High Dynamic Range Lying

WIth the beta for Metal Gear Online wrapping up, players have been squeezing as much play time as possible out of the last couple days before the game goes into hiding once again. Despite being an online competitive shooter, the game has a personality all its own, reaffirming that even when taking notes from other games, it is still firmly rooted in the world of Solid Snake.

Gameplay is not the only death sentence an online competitive game can contract. Especially today, the genre is highly competitive, with fickle players and a demanding community. Having a well designed infrastructure, reliable servers, and a wealth of community features are just the beginning if a developer wishes to compete with the best and most experienced developers in the industry. It is quite obvious that Kojima Productions is new to the online gaming space, as they make a number of these elementary mistakes.

Take notice developers, for the commandments have spoken:

Thou shalt not silence players.
Always provide voice chat. This is not only for when playing games. Offer voice chat in lobbies, and let players talk to each other even when not playing together. Don’t provide the option to completely disable voice chat. Teammates cannot use pre-recorded commands to mount a successful assault on the enemy. If players do not want to hear others, provide a mute button.

Thou shalt celebrate congregation.
Allow players to form parties. If a player wishes to play with a group of friends, let them stick together. Allow parties to participate in both matchmaking and custom games. When the game is made, do not split the party between two teams. They are in a party for a reason. If parties are large, give players the ability to create individual teams within the party before the matchmaking begins.

Let players follow friends into games with a simple option. If they are not part of the friend’s party, add them.

Thou shalt not segregate choice and faith.
Do not split matchmaking and custom servers. This is especially bad if players cannot choose to join a friend’s party if they are participating in matchmaking. It makes it totally impossible to meet up with friends.

Thou shalt provide choice when searching.
When matchmaking, do not only provide game type and skill level as search criteria. Let players choose game size, map preference, weapon preference, or even special gravity preferences. Just because a player is looking for a random game to play doesn’t mean they want all their options randomized.

Thou shalt allow modification.
Let players create their own game types using existing game types and options. When they do edit said game type, allow them to save and rename it for use later.

Thou shalt not celebrate addiction.
When calculating a player’s skill level, do not reward time played. This forces some players of lower skill who play a lot into higher tier games that may be too far above their skill level.

Thou shalt not limit character creation.
If your game allows players to create a custom character, offer multiple character slots, so guests can try the game without messing with the owner’s win/loss record. Additionally, after creating a character, let players edit the clothing to their heart’s content. Some of us had ADD.

Thou shalt not region lock servers.
There’s no question that language is a large barrier when trying to form a strategy as a team, but that should not stop developers from having one unified network. Provide different lobbies for different languages and regions as an option, but allow players to switch lobbies to play with friends in other countries if they so wish.

While there are others, these are the most important. With companies like Infinity Ward, Bungie, Epic and Valve continuing to deliver excellent content and community features, new contenders like Kojima Productions entering the fray will have to hit the ground running and check off each box if they expect to survive.

What this article helpful? Do you agree? Do you disagree? What is most important to you in online games? Let us know by post in the comments box below!