Developer's Desk: Two-Hundred and Counting

Soon we will be applying the two-hundredth delta to Blight! That’s a major milestone in and of itself. But as there are two new Developer’s Desks coming out at once, I decided that the combination of two such momentous events meant that it was time to pull the whole Virtrium team together and get them to sit down and put into writing something they had only talked about in the past.... the Virtrium Team’s Vision for Istaria! (That sounds somehow heavy and ominous!)

When coming up with a vision for something as established as Istaria is now, it is always good to step back and look at “what is” before looking forward to “what might be”. Istaria was built on four main strengths:

• A crafting system which allows a player to create all that is needed to accomplish whatever goal he set for himself.
• A player structure system that is highly customizable and allows players to create virtual towns based on their needs and those of the community they share.
• An adventuring system is flexible enough to allow a player to play the role they wish in combat and differs greatly between the biped experience and dragon experience.
• A core storyline that allows players to experience quests as a foundation for the individual story of their own character, and grow beyond what is presented by the development team.

These are what we refer to as the four primary game systems. Everything else in the game flows from them and is implemented to support and build upon them.

Looking back briefly at some of the changes we’ve implemented in the past years by way of example, it became clear that at different times in development we focused more on one than the other, but we’re proud of the fact that everything we did change supports and reinforces at least one. From the introduction of Hammer’s Rest and Gnomekindle when we first began developing the game, through the revamp of crafting schools and introduction of new lair chambers, all the way to the recent loot revamp, our goal has always been to evaluate content and systems of the game in light of how well it supports those strengths. And though the changes we’ve made have often been controversial, internally we’ve challenged each other to keep those strengths in mind when deciding if a change was for the best, despite the short term discomfort that it could cause. And, of course, the other main reason for change is “Does it fix a bug/long standing problem with the game?” Each time we make a change, that process has the potential to introduce bugs, so change for the sake of change is not enough. We need to be constantly improving in any given patch, and we’re all highly committed to fixing even the most stubborn of bugs.

So from this basic definition of “Istaria the Present”, we built our goal of “Istaria for the Future”, as a two year goal. These are just some of the more immediate areas that we have identified as places where improvement is needed. They are presented in no particular order, and will take a long time to have at a level where we can say that any particular item on this list has been accomplished. But we believe they are well defined, specific and measurable goals that we can strive to meet over the next few years.

• There exists a need for more inter-dependency between the races and schools. Istaria as a game could really be considered to be two games in one; the “dragon game” and “the biped game”. Their gameplay is sufficiently different that each is a unique playing experience and each has to be approached from a design point-of-view differently. In order to make the game work and to have players of both work together, one of our goals is to create inter-dependency between the two. In addition, a long-standing goal is to create more inter-dependency between adventurers and crafters.
• There needs to be fewer barriers-to-entry. One of the main goals we’ve been working on for several years now (starting in 2006 with the revamp of Skalkaar and Spirit Isle) is to make the first few hours that someone is playing Istaria a smoother, more inviting and fun experience. We will continue to strive to refine the initial experience so that new players are less frustrated, less overwhelmed, and more interested in continuing to play. This is good for increasing actual subscribers, as well as the general population of Istaria.
  
  This has touched many aspects of the game and is one of the reasons behind many of our changes over the years. New tutorial islands, revamp of New Trismus, removal of the other islands (New Vassarak, New Koraelia, New Brommel), revamp of Lesser Aradoth (Tier 1) and the Dalimond Peninsula (Tier 2) and more. And we know that we need to continue to bring the remainder of the tiers up to this same standard as we have for the early tiers.
  
• There is a need for more things for players to do. This is a very broad goal that encompasses a lot of different aspects, such as crafting, adventuring, plots, social, collecting, stories and even, yes, The War. One of our goals is to give players more things to do within the world because players who have things to do have goals of their own, have things to talk about with one another, and generally have fun.
  
  The list for this goal is extensive and covers features we’ve added in recent years such as major content updates like Dralnok’s Doom and Scourge of the Skulks. It includes additional content such as scrolls, the confectioner revamp, introducing past holiday events such as Gnomekindle and Hammer’s Rest, and more. Moving forward we are hoping to do more of the same, but addressing some of the areas we haven’t touched in a while, such as plots, holiday events, and even The War.
  
• Consistency and predictability does not have to mean "boring" but it does mean "makes sense". The loot system was a mess from a data and designer perspective. There was no consistency across monsters or loot tables and so determining the drop rates for monsters was near-impossible for us. It could be said that it is perhaps a bit too predictable right now, but overall we feel we did a good thing by making it so that players could hunt specific monsters for specific categories of items. And to do that and still maintain a "useful purpose" for all types of creatures, we had to take tech comps off undead/WA, for example. This type of consistency is what we are looking for across all systems. It is within both ours and players’ interest to understand the rules and mechanics that drive the game.
  
• Provide a sense of purpose in the world for every school (both adventurer and crafter) Many adventurer schools aren't really well defined with what abilities/spells they have, are unbalanced compared to other schools, or are simply lacking in functionality for groups or soloing. Crafting schools aren't quite as bad, but could be better defined as well to have a purpose for why they are being leveled, beyond just to "make leveling another school easier". Sometimes this means altering them significantly, such as with Confectioner, sometimes giving them new products and reducing their capabilities in other areas, such as with Scholar and scrolls. But ultimately it is the sense of purpose that drives the changes.
  
• Have a steady leveling curve and play experience that gives players a sense of purpose both to what they are doing and where their character "fits" into the world. You don't have to "grind through" certain levels because you've run out of quests, tasks, trophies but haven't gotten through the tier. Much of reaching this goal will be accomplished through continued tier revamps, but places to explore and more quests that give a player a feeling of having accomplished something epic in scale are also needed.

And though our primary goal is less readily defined and measurable, it will always be what drives us all: Create a game that we're proud of.

Our commitment to working with players to create a world that we’re all proud of continues as we post more “Talk to the Team” threads. For those who aren’t familiar with these posts, the “Talk to the Team” threads are focused discussions where the development team is seeking feedback on a specific topic from our players. Presently on the forums, we have three open topics, one on consignment merchants, one on the use of a player created icon pack, and the third about some proposed changes to the portal system. We’d like to hear from all of you, so if you have not registered on the forums, please take a moment to do so and let us hear from you.

Since Virtrium restarted development in 2007, we’ve wanted to make Istaria something we won’t hesitate to spread the word about, whether that is simply talking to friends, posting on forums, or advertising on websites. From where we were more than three years ago, I think it’s reasonable to say that we have a lot to be proud of. Three years of development has resulted in a game world that fits together better, is more refined, has fewer bugs, and is more fun.

As we work each day on Istaria, we come closer and closer to meeting the new goals outlined above. And a year from now, when we reflect back on 2011 and the deltas we’ve taken, I know we’ll have even more to be proud of.