I think it’s a trend that legendary game maker are making a comeback through social games (Civilization and Ultima). Lord British does point to a few interesting idea:
Notification & Instant Co-op
Do we actually “play together” with our friends in game, or we just happen to play the same game? We found a cool game, we ask our friend to join, and then we go our separate way immersing to level up as soon as possible, without too much collaboration and co-operation with our friend. We might not be able to do the same quest together because we are of different level; or it’s too hard to pinpoint his location (or he is busy with something else), thus I just group with someone near me. Lord British suggest notification (like Facebook stream), where the system automatically update our friends of key actions (login/logout, questing, killed a boss); where our friend could respond easily by clicking on the notification saying “hi” or “congratulation”, or remove the stream if it bug them. I do find it difficult to quest with friends due to timing issue (they might be on a one hour quest when I login), or it might be too difficult to locate him. What if the is a notification “John is fighting the Kraken and is critically wounded”, and I can teleport him and aid him immediately. Or “John is at the entrance of Hall of Death and request for reinforcement”, thus we can teleport in and join the party. That would really be coming to the aid of a friend in need.
Instant Game
One of the reason for the popularity of social games or mobile games is its accessibility and simplicity to start. We no longer need to read some reviews, go to the shop and buy the game, and wait hours for installation before we can even start. Now we just go to the online market (App Store or Android Market) and install (still take a few minutes to download and install); and we can try the game before we pay. On Chrome Web Store, we can click and play almost instantly (no installation); my friend can send me a link and we can start to play instantly on PC, iPhone or Android Phone, iPad and Tablet (and Chromebook as well). If you like it, you can pay to access higher level without request re-installation (it just happens automatically). It’s extremely simple to start playing immediately.
Casual Gamer gone Advance?
I think we can agree FarmVille is a very simple game, and perhaps that’s one of the reason why so many people played it (non-gamer can pick up easily). FrontierVille and CityVille had increased in complexity and depth, and it outperformed FarmVille. Perhaps the gamers are ready for something of “a real game”, something more advance with more depth (not necessarily more complex).
Fishing?
Lord British talks about fishing game in Ultima Online, which remind me of Chocobo farming and racing in Final Fantasy. I think mini games are important to bring some “lightness” to a long and serious game; and gamer could be very competitive and demand depth to the mini games as well (weekly champion, different breeds of Chocobo, and use different kind of bait for different fish, etc.). And you can earn badges with ladder board in mini games, cool eh?
Metric Driven Feedback
I am not a game developer, so metric driven feedback is new to me. Basically each user’s action is recorded, thus we can have a statistic on what the user like to do most. Do they like fishing more, or Chocobo racing? Players like the Kraken Quest, or the Mermaid Quest? As time filler, players solve puzzle, collect herbs or just leveling? Is crafting popular? Once we know statistically what players like to do, we can spend more time to enhance the feature.
Civilization: Building a wonder together
From the civilization article, there is a feature where a few people will work together to build a wonder. Each player contributes some of their time and energy to build something great. Besides working together in group quest, perhaps we can introduce something which can span over time and doesn’t require all of us to be in the same place and same time. For example, we have 7 days to take down an enemy fort with massive health points, thus we have to work round the clock to launch attack and weaken it slowly (sounds like Castle Age); or we need to pool resources to build a space station where everyone could repair and upgrade their ship.
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