The word BOT comes from ROBOT and is a term often used to describe an automated process. A quote from Wikipedia says that "Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive."
BOTS can be found within FPS and MMO type games also. BOTS can also be referred to as macro's which is generally in-game script to perform automated tasks. Although a BOT certainly does not have to be a macro or in-game. A BOT could be a external program written to simulate mouse and keyboard behaviour.
Ok so now that I have described what a bot is whats the big deal surrounding there usage within games? Usage of bots generally falls into several categories.
i) Gold Farming
ii) Leveling
iii) Helper type bots
I will attempt to explain each of these types in turn.
i) Gold Farming
This is generally thought to be carried out by the Chinese or other people from less well off countries in terms of earnings per head of population. They are generally found in MMO's where in game currency can be traded for hard cash. These so called "Farmers" are paid to play a game(s) and perform acts within that game that earn gold or whatever the in-game currency is. Generally these farmers are thought to use automated scripts/BOTs to kill creature after creature collecting in-game currency. It is not unknown for a single farmer to be operating many avatars at one time. You can generally tell farmer type behaviour when you see long lines of characters running around in world all following each other. After a shift is complete these farmers will then sell their in game currency to there supervisor/agent for local real currency. These supervisors will then sell this collected virtual currency to large virtual currency
sellers.
ii) Leveling
Similar to farming except in this case your not farming for in-game currency for farming for XP. Generally this would be performed by a player who wants to "LEVEL" their character faster to access content only available to higher level players. It can take a very long time in some circumstances of normal play to reach these higher levels. Therefore it is desirable to automate this process to access the higher content more quickly. Since players are generally limited a fixed amount of "play" time BOTs simply can run 24 hours a day 7 days a week if correctly setup. Although this type of BOT-ING can be thought to be player related. This is not entirely the case since so called "LEVELED" characters can be sold on places like eBay for large amounts of real money. It is not unknown for "leveled" characters to fetch thousands of pounds.
iii) Helper type bots
These type of BOT's generally assist the player in game to achieve a certain task. I think they come in a couple of different guises. The first type is perhaps the most harmless. This is a script/bot which might automate a generally boring action or procedure which for what ever reason the player see's as not fun or a waste of time etc. The second type which is much more destructive to game play is the Cheater type bot. Use of all types of bot could be considered cheating however but these types of bot generally are designed to assist in active game play for example in an FPS game a cheater bot may scan the screen for an enemy target and then move your sight very quickly to that targets weak spot and fire at them. Due to the nature of the BOT, the action would be carried out much faster than a human player would be able to achieve the same result or even do something about it. Therefore a "botted" player is perceived to have a significant advantage over other non-cheating players.
Ok so now i have described what a BOT is i would like to discuss type iii) helper bots and specifically the type that automates boring actions/procedures which are required. In this case I believe the use of BOTs is totally OK. The fact that a BOT is being used generally shows the receptiveness of the task(s) being presented to the player. It would seem then that any task that can be scripted and automated in this way by a BOT, perhaps should not be in game at all. This is because by its very nature it is highly repetitive and therefore becomes un-fun very quickly. Think about real life, could you script it? If you can, are you having fun yet?
I guess the challenge of any MMO designer is to some how avoid these repetitive in game tasks. There is even a name which has been invented to describe these repetitive in game actions, which usually results in increasing your experience level its called "Grinding".
One of the questions I have which I would like to leave you with, concerning this subject is this.. Is it really possible for a scripted and calculating computer program called an MMO to produce interesting and dynamic content? Thus far I have only seen Humans players produce such content within the virtual world, I'm am waiting however...
Showing posts with label The Perfect MMO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Perfect MMO. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Thursday, 12 July 2007
The Perfect MMO
Okay this is NOT finished.. but here goes ...
For a while now I have been looking for a new game to play. I was into Starwars Galaxies for a long time until the NGE came along and I felt I had to leave. Since this time I have tried WOW, Anarchy Online, Face Of Mankind, EVE and Arch Lord and most recently Lineage 2.
All apart from EVE in my opinion, lacked for me certain elements of what I needed in an MMO.
Things that I look for in an MMO:
Good points:
Engine
Decent Graphics ( does not have to be state of the art just ok )
Random faults, I think this is cool this happens in the real world when equipment breaks down maintenance of your equipment should be required at periodic intervals. Faults should beable to occur at anytime but are rare depending on use or abuse of your equipment. With regular maintenance probability of failure is reduced. A piece of equipment that is poorly maintained can malfunction catastropically causing injury to the whelder / destruction of the equipment or/and faster reduction in equipment life.
Faults can be broken down into several catagories:
Temporary Faults
i.e Gun Jam, Over Heating , Power Overload etc
Semi Permeant Fault
Repairable Fault with large/small loss of equipment life.
Permeant Fault:
Destruction through poor maintenance
Faulty equipment can be repaired.
The quality of the repair is based on the skill/Experience of the player doing the repair.
Mounts
Mounts can be used as extensions of your body i.e in combat you should beable to shoot and the mount should beable to attack closed ranged things like a pet.
Characters types
Male and Female thats it! Er what I mean is that Healers , Damage Dealers are simply skills you learn. Oh go on you can be a Female Fairy if you like!
Character/Customisation
Character customisation should be detailed. It should be very possible for everyone to look different.
Status bars: best I have seen is Health / Action / Mind.
or Shield / Armour / Hull athough for Mounts i.e ships it works slightly differently.
Things that effect HAM.
Fatigue: fatigue causes a reduction in the amount of useable Mind /Health/Action.
Economy
Player driven economy.
A Bazaar terminal with a maximum allowed value.
Player Auctions are possible as well as sales through bazaar.
Advanced crafting system
Player made Weapons , Armour objects with the exception of very limited Legendary Weapons i,e loot drop based 1 per server ( must have decay)
In world raw materials which everything is made from these materials spawn randomly for with a certain amount of availability.
Materials are mined through use of automated mining machines or gathering manually.
Everything made must decay through use or through age or both.
Crafters are able to sell their wares through the use of shops which they own.
Crafters can repair / maintain broken systems
Environment
A Player modifable environment
Player Housing
A real Avatar that can walk round and converse ( i.e not a SHIP as in EVE Online )
Player generated content
Players must have purpose/jobs , there must be a point to going out and killing in the wild.
Combat
Player Vs Player combat
PVE Combat
Multi faction based combat.
If NPC factions exist there should be a reason to fight them.
Effects
Animations
Enough with the crappy partical effects already.
Epic battles between different factions different guilds or corporations.
Battles between NPCs you should beable to join in if right faction.
Missions
Player bounty missions
NPC Corporations/factions etc can put jobs on publically accessable Mission terminals for reward.
Faction
Faction experience this can be earned through missions which are available on mission terminals
Player who can create missions on these terminals for factions as long as they have enough faction points
faction points are lost if mission is not completed. If mission is completed player gains faction.
Factions should have rank the high the rank the more faction points your need. Higher ranks can only be attained by
time and also by faction points. Faction points required for ranks get increasingly larger requiring missions to be created
and completed by your workers.
Faction points decrease slowly over time.
Control
Twitch based combat ground based FPS style and also on mounts i.e space ship combat or simply riding something.
Skill system
Skill proficiency through use of that skill.
Law and order
The law and order system in EVE works well I think it could be appiled to other world based MMO's also.
Each Area is assigned a security rating from 0.0 to 1.0.
Each player has a security status starting at 0 for killing a player or attacking non pirate NPCs you receive a negative security rating.
Systems that have a security rating of 0.5 and above have greater and greater defence's and attack strength. If a player gets a secuirty rating to low ( not sure how much) Concords EVE's police force will attack and eliminate that player. It has other variables as well but you get the picture.
Player that continually show antisocial behaviour can be handled in several ways : Bounty, They become a outlaw.
Beleive me there nothing more satisfying than removing an idiots character ( if only temporary ) as a Bounty Hunter :D
Groups
Guilds ( Social Group )
Hunting Party ( temporary group )
Corporation ( Business Group )
Alliances ( Gathering of Social or Business Groups )
A player can be in a Guild and in a Corporation which is Part of an Alliance.
Skills
Skills are skill books are bought each book allows you to use a certain piece of equipment after a period of learning.
More complex weapons systems take longer to learn.
Experience through use of weapon increases your deadlyness with that weapon
Each character can learn any skill they want the more they use it the better they get.
Weapons and Armour Systems
Weapons and Armour have the own stats.
All weapons can be deadly. Including hands / feet etc. Meaning you dont have to be a Master at a certain
weapon to kill another player it just helps.
Higher proficiency with weaponry can only be gained by training with a Master.
Magic
If Magic is to exist then it should be special and rare. Only the highest skilled should beable to wield it think of it as a legendary weapon only a few on the server with very limited use and it also decay's just like a legendary weapon. How to decide who has it difficult im still thinking about this one perhaps It cannot be earned it can only be given and then not to all Masters only a select few. Anyway im still thinking on this.
Death
Land Based Avatar
Death should be no laughing joke if a player runs out of some primary stat. Like health he should become incapacitated
If incapacitated 3 times death occurs.
If a player dies the player can lose all carried items. A player will then respawn at there cloning point. If a player visits his body he may beable
to get back lost items in a peroid of time.
Bad Idea's
No decay for the servers this is bad and causes a massive problem with databases. For the MMO player this means that you cannot realistically have a real economy since nothing ever needs replacing. The problem is exasperated when you introduce very powerfull weapons that come from loot drops. These weapons soon become the weapons they everybody wants and these never degrade so once a player has one of these. It can be used constantly. Making a special weapon not special.
Interworld Internet Search i.e a bazaar that can search. every players shop. This feature discourages customer loyalty and takes away a good in game dynamic of a customer->retailer relationship. It also requires less skill from the seller in choosing the right spot for a shop growing relations with your customers with this world search. The dynamic becomes more about cheapest or best of the best cutting out a large proportion of crafters. Since everyone who PVP's always wants the best of everything. Anything thats not the best is in contrast crap, of course this is rubbish but this is how it works in game in my experience.
Get rid of Levels these suck and it leads to levelism...It also means that your friends may not beable to come with you on your adentures do to not being the correct leave and being killed to easily.
Death locking you out of the game for 24hrs, this really sucks especially when your new and tend to die more often.
For a while now I have been looking for a new game to play. I was into Starwars Galaxies for a long time until the NGE came along and I felt I had to leave. Since this time I have tried WOW, Anarchy Online, Face Of Mankind, EVE and Arch Lord and most recently Lineage 2.
All apart from EVE in my opinion, lacked for me certain elements of what I needed in an MMO.
Things that I look for in an MMO:
Good points:
Engine
Decent Graphics ( does not have to be state of the art just ok )
Random faults, I think this is cool this happens in the real world when equipment breaks down maintenance of your equipment should be required at periodic intervals. Faults should beable to occur at anytime but are rare depending on use or abuse of your equipment. With regular maintenance probability of failure is reduced. A piece of equipment that is poorly maintained can malfunction catastropically causing injury to the whelder / destruction of the equipment or/and faster reduction in equipment life.
Faults can be broken down into several catagories:
Temporary Faults
i.e Gun Jam, Over Heating , Power Overload etc
Semi Permeant Fault
Repairable Fault with large/small loss of equipment life.
Permeant Fault:
Destruction through poor maintenance
Faulty equipment can be repaired.
The quality of the repair is based on the skill/Experience of the player doing the repair.
Mounts
Mounts can be used as extensions of your body i.e in combat you should beable to shoot and the mount should beable to attack closed ranged things like a pet.
Characters types
Male and Female thats it! Er what I mean is that Healers , Damage Dealers are simply skills you learn. Oh go on you can be a Female Fairy if you like!
Character/Customisation
Character customisation should be detailed. It should be very possible for everyone to look different.
Status bars: best I have seen is Health / Action / Mind.
or Shield / Armour / Hull athough for Mounts i.e ships it works slightly differently.
Things that effect HAM.
Fatigue: fatigue causes a reduction in the amount of useable Mind /Health/Action.
Economy
Player driven economy.
A Bazaar terminal with a maximum allowed value.
Player Auctions are possible as well as sales through bazaar.
Advanced crafting system
Player made Weapons , Armour objects with the exception of very limited Legendary Weapons i,e loot drop based 1 per server ( must have decay)
In world raw materials which everything is made from these materials spawn randomly for with a certain amount of availability.
Materials are mined through use of automated mining machines or gathering manually.
Everything made must decay through use or through age or both.
Crafters are able to sell their wares through the use of shops which they own.
Crafters can repair / maintain broken systems
Environment
A Player modifable environment
Player Housing
A real Avatar that can walk round and converse ( i.e not a SHIP as in EVE Online )
Player generated content
Players must have purpose/jobs , there must be a point to going out and killing in the wild.
Combat
Player Vs Player combat
PVE Combat
Multi faction based combat.
If NPC factions exist there should be a reason to fight them.
Effects
Animations
Enough with the crappy partical effects already.
Epic battles between different factions different guilds or corporations.
Battles between NPCs you should beable to join in if right faction.
Missions
Player bounty missions
NPC Corporations/factions etc can put jobs on publically accessable Mission terminals for reward.
Faction
Faction experience this can be earned through missions which are available on mission terminals
Player who can create missions on these terminals for factions as long as they have enough faction points
faction points are lost if mission is not completed. If mission is completed player gains faction.
Factions should have rank the high the rank the more faction points your need. Higher ranks can only be attained by
time and also by faction points. Faction points required for ranks get increasingly larger requiring missions to be created
and completed by your workers.
Faction points decrease slowly over time.
Control
Twitch based combat ground based FPS style and also on mounts i.e space ship combat or simply riding something.
Skill system
Skill proficiency through use of that skill.
Law and order
The law and order system in EVE works well I think it could be appiled to other world based MMO's also.
Each Area is assigned a security rating from 0.0 to 1.0.
Each player has a security status starting at 0 for killing a player or attacking non pirate NPCs you receive a negative security rating.
Systems that have a security rating of 0.5 and above have greater and greater defence's and attack strength. If a player gets a secuirty rating to low ( not sure how much) Concords EVE's police force will attack and eliminate that player. It has other variables as well but you get the picture.
Player that continually show antisocial behaviour can be handled in several ways : Bounty, They become a outlaw.
Beleive me there nothing more satisfying than removing an idiots character ( if only temporary ) as a Bounty Hunter :D
Groups
Guilds ( Social Group )
Hunting Party ( temporary group )
Corporation ( Business Group )
Alliances ( Gathering of Social or Business Groups )
A player can be in a Guild and in a Corporation which is Part of an Alliance.
Skills
Skills are skill books are bought each book allows you to use a certain piece of equipment after a period of learning.
More complex weapons systems take longer to learn.
Experience through use of weapon increases your deadlyness with that weapon
Each character can learn any skill they want the more they use it the better they get.
Weapons and Armour Systems
Weapons and Armour have the own stats.
All weapons can be deadly. Including hands / feet etc. Meaning you dont have to be a Master at a certain
weapon to kill another player it just helps.
Higher proficiency with weaponry can only be gained by training with a Master.
Magic
If Magic is to exist then it should be special and rare. Only the highest skilled should beable to wield it think of it as a legendary weapon only a few on the server with very limited use and it also decay's just like a legendary weapon. How to decide who has it difficult im still thinking about this one perhaps It cannot be earned it can only be given and then not to all Masters only a select few. Anyway im still thinking on this.
Death
Land Based Avatar
Death should be no laughing joke if a player runs out of some primary stat. Like health he should become incapacitated
If incapacitated 3 times death occurs.
If a player dies the player can lose all carried items. A player will then respawn at there cloning point. If a player visits his body he may beable
to get back lost items in a peroid of time.
Bad Idea's
No decay for the servers this is bad and causes a massive problem with databases. For the MMO player this means that you cannot realistically have a real economy since nothing ever needs replacing. The problem is exasperated when you introduce very powerfull weapons that come from loot drops. These weapons soon become the weapons they everybody wants and these never degrade so once a player has one of these. It can be used constantly. Making a special weapon not special.
Interworld Internet Search i.e a bazaar that can search. every players shop. This feature discourages customer loyalty and takes away a good in game dynamic of a customer->retailer relationship. It also requires less skill from the seller in choosing the right spot for a shop growing relations with your customers with this world search. The dynamic becomes more about cheapest or best of the best cutting out a large proportion of crafters. Since everyone who PVP's always wants the best of everything. Anything thats not the best is in contrast crap, of course this is rubbish but this is how it works in game in my experience.
Get rid of Levels these suck and it leads to levelism...It also means that your friends may not beable to come with you on your adentures do to not being the correct leave and being killed to easily.
Death locking you out of the game for 24hrs, this really sucks especially when your new and tend to die more often.
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