Meh.

Love, Ryan

To begin with, they need to seem like they belong where they are. Mountain goats shouldn’t be wandering the plains. Creatures of the night shouldn’t be basking in the sun. If something seems like it might be out of place, it probably is.

Mobs should also look like they lead lives. Would wolves prowl forests with no prey in them? Certainly not. Would mobs hang out on the edges of camps, or would they keep warm by the campfire in a cold climate? Are all members of a chaotic tribe actually chaotic, or do they have a more organized leader who surrounds himself with warlocks? Which feels right?

There should also be rests and climaxes throughout a zone. Sure, you don’t want many areas to be devoid of life, but you also don’t want players to be wading through enemies all day long. Points of interest like camps or giant trees should have concentrated numbers of mobs in them, while open spaces should be thinner. There should also be areas where a player can find refuge to rest (or take a bio break).

Players also shouldn’t be running into the same mobs throughout an entire zone. They should be paced such that players are regularly running into new mobs (both visuals and combat variants on existing mobs… e.g. a “blood serpent” in one place and a “fire serpent” in the other, even if they only use a few different abilities). Novelty wears off quick, but it’s important to maintain.

So many games miss the mark on mob placement. They might get that mobs should be cool and fun to fight, but unless they look like they belong and care is taken when determining where the mobs are, players will notice, even if it’s only subconsciously.

Some people will really want to participate in one game, but will have no interest in the other. This might facilitate cross-game communities, or it might make the communities resent one another.

More unsettling than that, to me, is that they’re essentially taking something away from EVE players that they’ve had for some time and making it cross-game. Creating an interdependency where one did not previously exist is dangerous and will create quite a bit of discontent.

Do I see this trend continuing in the future? Definitely, to some degree. It’s natural to tie products together in some way, but I’d generally expect most of those ties to be a bit looser and less interdependent in most games. That said, CCP does as CCP does, and I respect them for sticking to their guns.

Want me to comment on something here at Nerfbat? Ask/provoke me in the Readers’ Choice post.