Game Development - Communities

By Cyrris

When it comes to making a game that has no non-player characters, no artificial intelligence, no missions or campaigns, and no actual visible game world, the question must be asked as to what actually drives the game forward. As I said previously, the game is, at it’s core, database manipulation through a web interface. While that may sound rather hopeless, the fact is that the simple website and database has been proven time and time again to be a very entertaining medium, namely in the form of blogs and forum systems.

As if Aelon isn’t proof enough that a blog is entertaining, a good forum system (coupled with a private messaging system and perhaps IRC channels) is really the key behind making a text based browser game work. Just the other day I finished coding the forums for The Project, marking the first major facet of the game to be completed. While they weren’t the trickiest things to program for the game, they are certainly among the most important.

In a nutshell, I believe the community is everything when it comes to this type of game. Naturally this is because the game is based on teamwork - players forming up in to clans, guilds, or whatever, and helping each other out. However, I’ve found that the style of the particular game largely determines the way the community works, the attitudes present, and in some cases this can determine the direction the game takes. Once again, I’d like to contrast the two different games I have spent the most time playing (NukeZone and Mech Wars) and how the differences in gameplay made such a difference in the respective communities.

NukeZone has all the standard community features. Public forums, private clan forums, and private messaging. The notable part is in how they are used. The aim for a clan in NukeZone is pretty much either to score lots of points (by attacking), grow really big, or do both. The amount of help you can give to your clan mates is restricted to either attacking the enemies who are attacking them, or donating money if you are bigger than them. Attacks are carried out instantaneously, so coordination isn’t too important with your clan mates, and there is no real diplomacy so private messages between clans are really only used for hiring members, asking for war or pleading for peace. Clan forums are almost exclusively made for posting spy reports and attack results, aside from general banter.

This isn’t to say that NukeZone doesn’t have a lively community - the public forums are constantly alive with all sorts of talk - people asking for help, making (usually silly) suggestions to improve the game, and talk about the game in general. And, as you’d expect, there is the off topic forum for just chatting about. What is missing from the NukeZone public forums though is any real connection with the game world itself. But then, perhaps this isn’t unusual, because without any diplomacy and with the only aims being either attacking lots or growing big, there isn’t really much of a game world to speak of. It’s more of an arcade.

Mech Wars likewise had all the basic features, but with a very different approach to gameplay, which meant the public forums and messaging system were used quite differently, and shaped a very different community. For starters attacks aren’t instantaneous, which means if a friend of yours has incoming hostiles, you can send your units to help defend him. I became friends with two Mech Wars players who helped me out in my particularly desperate times of need, despite them not even being clan members. The private messaging system all of a sudden becomes much more important. It fosters comradeship.

Having no 20-member cap on clans (like NukeZone does) means the clan forums also see a lot of activity. An incoming attack at one members base can mean the rest of the entire clan will rally and send their forces to defend - always fun. Far more importantly though, there is diplomacy. Clans can forge alliances, non-aggression pacts, or whatever other deals suit them. Clans can backstab other clans, and it makes for very interesting rounds of politics both in the clan and public forums. The public forums do, in fact, become a meeting ground of sorts for clan representatives. Wars are declared publicly, massive topics will spiral in to political melt-downs, and players will back up their leaders and strengthen their resolve to fight on. It’s almost role playing, but not quite. The back stabbing is real, and people do become genuinely passionate about their clans and the actions of their allies and enemies. In doing so, it can often determine the actions of the clan for weeks or months to come, and I’ve seen some truly epic battles take place because of this.

I don’t think it’s any surprise as to which system I am keen to follow for The Project. With a very rich diplomatic system, the plan is to have all the benefits present in Mech Wars, without so much back stabbing (by enforcing treaties in the game engine) and without having political threads brought down to pages upon pages of personal attacks and insults like it did the last time I played. By simply adding score penalties for infractions in the diplomatic sections of the forum, this is something I think can be easily achieved. At the same time, I don’t want to be limiting the potential for clans to switch sides in the political spectrum - so while abolishing treaties will have a 24 hour cooldown, that is the only real limitation.

The aim is to have a game where the community on the forums and the players involved in the game really come together as one cohesive game universe, driving itself both with politics and enormous invasion forces.

Series Index

1. Game Development - The Project
2. Game Development - Playing Fair
3. Game Development - Communities
4. Game Development - The Gap
5. Game Development - Frustration