Zillameth on 13/4/2008 at 18:02

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Does this competition have a web page? I'd like to take a look at requirements. This design document is by no means complete. It's more of a "concept doc". It only outlines the general idea of game.


High Concept

This part goes into some redundant detail. A design document has two purposes: to describe how the game is going to work, and to make the reader feel excited about it. The High Concept section mostly serves the latter. The reader is not going to be excited when they read about "bounty level of 9", because a statement like this is meaningless at this point. Besides, the number and meaning of bounty levels may change during playtesting, if you find out that 5 or 20 levels is more fun than 10. In general, it's best to avoid this kind of particulars in the conceptual part of the document. Some people believe it's best to avoid them at all, and only state that there will be a mechanism called "bounty level", and that the number of levels is one of its parameters.

The High Concept section is supposed to convey game's general feeling. You are fully entitled to writing just about emotions and assotiations, and it doesn't need to be longer than just a few sentences. As a kind of exception to a more general rule, a vague statement such as "it's going to be like World War 2 meets Lord of the Rings with Wookies" means more in this section than a full description of all places, characters and events.


Taget Market and Competition

I don't think traditional MMORPGs are your competition, nor do I think their players are going to be interested with a game like this. DarkLife sounds like an anti-social, action-based, narrativistic game. Traditional MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft or Eve Online (do play the latter, if you haven't seen it yet, it may prove inspiring), are stronlgy pro-social (you're almost nobody without your guild/corporation/whatever), stat-based, and gamistic (that is, they rely on abstract game machnics, rather than storytelling).

Thinking in the vein of "FPS/MMO/RPG fans are going to like it, because it's an FPS/MMO/RPG" is a trap. One could as easily claim that "FPS fans aren't going to like it, because it's not going to be FPS-like enough". Even though technical particulars (such as the perspective) is what many people talk about most, it's not what they really care about. Most players choose their games according to the way they make them feel. A game of covert action is not going to make an FPS fan feel the way Unreal Tournament does. They are more likely to choose Gears of War over Deus Ex.

In order to convince a potential investor, you need to show them your game is going to contain an aspect of gameplay that has already been proven popular among your target group. For instance, fans of Splinter Cell (a TPP game) may like DarkLife, because Splinter Cell at its core is based on stealth and patience. In case the above is impossible, you need to honestly admit your idea is new and unproven, but you strongly believe it's going to work, because [insert a very long list of very good reasons here].


The City and The Noble Houses

You've contentrated on backstory exclusively. It's good that you have one. In general case, a scenario treatment is also required (it doesn't apply here, because MMOs don't have predefined scenarios).

But backstory isn't enough. How does the City actually work? I mean, from what you write, your game could be as well a clone of OGame. How does it look like from player's perspective? Is it divided into districts, or is it just one huge area? Are those districts loaded upon entry or streamed? Which parts of it are persistent and which are instanced? How does the player enter the game, and how do they leave it? How is money and equipment stored, especially between sessions? What are differences between Houses in terms of gameplay and narrative? (for example, in Eve Online, there are four major factions, and they mostly differ in terms of backstory, but Gallente ships rely on hybrid weapons and drones, Minmatar ships are fast, Caldari prefer strong shields and rockets, while the Amarr use lasers and heavy armour)? And I'm just giving examples - there are hundreds of questions like this and they are vital.

There is no information on the kind of challenges players are going to face. Are there NPC guards protecting contracted items? If so, how do they act? What kinds of tools and abilities do they have? How does the player avoid them? How does a player interact with other players? How is player-versus-player visibility going to be handled?


The Bounty System

You went into some detail in this section and you do convey some important information. It gave me a general idea of how the player's accountability is going to work. And it's indeed a good habit not to be afraid of flowcharts and such. I'd like to know more, for instance: when a guard spots a player doing something ugly, how do they report a crime? Is it automatic or do they need to reach a particular point (or meet someone to report the crime to)? But what you already have is a good start. You will need to create similar sections about other aspects of your game, such as combat, stealth, selling stolen goods, reporting completed contracts, the workings of Houses' upper circles and so on.

Zillameth on 13/4/2008 at 22:36

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I didn't mean "anti-social" as something bad. I meant that a hero of DarkLife seems to be an anti-social person: they work alone and they cannot trust other people, nor can they be trusted. I don't think there is anything wrong with this kind of gameplay. In fact, the main reason why I don't play MMOs is that they always force me to become part of a group. I believe I would strongly enjoy a game where my avatar was independent from other player characters, but could engage in complex social interactions when I feel like it.

In a sandbox game without any character statistics, it would be very difficult to force player to stick with one particular role. Hence it would be hard to enforce consistency of behaviour. The reputation system sounds like a good plan: a watchman who acts countrary to their job description quickly loses their reputation among other watchmen, and looses their job eventually. This could prevent NPC system abuse. As for abuse of other players, this is a disputed territory, especially in a game which tries to focus on PvP. For instance, in old Quake deathmatches camping was often considered unacceptable, whereas in Counterstrike it was the most basic and common tactic.

Chade on 13/4/2008 at 23:14

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thiefintheark, that was very interesting, but you still haven't specified how the game is going to work at the lowest level.

How do items get stolen? How does the game distribute items to be stolen, and how will this system work in a MMO setting? How do players sneak around? How will this work in an MMO setting? Are players stealing from other players or from NPC's? How do the players interact in a game about avoiding contact, and will the interaction be understandable, or will it feel random (oh, I went into the house to steal an item, but someone seems to have gotten it first, better luck next time ...)?

There are probably a zillion more question that could be asked.

Now, it's probably time for a disclaimer. I am not in the game industry, and have no idea what I am talking about, so take this next comment with a very large grain of salt. But: it seems to me that you have only tackled the "easy" problems, and ignored the really challenging parts of the game design. Surely the hardest stuff will be designing the low-level gameplay so that it works in an MMO setting, as opposed to the traditional stealth mechanics, which are built to provide an experience for just one person.

thiefinthedark on 13/4/2008 at 23:58

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Well, to address pretty much all the above, i defend myself with i only had 10 pages to cram all that stuff in :p

Really, i would have loved to put everything in that i have written down, i've been putting the concept together for 2 months now, i have 30+ pages of notes, seriously.

But with the restriction to 10 pages, i was screwed for detail. the only thing i could try to go into any detail on was the Bounty system. I really, really had to just concentrate on selling the *fluff* of the concept as hard as i could in the space provided.

In a real document, yes, i would have done pages and pages of detail, but to have some sort of coherency and convey enough of the idea that it wasn't just a jumbled mess.

Yeah, the target market section was definitely the weakest point in the document in my opinion. Its the section i spent the least time on, and frankly threw in at the end. I have no experience dealing with that sort of thing, so it got the least time spent on it.

Hopefully this clears things up a little. No worries about being harsh, the critique will all go into making document V2.0 even better :thumb:

Chade on 14/4/2008 at 00:11

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That's good. I didn't want to offend you. I think this is a really interesting concept ...