(Removed to protect the guilty. Tsk tsk, on whomever informed you of this falsity.) Will the Eglain the Travel [...] 
Recently, one of our forum lurkers posted a link to an interview with Craig Morrison, game director of one of our competitor’s. In the article, the director proceeded to “call to task” the mentality of designers and how they spend 90% of their time preventing players from doing stuff and 10% of their time on the design. An interesting statement from a director of a project. Fortunately, this is not the entirety of the interview. The interview is a good read and filled with many points that I tend to agree with and those who know what content I have made likely understand why I agree with many of Morrison’s point. However, his statement intrigues me for a number of reasons that I will highlight below.
Every designer worth their salt starts with fun, because every designer that is any good at their job approaches every new challenge with the mentality that they are creating, first and foremost, moments of fun. Mr. Morrison’s assertion that designers spend more time thinking about ways to stop players from doing things chafes. It reads like designers are all primadonnas afraid to allow others to soil their artistic integrity. Maybe some of the folks he works with are like this, but I assure you that this is not the case on this team.
Mr. Morrison goes on to state that he believes some designers believe that they are smarter than the players, I can tell you that I never once have thought I was smarter than our players. I may be smarter than some players but the collective whole of players dwarfs my intelligence. You - meaning all the players - have limitless time and resources at your disposal. You can pick apart my design and find ways to obviate and violate whatever constraints I can expect to put in your way and frankly you are better at playing the game than I am.
If I am a good designer, then I say “Huh, I didn’t even see that hole in my logic.” Then I file that learning experience away in my ever expanding file-o-fax and move on to the next thing upon which I am working. Again, I am not wholly disagreeing with Mr. Morrison’s statements. I already stated that I think much of what he has said is true of some. Turbine’s designers focus on fun first and I think this is why Mr. Morrison’s words are difficult to fully embrace. Good designers try to just create fun, but there are constraints in technology, time and resources. No two games are alike in this way. I have a hard time believing that any designer starts a design by saying how can I stop players from doing X.
Mr. Morrison explained his position better as the interview progressed and proved to me he was speaking as a consumer, a gamer, speaking on a level that I reach when I get frustrated with aspects of games, our game included. The difference is that I don’t get to talk about trying to challenge design to change; I make design changes and I innovate within the constraints set upon me and I attempt to inspire others around me to do the same.
I agree that first, foremost, utmost games must be fun. In MMOs, there are hundreds of thousands of moving parts, each seamlessly fitting into the next to create the world in which players escape from reality. Unfortunately, games are made in reality and reality is harsh. Deadlines must be met and can result in corners being cut or polish not being copiously applied. Tried and true measures become somewhat of a norm an accepted or forgone conclusion and breaking through these constraints becaomes more difficult. It is at these times that we see those moments of fun become moments of frustration and that is what makes every designer die a little inside.
Mr. Morrison begins his conclusion by highlighting a raid in another game as a prime example of good content, the Onyxia Raid. I know that Mr. Morrison was wearing the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, when he mentioned this as being quick and easy. You see, he stated that this encounter took 20 minutes to complete.
Once you learned the strategy and went with a group of people who all knew the strategy and could execute on the strategy and perform their roles well and not have someone find their way into the whelps, this encounter was fun, but the statement glosses over the learning curve to this fight and the fact that it was, at the outset, a hardcore experience. It was difficult to learn. It became fun once you beat the encounter and then, if one person made a mistake it became frustrating again. After saying all this, I completely agree with Mr. Morrison’s assessment; that specific encounter is a great example of fun! Not because it was easy. Not because it was quick. Because once you achieved that first victory you felt like you really accomplished something.
In LotRO, I have had the good fortune to be given leave to work on a number of instances, quests, stories, events, etc… Sometimes, I have managed to capture those moments of fun, sometimes the weight of frustration overwhelms and leave me bedraggled. One thing always remains true. I set out to create fun every time that my fingers begin to write up a spec. Every time that I begin to formulate an encounter, restructure a quest line, write a quest line or re-draw the content map of the game, my goal is to provide players with moments of fun.
I can point to the places that I perceive as my successes: Retake Weathertop, Barad Gúlaran, The Library and School of Thâm Mirdain, Grand Stair, I’ll even say Monster Play - given all the faults that still exist in the fundamentals of the system. I can tell you that at the outset of every one of those successes there was a grander, broader, more convoluted and wholly grandiose design that needed to be distilled to what the finished product entailed. Reality slapped me in my face and I needed to make concessions. I will forgo my perceived failures as they are too numerous to mention and the good news about MMOs is that you can revisit those failures and try to make them into successes.
In closing, I agree with Mr. Morrison, MMO gaming is getting more fun. I am optimistic that it will continue to do so and that I will continue to evolve as a designer. I mean…wouldn’t it be neat if I could keep designing these games forever!?
I love playing games. I love making games. I play the games I make so I can understand why players make the decisions that they do. I do my best to provide moments of fun because that is my job and I think that providing fun, in any form, is my greatest asset. I love to entertain.
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June 17th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Might want to go fix BG then. It is decidedly NOT FUN since Moria changed the quest items to delete-on-exit without moving the respawn point inside the front door of the instance.
I used to get enjoyment from teaching neophytes how to fight Udunion, but not now, since a wipe means running the whole instance again… I will not be bothered to go in there. Because I want to have fun, not feel like we wasted thrity minutes clearing the place just to make 1 mistake while fighting the rogmul.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I enjoyed reading that. It’s interesting to get the inside perspective from a designer, so thank you. (I have run the library and school at Tham Mirdan many, many times, by the way. My kin loves the three man content.)
There are two comments I’d like to make about the subject in general. The first is that I agree that a good raid has that thrill of completion when you first beat it, and some form of continuing satisfaction thereafter. For example, I like the rare loot drops in the Grand Stair. I can look forward to those after having gotten my boots. Of course, the trick is avoiding too many frustrating moments beforehand. I clearly remember that rush of feeling the first time we beat Udunion, and it was a vindication of the trials beforehand.
The second thing is that I can well appreciate that there will always be unforeseen strategies dreamed up by players to provide “learning opportunities” for designers. In this situation, a fix that doesn’t enhance the players’ experience isn’t truly a fix. I honestly have no idea who created it, but I fervently hope that the upcoming “fix” to the Strange Happenings is an aberration amongst Turbine’s designers. It can’t be fun for a guardian to have Shield Wall negated, and there are already more than enough burglar skills blocked in that raid.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Thank you very much for responding. You’ve gained major brownie points for even doing that in the first place, so I appreciate the write-up. There are, however, a few minor points I’d like to address.
First, I do feel like you spent a bit too much time defending the idea that you’re not setting out to create fun. We understand that you are, and nobody (well, most people, at least) actually thinks you’re setting out to intentionally make encounters that are not fun in some way. I fully understand that as a senior designer and one of the better-known ones at Turbine, you’re going to feel compelled to address that, but the greater issues and the reasons that this article was linked to lie elsewhere.
As others mention in the thread, gating is an issue. It’s one that has been discussed ad naueseum and it does seem like there are steps being taken to address player concerns, but it still looms large. As Morrison said, that +1 is often enough to get people to go for the reward, provided that content is enjoyable. I won’t harp on this topic any longer, but it’s something to consider.
In regards to preventing the playerbase, I think the reason it was brought up was specifically in regards to the negation of player skills and tactics that are technically not WAI but are never really addressed as such until much later. Take, for example, the removal of both the Shield Wall and Enrage tactics for Strange Happenings. Even with these tactics, players were failing to take the turtle out. The removal of them may get the raid closer to how the designers imagined it “should” go, but that is exactly the point - the linearity to boss fights and encounters. Viable alternatives like “ranged tanking” for the Watcher and other things may not be intended, but once again that is due to an issue with the content and not the way that the skill is being employed. Morrison comes up with a line from an imaginary dev that fits this perfectly: “We must police them, we must force them to play the way that we want them to play!”
This has affected many skills since the launch of Moria, affecting multiple classes across the board. Most notably for myself is the change for LM stun immunity and its prevention of cowering, a change that many see as something that was done to enforce the new radiance gating. This would also apply to the Captain’s Bolster Courage, if I’m not mistaken. Other skills include the infamous In Harm’s Way change and Champion Fervour stance. For tactics, it would mean the ranged tanking for the Watcher and the Enrange/Shield Wall methods for the turtle.
The new encounters (and systems, for the B/P/E that warranted the Fervour change) should have been designed while keeping player skills in mind. Having long-established abilities changed in a reactionary manner is never going to make the playerbase happy. What should be done instead is to look at the reasons behind these methods. Why were Champions tanking in Fervour? Why did groups take one or two Captains and then do the IHW + LS combo to burn down bosses?
What about the design of the content made the players go about utilizing these tactics?
There are several reasons, including the gating, grinding, and the fact that most encounters in Moria resort to a DPS race (that was more apparent when weapon DPS was exuberantly high). However, from a player’s perspective it seems that rather than addressing these design issues what is happening instead is that skills and encounters are being changed to negate playstyles and abilities. This comes across as a knee-jerk reaction and a “policing” of player behavior, rather than a deeper look at the underlying issues.
Now, we understand that there are constraints upon development. Time, money, deadlines, and sometimes even management stand in the way to solving these issues. We even understand that these changes to the content may be forthcoming, but that in the meantime these are fixes to get things “back on track.” But these are still issues, and if that is indeed the case, then a little more communication by means of “it will come later” would always be appreciated.
Again, thank you for the response. I know that as a designer and developer you put a lot of heart and soul into your work, and that it can be really disheartening when you see the forums and playerbase as riled up as they are now. I’m glad that you took the time to write this up and share it with the players, and I am also glad that you have a passion for the subject and do your best to make fun content. Keep up the great work - I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future!
June 17th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
If I could edit my post above I would, but I also wanted to add that Weathertop, BG, GS, and the three-mans in Eregion are fantastic. You’ve done a great job, and I’ve enjoyed them immensely. I know that much of what I wrote about is probably outside of your control, but since you are a developer and you responded, much of my response is aimed at you because I don’t know who else to say it to.
So once again thank you, both for your hard work and your response!
June 17th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
i always enjoy hearing about the “hows” and the “whys” of game design. a little insight can be a powerful thing.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Orion,
nice read as well.
But one point I have to mention:
When Craig mentioned that designers spend more time forcing players to play the content the way they want them to play it, instead of building content itself, I directly thought about Turbine.
If you really think that Turbine does not do this, how do you explain the change concerning ‘Enrage’ in the ‘Strange Happening Raids’ or the change that the players suddenly are no longer able to ’slow’ boss mobs?
As far as I take a look at this, this only happened because ‘the damn players do not use ‘our’ tactics, but use skills we did not think about. Let us do the easy fix and simply turn off those skills, instead of taking the harder step and build encounters with multiple tactics to beat.’
sorry, I really think that Craig exactly means such design decisions … and they are being done by Turbine.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:13 am
There are enough questions here to fill another blog. I will be away for the weekend, but I will do what I can to tackle some of these questions when I get a chance.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:51 am
As a new player to LOTRO a 5+ year vet to SWG and a player of a few others here an there for less time I can say whole heartedly at this level beggining to 27 you have most certainly achieved the fun quotient. LOTRO is a beautiful, fun and challenging landscape to play in and I look forward to doing so alot in the future.
I am about to do weather top so I might let you know what I think after I finish it.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
[...] latest post is a great insight into the design process, particularly in relation to creating ‘fun’ content. Check it [...]
June 18th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Point the First:
I absolutely love “Retake Weathertop.” It was the first time in the game where I was like: “This is SO COOL!” Hearty applause to you for that.
Point the Second:
I also agree that having skills negated = not fun. Tabletop RPG design has this problem at high levels too … the classic example being D&D spells like resurrection, fly, or rock to mud, which then have to be negated so that the assassinated king stays dead, the party doesn’t bypass 90% of the overland encounters, and they can’t knock down the wall but have to solve the door puzzle, respectively. If you give a player a skill, he expects to be able to use it — otherwise why give it to him at all?
In the case of Grand Stairs, I found the “hard mode” more than a little arbitrary. The group I was in wiped again and again on the battle with Igash, trying to avoid killing the devoted. Eventually we got sick of it, and after having jumped through all the other hoops to get there, said, “Screw it, kill the @*$&!!, no reward is worth this.” We then proceeded to kill the devoted and STOOD AROUND LIKE FOOLS F0R FIVE MINUTES WHILE HIS TREASURE WAS CARRIED AWAY.
I mean, seriously, what sense does that make? Besides being something nobody in their right mind would do if they weren’t forced to by the encounter, it’s also a wasted opportunity — why not give us the chance to chase the treasure instead? Or have a battle-vs.-the-clock to prevent the orcs from carrying it off? Or that’s not feasible, well, just don’t spawn treasure in the devoted’s chest if he’s killed first. It’s still arbitrary, but at least it doesn’t tell the player “You now do something incredibly stupid, because we say so.”
-The Gneech
June 18th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Very good read Orion. I would love to see you address things like removal of boss slows/roots, removal of Engrage from the turtle etc.
I think I understand somewhat why these changes are made. Even if you design an ecounter which is fun, many players will still take an easier way out just to get the loot. I understand removing tricks in those situations.
The problem comes when encounters aren’t fun as they are designed and then an easier way to do them is removed. I’m thinking of say, the turtle here. Its such a boring straight up DPS fight that people are going to jump on any trick which makes it easier.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:55 am
“It is at these times that we see those moments of fun become moments of frustration and that is what makes every designer die a little inside.”
((hug))
also: In my opinion, Retake Weathertop is one of the defining encounters of LOTRO. It has been the “this is the coolest game ever and that troll is SO going to eat me” moment for so many players.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:10 am
It would be good blogging form to link to the article you are replying to…
Anyway, I enjoyed reading your response, although you seized on one sentence and went in a direction that seemed to me to miss much of his point.
The point the OP on the LotRO forums was making was how our game sometimes seems to be designed to strait-jacket the players. Examples:
1) Conjunction-immune bosses
2) DPS races that turn crowd-control into a disadvantage
3) Uncurable wounds/DoTs
4) Un-CC’able adds
5) Huge pulls that make single-target damage/debuffs almost useless compared to AoE
6) etc
Another recent development was the IHW nerf, where, again, rather than designing content that was challenging *given* the skills the players have earned, someone decided it was easier to simply take away (OK, greatly reduce the effectiveness of) one of them.
I can’t speak for the OP, but my reading of the original post pointing to the article was a criticism of designing encounters where important - even class-defining - skills are rendered impotent, by a sort of Deus Ex Machina, to turn what would be a fairly easy fight (if there were no such restrictions) into something which is challenging only because skills the players would normally use are non-functional.
A sort of reductio ad absurdum would be an encounter where players are stripped of all their gear and have all skills except bare-handed auto-attacks disabled. If one is willing to admit this as a valid design technique, then creating ‘challenging’ encounters becomes simple…and utterly pointless, of course, because nobody wants to do an instance with no gear and no skills.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
First and foremost thank you for taking the time to record your thoughts and for being willing to put them out there to face our praise and ire. Secondly, job well done on your list of successes. I have thoroughly enjoyed many of your instances.
But the veiled digs at Morrison here only demonstrate to me that he has struck a nerve…
“In the article, the director proceeded to “call to task” the mentality of designers and how they spend 90% of their time preventing players from doing stuff and 10% of their time on the design. An interesting statement from a director of a project. Fortunately, this is not the entirety of the interview.”
That’s actually not quite what he said. It’s not 90% stopping players vs. 10% building game. It’s 90% of of developer time (both creative and hostile) being dedicated to the last 10% of the infrastructure (end-game). He adds (with a laugh) that said time is spent “preventing players from doing stuff.” Sure it’s a dig at other developers, but it’s also amusing hyperbole. To write a lengthy defense to this idea, again really just illustrates to me that Morrison has hit a sore spot.
“Mr. Morrison’s assertion that designers spend more time thinking about ways to stop players from doing things chafes. It reads like designers are all primadonnas afraid to allow others to soil their artistic integrity. Maybe some of the folks he works with are like this, but I assure you that this is not the case on this team.”
You’re taking Morrison’s comment about “stopping players from doing stuff” out of context. You suggest that Morrison’s position is that designers are trying to stop players from experiencing content, which completely misses the point. All he says is that the disposition is towards tying hands and disabling skills when people find an alternative path.
The redesign of the rad instances, and skill nerfing in the turtle are prime and direct examples of the thing Morrison is complaining about. If 90% of the population was exploiting these instances then it follows that people were having more “fun” exploiting than obeying the system designed by the Turbine team. You’re essentially disabling the ability of players to find their own route and define their own “fun” experience.
Furthermore, the Turbine solution actually gives the complete impression of “primadonnas afraid to allow others to soil their artistic integrity.” What else is it to say “most everyone is doing this, so we have to make them stop”? What is the actual tangible harm in bugging a mob, or Enraging the Turtle? Too many people are going to be running around with + Rad helmets and that’s going to break the game? No. The notion that there is an “as intended” path to beating something stinks of “artistic integrity.”
Lastly, I feel like I have nothing to sink my teeth into here. All we’re talking about are these fluffy and subjective ideas like “fun” and “exploit” and “intent” and “design.” All this would mean so much more if you could actually give me a concrete example of a dev saying “No, everyone is doing this, everyone is enjoying this, lets let it be.” Or tell me about how you added a new solution to a puzzle or enabled a skill to effect a new result or something. All the conceptual back-and-forth in the universe doesn’t change the fact that there is almost nothing in the game that I currently find “fun.”
I’m glad you’re part of the team Orion, and ultimately it’s your boss that I hold responsible for the current state of the game. But seriously, forget about what other designers are publishing on the interwebs and dive back into that fun-building… please.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:00 am
An interesting read. I for one am always happy to hear thought out opinions by the developers. That said, the preventing players from doing things is exactly what raid/instance design is turning towards. I ran FG recently, and boy was that last fight overly scripted. Sometimes, a romping fun fight is great fun, but when that fight includes too many technical details it certainly is coded to prevent players to do certain things. The worst offender in this arena for LOTRO has to be the blanket immunities of certain mobs versus CC effects. I’ve written many many times in this and DDO’s forums about this heavy handed design technique. To make some encounters challenging it is tempting to use a blunt tool, but if instead a lighter touch is used the players feel less like they are being forced to play a certain part in the script and more like it is their choice to do so. For example, add more robust ranged attacks to mobs to combat roots…or add a high resistance to CC…or add a special attack that they use when rooted (or summon some trash mobs…). All these things make it so that you still can use all your skills, but doing so may not be the most optimal way to do the encounter. Most instance bosses should not have some special way to kill them and if you don’t do it that way it is impossible or way harder to down them. Oh, and WTH is up with the quest to kill the devoted in Grand Stairs? Seriously, you don’t want to do that…why add a quest to do something counterproductive. That’s like adding quests for dying X times in an instance.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Great blog. I do think LOTRO instances are generally fun. Those that you’ve designed are particularly good (I love BG but please make the rez inside the instance!). I think what has detracted from the fun lately, meaning since the MoM expansion, is:
1. Grind. Requirement that you run them again & again means they get dull (try being a fairly large kin’s main Minstrel!) The grind is why people look for short-cuts. It also leads to burn-out.
2. Negating class skills. If the solution to a problem involves negating a long-standing skill it will alienate that class.
3. LI Randomness (and grind). Enough has been said on this and it sounds like it’s being addressed but please please give us more control over this. I don’t mind spending time to level up the amazing item I find, but I do mind sinking huge time into items that just get deconned.
4. Crafting Forgotten. Crafting needs major attention, and sorry but the B8 “revamp” doesn’t even come close. Crafters should once again be able to make gear that is useful and needed, including at level-cap, and solo’ers / non-raiders should be able to have gear just a notch below raid gear or on par but with non-raiding attributes. This is tied into the problems with radiance, and like many others I’d prefer to see radiance as a passive trait or use some other lock/gate system to achieve the same end without requiring cookie cutter builds.
5. End-game Raids Needed. With the new level-cap, the end-game content has been limited, understandably. The Watcher and Turtle are both lairs and we’ve been through the radiance / resource / IXP instances ad nauseum. The current end-game is also way too heavily focused on DPS races and the other classes and their skills are not used as much as they could/should be, and certainly not as much as in SOA end-game. It’s good to see new end-game content coming in B8 and I hope it’s more balanced.
6. PvMP Needs More Attention. I really like LOTRO PvMP, but it has issues. I think the PvMP is more balanced now than it has been since I’ve played but the lag issues and the continued bugs/imbalances need fixes. I won’t go into details on this here but I think the PvMP players would really like to see some developer attention to this content. PvMP is a major outlet for many players who are tired of the PvE side — part of the end-game for many — and for others who don’t PvE at all. I’d love to see a new PvMP space released.
I know I’ve deviated from Orion’s scope of responsibility here, but the discussion is about fun in MMO’s and I think changes in this direction would add to the fun of LOTRO. Appreciate the good work and continued communications, Orion.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
While I get we need to do thing to get the new players. How about the retention of folks who have been here since launch. I point at the previous post of thing that need revamped at the high end, that would help make the game fun at the high end of the spectrum.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am
excellent post Orion, it explains a lot about your point of view and i like that.
Oh and no worries, i had tons of fun in all the what you created (RW, BG, moors, and stuff)..