FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Real-Time Versus Turn-Based Games
Many online games take place in real time with each player acting simultaneously. This offers players maximum freedom; they always have something to do and can order their activities any way they like. It's also more immersive than turn-based gaming. Waiting your turn while other players act harms suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, real-time gaming tends to make a strategy game into an action game. Whichever player moves his pieces fastest has the advantage. In games such as Command & Conquer, victory becomes a matter of establishing an efficient weap- ons-production system as quickly as possible.
Turn-based games seem rather old-fashioned nowadays, but there is still a demand for them. Many simpler online games are automated versions of noncomputerized card games and the like, and they still require players to take turns. For this to work smoothly, you must include certain features:
■ Limit the number of players in one game. Four or five is a good maximum. With more than this, players will have to wait too long between turns and will grow impatient.
■ Set a time limit on the length of a player's turn. A slow player or one who has
left to answer the phone mustn't be allowed to hold up the game. Both the player whose turn it is and all the other players should be able to see a countdown timer. The length of time will naturally vary depending on the sort of game; for a card game such as hearts, 10 seconds should be plenty.
■ Determine a reasonable default action if the player runs out of time. In
games in which it's possible to pass, the best default might simply be to pass without acting, but in a game such as checkers, in which a move is required, the game will have to choose a move. It doesn't have to be a very smart move, however. It's up to the player to supply the intelligence; if he doesn't, it's his own fault.
■ Let players do other things while waiting for their turn. They should definitely be allowed to chat with one another, study the battlefield, organize their units, or do anything else that doesn't actually influence the gameplay.
A few games, such as Age of Wonders II or Civilization IV, allow all the players to take their turns simultaneously—that is, they each choose their next move at the same time, without knowing what the others are doing. Once they have all chosen (or a timer runs out), the turn ends, and the computer processes and displays the results of all of the moves.
Note that some turn-based games permit very long turns in which players make only one move every 24 hours or exchange their moves by e-mail. This can allow novices to compete against more advanced players. However, such games are rare. This chapter is concerned with players who are online in real time, even if the game itself is turn-based.
Every multiplayer game for machines that use keyboards should include a chat feature—a mechanism that enables players to send messages to one another. Voice chat, implemented with microphones, is now a common feature of online console games and many PC games as well. Depending on the nature of the game, players should be able to send private messages to one other individual, messages only to members of their own team (if any), or general broadcast messages to all other players who might reasonably be interested. In a game played by thousands of players, any one player should be able to broadcast messages only to those in his vicinity or on his team, whatever that might mean in the context of the game—the players at his table, the players in the same room of a dungeon, and so on.
Unfortunately, chat brings a new set of problems: the potential for rude, abusive, or harassing behavior. People who pay to play your game expect that others will meet certain minimum standards of civility. This is particularly important for games that will be played by children; parents rightfully want to protect their kids from abusive or offensive behavior. In a sporting event, the referee enforces rules that maintain these standards, or if there is no referee, then the collective authority of the other players must suffice. Online, it's much more difficult to police players' behavior.
The surest solution is to restrict what players may say to each other. Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii offers no voice chat and only allows players to choose remarks from a fixed list of phrases. This guarantees that they can't say anything offensive, but it doesn't really meet the social need that chat supplies.
Designers have tried profanity filters, but they aren't fully reliable, and they sometimes produce laughable results. Words such as damn and hell are perfectly legitimate when talking about religion, even if they're considered swearing in another context— and don't think that people won't talk about religion when they're in your dungeon; they'll talk about everything under the sun. In any case, people can easily get around
such filters by misspelling the words (and of course, profanity filters don't solve the problem for voice chat). A profanity filter should always be backed up by other means, such as online customer service representatives to whom players can report bad behavior.
