Designing Cooperation

I said I’d have more to say…

So here are some ways Clan Lord pretty well forces people to cooperate:

  • The display is looking down from above, rather than heads up, and you can’t “run through” other players and most objects, so coordinating movement during a fight or hunt becomes a priority and requires agreement.  For example, that one of the stronger players will go out to lure creatures into the most favorable position for others to attack, or the weakest players will stay to one side or another, depending from which direction attacks usually come.
  • Most areas spawn creatures quickly and unpredictably enough that if a player is still gaining experience points and ranks from fighting those creatures, they need to hunt them in a group, or risk having their character fall and then have to await rescue. Depending on the area where they have been adventuring, this could take a very long time.
  • A related aspect is that you cannot just log off anywhere in the game safely.  If you leave the game when your character is in a dangerous region, you may log back in to find you are overwhelmed by dangerous creatures, or you character may already be dead.  Similarly, you cannot pause and leave the computer temporarily while playing for this reason.  Thus, you must somehow get back to a safe area before logging out or pausing the game play.  In the latter case, fellow players may be relied on to protect your character while you step away from the computer, but you will also have to help them achieve a managable state of play in the game first.
  • This game has a system through which players can “share experience.” While playing, each player gains experience (and thus strength and so forth) by playing against increasingly difficult creatures, or by sharing experience with another player doing this. In fact, of the three character classes, fighter, mystic, and healer, the latter two mainly advance through this method.  Further, players gain in other ways from sharing.  If you are sharing and fall to some creature, the players you’re linked with will see that you’ve fallen and to what, which will help them locate you.  If you are linked to a mystic before falling, they will be able to pinpoint your location exactly.  Further, if you are linked to other players, they will be more likely to return the favor by helping if you are in trouble. The share system also helps maintain connections between new players and much more advanced players.

I’ll have even more to add later!  Until then, here is another picture…

One of the other experienced players reminds younger ones (Eirian and Mchl) to thank a high-ranked fighter (Geotzou) for taking us hunting.

5 thoughts on “Designing Cooperation

  1. Scott

    A minor addition.
    Sharing someone, anyone, gives you a bonus 1% experience for things you hit. So it’s all gain, and no down side.

  2. admin Post author

    Thanks! I forgot about that. Isn’t there also some bonus when you share with the max (5 people)?

    –And I hope as I keep posting you’ll comment about any other stuff you think I forgot or got wrong. 🙂

  3. Gremlins

    Obviously you forgot to talk about the extreme importance of spiders 🙂
    But it is actually a fairly accurate description (with Scott addition) on how the share system works 🙂
    It is one of the only game I know where solo playing (to gain experience) is mostly impossible (it is possible at low level, it may be possible at higher level but at a time cost that makes it mostly useless. I can get a dozen of disp/kill in 1h or so which won’t even give me a message, but a few spiders 😛 )

  4. K'vynn

    Better late than never perhaps – i’m just finding out about your blog.

    So, in the group i hunt with, Falinea’s Blade, we work very carefully to pick the area based on our group composition – which is a fairly stable set of members (we have an informal guest nite on Sundays sometimes or whenever we agree on it) so that we learn to maximize our abilities (and fun). We make an amazing amount of progress in this way and everyone has more fun using what they’ve learned. I.e. we hunt based on our skills and participation.

    Little things like the luring is most often done by the Mystic… challenges some of the perceived notions of how a hunt might be conducted (again to maximize participation, abilities, and fun).

  5. Eirian

    K’vynn, that sounds like a great system. What kind of progress do you mean– just ranks, or other things too? And how did this hunt group come together?

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