Don't forget the casuals!

There are probably more unseen players than the ones you see

Yeah, because Legal action makes for a "great" headline.....

Mike

I think it's likely you have played other RTS games, or watched Starcraft pros play, or for some other reason you had more exposure to RTS basics than the general population. If you really did just pick up SCII as your first RTS game and just made Master league with no previous RTS experience, no guides, no nothing, then you should start practicing to go pro. Not even joking. Get to Grandmaster, start streaming your games, play in tournaments, and look for a team.


The metagame brings up a whole 'nother can of worms, because at least theoretically it should be possible to play a game with no metagame knowledge, only with information of the game you are presently playing, and the game's rules. If metagame knowledge from other games played is required to play effectively, then the game's board doesn't actually contain enough information about the game's state. Obviously metagame knowledge about things that other players commonly do helps, as it informs what would otherwise be random guesses. But it's not as big a deal as people make it out to be.


Back to the core point about depth vs appeal to casuals- I assert that these things are totally compatible. Casual players will still explore a game with depth for a lot longer than a shallow one. Depth is appealing to everyone.

The thing that really differentiates casual vs hardcore games is the effect of skill. In competitive games, the more skilled player will win more often. In casual games, for one reason or another, weaker players are more likely to defeat stronger players.

In a theoretically ideal competitive game, a player that is one erg stronger will win 100% of the time. In a theoretically ideal casual game, it remains fun even if the best player in the world is playing against someone who just learned the rules. Generally speaking, these are incompatible because the weaker player typically does not enjoy losing every game, and being essentially powerless (in a short timeframe) because of the unbridgeably large skill difference.

I have, plenty I had the basics down, but I'd never played competetive.

Hell no. That would violate the "games are fun" rule. I don't do pro gaming.

Wait what?? "Weaker players are more likely to beat stronger ones?"

In casual games, (often, not always) the only thing that matters are number of hours played. It doesn't matter how skilled your opponent is, if you've played the game twice as long, you'll still win. That's why casual players enjoy casual games. They don't have to get better; they can just beat on players that haven't been playing as long as they have and still have fun.

So if my opponent is terrible and has played the game for two years, and I'm really good, but have only played for 2 weeks, he would win?

In many casual games, yes.

Imagine World of Warcraft minus the level cap. No matter how good you are, if your opponent has twice your level, you will lose.

.... I'm sorry, you guys are making no sense to me. An rts is not world of Warcraft, you do not get artificial benefits from playing longer. Usually, when someone is better than another, they will win. I have been playing supreme commander 2 for 3 months, and can beat most people who have had the game a lot longer than me.

You seem to be missing the part where we were discussing how casual games work, in that case. Of course it's unlikely to apply to Planetary Annihilation, not in the first case because it's not a casual game.

Um, have you ever played custom maps in Starcraft 1 and War3? Most of them are based on some IP. AFAIK Blizzard was never sued by anyone over this.

I think it's time to read up a bit on player taxonomies.

Player Taxonomies: Reviewing the DGD1 Model

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited

Post Mortem: Ghost Master

The 4 Fun Keys - GAME Plan to Save the World

Yes I have, and those skirt the edge of that kind of stuff because all the content was Blizzard's, sure you name things however you want, but all the art assets are 100% Blizzard's, But more and more custom assets are being used, many big mods have been shut down for copyright infringement, like the Halo Mod for CnC Generals, in this day and age companies are getting really itchy trigger fingers when it comes to lawyers, better to play it safe.

Mike

That looks like a really interesting post and research movra! I'm going to take some time this week to read all of that.

Well movra nice posts.

Something i realized while reading them is, that i really like the spectator mode i can goto (in my most played game) and chat meanwhilest game continues. though i dont overuse this feature, but i think something like that will be cool at least for the big 40 player some hour games.

Movra, that is some excellent, well-documented psychological research. Thank you very much for posting that, it was fascinating.

However it appears to me that Johnny is essentially a special subset of Timmy. Timmy enjoys the feeling he gets when he plays; Johnny enjoys the feeling he gets when he expresses himself by playing.

edit: Johnny, not Jimmy.

There is definitely a difference between Timmy and Johnny.

If we switch the stage from Magic to Planetary Annihilation, Timmy would be the player who enjoys seeing his asteroid smashing into the planet regardless of the outcome of the game.

Whereas Johnny gets a kick out of winning one game with an unorthodox, yet surprisingly effective combination of units.

Even though Johnny will lose the next 5 games against Spike's dominant ACU rush strategy.

The player types explain why one plays the game:

• Timmy plays for spectacle
• Johnny plays for identity
• Spike plays to compete

On top of those types there are reaction types:

• Melvin appreciates mechanics
• Vorthos appreciates lore

For example: I see myself as a Johnny-Melvin because I prefer inventing wacky combinations and strategies. I don't like to play the dominant strategies, but I can appreciate the mechanics behind them. I like winning through alternative win conditions.

So in practice, this is how I understood the column:

There must be something random in the game for Timmies. (Spikey hates random, so I'm not sure if this is a great idea) Oh yeah, and big explosions. It must be fun to play with friends and with the AI. There must be a infinite amount of different strategies and playstyles for Timmies because they never want to use same strategy twice.

TIMMMMMEEEEH!!!!

For Johnny there must be some units that are underpowered. Sounds weird, but because I am kinda like Johnny myself I know this is really important. Units that no one uses, units that are useful in extremely few situations. Then it is up to Johnnies to prove that you can win by using those units because Johnnies like challenge. Also, there must be large variety of units so that Johnnies can create new powerful unit combinations. Johnnies need depth or they find the game uninteresting.


Spikey needs depth and pretty well balanced, competetive game. Make sure that you balance it well or these guys will destroy it :O


Modders are really really important part of the community as well. Sometimes they like modding more than the actual game. They create new maps and new mods so they keep the game alive after devs stop supporting the game. So there must be good editor and modding tools.

For what it's worth, editors aren't all that important for modding, not NEARLY as important as opening up the code to allow for whatever the modder wants to do.

Minecraft is so mod-successful in part because you can decompile the game itself (ultimate access).

3rd party editors can handle most of what a modder needs to do - for example, with the game using the FBX standard file format, new units can be made using Gimp & Blender (free tools).

Demigod & Supcom 2 blocked mod development in a huge way when they used the proprietary 'Granny3d' plugin for 3dsmax.