example of this comes fromJoust, which had “survival” levels where two cooperative
players received a large score bonus only if both of them did not lose a life during that
level. When there is a significant advantage to cooperating in a team versus team style
game, there may be the unfortunate side effect that more casual players will get
crushed by the opposition and thus may never live long enough to enjoy the game. Of
course, for all but the most sadistic, crushing weak opponents is only fun for so long, so
most cooperative gamers form clans and fight against other clans on servers that are
labeled and restricted accordingly.
Protect Newbies.............................
Newbies are the most vulnerable players, and it is the game designer’s job to do every-
thing he can to keep them protected long enough for them to become familiar with the
game’s mechanics and tactics. This is essential to your game’s long-term success.
Unlike in a single-player game, where the designer has ultimate control over the play-
ers’ learning experience, in a multi-player game your new players are immediately at
the mercy of the more experienced players who are likely to show newbies no quarter.
When I first started work at Surreal Software, the company was close to shipping the
originalDrakangame. They were spending a lot of time testing the multi-player code,
and I was quickly sucked into playing multi-player games with the development team.
Of course, they had been playing the game for many hours a day for at least a year, and
had been focusing on the multi-player game for several months. As a result, they knew
it backward and forward, while I had no idea what was going on. The game’s melee com-
bat system was particularly unforgiving to new players, so I was soundly beaten again
and again without ever even realizing why I was getting killed. I recall breaking several
mice in frustration. If I had not been getting paid to do this testing, I surely would have
quit the game and never played it again.
Though my problem was an extreme one, this is approximately the experience of
many newbies who do not have time to properly prepare for an online player-
versus-player encounter. For a more disastrous example of newbies getting beaten off
246 Chapter 13: Multi-Player
Battlefield 1942requires
players to work together
to be truly successful,
creating a unique
experience that cannot
be replicated in a
single-player game.