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 Features
Multiplayer Level Design In-Depth, Part 3: Technical Constraints and Accessibility
 Getting Casual Gamers to Play
In my previous papers, I presented my suggestions to very specific challenges of multiplayer level design. I will end this series with what probably represents the main challenge: to make multiplayer games more accessible.
The very essence of a multiplayer game is to enable players of
all levels to gather and play against each other. This is where
the interest for this type of game lies, but this is also what
makes it so difficult for the beginners. Playing against real human
beings is intimidating, even if you are hiding behind a GamerTag.
Yet, what happens when a casual gamer ventures into a multiplayer
session is quite typical. Confronted with gamers who have mastered
the game more than him, he repeatedly suffers humiliating defeat.
It's therefore not surprising that multiplayer games are reserved
for hardcore gamers. Nobody likes suffering defeat after defeat.
If we want to make the multiplayer games accessible to the mass
market, we have to handle this problem. The solutions lie both
in the game and in the level design.
In my opinion, there are two solutions to this problem:
- Add beginner-friendly features
- Develop a game designed for casual gamers, while bringing enough depth to the game to satisfy experienced gamers as well
Features for Beginners
Let's begin by reviewing features that may be added to a traditional multiplayer game to make it more accessible. This is something that we tried to do with the multiplayer mode of Splinter
Cell - Chaos Theory.
The first solution is simple and particularly effective. It simply consists in adding cooperative modes. Gamers will not play against other gamers in flesh and bones, but against opponents, bots controlled by the game AI. This solution allows gamers of all levels to play together without being humiliated by other gamers, as bots are rarely as unpredictable and dangerous as their human counterparts. It allows experienced gamers to show themselves to best advantage by sharing their experience with the beginners. Finally, the cooperative game may be an extraordinary source of joy, since working together to reach a common goal is one of the driving forces of the human adventure. A "coop" multiplayer mode was developed for Splinter
Cell - Chaos Theory by the Canadian studio Ubisoft. This mode was a huge success.
The second solution is just as traditional. It consists in developing
a mechanism for classifying the players according to their victories
and giving them the freedom to choose to play only with other players
of the same level. This mechanism is present in many multiplayer
games, but its efficiency often leaves much to be desired. It is
therefore not unusual to find yourself playing against much more
experienced players, even of the same "level". In fact, playing
on an unknown map is all it takes to ensure your defeat. To develop
a classification system that is accurate enough to correctly evaluate
a player's level is much more difficult than it seems. Aware
of the problem, Microsoft has propose 'TrueRanking,' an innovative
classification mechanism that takes into account a very large number
of parameters
to make a player's rank.
The third solution is to make the gamer learn the game by means
of tutorials. Various types of tutorials may be created, outside
the game and integrated in it. In the "versus" mode of Chaos
Theory, we went deep into this matter, as we knew the game
was hard to learn. Thus, the game includes a classic tutorial, made
up of mini-sessions where the gamer learns how to handle his character.
We added a mode that enabled the gamer to visit the game maps and
discover the main features, in which all he had to do was follow
a path marked by a light path and explanations (see the screenshot
below).
We added explanations to each element of equipment the gamers had
at their disposal. We even made the player pass an examination map
to make sure he understood the basics of the gameplay before giving
him access to the multiplayer sessions.
The tutorial for map exploration in the multiplayer version
of Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory. The path to follow is indicated
by a light path and explanations are displayed at regular intervals.
What were the results of this abundance of help topics? The tutorials proved beneficial to get the new gamers started and prevent them from feeling completely lost in the map and in the game in general, but they were inadequate to give them a chance against the experienced gamers. After all, you cannot learn to drive just by reading a car's manual. A better solution can be seen in Battlefield
2, where certain help topics are contextual. Thus, when the player jumps off (or falls off?) a building or ejects himself from a plane, he can avoid a fatal fall by opening his parachute. But if the player fails to open it and dies, a message reminds him of the existence of the parachute and how to control it when the player resumes the game. This approach offers significant potential as far as tutorials are concerned.
A fourth solution may be to integrate a positive or negative handicap system. Thus, according to the gamer's classification, he can benefit from additional health points or from less ammunition. A mechanism such as this would allow a partial balance of the game among players of different levels. However, in order to be accepted by experienced gamers, the game would have to compensate them with new animations or new equipments. An intelligent system using this method is currently being designed for the multiplayer version of Crysis.
Finally, the last solution I propose is to provide a variable
geometry controlled interface. Certain games, such as those of
the Splinter Cell series, require the player to master a particularly
complex interface. For such games one solution would be to offer
two versions of the interface, a simple one for beginners and a
full version for more experienced players. This idea cannot be
applied to all games, but it may be worth trying.
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