all right so Alison's taking a few weeks
off to get a much-needed break and to
settle into her awesome new job so we
got a few guests and special surprises
lined up for you guys over the next
month first up I'm very pleased to
present today's guest artist Scott
DeWitt he's the artist behind the
webcomic fanboys and all-around cool
person and he's here to help us talk
about the issue of power creep as
videogames move more towards perpetual
experiences through online play
persistent worlds or just constant
patching power creep is an issue that
comes up more and more and as this
persistent online play becomes a bigger
and bigger part of how games monetize
the issue of power creep becomes more
and more of a consumer issue so what is
power creep power creep is the concept
that elements introduced to a game over
time grow in power as compared to the
original elements of the game we saw it
happen with World of Warcraft many of
the items that were great at level 60 at
launch aren't even worth looking at
today many of the pre level cap dungeons
are no longer really on the to-do list
as they've been outmoded by dungeons
that are faster that give more
experience and give better loot and you
may view this as a natural part of
design but as a designer you have to
separate this into two different factors
first a natural evolution as the
creators of a game get more tools
available to them and get more
experience making levels for that game
they're naturally going to start making
better levels than before thereby
rendering some of the initial designs
obsolete and that's a great thing to
happen to a game but the second thing is
power creep
now designers are human beings with real
jobs to do and when you're dealing with
perpetual online experiences there's
never enough time to do that job
sometimes it's very easy as a designer
to say you know if I just give the fans
better loot or more xp for the same
general experience they'll be happy and
it's true people like bigger guns and
faster levels we like to feel powerful
many of these games are predicated on
this fact but this is a dangerous slope
to tread this leads to the rapid
abandonment of old content and an
unsustainable growth in power this is a
design time bomb for any company looking
to make a perpetual game there are
plenty of games that have long ago
fallen apart due to this issue but it's
becoming an even greater problem now
that we've changed how we plan to
monetize games because for many games it
might now be more than just the path of
least resistance it might be something
they choose to do probably the best
example of this is the game war storm
after it was acquired by Zynga this was
an interesting little online CCG that
was purchased by Zynga in 2010 at the
time of purchase it had a host of issues
and some trouble with power creep but
it's fundamentally a sound take on how
to do an asynchronous collectible card
game
after Zynga got it well the next
expansion was radically different now I
don't know if it was the fault of anyone
at Zynga but for any of you guys who
play Magic pretty much every card in
that expansion essentially read
protection from every card made before
this set I know that sounds incredibly
silly but someone somewhere must have
said all right I got a brilliant idea
people like cards that are way more
powerful right we'll just make the next
set a lot more powerful and it'll get
everyone to buy tons of cards but of
course this plan backfired completely
because collectible card games are
designed around the idea that part of
what makes them sticky a part of what
makes them so hard to give up is that as
a player you're invested in your
collection and the bigger your
collection gets the harder it is to walk
away from it so in this case since all
the cards people had previously bought
were suddenly rendered worthless a lot
of them simply said well maybe now's a
good time to quit instead of starting
over from scratch if any of you quit
World of Warcraft for a year or so and
then went back only to realize that all
the time you'd invested in getting the
best gear for your character was now
worthless and so you quit again you've
experienced one of the negative effects
of power creep and you understand why
it's fundamentally bad for business but
this doesn't stop people from thinking
it might be a way to increase
monetization to get you to pay to keep
up with everybody
now the designers behind World of
Warcraft are good enough that they are
well aware of this process and they've
created all sorts of release valves such
as heroic difficulty for the dungeons to
stop the loss of old content it was a
brilliant decision it improved play
while helping to address an ever-growing
issue with their game but often even the
best designers have a hard time really
creating content that doesn't slowly
creep up in power so what can be done to
keep power creep at bay well there's
really only one real answer the use of
incomparable x' in comparables in design
or gameplay elements that the player
sees as having a non numeric relation to
each other so for example the ability to
do a short distance teleport as compared
to the ability to stun a single target
are incomparable it's apples to oranges
so as a player assuming neither
abilities to out-of-balance
you can debate all day about which
ability is better and you'll never come
close to an answer because the better
choice depends on the situation and the
player's preferred play style League of
Legends is sort of the current reigning
master on this front they've managed to
create over 90 champions and several
years of play based on this principle
and they've managed to do it without
power creep in fact those of you who
play League of Legends probably know
that some of the most powerful champions
in the game were actually some of the
first they ever built because they got
better overtime at judging the actual
effect of new and comfortables if
you contrast this with something like
World of Warcraft where much of the gear
simply has a set of numerical stats by
side by citing any new piece of gear
that they create for the game with what
you currently have you can tell if the
new gear is definitively better if it's
not more powerful you end up
disappointed because you're never going
to use it so might as well not be in
there in the first place but if it is
more powerful it forces the power level
of the game to start creeping subtly
upward the other advantage to in
comfortables is that if you can build
enough of them over time you end up
having a lot more wiggle room in what
might be considered balanced for your
game as the number of possible
combinations of your in comfortables
reaches a point where anything in the
ballpark of a reasonable that you put
into your game can be countered by some
crazy combination out there games like
Ultima Online Magic the Gathering and to
some extent even League of Legends count
on this fact to allow them greater
design freedom when creating new
gameplay elements unfortunately the two
major problems within comparables is
that they generally cost more to create
than simple numerical systems I mean
changing data ie numerical values is
easy but creating new feeling skills or
abilities either requires scripting or
the manipulation of a very complex web
of interacting numbers and flags and in
comparables also tended to force a game
to be more skill-based
which isn't always what you want when
designing of course for paper games such
as Magic the Gathering this added cost
for development isn't there
but in comparables generally also have a
higher play test cost as well after all
it's harder to make sure that you've
worded iced cauldron in a way that
everybody understands then to make sure
that the new grizzly bears are clear and
not breaking your game there's also a
final option to keep power creep at bay
if it's really going to threaten your
game and that is to artificially keep it
in check this is the option that Magic
the Gathering took by creating type 2 or
standard tournament format this allowed
them to modulate power between blocks
and many hardcore magic players have
probably noticed how every few blocks
the power of one of the newly introduced
blocks is brought back down to around
the magic mean of one mana per point of
power for decent creatures without
abilities they then reintroduce old
cards back into new sets thereby making
them legal to play again and not losing
that content to power creep EverQuest
also did this after a fashion with their
legacy servers they allow players to
play the game as if it had just launched
with none of the expansion pack content
unlocked and each time the players beat
the most challenging monster in a given
expansion pack or met some other
specified goals they would unlock the
next expansion thereby giving players
the option to use and enjoy content that
had otherwise been outmoded by those
expansions you'll find almost any game
that lasts long enough
if it ever expects new players to join
has to do something to this effect so
there it is our Creed why it's terrible
for business and can destroy the
longevity of your game along with a few
thoughts on how to combat it hope that
helps you create more fantastic online
experiences and better understand them
big thank you to Scott for helping us
out today we'll see you next week
by travelpod member