There is a quest in the new World of Warcraft expansion where you have to torture a prisoner for information. This has caused some consternation, specifically by Richard Bartle here and here.
It probably won't surprise you to know I think he's dead wrong.
See, any quest in Warcraft can be declined simply by clicking the 'decline' button when offered it. In practice, you rarely do this as you're in the mentality of doing all quests possible for the rewards. In this case, ignoring this quests will also mean you miss out on around ten other quests that follow on, and their rewards too. But bear in mind there are nearly 1000 quests in the expansion and that's not a big deal.
Bartle says "I was expecting for there to be some way to tell the guy who gave you the quest that no, actually I don't want to torture a prisoner, but there didn't seem to be any way to do that...without some reward for saying no, this is a fiction-breaking quest of major proportions."
It's an interesting point. Even though there's a mechanic for abandoning or declining the quest built into the game, Bartle feels this specific quest should have an additional option where you can tell the guy "No thanks" and then presumably get rewarded with the same amount of XP and the ability to progress in the quest chain by another character that commends you for your restraint.
It's the approach taken in most games where there is a good/evil dichotomy with your choices, most notably and recently in Bioshock, where you can choose either kill the little girls for the 'Adam' you need to get new powers, or save them. If you take the latter option you get around the same amount of Adam from another NPC as a reward later on. So there's no real tough decision there. It comes down to: are you a bastard or are you a nice guy? Most people take the nice guy route, because there are no consequences to doing so.
The quest in Warcraft works differently. It offers a genuine choice. The sort of choice Bioshock liked to pretend it was offering. You can opt not to take the quest, but if you do you don't benefit at all, no-one mentions it, the quest-giver stays there waiting for you to change your mind and you never discover the information that will lead you to the next part of the quest-chain.
Bartle thinks we should be rewarded for taking that option, for taking the high road. The quest designers at Blizzard clearly disagree. They take the more realistic option. Because in real life often you won't get rewarded and patted on the back for taking the nice-guy route. Most often it'll go entirely un-noticed, as it does here.
The reality in this case is that a lot of players will do the quest without thinking about it, a fair few more will do it while finding it a little unsettling, while only a minority will decide not to do it at all. Even Bartle himself, for all his posturing, admitted to going ahead and completing the quest.
And that's why this quest is a brilliant piece of design and far from flawed. If offers a genuine choice: torture and reap the rewards, or walk away and get nothing. Bartle's proposed changes to reward walking-away would destroy the whole point of it.
Friday 5 December 2008
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Why 25th November should play Guitar Hero
SK Gaming and Nihilum have got together and already beaten "all" the current PvE content in Wrath of the Lich King. I'll explain why "all" is in inverted comments in another post later on. Sure one can say they have no lives but hey they can do whatever they want. What bothers me is the reaction to this, bought about by a statement on their website claiming that this means the content is too easy, with those that agree citing the fact that the original WoW and Burning Crusade content wasn't beat as quickly as evidence for this. The blame for this, of course, allegedly lies at the feet of the 'casual' gamer that wants things to be easier.
Let us consider:
There are two elements to 'difficulty' in World of Warcraft:
First there is mechanical difficulty. Simply put: how hard is the fight in terms of everyone having to press the right buttons at the right time in sync with each other? It's what every raid encounter boils down to. 25Nov are hugely accomplished at this whole raiding thing. Mechanistically, these fights will be easy for them. The only roadblock could be a new mechanic not used before, that has to be figured out. But that would have been done in beta.
The second sort of difficulty is the artificial difficulty. The cock-block, to use the colloquialism. Blizzard could make Malygos require every bit of loot from Naxx for raiders to have a chance. They could throw a resistance fight in there to block progress until people level trade skills and farm heroics and mats. Or require raid stacking (Naxx 40 Four Horseman) so guilds couldn't raid until they had 7 warriors at 80. Or for a brilliant kick in the teeth, have one Naxx fight *need* a given Death Knight ability. Or two. Or make everyone run all the heroics for attunement. And so on.
None of these methods make the actual encounter harder. They just create artificial barriers to progress. It's something that has long been moaned about: just think back to TBC and the 'hardcore' guilds were again moaning about having to run Kara groups to gear people up for the 25-mans. We could have had Naxx 25 require full sets of gear from Naxx 10 (like it was in TBC with Kara -> Maggy/SSC/TK) but the 'hardcore' said they really didn't want that.
The so called 'hardcore' also said that they had worked hard for thier Tier 6 gear and didn't want to replace it with quest greens like in TBC. So instead Blizzard made it so that the best raiding gear from TBC would work as entry-level raiding gear in LK.
Everything Blizzard did here was to cater to the requests of the 'hardcore'. The self-styled elite. They are so 'elite' they didn't want to have to do long attunements, farm ten different instances for gear, and progress from 10 to 25 man raids. They wanted to get right in with those 25-man raids as soon as they hit level 80.
This is what they asked for folks. No gear reset. No level-playing field. They wanted the advantages their prior accomplishments gave them.
Now, part of the blame does fall on Blizzard catering to the 'casuals'. Rather than be on par with Karazhan, the 10-man Naxx is slightly easier. And 25-man Naxx is slightly easier than Gruul. This is understood. The bar is starting off a little bit lower. Purely to cater to the casual gamer. Point conceded.
This does not, however, explain the vast drop in difficulty that hardcore TBC guilds are claiming they are experiencing in current raid content.
To understand this, we turn to the obvious reference point: Guitar Hero. I loved the first Guitar Hero. I played that game to death. And it had this beautifully conceived difficulty curve. I started on easy, got used to the game and the mechanics, then moved onto medium where "Take Me Out" provides the first real challenge of the game, with latter songs introducing more and more new elements, new ways in which you have to move your fingers. Then hard throws in a fifth fret and again you're thrown but you get the hang of it. I personally didn't make it any further, but the game lasted me ages, going through each difficulty level in turn, getting better and better.
Guitar Hero 2: I load it up, stick it on hard and beat most songs first go. The last tier present a bit more of a challenge but everything else was just repeating what I'd learned on new songs. There were no new mechanics. Sure, it was fun to play to different tunes but I'd done it before. The joy of learning and improving was gone. But obviously a game that picked up in difficulty where the first one left off would have very limited appeal.
And so, after that tortured metaphor, we come to WoW raiding. Those that raided for the first time in TBC probably found Karazhan pretty tough. Going back now, it seems easy. "Because we have better gear," you cry. And you are party right. But it's also because you play better. Were I to take a group of raiders that cleared Sunwell, stick them back in pre-nerf Kara with the same gear they had when they first went in, they'd walk it. Because they have become better players.
But despite their protestations at being the 'best', ironically enough the 'hardcore' often fail to realise just how good they are. Remember: two types of difficulty. If you are a great raider you know your class inside out, and you know the fight mechanics inside out. That first sort of difficulty will pose no challenge and should pose no challenge. Because these are the introductory raids, they really aren't made for the self-styled 'hardcore'. They're made for people that don't know what to do. Put succintly: Ben Folds wouldn't have any problem playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" with his eyes closed, but you wouldn't teach someone piano by having them learn the "One Angry Dwarf" solo.
So instead we are left with the option for artificially difficulty: resistance fights, heavy and regular gear checks, the need for raid stacking. Does anyone really want this? Is it fun in any way, shape or form?
People in guilds like Nihilum and SK Gaming need to realise that in their attempts to be the very best WoW raiders in the world, they have succeeded. They are on top. Their skills are unmatched. And as such, nothing Blizzard throws at them will really pose a challenge. Not without making it either impossible for everyone else, or just utterly ridiculous in it's requirements (how about: no entry to this raid without a minimum of 10,000 achievement points?)
Gratz guys, you won the game. Lonely at the top innit?
No-one wants the later sort of difficulty. Because it requires little effort or skill, just time (and to some extent luck with drops).
Let us consider:
There are two elements to 'difficulty' in World of Warcraft:
First there is mechanical difficulty. Simply put: how hard is the fight in terms of everyone having to press the right buttons at the right time in sync with each other? It's what every raid encounter boils down to. 25Nov are hugely accomplished at this whole raiding thing. Mechanistically, these fights will be easy for them. The only roadblock could be a new mechanic not used before, that has to be figured out. But that would have been done in beta.
The second sort of difficulty is the artificial difficulty. The cock-block, to use the colloquialism. Blizzard could make Malygos require every bit of loot from Naxx for raiders to have a chance. They could throw a resistance fight in there to block progress until people level trade skills and farm heroics and mats. Or require raid stacking (Naxx 40 Four Horseman) so guilds couldn't raid until they had 7 warriors at 80. Or for a brilliant kick in the teeth, have one Naxx fight *need* a given Death Knight ability. Or two. Or make everyone run all the heroics for attunement. And so on.
None of these methods make the actual encounter harder. They just create artificial barriers to progress. It's something that has long been moaned about: just think back to TBC and the 'hardcore' guilds were again moaning about having to run Kara groups to gear people up for the 25-mans. We could have had Naxx 25 require full sets of gear from Naxx 10 (like it was in TBC with Kara -> Maggy/SSC/TK) but the 'hardcore' said they really didn't want that.
The so called 'hardcore' also said that they had worked hard for thier Tier 6 gear and didn't want to replace it with quest greens like in TBC. So instead Blizzard made it so that the best raiding gear from TBC would work as entry-level raiding gear in LK.
Everything Blizzard did here was to cater to the requests of the 'hardcore'. The self-styled elite. They are so 'elite' they didn't want to have to do long attunements, farm ten different instances for gear, and progress from 10 to 25 man raids. They wanted to get right in with those 25-man raids as soon as they hit level 80.
This is what they asked for folks. No gear reset. No level-playing field. They wanted the advantages their prior accomplishments gave them.
Now, part of the blame does fall on Blizzard catering to the 'casuals'. Rather than be on par with Karazhan, the 10-man Naxx is slightly easier. And 25-man Naxx is slightly easier than Gruul. This is understood. The bar is starting off a little bit lower. Purely to cater to the casual gamer. Point conceded.
This does not, however, explain the vast drop in difficulty that hardcore TBC guilds are claiming they are experiencing in current raid content.
To understand this, we turn to the obvious reference point: Guitar Hero. I loved the first Guitar Hero. I played that game to death. And it had this beautifully conceived difficulty curve. I started on easy, got used to the game and the mechanics, then moved onto medium where "Take Me Out" provides the first real challenge of the game, with latter songs introducing more and more new elements, new ways in which you have to move your fingers. Then hard throws in a fifth fret and again you're thrown but you get the hang of it. I personally didn't make it any further, but the game lasted me ages, going through each difficulty level in turn, getting better and better.
Guitar Hero 2: I load it up, stick it on hard and beat most songs first go. The last tier present a bit more of a challenge but everything else was just repeating what I'd learned on new songs. There were no new mechanics. Sure, it was fun to play to different tunes but I'd done it before. The joy of learning and improving was gone. But obviously a game that picked up in difficulty where the first one left off would have very limited appeal.
And so, after that tortured metaphor, we come to WoW raiding. Those that raided for the first time in TBC probably found Karazhan pretty tough. Going back now, it seems easy. "Because we have better gear," you cry. And you are party right. But it's also because you play better. Were I to take a group of raiders that cleared Sunwell, stick them back in pre-nerf Kara with the same gear they had when they first went in, they'd walk it. Because they have become better players.
But despite their protestations at being the 'best', ironically enough the 'hardcore' often fail to realise just how good they are. Remember: two types of difficulty. If you are a great raider you know your class inside out, and you know the fight mechanics inside out. That first sort of difficulty will pose no challenge and should pose no challenge. Because these are the introductory raids, they really aren't made for the self-styled 'hardcore'. They're made for people that don't know what to do. Put succintly: Ben Folds wouldn't have any problem playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" with his eyes closed, but you wouldn't teach someone piano by having them learn the "One Angry Dwarf" solo.
So instead we are left with the option for artificially difficulty: resistance fights, heavy and regular gear checks, the need for raid stacking. Does anyone really want this? Is it fun in any way, shape or form?
People in guilds like Nihilum and SK Gaming need to realise that in their attempts to be the very best WoW raiders in the world, they have succeeded. They are on top. Their skills are unmatched. And as such, nothing Blizzard throws at them will really pose a challenge. Not without making it either impossible for everyone else, or just utterly ridiculous in it's requirements (how about: no entry to this raid without a minimum of 10,000 achievement points?)
Gratz guys, you won the game. Lonely at the top innit?
No-one wants the later sort of difficulty. Because it requires little effort or skill, just time (and to some extent luck with drops).
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