Well you know, I was going to go with something like ‘Why Blizzard Hates You’ or ‘Rest System, First Mechanic Ever Designed by a Gerbil’ or even maybe ‘UNF! You Like It Like That!’. Yes, some sort of title that would be an obvious attempt to communicate my distaste, all the while pretending to be clever, but, errr, failing.
Problem is, while the Rest System is about as fun as shards of a Diablo CD being jabbed into your eye, there is a lot here that’s really, really, really worth talking about (you know it baby, three really’s, I’m not foolin’ around here). And that means getting serious. Well, vaguely serious, as serious as I ever get.
So this is how I’m going to approach the issue. In three sections. The first section is going to be targeted at the theoretical foundations I believe the idea of the rest system was truly spawned around. The second will be how it currently works, and the problems with it. The third will be solutions for said problems, were we to see these sorts of systems implemented in future MMOGs (which I think we will).
Sounds good? Alright, let’s get to it.
The Rest System; Where It Came From
Okay. We all know the life of a Blizzard employee. We know how they wear underwear fashioned of pure gold. We know how they brush their teeth with diamonds, because nothing sparkles like diamonds! We know how they snort the purest Colombian cocaine off of tables made out of PEOPLE. Just because. And yes, let’s not forget how they goosestep around all day, every so often randomly yelling out things such as: “DIABLO!” or “WARCRAFT!” or of course, the staple: “KOREA!”
So. Maybe that’s not exactly their life, but what matters is that it probably could be, and more disturbingly, I’d have to say they deserve it. Not because I love Blizzard, but because they manage to ‘get it right’ time and time again. World of Warcraft by far will be their biggest challenge and hurdle so far, but asides from that, it is this penchant for perfection that leads me to analyzing the seed of imagination where the horrible rest system mechanic came from.
And by George I think I’ve got it.
See, before I had played WoW, and when I first heard of the system, I accused it of being a thinly veiled attempt to slow down leveling. In practice, I have come to believe this was a half truth, no more, no less. I will say I don’t think it was originally intended to slow down leveling, that was just a pleasant side effect.
No, I think this is what was said, word for word, when this mechanic was thought up: “What about the people who really, no matter how much they’d like to play, can only, at a maximum, play two hours a night?”
I’d say that was the question posed in verbatim. The answer? A system with the intention of giving players who only play very casually the means to experience a quicker paced game without being exploitable or trivializing the game for those who actually have a ton of time to play (ie, the casual players, despite leveling twice as fast would in no way compete with those who put a lot more time in, therefore not frustrating them, as they wouldn’t feel their extra time wasn’t being rewarded, but the game would feel less of a grind for those with the inability to play more often… phew).
This in itself is an interesting idea. Constantly, over the years, I have heard a million (yes, a million, you can’t prove that I haven’t!) casual players scream out at developers for making these games too hard. Now we’re having this massive backlash where games are being made far, far, too easy, and they suck.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t silenced those screaming at all, but instead proven a rift between those wanting to go back to the good ol’ days, those who think the future is now, and pong rules, and then those who believe that the good ol’ days and this new age way of casual thinking can be combined into one massive game that will lay waste to all other games.
Enter Blizzard.
World of Warcraft is attempting to search out this happy medium between hardcore, and promoting casual gameplay, which is really commendable to a large degree. Possible? I don’t know. But commendable certainly, as, if anybody can do it, they can.
Enter the rest system. An idea that if executed properly should be a win/win situation for the true casuals (faster advancement, more ‘fun’ quicker) as well as the hardcores (not trivialized or truly hindered by the small boost given to the casuals). At least… that’s the idea from what I can see.
The Rest System; What It Is, Why It Sucks
Which brings us to now. We’ve seen two iterations of the Rest System I believe. Two wonderfully broken versions of it, that anybody who actually ‘plays’ the game (you know, is in beta and actually gets beyond level 2) loathes.
The first version of the Rest System is the one I’m most familiar with, as that was the one currently implemented during the last phase, in which I gratefully got to enter said beta. So I’m going to explain quickly how it worked.
First off, there was this magical pixie gnome. He takes a lot of LSD, flies around with his little green wings, and waves his magical pixie 'wand' at people helping them ‘see the rainbow’.
Blizzard hired him.
They said: “yo pixie gnome, we need to figure out this rest system thing, but we’re not sure of the math”
To which the pixie gnome replied: “Then I shall make up some imaginary numbers for you that don’t mean anything!” and these numbers were known as 25% (exhausted), 50% (some state I can no longer recall, tired perhaps), 100% (normal, I think), 150% (rested) and 200% (well rested).
These numbers didn’t mean anything, because, when you like, start the game, you start at 200%. Which makes absolutely no sense I might add (I want to see the rainbow too!), as one would guess that whatever your beginning state was, that would be normal. A bonus is something added, or extra, on top of what is expected. When you start at 200% though, that is expected, therefore when you drop from that state, just because some number made up by a bastard pixie gnome says ‘150%’ assuming an IQ greater than four, you damn well know you’re only getting 75% of the experience you feel you should be getting.
Now, at the time, the period between rest states was based on some arbitrary number, which meant that at the beginning of the game it is basically impossible for you to get beyond ‘well rested’, but in your teens you find yourself becoming awfully familiar with just ‘rested’ and then in your 20s to 30s ‘normal’.
To return back to a ‘well rested’ state, you of course had to log out at an inn for a minimum of eight hours.
There’s no point dwelling on the past though, which brings us to the ‘new’ rest system. First of all, they removed the imaginary numbers 25% and 50% from the game. Which is good, psychologically good anyways… of course then players realized that they had nerfed experience gain and the experience needed to level (or that’s what’s being said, I haven’t paid too much attention) and now felt that at 100% they were basically stuck at ‘screwed in the ass’ state permanently.
Also, now the experience between rest states is based on level as opposed to a flat experience mark, and of course, the big thing is the introduction of ‘time’ into this already wacky equation. By that I mean, you can now accumulate logged off time, which will, uh, let you stay at 200% rested experience longer than before? But wait, isn’t the period between rest states based on level now? So, what the hell does time have to do with anything? They say it will allow you to play at well rested longer, so, uh, that means there is some time played ratio to level to experience gained?
Right, so I’m assuming that if we times the speed of light, by the size of Jimi Hendrix’s fro Woodstock era, divide by the number of beers you’ve polished off while trying to read this update, and then pray drunkenly to the Magical Pixie Gnome, this weird ass equation might make sense.
Point in fact, all of the details aside, players in general don’t like this mechanic. Sure the fanbois like it, but we all know that collectively, their vote carries about as much worth as a parrot’s. A particularly ornery parrot I might add.
The reality here is, if the mechanic is designed to give truly casual players a boost without offending the more dedicated players, or trivializing their experience, it fails. Plain and simple. It has failed to the point where somebody executively involved in this has to step back, look at it and say: “we have not achieved what we set out to. This needs to be tossed out, and if it makes it back in at all, needs a complete revision.”
I assure you, the cries you would hear would be joyous, tumultuous even, and echo across the land.
The Rest System; Theoretically How I Think It Should Be, And Why Nobody Should Listen To Me
This is the fun part. First off, nobody should listen to me because what the hell do I know? Fact. Blizzard has made a bajillion dollars. I think they recently purchased the moon and plan to create a moon country, with a dictatorship that worships all things Blizzard. Applications are already filled I’ve been told.
So, I’m a sucker for a bit of hyperbole, in more simple words, Blizzard has made the cash. I on the hand, have done my very best to pursue the opposite of that, which would be making ‘no cash’(tm).
Brilliant. Thankfully enough the internet is about as bipartisan as you can get, accepting everybody from those ‘with an IQ’ to those ‘physically devoid of an IQ’ (You can decide which group I fall into).
Either way, my solutions. First of all, and this is important. When you start the game, you should start at 100% experience. Period. This is a complete no brainer. You should not be able to go below 100% experience. Sitting at 100% experience should not be called ‘tired’ it should be called ‘normal, get used to it’.
Now, depending upon how you play you should be either ‘awarded’ a bonus or not. Which leads us to question, what is the appropriate way of awarding a bonus? In my opinion it should be an account based timer. Time spent logged into the ‘account’ should be considered time ‘played’, and not deserving of any sort of bonus (this makes it less exploitable). For those who truly only get to play a few hours here and there, a bonus would accumulate for them, and their own progression would speed up. This wouldn't affect anybody else though because the bonus given to them based on time played would be proportionately lower than advancement that could be had by playing more often at ‘normal’.
This way, people like myself who play quite a bit would never even see the so called ‘200%’ experience bonus. I would exist and play happily at whatever pace Blizzard set for players. Other people, like those I know who are married, and, you know, aren’t losers, would actually be granted a nice and quick pace at which to play the game at, but of course, still remain behind my sorry ass.
Seems to make sense to me. Now, perhaps the hardcores would bitch about it. But really, would they bitch more than they already are? No. Plus the original intent is reached far more efficiently than all of this crap that comes with trying to convince players that starting at 200% is a ‘bonus’ and 100% is ‘normal’.
All in all, this rambling dialogue leaves me with only two things to say. Despite my theoretical fixes that I think would be appropriate, personally, as a gamer, I don’t like the system at all. I find it distasteful.
When I have the mythical non existent ‘bonus’ I wonder why I deserve to have it and others don’t. When I don’t have it, I wonder why others deserve to have it and I don’t. We’re all playing the same game. If I pick up Warcraft 3, and start playing, and a friends picks up Warcraft 3, I don’t want to hear from them: “well, I have more of a social life than you so my units are cheaper and I get more heroes”, as if I heard that, my reply would be: “hey, go screw yourself” as I shut off the game and never played again.
Realistically though, ‘if’ the future is capturing this casual/hardcore market, perhaps this is an interesting way to go about it. As a more ‘hardcore’ gamer, I don’t mind playing a lot, but if you are married, have kids, have social clubs, etc, etc, and you can only play two or three hours a week, perhaps you should get to experience the game at an exceptionally advanced pace, and maybe that’s what will capture your subscription dollars.Time and money will tell.
Lastly, this update is for Jeff Freeman, who made me laugh and totally owns me.