Design Peeve #3
Asterax differentiates itself as much by what it doesn't do as what it does. This is part of a series of posts explaining Design Peeves we don't agree with and are trying to avoid.
Permanent Player Boundaries
I think "RvR" is the politically correct term. It's where you join a game faction, and you're in for life. Your interaction with other factions is limited--you can't do their quests, walk freely in their towns, or often even speak to their players.
Now, like the rest of these pet peeves, it's not entirely damnable. You'd just need some pretty strong reasons to do it. A storyline that doesn't matter or a canon you're taking enormous liberties with everywhere else isn't enough.
Even Blizzard's realized it, so now they're planning a Faction-Change Service.
Look at Star Wars Galaxies factions. Each had their own bases and quest lines, but they were mostly inhabiting the same space. The PvP on/off switch, the relatively neutral centers for commerce and travel, and the free communication between factions led to players spending much of their playtime with the opposing faction (knowningly or not) when they weren't fighting the war. The net effect was that you knew the enemy. You knew their PvP heroes as much as your own, and were much more engaged because of it.
You won't find any MMOCrunch posts about Asterax lamenting how it's impossible to find any fun because there's no one to play with. Players are so stratified that the subset with whom you can actually play falls below critical mass. We're small, this game is going to be fun whether there's 2000, 200, or 20 players logged in.
Why 2D?
Like, an order of magnitude less money. That pretty 3D world and characters that you're covering up with raid huds? It ain't cheap. With 2D, we don't need dozens of artists to do models and skins and normal maps and rigging and animation. We don't need to spend millions licensing Unreal Engine 3.
Flexibility
Hmm, so what should we do now that we're not spending all our time and money trying to dig into the uncanny valley? ...Anything! Anything my artists can draw up I can put in the game. After all, it's just a sprite, maybe a collision shape, and some code. We'll be able to fix bugs and try out new ideas faster than anyone.
Twitch! But...easier
Ah, MMO combat. Push hotkey, make sandwich. Some players are yearning for action, instead of watching cooldown timers. They want in-game success to be determined by something other than ass-in-seat time. Others can't stand the idea of being 1-shotted by 12 year-olds with near-precognition reflexes. Navigating and shooting in a 3D world with a mouse and keyboard is just much harder than a 2D one--especially if you don't play FPSs. 2D levels the playing field. Combine that with well paced combat, and I think we'll have a system where you can show off your skills and your tactics.
Oh, yeah
It's way less laggy 
Play from your netbook!
Design Peeve #2
Asterax differentiates itself as much by what it doesn't do as what it does. This is part of a series of posts explaining Design Peeves we don't agree with and are trying to avoid.
#2. Shared Single-Player
Shared Single-Player is the idea that, in modern MMOs, each player is playing their own essentially solo experience, with only incidental or periodic contact with other players. Each is playing their own story in a static world. It's easy to see the benefit here: Existing RPG design readily transfers over, where it breaks down in more "worldy" games.
While you can group up and play with other players who are in a similar place in their story (read: close in level), you can't really "play with your friends," because you're all on different paths. As soon as you go hit the club while they're leveling, you're behind. The design response to this has been to make things more and more soloable, or implement sidekick systems. This makes sense, because I sure don't want to spend the first 15 minutes of my playtime looking for that right combination of classes/levels to play with.
Asterax is going the opposite direction. It's not about your story it's about OUR story. I'm a 2 year vet, you started yesterday. Can we play together? Absolutely. Your guns aren't magically weaker than mine. Of course, I have more options...and I'm the only one that can call in friggin' air support to level buildings ^_^
This will require a different take, where "quests" and even "items" aren't just an assumption. I'm confident there's a space in the market for a game that brings the player's story and the world's story together.
Design Peeve #1
Asterax differentiates itself as much by what it doesn't do as what it does. This is part of a series of posts explaining Design Peeves we don't agree with and are trying to avoid.
#1. Forcing players to make uninformed, irreversible decisions
If you've played an online RPG with more than a casual interest, you know they're not something that can just be jumped into. Games like EVE require background research before even the first character creation steps can be taken. Let a player get stuck with a gimped race/class combo, and good luck getting them back once they finish banging their head against the wall.
We've got a whole immersive world at our disposal--can't we do better than an FMV intro and some lore text? In Asterax, everyone starts off the same. Through fighting alongside other players and friendly NPCs, you'll get a firsthand idea of the different roles you can take on in combat, and choose from there. If you're going to force your players to make a permanent choice, it needs to be informed (or inconsequential).
MMOs Are Not a Storytelling Medium
Massively Multiplayer games have long been the de-facto standard for narrative in games. How can you get better than the deep and unique interactive storytelling of that quest chain you skipped over when Allakhazam found you an easier one that gives better loot? Oh, wait...
MMO quests are still boring? Not to worry--Bioware to the rescue! As Gamasutra wrote last year, Bioware's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic is poised to finally prove story can drive MMOs. "We're going to build the largest writing team by a factorial [degree] in BioWare history."
Genius. I'm pretty sure the logic behind this went:
- Players are screaming for more content
- Narrative content is extremely expensive to produce
- We have lots of money
- Let's make a story-driven MMO!
How compelling can a story be when the player knows 10,000 others have completed it prior? How engaged can players be when the sole net effect is the loot or XP rewarded?
MMOs provide a rich environment to facilitate emergent player interaction. It doesn't play to those strengths at all to force the player to complete generic, painful quests repeatedly. The best story MMOs can tell is HISTORY--written by the players.
In Asterax, the game doesn't tell you stories, you tell stories about the game.
UPDATE: Psychochild blogged about the difference between what players say they want in MMO story, and what they really want here. No matter how great your story is, if it doesn't affect the way I play the game at all, I just don't care.
What’s Asterax?
"Asterax" is the working title for an MMO project we're working on here at LiftOff Studios. It's not yet announced, so it doesn't exist.
Despite not existing, it's a 2D, top-down action shooter with a deep strategic endgame. We're stripping away the features that make traditional MMOs expensive behemoths, and focusing on making an instantly-accessible game in a world that players have an unprecedented amount of influence over.
Information will be leaked periodically here, as we move toward an official announcement.