Of course, players will still drop out of your game regardless of how much you try
to discourage them. Indeed, due to the somewhat chaotic nature of the Internet, some
players may get dropped from the game in the middle through no choice of their own.
Your game will need to handle these dropouts in an elegant way such that the remaining
players can continue playing if at all possible, with the now-missing players having
essentially forfeited their slots. You may wish to allow them to reclaim their spots in the
game if they reconnect quickly enough, to forgive unavoidable Internet flakiness. If
having players drop out in the middle is not handled well by your game, you are almost
surely doomed to frustrating the players who want to keep playing.
Allowing players to customize their avatar in the game-world is also key to making
players feel that they are actually putting themselves into the game. This can be as sim-
ple as picking their name or “handle,” or choosing their color. Players will also enjoy
picking the base talents of their character, whether this means deciding between infan-
try, medic, or engineer inBattlefield 1942or between paladin, ranger, and sorcerer in an
RPG. Different players will gravitate to different classes based on their skills and per-
sonalities. For those who want to take it a step further, empowering players to alter
their body type, skin color, and clothing can go a long way to helping them immerse
themselves in the experience. Just as people enjoy dressing up in real life as a way of
communicating to others what type of person they are, they will also fancy it in an
online space. Interestingly, however, players will primarily enjoy adjusting those traits
of their avatar that will not actually impact their success in the game. They’ll love to
pick eye color or hairstyle, but it will take players with a fervent interest in role-playing
to play a gimpy character with weakened stats to match its physical impairments.
In Chapter 7, “The Elements of Gameplay,” I talked about emergent gameplay and
allowing for multiple player tactics to lead to success. While these sorts of significant
player choices are important in single-player game experiences, in multi-player they
are absolutely essential. In a multi-player game, players are not thinking “What does
the designer want me to do here?” but instead “What tactic can I come up with that will
allow me to win against these equally clever other players?” If your game design does
not allow for a flexible enough space for players to develop unique tactics to counter
other players’ moves, all but the newbies will quickly lose interest in your game. With
multi-player games you have the advantage of not needing to come up with ways to
directly challenge players, but you need to provide the palette of potential actions that
will empower players to challenge each other. For example, rocket jumping may not
have been planned as part of the design ofQuakeor its rocket-jumping predecessor
Marathon, but the robustness of the technology and design of these games supported
the players’ innovative tactic. Fundamentally, multi-player designers have much less
dictatorial control over players’ experiences than do single-player designers, and it is in
their best interests to recognize this and work to empower players instead of constrain-
ing them.
Playing to Strengths...........................
Often when designers move from single-player games to multi-player, the first thing
they think of is replacing their AI adversaries with human ones. This is a choice that is
guaranteed to lead to a more challenging and dynamic experience for the user. But at
the same time, it fails to truly explore the full potential of multi-player games. For
244 Chapter 13: Multi-Player