Neveron/Invasion 3042 - Design Failures

[Kato]

I've had these thoughts tumbling around my head a couple days, and decided to put them to text.

These observations are geared towards those that have played either Neveron or Invasion 3042, both multiplayer games based upon the Classic BattleTech tactical board game.

Current players of either game are all too familiar with the devastating impact of fractured community. PvP has largely been replaced by PhP (Player hate Player), and these hatreds have had years to fester. The hate is derived almost exclusively from the ability of one player to hurt another with some degree of permanency, and the speed with which this destruction is capable of being inflicted/accomplished. People have spent years in many cases building up their player holdings, which take the form of "empires" and various cohorts of troops. Players holdings are often heavily reliant on RMT, so real dollars are at play - sometimes hundreds or thousands.

As various camps have been established, from "farmers" to "warmongers", each with their own styles of gameplay that are at diametrical odds with some other group capable of punishing or negatively influencing them, these groups have come to loathe one another. Farmers that want to play spacesim, warriors that want to play CBT online, traders and diplomats that fall in between, each has managed to find a community niche. And, unfortunately for the greater community, each niche comes well stocked with the fallout of vicious community disunity.

As Neveron fell, its too proud and too greedy designers first making horrendous design decisions and then abandoning their game completely, the community began to recognize those same designers ultimate responsibility for the state of their player community. In Neveron the community originally came to hate itself because of the way the game literally forced the overnight annihilation of intricately, in some cases lovingly arranged empires. People would go to sleep after having spent hours carefully tending to the intricacies of their empires, only to connect in the morning to a non functional login because someone had literally destroyed everything in the middle of the night.

It was easy, and natural, to immediately hate that player. But really, truthfully, it was the game itself that was at fault. The game demanded these blood sacrifices because that is how the game was designed. The game mandated this level of wholesale destruction. The community simply adapted itself to the game's design, and naturally some were better than others. Those players, thanks to a game that cared little for the preservation of its community or the longevity of its community's gaming experience, became veritable angels of death on countless virtual battlefiends. And they garnered hatred. A lot of hatred. From players that deserved better from Neveron, Inc.

Neveron let its community down. Neveron was from the very beginning a failed product, given its inherent - and massive - design flaws, and it produced a failed community. That is not to say Neveron was not a fun game, for some. It was. But that does not spare it from the harsh reality that is its legacy.

Invasion 3042 tells a similar, and in some cases far worse story. Invasion began as a statement of rebellion against the excesses and failures of Neveron. Reload, the game's progenitor, intended a game that accounted for many of Neveron's identified failures. The original design document highlighted several major divergences in basic design that were expected/hoped to provide a more "classic" CBT experience, while reducing the hate inducing impact of "everything is on the line" gameplay.

Invasion 3042's fundamental design proved to be even more flawed than Neveron's. If anything it was easier to wipe out an opponent, flinging him back to square one, and batting around nations and factions in the same manner that highly competent players batted around individual empires in Neveron.

Hubris descended upon much of Invasion 3042's staff, most notably Reload himself, and it soon became clear that most real criticism of its design was dismissed, those that dared to speak out ridiculed by the man himself, and his faithful retainers. A strong cult of personality formed on Invasion, much as it had on Neveron, players so keen to preserve their gaming experience - no matter how dismal - that their rabid dissatisfaction with the status quo was aimed not at the game that forced that reality, but on fellow players.

Just as in Neveron, the desire to hate a player that had harmed you in some measurable way was strong. And understandably so, especially considering the hate that the original Nev community successfully imported at the game's founding.

But now it becomes too much. This historical flow of community self destruction and hate has been going on for eight years. It has been the result of gameplay dictated by the design decisions of people that have rarely been called to task for their failures. Randy and Wayward Son of Neveron's founding were responsible for establishing this self sustaining tidal wave of community cannibalism, with their gameplay based upon massive RMT (real money transactions, aka donations) and rapid (not to mention total) empire destruction. Their inexperience at game design resulted in a system that guaranteed community self destruction. It guaranteed little beyond that.

Reload has taken up the challenge of perpetuating that terrible standard and is currently running what is left of the Nev/Invasion community into the ground. His game has taken Neveron's predilections towards rewarding only power gaming and propelled it to new heights.

Currently, in Invasion 3042, if you are an accomplished warrior you win. Period. Hate is leveled at those players, and factions, that meet this criteria. They are blamed for running players out. They are blamed for meta gaming, or power gaming, etc. They are blamed for forcing their "style" of gameplay on the rest of the community (who often do not wish to fight for no greater reason than they know they cannot win). In some form of twisted, yet understandable logic, these accomplished players are bad for the game. This is the essence of failed game design. Players that cheat are bad for the game. Players that win should never be. And on Invasion 3042 that is the present opinion of a great many players. The best of the game's community need to leave, because there is little room for anyone else to survive if they try to play on the same playground.

I do not blame the community for its hate. I did for a long time, as some of you may remember. I understand why Marik, Kurita etc hate CWM. I understand why CWM hates untouchable farmers. I understand why single world nations hate their large and ostensibly greedy neighbors. These are all justifiable, all these dislikes. But what is not justifiable is ignoring the source, the cause, of every one of these issues.

The game.

I know this post will not cause any great wave of enlightenment or recognition. Any that read this that aren't regular readers on this forum will in all likelihood disregard and perhaps even impugn my words.

But at the end of the day I have seen the light, and the great enemy of this community is not CWM, Marik, HoC, Antis, or any other particular division of the greater Nev/Inv playerbase. The great enemy is amateur and hugely failed game design, and the hubris of designers too proud and/or spiteful to accept or admit their failures.

To the Invasion 3042 community: See what these games have forced you to become. Caricatures, almost all of you. Myself included, often. Recognize that Invasion 3042 is the cause of your community problems. Recognize that every group within your community is a victim. Those that feel impacted by power gamers are victims. There, I said it. But also, those that are excellent warriors and rarely lose - garnering hate and treated indecently wherever they go - they are victims too. It's the god damn game.  Look at what it has inflicted upon you all. It's Neveron all over again, and most of you still refuse to place blame where it is most deserved.

And to Reload: See what you have done to fan the flames of Neveron's failure. Only by recognizing the fundamental flaws of your game's foundational design will you have any chance of recovering the dramatic tailspin we all know your game is in. Neveron is dead. Your game is not. Yet. And if this community ultimately dies, it will not be on Neveron's shoulders, it will be on yours.

[GreenBeret]

I've been victimized by Kato's long post! j/k

If you can't make your life and free time revolve around these games then they aren't worth playing because you'll just be bad at it.

[Pimpslap]

Didnt i say this in like 2005?

Both games suffer from teh same end goals.  Destruction on a mass scale of players hard work.  You would think someone somewhere would figure out that 99% of the people just want to have some good old fashion mech fights.

[Shaitan]

I recently read again the HoC archive you put together, and now I am reading this post.  I have a few differences of opinion as you know.  But I agree with the statement that the game was flawed from the start.  In fact, the best games are always flawed.  I must wonder though if I am flawed for loving nev so damn much.

The main point of the flaw being, as you and pimp said, The Wholesale Destruction factor.  When it comes down to it- who really wants to play a game in which you put everything on the line?

I do!  Does that make me flawed in some way?  I was in love with the fact that consequences occurred in nev.  In WoW I never once had an impact.  The world never felt my presense.  You saved the same stupid Gnomeregan that I and millions of others did.  But in Nev….we were gods.

Perhaps the most endearing piece of that flaw is the family I fought along side of.  There are always ups and downs to everything.  The upside being that all that miserable hatred we faced forged an equal and opposite comradery amongst our family.  If it were not for all that crap I would never have known you guys as I do.

Now back to the downside.  What if Neveron had blatantly advertised itself as “Ruthless PvP”  so that everyone knew where they stood?  The home page I saw said massive multiplayer empire builder.  I had no idea what I was getting into.  What if Nev had actively banned players who were outright azzholes?  Anyone who labored to ruin the community should have been thrown out.  What if donations were better controlled to avoid all the corruption that occurred?  I often wonder would it have made a difference or not? 

As for I3042 I still regret leaving but what choice did I have?  The same problems followed us.  Every time I destroyed an empire I had someone blaming me in IRC.  And as soon as war started- we destroyed many empires.  We had racked up a ridiculous kill count and gone from 3 planets to 6 within a day?.  All of that success comes at a price though.  Clan Wolf was hating on us to the point where I could not jump on the boards or in IRC without getting flamed.  And warfare was taking several RL days to complete.  You had to stay up without sleep to avoid being caught on AI while the CF ended.  And hitting home most of all, every new patch was aimed at curbing the players who were good at the game.  And I hear rumor that shortly after I left some form of artillery was added!  Dear god!

I am glad you have come to enlightenment my friend.  Because I still am unable to do so.  I still think about nev often and the times we had in HoC together.  So much so that I started playing Eve just to hang out with you bastards again.  And Eve is a PvP game!

Eve is ok.  It is not great- but it is ok.  Much like other MMO’s you have little to no impact on the world.  And I find myself wanting the ability to wholesale wipe someone out, or to see some corp actually change the map of the empires beyond a few RvR style plexes out in space.  Amarr will always have its high sec zones.  No player can ever change that.  There are always ups and downs though.  In Eve I do not logon to swim through hatred.  Instead I get my arse blown up and jump into another ship within seconds.   (thanks to pimp building them for me!)


It does seem crazy though that years later we still talk about that damn game.  Damn I just want a good old fashioned mech fight!  Thank you again for the HoC archive. 

~Shai

[Pimpslap]

Eve is kinda a little of both.. You can build and expand, but only in certain areas.  The metagaming in Eve could possibly beat Neveron with the politics that go on.

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

Cool little map of Eve that shows which allainces OWNs which area.  The coming patch will make this even more important.

Yes if you move into 0.0 you can get WTF owned in a single night if your not careful.  But people understand what their getting into.....or should

[Kato]

It's also possible to insulate yourself from that in EVE by keeping assets in highsec, missioneering, etc. So when you do put your stuff on the line to get WTF pwned its your own choice to do so.

Shai I think we are pretty much on the same page as far as what we liked about Nev, and what we remember most fondly. I just think that it would have been possible, with a litle more thought in the design department, to create a hard core pvp empire building game that was better at everything it did...

Putting everything on the line is something that produced really amazing memories, but there are so many ways that it could have been done better. At the end of the day though its easy to give Nev a pass because it was the "first" and mistakes/miscalculations are guaranteed when you are creating something new and original. Reload and Invasion 3042, however, giving a pass there is not so easy.

[Gummy Devalis]

Just for Shaitan:

http://gummy.genericus.org/midway1.jpg

RIP big mechfights. Those who don't remember/weren't there for this fight, this is the 200k BV cap fight when Pimp invaded Erolat on Midway, while the timer was down for 4 hours.

[Kais]

those big fights were the best. yeah they took awhile to fight but man they were good to been involved with. i still remember the day 17 of our 20 empires got hit all at the same time from a combined assault. hmm good times 

[Shaitan]

Perhaps the most important design failure of both Nev and I3042 is that in both cases the original game concept was extremely changed over time to adapt to player feedback.
 
Listening to your players and adapting the game where needed is important.  But not important enough to move away from the origin concept.
 
The Nev example I will use is SOI sphere of influence.  This game mechanic moves away from a Mech War Game and toward a Sim City game were buildings you build do the fighting for you.  Does the home page have a picture of a Marauder Mech or a Corporate Sky Scraper?
 
Is this game primarily an Empire Builder or a War Game?  Important questions need to be asked from the get go.  The answers should outline the origin concept.  Over time it will require back bone to turn a deaf ear to the squeaky wheels.  Forever doing what is profitable in the short term is not the best way.
 
Changes over time to adapt to the growing needs of the player base are great.  But change for the sake of change does not make a better game. 
 
Hopefully whoever purchases nev or builds the next online BT game will set out a clear concept and stick to it.

[buc`]

Good point there Shai!  The game is now more of a 'City Defender' game than anything else!