I have been following Torchlight off and on since Runic games announced that they were going to make a MMO ARPG.  I love MMOs and love ARPGs and so was immediately interested.  This interest caused me to seek them out at PAX and see what they had been able to put together in 11 months.  What I saw there floored me.  I think I spent more time at the Torchlight booth than I did at the Diablo III, Dragon Age Origins and Guildwars combined.  I both enjoyed playing it and chatting with the developers.   I was so excited in fact, that I came home and stayed up to 4:00 in the morning writing a huge review of my PAX gameplay experience.  Now, two months later, I have had the chance to play through the main quest line.  Does Torchlight live up to its promise and hype?  I believe so.  I have had more fun playing Torchlight, than I have from any game in the past five years.  Here is the full review:

Audio / Visuals

Graphics: I have heard complaints about the Torchlight graphics on forums like dii.net.  Some people complain they are too cartoony or that there is not enough of the dark realism in this game that made the Diablo series great.  It is my belief that most of these people have never actually played the game.  Once you actually get your hands on it, you will notice that the graphics work in a way I haven’t experienced  in any other 3D game.  The combination of watercolor background and bold colors on the characters and monsters makes the important players pop off the background reminiscent to the great 2D games of the past.  The artwork quality is so strong in fact, that the developers were able to scale down the technology to the point that the game runs smoothly on even an old laptop.  Overall, I think this game has the strongest graphics of any game I have played since the 1990s.    (Score 10 out of 10)

Animation / Particle Effects: Skill animations are tremendously important to generating the sense of immediacy that an ARPG needs.  They make skills and effects pop at the user and create the illusion of epicness that we expect from the ARPG genre.  Torchlight does well in this regard.   The animations are all smooth and make the characters feel believably overpowered.  The particle effects are gorgeous, but do not hinder the ability to see the action on the screen.  (10 out of 10)

Music / Sound Effects: The music and sound effects were created by none other than Matt Uelmen of Diablo, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft the Burning Crusade fame.  He is among the most well known and talented composers in the video game field and his expertise shows in Torchlight.  When I first got the press release, I spent over six hours in town taking screen shots of individual skills so that the Torchlight forum members could see a skill tree and plan their characters while they waited for the game.  During this time, I was listening to the same track loop over and over.    The fact that I still enjoy listening to it when I go to town says something about the quality of the music.   Some of the dungeon themes (section four in particular) are among the best musical tracks I have ever listened to.  They are as good if not better than the tracks from Final Fantasy VII, Diablo I and II and even WoW.   As far as sound effects, they create a visceral feel to all of the skills and none have annoyed me so far.  (10 out of 10)

Style: Torchlight oozes with style through every pore.  They have successfully branded a art style of their own that diverges sufficiently from the Diablo franchise to make their game stand out.  The world is fabulously detailed and every detail fits into their artistic style perfectly.  Amazingly, they have not copied any popular brand, like anime style characters, the Gothic feel of the Diablo series, or the ultra-realism of games like Dragon Age Origins.  Their art style feels like a cross between Dragons Lair and a Pixar movie.  (10 out of 10)

User Interface: The user interface is fully functional.  There are 10 hot keys as well as a mouse tab.  Inventory is sufficiently spacious and the overlay is well presented.  I do have some complaints here though.  The first is that you cannot remap the hot keys directly from the interface.  You have to modify them in the settings text file.  Since this is the first thing I typically do when I install a new game, I was disappointed.  The second is that pet numbers and buffs to not show on the top of the screen.  This makes keeping track of pets and buffs fairly difficult.  Third, I would like to be able to map more than 12 keys.  With the rich skill set and spells, I found I ran out of hot key real estate.  Fourth, picking up loot is a chore.  It stacks all in one group so it can be difficult to pick up after a particularly long fight.  That being said, the massive inventory space slightly mitigates this issue.  I only found it really annoying a couple times. (7 out of 10)

ARPG Gameplay Elements

Combat / Fight System: Combat in Torchlight is fast and furious like an action RPG should be.  You are an overpowered god of war who wades through hordes of swarming fodder with period breaks to fight a difficult boss.  There are traps and triggered events as well as extremely difficult bonus rooms.   Torchlight has delivered where countless Diablo clones have fallen short.  This is ARPG combat at its finest.  (10 out of 10)

Level Design: The developers of Torchlight decided to use bigger set pieces for the Torchlight random dungeons.  They work, beautifully.  The levels combine the best of a hand crafted feel with randomness to provide the user a truly unique experience each time.  While sometimes you recognize an individual set piece, you never completely know what will happen next.  The only complaint I have of level design is that the levels are somewhat linear.  This is the general rule in games like this nowadays, however and it is not a big deal.  There are always some interesting side passages to take in every dungeon. (10 out of 10)

Challenge: There are five difficulty levels in Torchlight: easy, normal, hard, very hard and very hard with a destroyer.  In addition, you can select to make your character hardcore which means they will be permanently killed  if they die.  All difficulty levels start out easier in the beginning levels and then ramp up in difficulty quickly by the end.  I found normal to be completely easy in the beginning and very hard to be slightly more difficult than Diablo.  Near the end, however, normal was close to the difficulty of Diablo II and I have heard that very hard ramps up to be much harder than Diablo II.  People who want a particular challenge can try very hard mode with the destroyer since he cannot kite monsters.  Overall, difficulty is pleasingly varied and will be even more varied when Runic releases their TorchED modding package later this week.  That being said, there are too many places in the game where you are portal swarmed.  I believe that this is slightly unfair because it requires all very hard characters to invest it point blank area of effect knock back skills.  Luckily each class has one. (9 out of 10)

Replayability: Like any good ARPG, replayability is where Torchlight shines.  After you finish the main story, you can continue on in an endless dungeon that has its own quests.  You can also do a series of random one shot levels that are opened via quest and buy maps from the vendor that open levels that you can explore.  In addition, to this you can retire your character and then bequeath some of  your fame and an heirloom item to your next character.   Add in the variety of difficulty levels, hardcore mode, a multitude of player builds, randomized dungeons and loot, and you have a game that has a nearly limitless replayability.  If that were not all, the developers are soon to release a game editor package that is full featured enough that someone could make a complete game overhaul.  A strong and talented contingent of mod creators has already gathered around the game and we soon should have more player created content than original content.  (10 out of 10)

ARPG Character Development and Story

Skills / Spells: Torchlight has a robust skills system with over 15 unique and 15 shared skills for each character.  Since the maximum number of attainable skill points is 155, no one will truly be able to max out their character the first go.  While unique skills per character may not seem like a huge number, the attention to detail for each skill is enormous.  The vanquisher character I played used traps and one of the skills, flechette trap, was the most fun skill I have ever used in any game.  It is like throwing down your own ricocheting machine gun to annihilate the enemy.  Added to the normal skill system, are a variety of spells like summon zombie, heal all, fireball, web, etc.  You can memorize four skills yourself and your pet can memorize two.  Overall, character development is more deep than any other ARPG I have played. (10 out of 10)

Loot: Loot is well balanced in this game, with a pleasing mix of normal, magic, rare, set and unique items dropping (for the single player, for the MMO it would be too much).  The attributes are interesting and there is enough of a variety in mods to make each purple or better item worth identifying.  Add to this an enchanting system and a socket system, and we have a robust deep loot game.  I have two complaints about loot however.  First, I do not see enough items that proc abilities.  I would like to see a weapon that periodically casts heal all, or summons a pet.  Second, picking up loot can sometimes be tedious do to the way the alt key stacks loot.  That being said, your ability to store a lot of items and the fact that your pet can grab loot and go sell it in town while you continue your adventuring are positive aspects.  (8 out of 10)

Quests / Events / Lore: This is where Torchlight, unfortunately falls somewhat short of its potential.  The main story, while decent is too short and all the quests are of the kill monster or gather item types.  I would have liked to see some more unique quests in the game like escorts, branched choices etc.   While questing is not a primary focus in an ARPG game, one of Runic’s main goals in this game was to introduce their world to us from the MMO.  A good quest system would have been one way to introduce that to the player. I would also have liked to see some lore drops in the form of books, character backstory etc.

That being said, there are three things that keep this category from being a dismal failure.  First, Runic did a great job making sure the quest interface did not interrupt people’s game play.  There are no 20 minute dialogs which point you down the hall to listen to another 20 minute dialog.  Action RPGs are about action and Torchlight follows this formula well.  Runic games was also able to put out this game in only 11 months.  I believe that the elements they focused on were good.  Second, the boss fights are truly epic encounters.  They feel more like you are soloing a World of Warcraft raid encounter than standard MMO fare.  Third, the modding tools have a robust quest system.  Players will be able to add in more quests to the game over time.  (7 out of 10)

Other

Bugs: I did not experience any show stopping bugs in my entire play experience.  This was on an unpatched game… a true rarity these days.  While some users in the forums are experiencing some bugs, they are the exception, not the rule. (10 out of 10)

Developer and Player Community: If you ever stop by the Torchlight forums, you will notice something unique about the community.  The developers communicate with the players and answer questions.  I have received numerous responses to questions I have asked on the forums and the developer excitement is plain to see.  They are a talented crew who are interested in making quality video games and not focused entirely on the bottom line.  This is a true rarity these days.  They also program with lightning speed and are good at not overreaching.    I had the pleasure to meet several of the developers at PAX.  They were all  gracious, humble, and friendly people who were willing to take time out to show me their game and listened intently to any feedback they offered.  These are a group of people who make you want to suport them and their general attitude has spilled over into the community forums which ooze with creative ideas, politeness and helpful people. (10 out of 10)

Value: A game this fun with nearly endless replayablity and fantastic modding tools would be a steal at the $60 price point.  At $20, it may well be the best video game deal ever released.  This is the must have game purchase of 2009-2010.  (10 out of 10)

Multiplayer?: As many people have griped about, there is no multiplayer mode to the single player game.  The developers are now working on an MMO.  While multiplayer would be nice, this has never been their intent from the beginning and there will be a free multiplayer upgrade in about 2 years (the MMO).  (NA)

Spin: Torchlight is an action RPG game that is about as good as a single player action RPG can be.  It oozes quality from every pore.  That fact that it was developed in less than a year and half that time was developing the concept and art style makes me tremendously excited to see what they can do with their MMO in 2 years time. (10 out of 10)

Overall Score: 9.4 out of 10

Overall Score Adjusted for Value: 9.8 out of 10

• Good gold sinks are divided into two types. Necessary gold sinks which any player can afford (repairs, training, etc) and luxury gold sinks (mounts etc)
• Luxury gold sinks provide utility, not absolute power. Examples… Mounts… Pets… Bank Storage Etc… Items…
• Luxury gold sinks ramp heavily in price (flying mounts, etc)
• Gold sinks provide services that players want to buy without them feeling like that service is punative.

C. The solution Experience Sinks
A good experience system should take the principle of gold sinks and split experience into two necessary experience sinks that every player pays and luxury experience sinks that will continue to make experience meaningful for even the most hardened power leveler.

Examples of Necessary Experience Sinks
These are the common things that current MMOs allow players to spend experience on.

• Character leveling (The better the luxury sinks, the faster this process can be)
• Any type of death experience penalty (not needed, but it is a sink), with better luxury sinks, this can be limited.
• Limited Respec (requires people to re level characters), with better luxury sinks, respec can be allowed.
• Pet Leveling (One pet)

Examples of Luxury Experience Sinks
These are examples of experience sinks that will keep experience meaninful for a long time. I believe Torchlight is uniquely poised to take advantage of several of these options.

• Character Retirement – The ultimate experience sink
• Pet / Mount Leveling (All 300 of your pets=P)
• High level Moonlighting (require higher levels to burn experience)
• High level crafting
• Asymptotic extra skill point system.

Benefits of this system

• It enables a quick level cap which will keep the community together. You will have a lot of people you can meaningfully group with.
• It keeps the rewards coming at an interesting and reasonable pace.
• The majority of content can be targeted for the lower level cap.

Answer: “Moonlighting as an NPC!”

By Timothy Stave (aka Jerich)

Overview – What makes an MMO successful?  How can a micro-transaction system help or hinder its success?  In this paper I introduce a novel system for community building and player advancement I call Moonlighting.  In it, players become philanthropic npcs in their off hours, accumulating fortune and fame while helping their fellow player.  I believe that moonlighting is particularly well suited for a micro-transaction system.  I present this essay in three parts.

Part I – Building a Framework: How can we Rate Micro-transaction Systems?

1. What motivates players to play RPGS?
2. What motivates players to play MMOs?
3. One motivation I did not include in the framework.
4. What kinds of players will pay real money for virtual items?
5. What makes a good micro-transaction?  The framework defined.

Part II – Using the Framework:  Bad Examples of Micro-transactions and Why They are Bad.

1. Negative Example 1 – Buying uber items / gold etc
2. Negative Example 2 – Unlocked Content like new zones that are available to the individual player only.
3. Negative Example 3 – Charge Store Money for Player Respecification (skill reassigning).
4. Neutral Example 4 – Vanity Items

Part III – Applying the Framework:  Positive Ideas for Micro-transaction that Build Community.

1. Moonlighting
2. Name Vetting

Part I, How can we Rate Micro-transaction Systems?

In this section, I build a framework that I use to explain why some micro transaction systems are better than others. Part A and B focus on why we play RPGS and MMOS. Part C talks about why escapism is not a core motivation.  Part D looks at the types of people who will pay money. Part E then defines the framework. hope you find it as interesting as I did writing it.

A. What motivates people to play RPGs?

1. A sense of progress / reward

In real life, experience bars are not visible and move slowly. RPGs allow players to make progress at a much faster rate. Few things are most satisfying than annihilating a monster that was difficult a few levels ago.

RPGs are also really fun in that you are constantly getting positive feedback at different frequencies. Every few seconds, you score an awesome hit, take out some monsters, pick up cash or a vendor item. Every few minutes you pick up something that you want to identify. Every half hour or so, you level up, find a truly awesome item, complete a quest or sell a major haul of loot. Every few days, goal oriented players may retire a character or complete a difficult achievement (like finishing the game naked or as a tank caster).

2. The wonder of exploration

People love to explore. This can take multiple forms… finding hidden areas in a map, seeing new monsters, trying out new skill combinations, reading lore, talking to npcs, playing mini new mini games, etc. As players see more and more of the game, they might use the cheating console to explore things that couldn’t normally be reached (like go down to level 10 million), download mods, or even create a mod.

3. The satisfaction of solving a problem

RPGs also present us with a ton of open ended problems. How can I beat this boss, what is an the best skill combination to do  X, what are the steps to solving this quest, what is the most efficient way to level, how can I juggle all my skills, etc. Some people might even run experiments to decipher the mathematical formula for hitting an enemy.

B. What motivates people to play MMOs?

People play MMOS for all the reasons they play RPGs, but there are also three additional factors: competition, cooperation and community.

4.  Competition -

Lots of us are striving to be better than the average peon that plays the game. We want to have better loot, beat bigger boss fights, be a pvp machine, be able to play with more skill, be more respected, have more achievement points, know more lore than others, etc. Few things are more satisfying than having a newbie gawk at you and say your character is an utter badass. One of them is for someone you respect to bow down to you and admire your gaming prowess.

Interestingly enough, like all aspects of life including intelligence, only those reasonably close to you can even begin to understand how awesome you are. Thus, someone with 140 IQ can respect the thoughts of someone with 160 IQ, but someone with 120 IQ will write them off because they can’t keep up with them. In gaming terms this plays out like this.

Gamer A has 500 achievement points / PVP ranking etc

Gamer B has 1000 achievement points

Gamer C has 2000 achievement points

Gamer D has 3000 achievement points

Gamer A thinks Gamer B is pretty awesome but believes Gamer C is obsessive and calls Gamer D a complete no lifer. Gamer B peppers C with questions, as to how he did achievement X, but feels intimidated by Gamer D and thus ignores her. Gamer C respects gamer D and /bows to her each time he sees her. When he wants to get an achievement done that requires serious dedication and multiple people, he will ask her. Gamer D is flattered by all this, secretly wonders if A is right and that she has no life, but is mainly driven by an overwhelming desire to be the best. She is constantly strategizing as to how to improve her ranking. If she is a PVP player, everyone wants to be on her team, seeks her out first on a battle field, and pees themselves if they get stuck in a 1 on 1 situation. If she is a guild leader, hers is the guild that power gamers secretly dream of being in.

As you can see, we tend to only respect people that we understand or that we dream of becoming some day if we were at our best. We also usually only respect people who we believe can help us achieve our goals.

One last note about the respect which all power gamers crave… People tend to respect people who achieve their greatness through skill, hard work or even luck. We don’t respect people who cheat or buy their way to the top unless they do it in a way that is incredibly efficient or skillful. Gamer A would be ok if they could buy items for real money. Gamer B may even be tempted to. But Gamer C would be downright hostile to the idea because it cheapens his achievements. Interestingly, Gamer D might not care because she would still be better than the cheaters and it would show her that even people who cheat are not as awesome as her.

5. Cooperation / Altruism

Not everyone is motivated by competition. In fact, many people are completely turned off by it. Most people, however, are motivated by cooperation. Clearing a dungeon with 5 other people or killing a dragon with 24 others, everyone working in unison, relying on each other and each having their own role is one of the pinnacle moments in an MMO experience. After taking down a powerful boss, or beating some obscure achievement I sometimes literally have to stop myself from getting up and walking around my house grinning wildly. Group play affirms something uniquely human in us and reminds us that we are not just heartless power gaming bastards.

This is the same reason that people will go to newbie zones and help them along. It is fun to be the good guy. It is also fun to play with friends and all find items that other people can use. Good cooperation energizes the soul and recharges people for another binge of power gaming.

6. Community

Nothing is better than a good community. This is the primary reason people have trouble quitting MMOs. To quote the theme from the TV show “Cheers”, it is good to be in a place where “everyone knows your name.” It is also nice to know people miss you when you don’t log in for a couple days. There are four real levels of community, macro, guild level, close friends and real life friends.

The most basic form of community is the macro / server / game level. It is fun to have an acquaintance or stranger pm you out of no where with an intelligent question. One time in WOW, someone made a character on my server to specifically ask me about my dps rotation because his guild master had told him to.  I wasn’t the best, so this did not happen all the time, but I was tremendously honored someone would go through that bother just to talk to me.  Another time I created an alliance character to ask the second highest rank achievement person on the server for help with an achievement.  We had a blast communicating through emails and alternate characters as we worked together.  Things like this stand out in my memory because it made me feel like part of a community that went beyond my guild or even server.

The next level of community is the guild level.  Lots of people like to be in a guild where there is always someone to banter with or go on dungeons with. There is a balance here though. Too few people and there is no one to do things with.  Too many people and our capacity to develop attachments deteriorates. Each person has their preference level.

Another deeper type of community is close gaming friends. I think most people who play MMOs seriously, develop 1-6 of these. They are the people that you pm the moment you log on. They are the people you whisper first when you do something really awesome. They are the people you complain to when something is bugging you. You may have even have met them in real life, led guilds with, and you now follow from game to game. They are the real reason you log on even if you only have time to chat for a few minutes.

The last type of community is made up of our real life friends who also play the game.  Often they are casual players. Most of us have them. These are the people who were our real life friends before we started gaming. They are not power gamers, but fun to play with. They keep us honest and tell us if we are playing too much. They often refuse to pay for subscription based games out of principal, but might be tempted to play a game like Torchlight with you. Tons of Diablo style players fall into this category.

The negotiation between progress, rewards, exploration, problem solving, competition, community and community is what makes MMOs so fun to play.

C.  One motivation that is not included in our framework.

One major motivation that has motivated most gamers at one time or another is escapism.    We often play games to escape from some stress in the real world.  I believe, however, that focusing on escapism as a motivation will eventually backfire.  It causes people to burn out and often leaves them with hostility toward the game after they sate themselves with excess.  Instead, a combination of the six motivations together creates a positive attachment to the game and limits the negative aspects of playing.  Moonlighting, an idea that will be fleshed out below, actually tries to help people balance their real lives with the game play by rewarding people for taking time off.

D. What kinds of people pay for micro transactions?

The majority of gamers will not pay much for micro transactions. This is ok since interacting with the non-paying players is the main reason the paying players are willing to spend real money.  MMOs are like single bars in the sense that you need a certain number of people to show up before large audiences will be attracted.  Not everyone buys large amounts of drinks in a singles bar, but even the people that don’t buy much are adding to the popularity of the place.

1. The Rich Guy With No Time

This player is likely an adult who has a day job and a family but loves to play games.  Their playtime is precious, so they don’t want to waste it doing un-fun things.  They are willing to pay, so that they can skip the boring parts.  They are also usually somewhat competitive.  They feel like it is slightly unfair that someone who doesn’t have real life responsibilities has such an enormous advantage over them.   These are the kinds of people who will pay third party companies to farm gold and even level their characters while they’re at work.  They may even bot.  Later on, we introduce the ideas of moonlighting that meet this players needs while building community at the same time.

2. The Ultimate Power Gamer

This player wants to be at the top of the game, and is able to make a large amount of progress by themselves.  They are, however, never satisfied with this progress.  They people to respect and admire them when they see them, and will buy items off of 3^rd party sites to give themselves that little extra edge.  If they were a pro football player, they would be taking steroids.  Unfortunately, money does not buy respect.  Philanthropy, however, does.  Moonlighting will give these players an outlet to increase their progress and also be respected for their contribution at the same time.

3. The Collector

These players want to collect everything about the game that they can.  They are the kinds of people that order collectors editions of MMOs just to get a special in game pet  (to complete their collection of 100 pets).  These are the kinds of people who are willing to create a new WoW account and pay for it for three months just to get the Zhevra mount (again, one of their many 100s of mounts), or flew to Blizzcon just to get the in game mini-pet.  What truly motivates these players are limited release items and achievements that go along with their collecting.  If you can get a special pet because you collect 200 mini-pets, these players will do almost anything to get it.  Unfortunately, other players often make fun of them when they show off their huge collections.  Later on, I give some ideas in the Moonlighting section that can make these players a respected member of the community.

4. The Philanthropist

These kinds of players may not buy things with real money for themselves, but they would buy items that can help their friends.  They are the kinds of people who would not buy a mini-pet or vanity item and who feel guilty spending real money on themselves.  They would, however, be willing to spend money on something that helps their friends like a guild hall.  The guild sponsoring and leveling section is aimed specifically at these people.

5. The Cherry Picker

This person will not buy that many items from micro-transactions, but will cherry pick the ones that specifically make their play time more convenient.  These are the kinds of people who would pay for dual specs and a larger stash size as long as the cost was cheap enough.

6.  The Perfect Snowflake Hunter

These people are like a cross between Collector and the Cherry Picker.  Unlike collectors, they will not buy everything, but unlike Cherry Pickers, they want vanity items.  They want items that are exceedingly rare.  They are the types of people who will pay 100k for Elvis’s shoes in real life.  They are the kinds of people who buy boxes of EQ or WoW cards just for the rare chance of getting a Spectral Tiger (or buy them off Ebay for 1000s of dollars).  These are the kinds of people who played the EQ gambling den with thousands of plat to get a guise of the deceiver (an item that would turn characters into a dark elf).  Later on, the moonlighting section describes auctioning systems specifically targeted toward these players.

E. What makes a good micro-transaction system?

Good micro transaction systems target the reasons people play RPGS (progress/rewards, exploration and problem solving) and MMOs (competition, cooperation and community). A successful micro transaction will build at least one of these six keys motivations without destroying one of the others. A bad micro transaction will target one or two of these motivations, but undermine others. Using this framework, we can begin to understand why some forms of micro transaction don’t work in the long run and can come up with some ideas that will work.

Part II  Bad Examples of Micro Transactions and Why they are Bad

In this section we look at bad examples of micro-transactions under the light of our new framework to see why they don’t work.  We then suggest ways that might improve them.

A. Negative Example 1 – Buying uber items / gold etc-

People who buy uber items typically fall into this general stereotype. They have a job that makes decent money and have real life commitments. They only have a small amount of precious game time and don’t want to spend it grinding away when they could be running dungeons, raiding, etc. They are also usually competitive. They are annoyed by the fact that some player is better than them simply because they have more time to play. Why then is it bad for the game?

Positives

On the positive side it increases the player’s ability to gain progress and explore. It also increases their ability to compete. For those keeping score (Progress +, Exploration +, Competition +) . +3 motivation benefit

Negatives

The negatives far outweigh the positives however.  The sense of achievement is destroyed because there is nothing left to work for. Someone who got the item legitimately is enough of a power gamer that they can invest the time needed to take the next step. Some who skipped ahead is lost.  The sense of competition is destroyed because legitimate players will feel that their effort was meaningless. They quit and the money buyer now has no one to compete against. Cooperation is destroyed because people lose the ability to guesstimate the skill of a character by looking at them. Community is destroyed because people make fun of the buyers and make them second class citizen. (Progess -, Competition –, Cooperation -, Community -). – 5 motivation penalty

Overall, allowing people to buy gold and uber items is destructive to the game. (-2)

Possible ways to do something similar without having the destructiveness.

1. Sell account bound items that level up with a character but never achieve uberness (like WoW heirloom items) (or even turn an account bound unique into an heirloom equivalent so that an alt can wear their final gear from day one). Their top level cap would be 5 lower than the level of the character that converts them. This allows people to level alts faster without destroying the progress curve, competitiveness, cooperation or community. Progress +, Exploration +, Competition +… no major minus for a total of (+3).

2. Allow people to auction store gold to other players instead of selling gold outright. For some reason, this feels less dirty and is less community destructive. I think it is for the same reason that buying a girlfriend dinner and a movie gets you a lot farther than handing her a $50.00 bill. Ways to launder and legitimize real money are good for the community. It also increases the legitimacy of anything bought with store gold because someone could have bought it with hard work, trading in the auction house.    It might be best to charge a hefty tax on these transactions and limit them in some way. Hard to rate… I might make a separate post just about this.

B.  Negative Example 2 – Unlocked content like new zones that are available to the individual player only.

Positives:

Unlocked content like new zones seems to be great ideas because they increase abilities of players to explore the game.  They also give the buyer a new way to advance and a competitive advantage (Progress +, Exploration +, Competition +) +3

Negatives:

These types of zones limit the ability for friends to play together and split the community into pieces.  Some players would also feel that it makes competition unfair (competition-, cooperation -, community -) -3, 0 overall

Possible alternatives –

Allow players to unlock areas for their party, even those that don’t pay.   Fairness is balanced and cooperation and community actually improve for a +5 total.

Allow players to give out quests to special areas while they moonlight (explained in another section below).  This affects a different subset of the community and actually enhances competition more directly for both players.  +7 total.

C. Negative Example 3 – Charge Store Money for Player Respecification (skill reassigning).

Positives:

This allows paying players to increase their ability to explore and solve problems as they try out new combinations of their character.  (Competition +, Exploration +, Problem solving +)

Negatives:

Non-paying players are unduly punished for mistakes and may have to scrap a character.  This makes it so they do not experiment as much.  (Exploration -, Progress -)  Total +1

Better alterative

Let people pay for dual specs (Keep respecification tied to dropped gold).  Players have the option to have multiple skill sets that they can change at will.  This gives them flexibility, but does not ruin the game for paying players.  Options to make it work would either be making it cheap, or account wide.  (Increase exploration and progress even more) +5

D. Neutral Example 4 – Vanity Items

Vanity items appeal primarily to competition.   They have no real negative effects.  (+1)

Better Examples

Limited release account bound vanity items.  Extra competition boost. (+2)

Let players buy the ability to sell a unique item to others via the moonlighting route.  Extra hard to get (perhaps an achievement unlocks your ability to do it once for an hour).  The player gets some special reward for doing so.  Competition + Community + Progress (+5)

Part III – Positive Ideas for Micro Transactions that Build Community

In this section I introduce two concepts that that use the principals described above to build community through micro transactions.  It is divided into three parts: Moonlighting, Guild Skill Trees, and Community Name Vetting.

Part A: Moonlighting. Moonlighting is a method of playing philanthropic offline avatars where players can “Moonlight” as NPCs while they are offline.   Characters get rewards from moonlighting, but are also helping the community at large.  Eventually a moonlighting character will go through NPC ranks and be able to retire, permanently becoming a game NPC or a guild sponser.

Part B:  Name Vetting:  Name vetting is a method with which the developers can harness the power of community to ensure that only characters with good names are allowed to moonlight.  Characters without community approved names are forced to moonlight under a pseudonym or buy a previously vetted name from another character. (explained in a future installment)

Part A: Moonlighting

Question:  “What is my avatar doing when I am offline?”

Answer: “Moonlighting as an NPC!”

Moonlighting Summarized

• Player characters can pay to moonlight as npcs when they log off for the night / work etc.
• Their character is then is a game npc and fulfils a specific job.
• Each of these jobs benefits the gaming community as a whole and provides services for both non-paying and paying members.
• The jobs also benefit the moonlighter, giving rewards depending on the job. Higher status jobs cost more but give more of a reward.
• The jobs are split into three main paths, noble, merchant and crafter.
• Players accumulate path points as they moonlight, which allows them to moonlight with higher and higher status jobs.
• Once a character accrues sufficient status, they can retire.  They then become a permanent in game NPC and provide their descendants with a steady stream of revenue among other benefits.  (They can even become a guild sponsor, opening up guild skill tabs)

1. Why will Moonlighting Make the Game a Better Place to Play?

Moonlighting supercharges the six core reasons people play RPGS and MMOS.

• Advancement / Rewards:  It gives players a way to advance in multiple paths.  Players also look forward to logging in and seeing what their moonlighting character did.
• Exploration:  It provides tons of new content to explore and gives people reasons to start new characters due to the retirement system.
• Problem Solving:  It promotes problem solving as people chart their player’s growth.
• Competition:  It provides multiple ways for players to gain the respect of other players by harnessing the powers of name recognition and altruism
• Cooperation:  Players must coordinate to unlock the best guild features.
• Community:  Moonlighting encourages players to actively help each other and respect each other.  Player interaction and good will is increased.
• For anyone keeping track, that is +6 positive with no negatives.  Nice!

2. Why will Moonlighting Make the Producers Tons of Money?

• It encourages people to spend money each month.
• It can be implemented a bit at a time, starting with the basic jobs.
• It provides motivations for every type of spending player.
• Non-paying players gain benefits, so they also have buy-in.
• Charging more for higher rank jobs is actually beneficial to the community because it keeps these jobs rare.
• Community will be increased, so people will want to help / impress their peers.

3. Moonlighting in Detail

Multiple Paths of Character Advancement – In the real word there are different ways that people earn fortune and fame.  Some rely on their skill, ability, or charisma such as athletes and movie stars.  Others are merchant tycoons and build vast financial empires.  Still others garner political clout and eventually are given positions of power.  Finally, some people are master builders, artists and engineers.  Each of these groups is respected by our society because they work at what they do and provide services to us.  We are ok allowing people to have power / respect as long as we gain some benefit.

a. The Merchant Path

The first path that people can choose is to become a merchant.  They spawn as a special merchant that either offers unique goods or gives other players a better deal when vendoring items.  While people are merchants, they get a slight experience boost (perhaps 100% xp for 1/50^th of a level) for each transaction someone makes with them and also a small cut of the profit.  They also gain merchant points which let them advance in merchant rank.  This rank allows them to take on increasingly challenging jobs.  At the higher end, merchant points can be spent for fabulous rewards.

Merchant Path Jobs (in order of increasing rank)

• Dungeon Merchant – Spawn as one of the random merchants in someone’s dungeon.   You give the player a better price for their items and get a small share of the take.
• Town Merchant – Spawn as a merchant in the overland for a set amount of time.  You periodically spawn a set of interesting items that cannot be found anywhere else.
• City Merchant – Spawn as a major city merchant.  You take over for one of the prominent city NPCS.  If that character gave out quests… you are the new quest giver!
• Raid Dungeon Merchant – You spawn as a major raid dungeon merchant.  Who knows the fabulous items you can sell or the amount of straight profit to be earned when players repair their gear.  mwahaha
• Respec Trainer – You become the trainer that allows people to respecify their character points.  You get a reward each time your character respecs someone else.  Note: this should probably have an achievement requirement attached.
• Broker – You become a broker like the kinds in Guild Wars for various items that otherwise cannot be bought and sold on the auction house.  You are linked to a central database of items and get a small cut of each transaction.  Note:  this is the only way that players can trade real money gold for dropped gold.
• Auction House – You become the in game auction house barker.  Players congregate around you, waiting to click on you and browse the auction house.  As before, you get a small cut of each auction house transaction.  Wow!
• The Town Banker – You are the city banker!  People must click on you to get their stuff and when you are present, extra bank slots are cheaper for people to buy.  As always, you get a small cut of the profit.
• Specialists – High level merchants who also have completed fantastically hard in game achievements will be able to spawn one time in their life as a super rare merchant that can sell a unique limited release item.  (Example, a high level merchant who collects 100 mini-pets can spawn for one hour and sell a mini-pheonix that can only be bought in this special case!  The phoenix has is limited release and has your character name on it!)

Merchant Path Rewards (In order of increasing rank)

• Better merchant prices:  Your skills at bartering have given you a discount at stores (this increases as your skill improves).
• Ability to buy special merchant related items for your guild, like access to repairers, better guild stashes, newbie equipping stations, shrines to avarice and greed (increase guild percentage of dropped gold and items), auction house barkers, etc.
• Ability to hire lackeys that will do things like set watches on the auction house, search the lands merchants for rare items, contract out as sub merchants, become your own traveling outfitter, etc.
• Ability to buy a player owned townhouse that can be used for your descendants.
• At the highest level, you can retire to provide unique services to your guild, i.e. a fully accessible bank in the guild hall that has a ton of extra space.

b. The Noble Path

The noble path is designed to serve other players.  You are a wandering philanthropist, fighting evil and supporting your fellow adventurer.  Each time you do this, you accrue noble points which allow you to advance down the ranks of nobility.  You also get slight experience rate bonuses like merchant does and an ever increasing chance of your share of the loot.  At the highest levels, you can open raid dungeons and become the king of a town!

Noble Path Jobs (In order of increasing rank)

• Become a dungeon savior.  When people die in a dungeon, there is a small chance that you will spawn, resurrect them, and then fight with them till they are safe.  (You must be a high level character)
• Newbie area guard.  You become the guard of the newbie zone.  New players can run to you for protection.  They can also /salute you for a short term buff.
• Randomly wander a high level dungeon, offering to join other players.  If they accept, they get extra drops and you have a chance of getting an extra drop from each boss just for you.
• Sponsor a dungeon expedition.  You become a quest giver that lets non-paying players venture into an elite dungeon (perhaps 10 groups total).  When they complete it, you get noble points and a chance of a rare item.
• Your character becomes a dungeon quest giver.  Unlocking the ability for players to find a huge chest or special boss.
• Become a raid event.  Whenever help spawns, in a raid encounter… it is you!  Completely buffed up in this case.
• Open a raid dungeon – Hire a mercenary band to open a raid dungeon for the server.  Any items that drop in the raid dungeon have your name stamped on them!  Your guild gets power gaming points for each boss that is killed and you get a small chance of an epic item mailed to you for each boss kill.
• Sponsor a tournament.  You can post your own prizes and players can enter ahead of time.  The more people who enter the more noble points and fame you get.  You even get a chance for a unique reward yourself.
• Become king of a town for a week.  NPCs bow down to you as you pass them.  Once per day, as you log off, the town npcs form a procession through town while you march to the castle.  Once you get to your throne, you hold court, giving quests.  Any player can come to you and /bow to you for a long term adventuring buff.  Each time someone does this, you get nobility points.

Noble Path Rewards

• Increased chance of another noble spawning to help your party when something goes wrong.
• Special titles that increase in power … i.e. Sir all the way to Duke.  These titles can be passed on to your decedents.
• Ability to buy a player owned keep or special guildhalls.  These are passed on to your descendents.
• Random NPCs cry out for all to make way for you when you come into town.
• Ability to unlock amazing guild items like a statue that increases experience gain for both normal and path fields.
• Ability to become the class trainer at high levels.
• Ability to open up more and more epic areas for other players.
• A squire who will carry your armor for you (enables you to change gear between two full sets quickly).
• A bard who accompanies you, singing your praises and giving your party a small buff.
• The ability to retire to unlock guild sponsorship skill trees.

c. The Crafter Path

The crafter path is for someone who loves the crafting system and wants to both improve their skills and help other members of the crafting community.  You wander around helping people gather from nodes and can spawn to help people make increased quality items.  As you help people, your crafting skill has a chance to go up and you also increase your chance of making high quality items.  Eventually, you can give people crafting quests and take the place of in-game trainers.  You can retire to build special guild crafting stations that provide players a buff to crafting.

Crafter Path Jobs (In order of increasing prestige)

• Gathering Expert.  Whenever someone gathers from a node, there is a small chance that you spawn and buff the node with a bonus for the gatherer.  You have a small chance of gaining a gathering level and will also share in some of the items.
• Master Tutor – Whenever someone makes an item in your chosen specialty, there is a chance you will spawn and help them craft an elite version with your name attached to it.  Each time you do this; you gain crafting skill and also increase the chance that your next few items will be elite.
• At high level, you can give people quests to make certain items that can only be made this way.  You get one copy for each 5 versions of the item that is made.  In order to do this, you must also be a master of the craft
• Become the master trainer.  The only way for people to train to mastery level in your craft is to find you hidden in the bottom of a certain dungeon when you are moonlighting.  Other trainers will give hints, to where you might be at the moment.  You get a large amount of the leveling fee and become a master yourself.

Crafter Path Rewards

• Learn new recipes that only crafter path people can know.  These recipes are for utility / vanity items and are sometimes bind on pickup, sometimes bind for guild, sometimes bind for account etc.
• Repair other players gear in dungeon
• Get bonuses from nodes and increased chances to make better items
• Retire to create guild crafting stations that buff anyone who uses them

4. General Benefits for Moonlighting – Most moonlighting paths give these benefits.

• Gain a small amount of experience rate bonus when you moonlight
• Buy new titles and achievements with your points.
• Pass down a portion of your skills, achievements to your offspring.
• Get mail whenever you log in describing what you did and what rewards you got while you were gone.
• Get statistics and achievements that track your path level progress.
• Both you and the non-paying community benefit.
• Buy special edition items with the extra points you have accumulated.
  • Examples – Limited item mini-pets
  • Bid on a town statue
  • Bid on retiring to become a major figure in the next expansion (with name approval)

5. Rules for who gets what job – Some jobs will have stiff competition.  Here are some rules to make it fair.

• Each time people gain a level, they get a certain amount of moonlighting credit.  For Instance, 1 hour at level 10, 2 hours at level 20, etc.  To do more with their character, they have to pay.
• Make some jobs free.  That way anyone can moonlight.  Middle range jobs cost less than a latté per week or month.  Highest level jobs cost significantly more per month.
• Limit jobs to a certain number of times.  i.e. You can save 30 people before you are done for the night, etc.
• Job frequencies are split among categories:  I.E. Actively moonlighting players get 50% of the spots, retired in the last month 30%, retired in the last 6 months 10%, retired more than 6 months 10%.
• Once you help one person once, you have an increased chance to help the same person.  This is done to build community.
• Some jobs are on a first come first serve basis (i.e. you are lucky enough to be there when it opens up), others by lottery, others by queue and still others by auction.
• Some jobs institute phasing so that different players see different people when they go to an area
• Some jobs require rare skills or achievements and are thus limited.
• Perhaps there is the option for people to buy the ability to moonlight two characters with the same account or even moonlight an alt while they are online.

6. Character Retiring – After a long time of adventuring, it is time for your character to retire. They will pass down their titles and give their descendants the ability to rapidly rise through the ranks of their specific path. There are multiple ways to retire a character (Note… most of them cost a small amount of real money)

• Permanently start another job – Your moonlighting job just became your characters fulltime job.  They will spawn as an npc for the rest of the games life giving their heir a permanent stream of revenue and path points.  Even though, they will spawn less and less as the years progress, you will still sometimes get mail saying they did something years from now.
• Become a sponsor for a guild – The character retires to become a guild specialist, permanently increase the functionality of a guild.  They can open up guild skill trees, build crafting stations, open banks etc.
• Allow the character to choose a surname – You choose a surname and have it approved by the community.  After this, you are able to make all your character with this surname.  People will start to recognize your last name and you will start to get player recognition.

7. Guild Sponsorship – Players have different motivations for joining guilds.  By retiring a character, you can unlock a guild skill tree that meets your guild names

• The social guild – Unlocks mini-games.  More mini-games are added as your guild plays the existing one.  Eventually your guild gains the ability to link guild chat to another guild for massive guild party channels.
• The power gaming guild – This tree gains points for killing raid bosses.  Abilities include cheaper guild repairs, extra marking features, etc.
• The cloud of gamers guild – Gain experience the more people level and quest.  Abilities include slightly faster xp rates, crafting bonuses… things the solo player cares about.
• Group of close friends – Gain guild experience while grouping together.  You get abilities that slightly increase your efficiency play when together.
• Casual gamers – Gain xp for offline time (stops after 12 hours), you gain the ability to delevel yourself to help your friends get experience rate boosts etc.  (Note, this is because one friend in a casual guild is always more hardcore than the rest.  It is some kind of law.)

B. Name Vetting (Players voting on names to make sure they are good)

“If the name receives high, or highest quality, you will retain rights to it and be able to sell rights to the name to a name broker so that someone can buy a high quality name.”

Vetting (from dictionary.reference.com) – To subject to thorough examination or evaluation: vet a manuscrips.

The name problem – The first problem that comes to mind when many people think seriously about Moonlighting is preserving npc name integrity.   Few people want to meet an npc named XX1337gamerXX, Legolass105, chuckNoris, sirgankalot, BadHotDog, or mylittlepwny.  One method of solving this problem is to harness the power of the player community in a way that is similar to how Yahoo Answers or Wikipedia arrive at truth, but in a way designed specifically for MMOs.

The name vetting mini game defined– Players can make a character with any name they want (filtered for swear words etc).  Once they want to start Moonlighting, however, they need to submit their name to the community for quality control.  This control takes place in a kind of mini game that players have that is specifically designed to be both easy to implement and employ the power of community.  Here is how the mini-game works…

1. Naming Mini-game Part 1, the basic game rules:

Studies on Wikipedia have shown that the content is incredibly accurate even though it is edited by random members.  Some philosophers have even branded this style at arriving at truth, truth by consensus.  The mini-game, harnesses this principle.  It is also nice, in that it does not require a paid expert to vet every name.

• People can opt to play the mini-game for a certain number of rounds per day.  It is limited to prevent burnout.
• Players are shown a set of rules that they should rate names by on a scale of 1 to 10.  A score of 1-4 are unacceptable names for Moonlighting, 5-10 are acceptable names ranking in increasing order of lore appropriateness.
• They are told that they will be rating names and that they will get more points if they match the ratings of the other people who are playing the game at the time.
• If they know something special that not everyone knows and that makes a name inappropriate (i.e. it is a foreign swear word or character in a book/TV series), they can fill out a one sentence line explaining their negative vote.
• They are then shown a series of names along with the characters gender, class and race and asked to rate the names.
• An individual name will be rated over the course of a day at random times to ensure that a single guild cannot get together for a half hour and sway the naming system.
• Once a sufficient number of votes are in and outliers have either been thrown out or separately vetted, the average is tallied and the name is either rejected for Moonlighting (1-4), Enabled for middle status jobs (5-7 average), or sent on to round II for a shot at having a premium name (one that can be the highest status jobs).
• Players of the game then get points based on how close they were to the average on each name they voted on.
• People who know something rare about that name (i.e. it is a swear word in a foreign language or a book / TV character series).  They can write an explanation.  This will be looked at later by editors.

2. Naming Mini-game Rules part 2- Separating high quality names from highest quality:

Names that receive specifically high marks are sent on to a second round of consensus mini-games.  This is a competition designed to reward players who select the best names.

• Names that receive an 8-10 on part 1 are sent to a name playoff.
• Players are shown two names and asked to select the better of the two.  They get points if they go along with the majority.
• After each name goes through a round robin style tournament, the top 10-20% of the names are given the highest quality status.  These names can be moonlighted for the highest quality jobs (i.e. lord of a town).
• Names that are not in this percentage are high quality names and can be used for all jobs except the highest status jobs.

3. Preventing Abuse: No system is foolproof, but abuses can be limited through some easy to implement mechanisms.   Here are some problems and ways they might be prevented.

• A big gaming community tries to manipulate the system on a server
  • Create a list of every guild that a certain account is a member to.
  • Multiple votes from guild members will be thrown out.
  • You could even check ip numbers.
• Someone comes up with a creative unfit name that few people notice
  • Allow people to put a comment on why they rated the name poorly if they think few people will notice.
  • High level posters will then use this information when spot checking names.
  • If the comment is good, these contributors will be rewarded.
• Names slip through the cracks
  • High level posters have the ability to validate community decisions.
  • This is a separate process and they get points for doing it.
  • They can click ok, or report a name to a gm for consideration with a list of their concern.
  • The gm then decides the name slipped through the cracks, the high level poster gets points that will allow them to advance to an even higher level.
• High level posters are corrupt
  • The GM spot checks a small percentage of names.  If the system is compromised, they click a button and the people who vetted it and the high level poster all lose mini-game rank.
  • In particularly egregious cases, people could get a temporary suspension or even a banning from the mini-game.

“Give the name to the Psuedonyming system.  You get 20% of the rewards when anyone Moonlights under this Psuedonym.”

4. Rewards for participation:

• After each round, a player gets a small point based reward.
• At the end of each day, score totals are tabulated and the player gets extra points depending on the how often they were close to consensus and extra points if they presented an expert opinion.
• Players can then use these points to buy in game rewards. Some reward ideas are as follows:
  • Be able to submit a name this week.  If the name receives high, or highest quality, you will retain rights to it and be able to do one of three things.
    • Immediately make a character that uses this name.
    • Sell rights to the name to a name broker so that someone can buy a high quality name.
    • Give the name to the Psuedonyming system.  You get 20% of the rewards when anyone Moonlights under this Psuedonym.
  • Buy a new rank in the naming mini game.  This allows you to play more rounds per day.
  • Buy a special in game title or in game reward (i.e. dungeon map, or goodie bag with a chance of a rare vanity item)
  • Get achievements based on participation / weekly score etc.
  • The top contributor(s) of the week get a special title and vanity item.

5. Pseudonyming, a system that allows people with little creativity to Moonlight.

If someone doesn’t want to go through the bother of having their name vetted, or fails the vetting process, but still wants to Moonlight, there are three options:

• First, they can pay game gold to send another name into vetting system.  If this name passes, they get the option to change their character’s name to it.
• Second, they can pay game gold to alter their name then buy rights to a pre-vetted name from the name broker.
• Third, they can Moonlight under a Pseudonym.  In this case, the Pseudonym is chosen randomly among the acceptable names for the race, gender and class of the character and the benefits of Moonlighting are distributed between the Moonlighter and the name contributor.

Special Thanks:

• My friends Jordan and Sam who read this post too many times to count and gave their input.
• My friends Kevin, James and BJ who listened to me talk about my ideas for hours on the phone and offered to proofread it for me.
• My office mates who listened politely each lunch while I told them my writing progress.
• The Torchlight Staff and Forum posters who sparked enough interest in me to actually write a 43 double spaced page paper on this topic.

Moonlighting – A Method to Build Community with Micro Transactions by Timothy Stave is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.