道自己是否拥有这只怪物，所以这种拍卖行为对你来说也是一种冒险，你只能赌自己是花钱买些不需要的内容还是真正换得对有所帮助的内容）。就像我自己花时间创造了一个新的角色，并且我也获得了一些随机掉落的怪物，但是因为这些怪物仅限特定的角色使用，无法与我自己的角色共享（Dungeon Maker也就成了硬核玩家公会专有的特权）。

这就意味着玩家将很难区分自己与别人的地牢。

地牢推广

如果你找不到独特的内容凸显自己的地牢，你就需要思考其它方法去吸引别人进入你的地牢。就像我之前说过的，最受欢迎的地牢总是通过有趣的名称去吸引玩家而不是让自己徒有一个具有移情作用的名称。“易受骗的任务！”便是许多大受欢迎地牢都喜欢使用的名称。

还有一些人抱怨：地牢的排序总是取决于知名度。这就意味着受欢迎的地牢能够变得更抢手，而新手们却只能不断努力才有可能勉强加入其中。就像在我刚刚建起自己的地牢时根本就没有人愿意前来尝试。我也曾经尝试着为其进行营销宣传，但是与绝大多数独立营销一样，这种做法没有多大成效。当然也有些人采取了更加有效的方法；就像级别较高的制造者所言，只要自己创建的地牢获得足够支持率，他/她愿意不惜任何代价制造更多大受欢迎的道具。但是很遗憾的是，我的角色级别太低，还不足以提供更多有益的道具。

装饰而非设计

而真正的地牢建造过程又是怎样的？老实讲，比起游戏设计，这更像是地牢装饰过程。因为我们可以在地牢中放置各种物体，怪物等。如此看来当玩家在建造自己的地牢时似乎并没有太多的创造性选择。但是很明显的是，地牢装饰者就像是房屋装饰工具的延伸，只不过他们更侧重于装饰而非设计。

我希望为我的地牢创造一些小故事。基于游戏初期的半兽人和豺狼人，我创造了一个关于豺狼人袭击半兽人要塞的小故事；即我只要通过描写怪物所面对的情景（向内攻击豺狼人，向外防卫半兽人）并为这些怪物命名即可。

但是我却很难将这一故事想法传达给玩家。因为关于怪物的这一内容看起来像是随机触发的（即不够紧凑），所以我很难保证玩家穿梭于地牢中时是否能够完整地体会到这个故事。并且我们也不能在游戏中安插NPC与玩家进行沟通（游戏邦注：除非是在战斗场景中）。我们只能在地牢中使用几种道具；最普遍的是使用“玩家可编辑的书籍”进行故事描绘。而这也大大限制了我们与其他玩家之间的交流。如此我们便清楚那些大受欢迎的地牢看重的是赚取更多资源而不是讲述一个有趣的故事。

传达地牢信息

但是，真正让我郁闷的是当我操纵着新角色穿梭于一些较低级别的地牢时发现，这些地牢其实与那些较受欢迎的地牢没有多大区别。地牢中也有一些NPC在向你传达任务，除此之外地牢中主要充斥着各种你需要想办法消灭的怪物。也许你的目标是杀死X敌人或点击macguffin，但不管怎样这些任务都与找到玩家建造的地牢出口没有多大差别。并且通常情况下玩家也总是会忽视NPC所提供的地牢信息。所以对于地牢建造者来说最让他们头痛的便是难以向“外部世界”传达自己的地牢信息。

不过不管怎样，《无尽的任务2》都是一款问世7年之久的有趣的游戏。而现在的MMO又是怎样呢？我们是否能够在游戏中整合更多故事元素，或者我们是否能够整合桌面RPG元素？当我们在致力于开发自己的游戏项目时，这些我们都需要着重考虑的问题。

（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）

Being a game decorator

As I wrote before, I went back to EverQuest 2 with the intention of trying out the new Dungeon Maker system. I figured I might expand upon some of my thoughts particularly as I look at what I am doing in my current work. How does EQ2′s Dungeon Maker get the creative juices flowing?

I’m going to dissect this feature a bit, and as usual I want to give the standard caveats: I really do understand what it takes to add a whole new system like this to a game getting long in the tooth. I realize that there are a lot of issues the developers had to deal with to even make this possible. I don’t intend to demean their work, but I want to take a look at the specific design and that means that I’ll spend a bit of time looking at the parts that don’t quite work the way I might prefer.

A look at making instead of playing

I discussed what it was like to play the dungeon maker dungeons in that previous post. You had an initially limited number of monster characters you could play with while running the dungeons; you aren’t (currently) allowed to use your own characters, likely for balancing reasons. Running the dungeons gives you experience and currency rewards for the character you initiated the dungeon with. Of course, you don’t know exactly what you’re getting into before diving into a dungeon; it could be a deathtrap or an impossible layout intended to merely waste your time, or it could be a wonderful layout.

But, let’s look at what it takes to actually make a dungeon.

Randomly catching them all

The first issue I found was the severe limitations on what I could do. My initial selections for monsters were mostly orcs and gnolls, rather common and really rather mundane enemies in the Shattered Lands of Norrath. Unless you shelled out for the collector’s edition (which didn’t add much), you had a very limited selection of dungeon optionns. This means that everyone looking to make a dungeon initially is going to have a dungeon that looks a lot like every other starter dungeon out there.

Of course, you can also pay for more options in the cash shop. If you want a wider variety of monsters, you can also collect them by killing monsters and getting random drops. (You can also buy the monsters from the auction system, but you have no indication if you already have the monster in your collection, so it becomes a gamble if that monster is one you need or if you’re wasting money on buying something you already have.) As I’ve been taking my time working up a new character, I’ve been getting a fair number of monster drops, but the monsters are restricted to the individual character so they are not sharable between my own characters. (Anyway, the Dungeon Maker is restricted to people in the hard-core guild, as it’s from the most recent expansion.)

This means that you have a problem with differentiating your dungeons from others.

Dungeon marketing

Without content to set you apart, that means you have to rely on other ways to get people to try out your dungeon. This means that our dreaded enemy marketing appears on the scene. As I said in my previous post, the most popular dungeons used the name as a way to appeal to people rather than being an interesting name to get you in the mood. “Easy mark grind!” was a common sentiment in the names of most popular dungeons.

That’s the other complaint: the dungeons are ordered by popularity. This means that the popular dungeons tend to become more popular, and a newcomer has to work hard to join. As far as I can tell, nobody has even tried out my dungeon in all the time it’s been available. I’ve only done a tiny bit of marketing for it (I mentioned it at a special get-together organized by the guides to talk about the dungeons), but like most indie marketing it’s been not particularly productive. There are others that have done a much better job; one high level crafter said he/she would make certain desirable items at no cost if his/her dungeon got enough positive votes. My character that is not at max level doesn’t have quite as much to offer, sadly.

Decoration instead of design

But, what of the actual process of making a dungeon? Honestly, it’s less like game design and more like dungeon decoration. I have a bunch of objects I can place, a bunch of monsters I can place… and that’s about it. It doesn’t feel like a player would have a lot of creative options available to make a dungeon. The dungeon decorator as an extension of the wonderful house decoration tools is obvious, even if it seems to put a focus on decoration instead of design.

As I mentioned briefly in the previous post, I wanted to make a little story to go along with my dungeon. Using the initial assortment of orcs and gnolls, I made a little story about the gnolls raiding an orc stronghold; this was mostly done by how the monsters are facing (invading gnolls toward the inside of the dungeon, defending orcs toward the outside), and naming the monsters. (Tediously, one by one.)

But, there’s no way to communicate this idea of an invasion directly to the player. The text “barks” a monster can give seem to be randomly triggered, so there’s no guarantee that they will communicate anything to the player on a particular run through of the dungeon. You can’t place an NPC to interact with the player, only to fight. Only a few items can be used in the dungeon; notably player-editable books that some people have used to tell stories. But, this limitation on interaction really limits the meaningful ways you can communicate with the player. So, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that the most popular dungeons are almost entirely about earning resources rather than telling an interesting story.

As outside, so inside

But, something struck me as I was going through a few of the low-level dungeons with my new character: this isn’t that much different than may of the existing dungeons. Sure, you might have a few NPCs that give out quests, but for the most part the dungeons are mostly filled with monsters that you need to destroy. Maybe you have some objective to kill X enemies or click on some macguffin, but that’s only slightly different than the goal of finding the exit of a player-made dungeon. The text given by the NPC that sent you to the dungeon is probably ignored more often than not. So, is the dungeon maker really crippled when held up to the rest of the world?

But, does this have to be the case? EQ2 is a fun enough game, but it was released a little more than 7 years ago. What more can we do with MMOs now? Can we incorporate more elements of real storytelling in games, perhaps approaching the long-standing dream of some people by incorporating some elements of tabletop RPGs? As we work on our project, these are some of the issues we keep in mind.

Aspirations beyond decoration

So, what do you think? Is storytelling a fertile area for us to explore? Or is MMO storytelling destined to be ignored and skipped? Is the dream of bringing tabletop RPG type stories to people worthwhile? Or is there something else that will tickle the creativity of the players in these games?(source:psychochild)