... is a horrible way to manage any meaningful MMO.
Now, there are plenty of players out there who don't look for deep meaning in their computer games, massively multiplayer or not. But in too many of those published to date, there is little to support their competitive nature beyond "I have the most points, therefore I win". Things got a little livelier when they introduced "things you could get for points", but this backfires in two ways: firstly, roughly equal or even better gear can be had from other sources, such as raids and rare drops, or via factional purchases; the second is that this gear typically costs a hell of a lot of said points, and by the time you can afford a full set they've raised the level cap, or redone PvP statistics, or made a points-having system effectively meaningless some other way. Though by nature most MMOs incorporate competitive aspects (only a few out there, like Puzzle Pirates, are geared towards full cooperation), it would be nice to have a little something more to go on than "I have the most points, therefore I win".
Points, at their most basic level, keep track of things. They represent things like faction standing, players defeated, rounds won, nifty little trinkets accumulated, etc. Using numbers to represent abstract things is pretty common in any game, and perhaps especially in RPGs, where we have to keep track of things like personal relationships, morality, and our place in the world. In MMOs, you can frequently judge a players' experience and worth simply by the numbers associated with them; generally the higher the number, the better and more experienced the player. Unless these points count for something more than.. themselves... though, I don't really see the point of keeping track of them at all. Simply having a higher number next to your name does not make you a better or more experienced player. In a faster-paced MMO, such as Blacklight: Retribution, high numbers mean very little if you come up against a player who has more practical skill or has a weapon better suited to the current situation. (Damn those burstfire rifles!) Used in this role, as simple recording devices, points have a function, if not much actual use.
Points that have a secondary fuction as a separate form of currency (usually one that you can't trade or otherwise cash in except in very limited circumstances) are slightly more useful, but also tend to have a certain arbitrariness about them. The scales go from a points in the singles to points in the thousands on any given accumulation (such as killing another player-character in PvP) to spending (such as buying a piece of faction gear). Points as separate currency systems also never seem to take into account the fact that you could, theoretically, in a "real" world MMO, just buy the damn things with real currency. As it stands, points used as currency tend to be extremely closely aligned with a system of grinding or farming, doubling a player's workload because different kinds of points are not interchangeable.
But then we come across a game like EVE Online, where the only points worth having are universal, tradable, act as currency, and act as a measure of a player's worth: ISK. As far as points systems go, the ISK system is a workable one; one ISK is as good as another ISK, and all players can theoretically obtain as much ISK as they desire for more-or-less equal work. ("Equal" being determined by the amount of ISK you're paid for doing something. A little cyclical, but there you have it.) Even here, however, ISK is merely a representation of something that is much more abstract, and in fact can confuse the issue sometimes because it is universal. "He has a billion ISK" doesn't tell you where he got it, what he's going to spend it on, or anything else about the player besides "He has a billion ISK". (Though much of the competitive action in EVE Online is finding out what your rivals are going to spend their ISK on.) I have yet to play EVE Online's "endgame", but from my limited experience with the game, the purpose is to get ISK. Even if you're a badass pirate or a cunning CEO, nobody knows or cares unless you have the ISK profits to back it up. This is, fundamentally, points for points' sake.
To introduce meaning into an MMO, then, it seems like the best way to is to do without points altogether. In the WODMMO, the only truly meaningful points should be experience points - and even then, simply giving one player a number - "I have spent 100 XP" - doesn't tell them much about you. Points to represent even more abstract features of the game, such as social relationships, sect standing, or proximity to the Beast, can be done (see my "Nature and Demeanor" blog, as well as several of my fellow bloggers' blogs), but even so it would feel a little forced and a little campy. Even using the idea outlined in "Nature and Demeanor", this tells you very little about how one player truly feels about another - their characters may love or loathe one another, but that doesn't really stop players from cooperating with or bagging on one another where it counts, especially for players not concerned with maintaining an integrity of role-playing.
Points, then, seem more than a little superfluous in a politically complex system, where alliances are meant to shift and change overnight, and a player's worth isn't measured so strictly and neatly as a kill-count. Money - currency - one kind of point measurement - is good; I am 99.99999999% certain we will be seeing money in the game. (But wouldn't it be something if we went with a truly "paperless" MMO?) But judging a Cainite's worth according to their pocketbook amounts to suicidal foolishness when you consider the dirt-poor Gangrel elder who eats Lupines for breakfast, or the equally dirt-poor Nosferatu who can buy or sell any given player through information blackmail and favormongering. You could even have a dirt-poor Toreador or Tremere who still gets invited to the best parties because they are excellent social pollinators and/or are practically useful because of their mastery of Disciplines.
For this kind of game, then, it seems better to do without a forced and obvious points system, at least for most things. Far better, I think, to let players determine their own meanings through play, and consider what is important to the needs of their individual character, instead of the arbitrary needs of some NPC who - though they give out the best armor in the game - doesn't satisfy a player's desire for recognition, respect, and yes, fear. Let the "Kindred grapevine" grow and flower according to a much more adaptive and organic system, one that can change to suit the needs of a given group of players, who perhaps respect physical prowess more than mental prowess; or who perhaps need a locksmith more than they need yet another "tank". Let a player's worth be determined by their character's skill and power, and how they choose to wield that power. Deciding whether or not to trust another player with your childe's life based on their "Trustworthiness Points" can and should be a really excellent way of trimming down your own lineage. To give meaning back to an MMO, we need to take out a few little points first.
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NemaN
263 days ago
You thought inside the box, most of those features implemented in MMOs are not good neither attractive for WoD and VTM lore. I think there won't be that system of points.
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NemaN
263 days ago
BTW, I should add, Blood could be used for some of those things you're concerned, even though, I suppose it won't work like a currency to buy items, guns, etc. And if the Sandbox will be an interesting part of WoD, then, things like rankings will be nothing but official lists and most player won't pay attention to them at all. I still hope they won't be added. Oh, I've forgotten to type 2 words on my previous comment: "those features implemented in MMOs are not good, neither 'are they' attractive".
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1 Merits
HfxTenor
273 days ago
Great article, Rick! But what about Blood Points? It seems like they're going to be integral to the MMO, considering all the talk of an "economy of blood". Sounds like Blood Points will be important to the socio-political game as much as to fueling Discplines and such
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1 Merits
273 days ago
Blood Points can be kept to a small scale; it's not necessary to see it on a 1-100 scale like we saw in VTM - Redemption. Blood can't become an all-out "currency" without screwing with the setting and possibly falling into the same situation as EVE Online and ISK. In fact, the fewer Blood Points we get, the MORE valuable they will become to an individual player; if you only get 10-15 to spend, instead of 100-200, you're suddenly on the lookout for blood a lot more, and much more careful in spending the ones you have. ---- As long as blood for blood's sake isn't the point of the game - blood as a means, not a pure end (even if we are vampires) - then we can still spend as much effort as "real" vampires do acquiring and keeping it.
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2 Merits
Bloodartist
274 days ago
I just read an article on a gaming magazine about US gamers. According to the article American players are shortsighted, have short attention span, expect to win and want instant gratification. The current design trend in games is to offer 'achievements' or points or whatever from even the smallest little things to appease these kind of people. I guess it makes sense from a design point of view, but I don't like it personally. That said, I am a European.. One of the best ideas in vampire the masquerade:bloodlines was that you didn't gain xp as such, but were rewarded with points only after accomplishing an objective. This meant that you could achieve that objective with a variety of different ways and have the same reward. Not like in say, deus ex human revolution: "stealthily stun every enemy on the map to get maximum number of xp". Granted, this propably doesn't concern WoD MMO much if its going to be a CCP-style resource-centric game, but I wanted to say it.
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274 days ago
Alright, I tried to respond to this reply, but I got going and started writing a whole new blog. I'll save that for next week, when I'll do "Points for Points' Sake, Redux".
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1 Merits
JustFiyen
275 days ago
I personally have been thinking that there should be none, to almost no "numbers/points" or other wise "telling" things about what the player has been doing or how strong they are. You shouldn't see what Generation they are, or how many dots are in your attributes (or whatever, however that will work. I hope it works like the table top character sheets. Hope we can choose merits/flaws specific derangements ect...anyway off topic.) Not seeing these thing in the game, unlike other games allow you to, will make it more dangerous to attack at random because you feel like it. You need to be careful. You can't say: "I'm level ___ and your weaker than me. Or I have____ points and your weaker than me." You can't even be sure that because you have a lot of strength you can beat them. They could be faster, stronger, smarter...or they could be a Malkavian who knew you were coming and saw you with Auspex though the wall before you even thought of attacking. You don't know. (Also, clan should not be shown to all either....for somewhat of the same reasons.) Not knowing can make people more cautious, and all the more aware that they might not want to piss of someone who could possibly be stronger and they just don't know it. Bottom line, I hope people won't know your stats unless you open your trap about em'. Would make the experience deeper and more...diplomatic and people might feel inclined to tread carefully with random people. (Depending on how they handle it, maybe show more info on people with a higher level of Auspex. (Maybe))
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1 Merits
274 days ago
I agree that most character information should be kept to that character, unless they choose to reveal it. The mystery and suspense of the game is gone if the power gaps between two players are easy and obvious. As far as the politics of the courts of night-monsters go, I have a hard time thinking that anything could be too complex.
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