Project ENORM Exploring opportunities for creating unique experiences using a finite item economy Master of Science Thesis in Applied IT Philip Wallin Christopher Pavlic Department of Applied Information Technology CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Göteborg, Sweden, 2013 Report No. 2013:105 ISSN: 1651-4769 The Authors grant to Chalmers University of Technology the non-exclusive right to publish the Work electronically and in a non-commercial purpose make it accessible on the Internet. The Authors warrant that they are the authors to the Work, and warrant that the Work does not contain text, pictures or other material that violates copyright law. The Authors shall, when transferring the rights of the Work to a third party (for example a publisher or a company), acknowledge the third party about this agreement. If the Authors have signed a copyright agreement with a third party regarding the Work, the Authors warrant hereby that they have obtained any necessary permission from this third party to let Chalmers University of Technology store the Work electronically and make it accessible on the Internet. Project ENORM Exploring opportunities for creating unique experiences using a finite item economy CHRISTOPHER PAVLIC PHILIP WALLIN © CHRISTOPHER PAVLIC, 2013. © PHILIP WALLIN, 2013. Examiner: Olof Torgersson Technical report no 2013:105 Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers University of Technology SE-412 96 Göteborg Sweden Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000 Cover: A staged screenshot from the final prototype of Project ENORM Department of Computer Science and Engineering Göteborg, Sweden 2013 i Summary This thesis explores the possibilities for creating unique experiences when designing a multiplayer online battle arena game, using a finite item economy. To accomplish this the team researched games implementing concepts connected to finite economies, meaning there are only a fixed amount of resources. The concepts identified as important were: unique resources, there exists only one of a specific type of resource; forced resource dropping, players are forced to lose resources on specific conditions; power scaling, characters and resources get more important as the game progress. A concept implementing these mechanics was created from the research, and from this concept a prototype was developed iteratively using agile methods. The prototype was tested through four larger tests, from which feedback the prototype was refined. The thesis covers the entire development process through a detailed week to week report on the projects progress, from the start of creating the concept to a detailed listing of the mechanics of the finished prototype. From the testing of the prototype and the study of relevant games guidelines are suggested that can be of assistance when developing games using mechanics connected to a finite economy. Keywords Game design, Game economy, Guidelines. ii Acknowledgements We would like thank our tutor, Staffan Björk, for his support and for leading us in the right direction, his knowledge has helped us tremendously during our work. We would also like give our thanks to the people who helped us test our game, as well as everyone that helped us make this thesis better. This thesis is dedicated to gamers and developers alike, we hope that we have allowed gaming to take a tiny step forward. iii Table of contents 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 PURPOSE ........................................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 LIMITATIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 2 2 BACKGROUND .............................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 MULTIPLAYER ONLINE BATTLE ARENA / ACTION REAL TIME STRATEGY .......................................................... 4 2.1.1 Classic MOBA ........................................................................................................................ 5 2.1.2 Bloodline Champions ............................................................................................................ 6 2.1.3 Warlock ................................................................................................................................. 7 2.2 GAMES WITH RELEVANT CONCEPTS ....................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Finite Economy...................................................................................................................... 8 2.2.2 Unique Resources ............................................................................................................... 12 2.2.3 Forced Resource Dropping .................................................................................................. 14 2.2.4 Power Scaling ..................................................................................................................... 17 2.3 TOOLS............................................................................................................................................. 17 2.3.1 Tools Used ........................................................................................................................... 18 2.3.2 Tools Considered ................................................................................................................. 23 3 THEORY AND METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................... 26 3.1 MECHANICS, DYNAMICS, AND AESTHETICS ............................................................................................. 26 3.2 AGILE GAME DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................... 27 3.3 PATHFINDING ALGORITHMS ................................................................................................................ 27 3.4 INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUE ................................................................................................................. 28 4 PLANNING .................................................................................................................................. 29 4.1 INITIAL ROUGH TIMEPLAN................................................................................................................... 29 5 EXECUTION ................................................................................................................................. 30 5.1 PRE-STUDY ...................................................................................................................................... 30 5.1.1 Week 1 - Tool Research....................................................................................................... 30 5.1.2 Week 2 - Creating a Concept .............................................................................................. 31 5.1.3 Week 3 - Researching Tool Capabilities .............................................................................. 37 5.2 DESIGN GOALS AND PRINCIPLES ........................................................................................................... 38 5.2.1 Stop the Leader ................................................................................................................... 39 5.2.2 Perfect Imbalance ............................................................................................................... 39 5.2.3 Skill Equals Power ............................................................................................................... 39 5.2.4 Minimize Complexity .......................................................................................................... 40 5.2.5 Player Uniqueness............................................................................................................... 40 5.2.6 Not Getting What You Want .............................................................................................. 41 5.3 GAME MECHANICS FOR CREATING UNIQUE EXPERIENCES ......................................................................... 41 5.3.1 Finite Item Economy ........................................................................................................... 41 5.3.2 Resource Shortage .............................................................................................................. 42 5.3.3 Forced Resource Dropping .................................................................................................. 43 5.3.4 Power scaling ...................................................................................................................... 43 5.3.5 Locked Item Slots ................................................................................................................ 44 5.3.6 In-game Ability Switching ................................................................................................... 44 5.3.7 Non-Player Characters ........................................................................................................ 45 5.3.8 Score Generating Items ...................................................................................................... 45 5.3.9 Multiplayer ........................................................................................................................