Entries from February 2008 ↓

To be RPG, or not to be RPG

Using the label “MMO” (massively multiplayer online game, in case you didn’t already know) tends to give a lot of people preconceived expectations about Lila Dreams. Some of them are accurate: you will be online with a bunch of other fine folks, exploring, battling, and socializing in a persistent game world. But is Lila Dreams much of a role-playing game?

“RPG” (role-playing game) is another label that has a lot of expectations attached to it, and many people seem to have different ideas about what it actually means. I have never called the game an MMORPG, because to me it’s not exactly a role-playing game. There’s no linear, deep storyline for players to follow (there is some story, however). There are not gobs of stats to twiddle (there are a few, though). And there aren’t hundreds of quests to perform (but there will be plenty to do).

Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but let’s take a look at one area of the game that is kind of RPG-ish: the items.

You are what you equip

Without a level grind as a means to measure your character’s progress, I still want a way to give characters unique distinctions and different amounts of power and some sense of progression. One vehicle for that is equipment. There are a ton of properties that an item can increase, reduce, add, remove or apply conditionally. And all these various options are what will make the gameplay really deep.

If you are like me, you enjoy making tough decisions between two or more really great choices. It’s really compelling! I played this game called Iron Dukes, and in it you can outfit your ship’s crew with various items that give them various stat boosts. It turns out that this is really fun. In Lila Dreams, your options will be much more numerous and have many more possible effects. I still aim to keep simplicity in mind, but this is really the heart of character evolution, and it needs to be fairly rich. (Plus, I really enjoy complexity–my game designer Achilles Heel, perhaps?)

Each character will have some basic attributes (there are six). But once you determine them, they will not often change. Although, they can be modified by items, so they won’t often change permanently, but they can temporarily change from equipment modifiers.

These attributes and items will be applicable to all aspects of the game, not just combat. For instance, your attributes and equipment will affect gardening. I hope to spread the fun of the RPG elements across all the various activities in which a player can take part.

Now, this description of the game could lead into a very long discourse on the various equipment and options, which would segue into the combat mechanics and then veer back around to gardening mechanics where it would end with a heartfelt apology–but it’s still a bit premature for that. Therefore, I’ll leave you with some concept art and a song instead.

I guess that you, dear readers, mostly know that Lila Dreams will use the “free to play” business model, along with micro-transactions and some ads. This is a rather controversial thing in this day and age, so I want to describe our philosophy about how we will approach the thorns of this particular issue.

(If you don’t know what “micro-transactions” are, it simply means [in the context of our game] that you pay a small fee for in-game items and services, like buying a shirt or hat for your character or paying for an extra convenience in the game. If you’ve ever bought a ringtone for your phone or a song from iTunes, you’ve already used micro-transactions in other contexts.)

The controversy

It all began when lots of people played games like Everquest and World of Warcraft, and they merrily paid $15 per month for access to the game. (Nothing wrong with that! Subscriptions are nice.)

Meanwhile, over in Korea, where there’s an astronomical piracy rate because of obscenely fast Internet connections which I’m very envious of (don’t even talk to me about Japan’s broadband), they decided to use a different payment model in order to deter copying of their games. Why pirate something that’s already free to copy and share? They made their games free. But then they needed to eat, so they decided to charge money for items in the games.

It worked. The Korean people did grin, and there was much rejoicing. The pirates were outmaneuvered, and the game makers could continue their craft.

Back here in America (with our much, much, much, much, much, much, much slower Internet connections and lower but still annoying piracy rate), having seen that the Koreans were doing well and that offering a game for free with optional, small purchases gave players a lot of benefits, some companies gave it a try.

It kind of worked. But there was much gnashing of teeth and even some confusion from gamers who liked to pay their money each month instead of paying in small amounts whenever they felt like it or not at all. Meanwhile, many other folks bought songs, ringtones, and even some games for their iPods and cellphones using very small fees to pay for very small bits of content.

Some time has now passed, and the micro-transaction business model is getting better (it may even start to feel fine, eventually). But times are still dark for micro-transactions in games, and there is much work to be done.

Our philosophy

It’s not so much a philosophy as an experiment, but there are some guiding principles we intend to follow when determining how to structure the use of micro-transactions in Lila Dreams.

1. Thou shalt offer a full, compelling experience to he or she who wisheth not to pay at all, ever.

2. Thou shalt not charge for that which maketh the gameplay unbalanced.

5 3. Those things for which players chooseth to pay shalt be worthy and enhance the game experience.

To summarize, that means we want to give you a complete game experience even if you don’t buy anything. But (you knew it was coming, calm down) we want to offer very compelling reasons for you to pay which will enhance your experience in the game.

This turns out to be a really good business model for us, because Creatrix Games is a really small company. For one thing, it deters piracy. If our games get pirated, it really hits us hard because we don’t have the marketing reach to make up for it in volume of sales. For another thing, we can remove almost all the barriers to entry, things like the need to install a program to play the game (gone, we use Flash for the user interface); things like paying a monthly fee to play the game (gone, you can play all you want for free). Without those issues in the way, we can get more players to try the game.

It also turns out to have some benefits for players. There’s nothing to download, no CD keys to juggle and lose, no copy protection to annoy you. You can play on Windows, Mac or Linux, from anywhere that has a web browser and Flash 9. You don’t have to pay if you don’t feel compelled. You choose what you want to pay for based on the merit of the content. If our game sucks, you don’t lose any money finding out.

I will be revisiting this topic later, once we can unleash more details about the game itself and after we have figured out with more precision exactly the way we want to implement this. Hopefully the five three principles outlined above will set your mind at ease. We do not want to rip you off or force you to pay, but we have to balance that with earning enough to eat dinner so we can continue to make this game awesomer and awesomer!

And now for something completely different

Here’s some new concept art for you. (Click on it for full effect.) What is it? It’s the base of Lila’s Tower, with the city wrapping around it. Aren’t those little cliff homes cool? Good job, Greg!!

[This week I turn the blog over to our programming pugilist and technology architect, Neo, for an introduction to his world. --Jason]

While I don’t have the gift of the gab (or jabber) that Jason has, I will never the less try real hard not to bore anyone to death with sterile algorithms but instead regale all and sunder with marvelous tales of the trickery in the trenches of online game tech (and bore everyone to death with that instead).

I am where Jason’s dreams come to die, the graveyard for his creative darlings. Its up to me to push Jason and Greg to new levels of inspiration and creativity and then to murder their darlings by feeding them to the monsters of technical limitation.

But fear not, while we may not get to experience their bursts of illumination in their full spectrum, at least we will wring out every inch of what is technically possible.

Don’t read this as a lack of confidence, far from it, it is just that I am so blown away by the talent of these two lads that I wish I could transplant all their creations directly into everyones minds.

Now that I’ve thoroughly ingratiated myself with them I can get back to work on the tech so that I have something to say next week, same time, same place, same ole human race…

[Obligatory concept art image for the week is in the gallery.]

In case you missed it, I recently did an interview with Wired magazine’s game blog. They also scored a couple of exclusive concept art images, so go read the darn thing!

My first attempt at conceptualizing the world of Lila Dreams in terms of its geography was to sit down, and create a map. “Ok, this here, that next to it, and maybe over here this other place with this area in between.” It was fun–like when I was a kid and drew all those D&D maps!

But, that didn’t feel right. It felt too expected.

We’ve all played games where the geography is like real life, and you walk from point to point in a seamless transition from place to place. It’s pretty cool, but in a world where reality isn’t always solid ground, it didn’t seem like the most interesting choice. (And sometimes it’s boring to walk across 24 miles of empty landscape to reach a town.)

So, thought I, why stick with convention? Why can’t places be connected by doors that lead to points between areas that aren’t geographically logical? For instance, you might step through a door in a warm tropical forest and find yourself in an underground maze or on top of a giant beetle or in the picture of an advertisement in a magazine laying on someone’s living-room floor.

It gives us a good bit of flexibility to take players to exotic places without all the fuss necessary with that fancy “logic” stuff. The connections will persist; there will be a navigable and memorable geography, but it just won’t be like the kind of geography we’re used to. It’ll be more interesting and more fun. We can skip the boring parts!

There are four kinds of doors in the game.

1. Bedroom door. This is the primary kind of door, and it generally leads you to “normal” places like cities and landmarks.
2. Garden gate. There’s only one place this leads to, and that’s to your personal garden.
3. Schoolhouse door. Only the brave should venture through this door. It leads to the dangerous labyrinths, of which there are many types.
4. Asylum door. These only exist in a particularly wretched place called Dementra, and unspeakable horrors shamble therein.

Doors are not the only means of travel. But they are the most basic.