The second talk I saw at GDC was Rob Pardo’s Rules of Engagement: Blizzard’s Approach to Multiplayer Game Design. Rob Pardo is a name I recognize as a frequent reader of WoW Insider. He’s Blizzard’s Senior Vice President of Game Design, and a frequent voice to the press on what is going on with World of Warcraft. But all my opinions of him were tainted by the non-objective reporting of WoW Insider and from actually reading the WoW Forums.
I love WoW. I’d hope I do considering I’ve been playing it for 2 and a half years. I write about it, I talk about it frequently, and I’d have to say it’s been my most consistent de-stress outlet for these last few years. But we all love to hate it as well. WoW Insider frequently has posts that hate on Blizzard for their choices, for their “nerfs”, for design changes they don’t understand (and I don’t either). And I’ve gotten so wrapped up in that, I forgot how much I respect Blizzard in the first place for making some of my all time favorite games (I loved Starcraft and Diablo 2 back in their time as well). Not to bash WoW Insider, but they frequently bring info from the WoW forums, not the most calm place to gather your information.
This talk made it clear that Rob Pardo is an intelligent and articulate guy who really knows the ins and outs of Blizzard’s games. It reminded me that Blizzard isn’t some faceless corporate entity anymore than my current employer is - it’s made up of many people all pouring their hearts into games they’re passionate about. But enough of my editorializing, what did he talk about, you’re probably wondering! His talk referenced mostly World of Warcraft and Starcraft, with a smattering of Warcraft 2/3 and other people’s games thrown in.
Do the multiplayer game first, and the single player game next
Multiplayer games have more constraints. If you aren’t thinking about game balance and what happens when the game is released you’ll find yourself in a position where you have to rip out all sorts of game systems. This applies hugely to RTS games, like Starcraft. If you aren’t thinking about how the races will play against each other you could design systems that won’t work when you pit players against each other. Interestingly enough, I saw a talk that Soren Johnson gave at GDC last year about developing Civilization 4 and he said the same thing - they started with the multiplayer to make sure they really balanced the game systems against each other properly.
MP divides into PvP and Co-op
There are different things to think about between the two. For Player vs. Player games (like Starcraft) balance is critical. It’s not nearly as important in a cooperative game. If your game is unbalanced in PvP it will fail. Skill differentiation is a must, as the game needs to have competitive aspects so that players can get better as they gain skill and knowledge. Ladders and rankings are also a must.
For cooperative games, communication methods are really important. Voice chat, instant messaging, whatever it takes. If players can’t communicate well they can’t play effectively together. This goes beyond just chat, as an example from WoW raid leaders need mechanics to communicate targets. Designing your game with complementary classes in mind is key. For Warcraft 3 they tried to think about how the races would play with each other. How would a co-op matchup play out with a player choosing Orcs and another Humans? This is even more important in an MMO so players can act as a team and build different group compositions to have an interesting experience.
Next Rob talked about the idea of Non-combat PvP. Player’s compete with each other in ways other than just trying to kill. Economy was his first example. For WoW, they actually set up the Auction House explicitly in such a way as to allow for interesting gameplay. People asked for proxy bidding for the AH, which is like ebay bidding - the player sets the highest price they’re willing to pay and the game will bid up to that if other bids come in. But they wanted more gameplay to the AH so that if people wanted to be “merchants” and spend their time in the cities working the AH they could gain a benefit. He then threw out a nod to another MMO to say that EVE Online goes to extraordinary lengths to have interesting economy, but didn’t go into any detail. He flitted through some other examples like politics and racing, where people aren’t directly competing with each other, they’re competing to get the best time. In WoW, people have created a race to get to the max level quickest, all on their own. He also threw dating out though he joked “this can turn into combat PvP.”
Rob delineated different types of PvP Skill Differentiation. What was interesting to me is that I’ve heard people complain about a lot of these features and try to design them away. It was fascinating to hear that Blizzard embraces these as gameplay aspects. First up was Twitch/Micromanagement. He said that you need something to let players differentiate their skills. Starcraft is a twitch RTS. Multitasking is another critical RTS skill. The big question is how much time do you spend at your base versus how much time in battle. He talked about how he’s seen people try to design this away by automating base but you’re eliminating a skill differentiation. Some other skills mentioned were: Economy dominance (RTS), Knowledge of opposings clases and races (useful for all genres), meaning the more you know of how the game plays, the more you can use that skill. Map Knowledge (all) and finally Avatar improvement (MMO). He caveatted this last one and said it is not always a great example. Gear and time invested make you a better player, but it’s not a skill differentiator.
This post is already too long so I’m going to cut it of here. I’ll return with part two of my notes and more on this talk. Sorry if it’s too much detail but I thought it was a really interesting talk!