First up, what do I mean by linear zone progression? Generally, it is tied to a level-based progression system. Each zone is declared as being for a certain level range (say, 10-20). Enemies and quests you find in this area will be of appropriate levels, and once a player has finished most (or all) of the quests, they move on to the next zone. If a player's level is lower than the levels proscribed for the zone, enemies will wipe the floor with them. If said player is over the proscribed level, the enemies will be extremely easy, and have very little in the way of rewards.
Linear zone design is a practice of many popular MMOs, easily one of the more recognizable and quantifiable attributes of the "traditional" MMO model. Oddly, even many of the more innovative MMOs follow this design. It seems to be that if you have a level based progression system, linear zone progression seems to follow. But does this have to be the case? To answer this question, we really need to examine why designers would want to stick with this design.
The answer, when you get right down to it, is time. And, as proven by Math™, Time = Money. "But how does this method save time and the almighty dollar?", you ask (or maybe you don't. I don't know). Well, let us count the ways!
1. Tried and True
Other games have already perfected this method, and if a company can save a month or two of hashing out different game methods, implementing them, finding problems, looping back through the design process, and so on, that is a lot of money saved. I'm sure that investors also like the idea of a surer, if less innovative, design.
2. Works well with other traditional designs
The idea of giving enemies levels similar to player levels is very common. Also common is scattering them about your world for players to encounter. However, if you were not using the linear zone model, you have no guarantee that a player will be of a certain level in any given zone. What level enemies should you put there, then? The two options I have seen used thus far are to either use a completely instanced based world, or to ditch the level-based system (EvE does the latter fairly well). All in all, a non-trivial problem.
3. Enemy group design
Often, zones are designed with a certain theme in mind, and themed enemy groups to go with them. Though I will probably tackle enemy group design as a whole at some point, an important point to understand is that lower level enemies are designed to be weaker than higher level enemies than just by having less hitpoints and less damage. To save on spending time designing and testing every enemy group for all level ranges, enemy groups often exist only in certain level ranges (Hellions in City Of Heroes, for example, do not exist above level 14 or so). If a designer wanted an enemy group for a zone in a non-linear environment with a traditional leveling system, the enemies would have to cover the full level range of the game, instead of just a small part of it.
4. World Story
There is a common smoke-and-mirrors tactic used to draw players into a world, and attempt to make the world feel as if it is changing, even though it is not. Having a linear zone progression allows for a consistent story to be developed over a character's progression to the level cap, tying in the various zones they visit along the way. Remove the linear zone progression, and tying the zones together to the world story becomes much harder.
"Ok, ok! You've convinced me!" you say. "Why would I, a potential MMO developer, ever want to use a non-linear zone design?" "Simple," says I. "Non-linear zones excel when..." Hah! Got you! This is only part one!
(What? You knew that? Oh... I guess the post title did give it away a bit.)
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment