Problems in Scrolls’ In-game Economy

Scrolls is a new card game made by Mojang (Minecraft). It is still in beta status, but like Minecraft you can pay early at a discount to get access to the beta and the eventual full game. I have had a lot of fun collecting cards in this game. Compared to Hearthstone it is much faster to get new cards, but that should be the case considering Scrolls is not free-to-play. Still, there are some problems with the in-game economy that I have noticed.

Single Player vs. Multiplayer Rewards

In this game, you get new cards by spending gold. You get gold by playing either single player (vs. AI) or multiplayer matches, with more gold for playing real people (multiplayer). However, they underestimated both the speed that you can defeat AI players and the win rates against them. Against Easy AI, you can win pretty much every game. On the other hand, multiplayer matches take much longer, and most players only win half their games. Even though multiplayer games award 3 times as much gold, the single player games are just so much faster they end up giving more gold in the long run.

Most players feel conflicted because they want to play multiplayer, but single player is the fastest way to get new cards. I think the best change would be to make losses worth more in multiplayer. Right now, a multiplayer loss awards about the same amount of gold as a single player loss. Combined with the the lower win rate and longer match length, multiplayer just gives less gold per hour spent playing the game than single player. Increase the gold for multiplayer losses though, and things will even out much more.

Since I really get into the collecting aspect of card games, I have no reason to play multiplayer. Sure, I play some multiplayer when the AIs get boring, but that is only 1 or 2 games out of the whole night. I believe if Mojang balanced these two sides, a lot more people would do multiplayer and queue times would be lowered.

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Hearthstone Basic Decks Card List

In Hearthstone, each class has a Basic Deck. These are preconstructed decks that new players can use when they are just getting started, but the game does not let you see the list of cards in these decks. I am the type of player that likes to swap out a card here and there until I eventually arrive at a deck I like. I could not do this unless I had a list of cards to start with. I decided to play with each deck and write down the cards I drew until I had a full list of cards for each Basic Deck.

Warrior Basic Deck			Shaman Basic Deck			Rogue Basic Deck
M	Name	Q	M	Name	Q	M	Name	Q
0	Charge	2	0	Ancestral Healing	2	0	Backstab	2
1	Execute	2	1	Frost Shock	2	1	Deadly Poison	2
1	Murloc Raider	2	1	Stonetusk Boar	2	1	Elven Archer	2
2	Fiery War Axe	2	1	Murloc Raider	2	1	Goldshire Footman	2
2	Frostwolf Grunt	2	1	Rockbiter Weapon	2	1	Sinister Strike	2
2	Heroic Strike	2	1	Voodoo Doctor	2	2	Bloodfen Raptor	2
2	Murloc Tidehunter	2	2	Frostwolf Grunt	2	2	Novice Engineer	2
3	Razorfen Hunter	2	2	Windfury	2	2	Sap	2
3	Warsong Commander	2	3	Raid Leader	2	3	Ironforge Rifleman	2
3	Wolfrider	2	3	Hex	2	4	Dragonling Mechanic	2
4	Dragonling Mechanic	2	3	Wolfrider	2	4	Gnomish Inventor	2
4	Sen’jin Shieldmasta	2	4	Sen’jin Shieldmasta	2	4	Stormwind Knight	2
5	Gurubashi Berserker	2	5	Booty Bay Bodyguard	2	5	Assassinate	2
6	Boulderfist Ogre	2	5	Frostwolf Warlord	2	5	Nightblade	2
6	Lord of the Arena	2	6	Reckless Rocketeer	2	5	Stormpike Commando	2

A Visual Guide to the Interactive Boards in Hearthstone

One of the advantages of playing a card game on the computer is the little extras that can be added. Hearthstone currently features four unique game boards. In typical Blizzard fashion, clicking on the various unique doodads on each map yields fun and comedic results. Here are all the interactive objects I discovered.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Dailycraft

In Hearthstone, the rewards for daily quests dwarf the rewards for any other in-game activity. You get 40 to 60 gold per day for completing a daily quest. The only other repeatable way to obtain gold is by winning games against real players for 1 gold per win. Thus, a single daily quest is worth at least 40 wins or roughly 80 games, assuming a 50% win rate.

Some players have started complaining about the rate that gold is obtained. They want the 1 gold per win to be increased either directly or through extra rewards for win streaks. Some players have even called for a gold reward for lost games as well. I am not sure how I feel yet on the matter, but I believe there is a good reason why Blizzard chose to set it up this way: World of Warcraft (WoW).

World of Warcraft still has millions of subscribers. Those players are the primary audience for Hearthstone. Because they have to pay money for game time, they spend most of their free time playing WoW over other games. That includes Hearthstone. Blizzard saw this and needed a way to make Hearthstone appealing to that large playerbase.

World of Warcraft is a massive time sink. Most players can put as much time as they have into it and still not do or see everything. If Hearthstone were a time sink like WoW, the WoW players simply would not have the time to get new cards at the same rate as the majority of players, and the majority will definitely be free players. Blizzard has fixed this potential problem by essentially limiting the productivity of your time in-game to 1 or 2 hours every day.

Players can of course play more if they enjoy the gameplay but will get no more good rewards until the next day. Some days a player might be just a few gold away from the 100 to buy a booster pack and decide to play more. Also, as a player increases their collection, there are many more card combinations to try out. However, for most days and most players, there will not be much incentive to play longer after the daily quest is finished.

Hearthstone will not be a typical Blizzard game. Consumers will not pay $60 upfront and get full access. Instead, they will logon a little bit every day slowly collecting about 15 cards per week, or they will pay a little money every month to keep things moving along. It is a typical free-to-play game. If a player wants it to be their primary game, they will need to spend a little money each month to keep the game interesting for long hours. If a player wants to play for free, they will have to play it as a casual game.

For those angry over the game’s monetization, understand why the game is designed this way. If your style of playing does not fit with the styles Blizzard is catering to, there are plenty of other card games that may. For example, Scrolls is a game made by Mojang that goes with the upfront payment model. You pay $20 to get a free deck, and then earn cards at a much quicker pace than Hearthstone.

Definitions: Genrefication

Genrefication is the process by which media like movies, music, and video games are classified. When it comes to video games, this involves categorizing games based on a combination of their gameplay and narrative styles. Some games, such as Tetris, are purely game with no narrative whatsoever. Other games, such as Heavy Rain, are almost entirely narrative. Most games have some combination of both. While the definition is pretty basic and easy to understand, what is interesting are the issues genrefication has created in the game industry.

In the early days when computers and consoles had many technical limitations, it was all about the gameplay. These days we are getting to the point where narrative heavy games are feasible for the big studios to make. Developers now can choose to innovate in story or gameplay. There is a lot of debate within the game industry on whether developers should focus on creating new, interesting stories or new, interesting game mechanics. It is usually very hard to do both. There is just not enough time in most development schedules.

There is debate even from the player perspective. Sometimes a good story is enough. Bioshock Infinite had a great story. Even though the gameplay was not anything new, it was still a fun game to play because of that story. There were a few key player choices in the game that could influence the story too. Story-heavy games are also easier to introduce to non-gamers. If video games are ever to be a serious medium, we need people of all ages playing them. A game that feels like a movie will naturally feel more familiar to non-gamers, and maybe they will branch out to more gameplay-heavy games.

It is possible narrative games will become their own entity separate from traditional games. Perhaps a better name is interactive story. Imagine going to the movies. At certain points, you could vote for what choice a main character would make using a device attached to the back of the chair in front of you. The other people might not always vote for the choice you wanted, so later you could buy the interactive story to view at home and get 100% control over those choices.

Another issue caused by genrefication is getting funding from game publishers. When developers are trying to pitch a new game to publishers, it will many times be turned down immediately if the game does not fit into the clearly established popular genres (Action, RPG, Strategy, Sports, etc.). The publisher’s stance is actually backed up by studies. Games that fit the mold usually sell more than games that do not fit in. Most consumers like their familiar genres and do not want to take chances.

This problem has caused a lot of anxiety with developers. They feel like they have no creative freedom. There is a blueprint for making a popular game, and that is what they have to make. It is grunt work, plain and simple. Many developers have given up on AAA games and now make indie games. It is a lot harder financially to pull off, but that freedom can be worth it. Without the big budgets, indie developers have to focus on gameplay innovation, which is great for those developers (and players) that are not interested in the movement to make more narrative-heavy games.

Lastly, is the issue of how useful classifying games into genres really is. As indie games have become cheaper and easier to make, there is an incredible amount of experimentation in game development these days. Some games take elements from many different genres. They cannot be described by a simple genre label. You can read more about this in “The Age of the Hybrid Game Genre“.

The game industry is still young compared to the other media. It will be many years before these issues are cleared up. They may not be in favor of developers either, but it looks like indie games will be successful for years to come. Even indie games are not agreed on though. I will cover this in a later post.

Catering to All Players in MMORPGs

It is much better for developers to specialize their MMORPG for a specific audience, whether it be open world PvP, casual, raiding, etc. However, there are many MMORPGs these days that try to cater to all playstyles. The problem is, none of them, including World of Warcraft, really do it very well. They have all the data to identify the various types of players that regularly play their game. What they don’t do is make content for all those players. MMORPG developers would do a lot better if they follow one simple rule: Every content patch must include content for all the player types that regularly play.

Case Study: World of Warcraft

For the sake of simplicity, I will just identify three player groups: Green, Yellow, and Red. These terms correlate with the more general terms of Casual, Mid-core, and Hardcore but are not the same. After all, a Casual player of World of Warcraft and a Casual player of Facebook games are totally different.

Green players play the game sporadically. These players generally spend the most time leveling characters, doing daily quests, and obtaining cosmetic gear. They will occasionally engage in PvE dungeons and PvP battlegrounds — especially while leveling characters — but they have no long term plans for endgame progression. When a character gets to the maximum level and they have gotten all the goodies from daily quests, they start leveling a new character.

Yellow players represent the in between. Some of these players are in transition from green-to-red or red-to-green but not all. They put a good amount of time in the game and fully understand the game mechanics but for some reason choose not to go further to become red players. Usually, this is because they do not have the time or they find it too tedious. They spend most of their in-game time with dungeons, scenarios, and battlegrounds. They realize they can not get the best gear as raiders and arena PvP players, but they still want to have some progression for their characters over time.

Red players spend the most time in the game. For them, the game has become a hobby. It is what they do. Some people collect stamps; red players play this one MMORPG religiously. They want to be the best. They dream of being number 1 on the PvP rankings or being the first in the world to clear the latest raid. They might never reach those dreams, but every content patch they are ready to put in the time and energy to give it a very hard try. Most of them still have normal lives, a job, kids, etc, but their primary goals are centered around progress in the game. They want those exclusive titles and the best looking gear to show off.

Knowing these player types, an ideal content patch would contain a new daily quest zone, a new dungeon, and a new raid. The green players will enjoy the daily quest zone, the yellow players get a new dungeon to run, and the red players get a new raid to sink their teeth into. Of course there are many other combinations of content that would work such as a new reputation with cosmetic gear for green players, a new battleground for yellow players, and a new arena map for red players. Just add one thing for each “bucket” and your players will be happy.

Blizzard is one of the best in the business, but even they frequently release content patches that do not cater to non-raiders. Part of this is the lack of adapting to a changing playerbase. The WoW playerbase today is much more casual than the WoW playerbase of Vanilla and Burning Crusade. I remember when I started playing, pretty much everyone’s ultimate goal was to get into raiding. That is not the case anymore.

Players have grown up and now have families and jobs. They still like to play but no longer than 2 hours per session. Raiding just takes too long for most of them to be interested in. I believe Blizzard has slowly gotten better at this over the years, but there are still times they forget about the green and yellow players.

Note that I have not considered the PvE – PvP divide. In reality, there are 6 audiences playing the game made up of Green, Yellow, Red PvE players, and Green, Yellow, Red PvP players. I believe it is probably too much to ask to have content for all of those players in each content patch. Just make sure to have one piece of sizable PvE or PvP content for Green, Yellow, and Red players.

Other MMORPGs

I have used World of Warcraft as the example, but this rule applies to all MMORPGs. Sure, it takes more work to cater to more players, but is that not what developers want? The more players, the more subscriptions being paid for or the more microtransactions that occur. Developers get more money, players get more content that they want. The number one complaint players have with a MMORPG is lack of content caused by a series of content patches which have no content they are interested in. Most MMORPGs do get regular content updates. The problem is it usually does not cater to more than a small subset of the player base.

As another example, look to Star Wars: The Old Republic. The developers should be releasing content patches that adds something for all three player types. Patch 2.1 mostly just added to the cash shop, a disastrous move overall. Patch 2.2 added content for Red players (more raids) but not Green or Yellow players, not the best content patch for the overall playerbase. Patch 2.3 added content for Green (new daily quests) and Yellow players (new dungeons) but not Red players, better for the overall playerbase but still not perfect.

Their development team did have layoffs, so maybe it is impossible for them to follow this rule every content patch. That could even be the reason they were not able to compete with World of Warcraft. They just did not have enough content in each content patch to satisfy most of the players. Only the most casual players, still going through class stories (the best part of the game), maintained their subscriptions. If EA / Bioware want to compete with World of Warcraft, they cannot release content patches that only serve one segment of players.

This can apply to other MMORPG developers too. Maybe you cannot cater to all of the players in every content patch. Well, at least make sure to cater to two out of three, the majority. When enough players are not getting content, they stop spending their money on it. As a developer, you have to know your audience and cater to them. There are enough alternatives out there. Your players will not stick around.

Predicting the Bottom for World of Warcraft Subscriber Numbers

It seemed inevitable, but World of Warcraft lost subscribers again. According to the latest Activision-Blizzard Conference call, the current subscriber count is now 7.7 million. That is a loss of 600,000 subscribers in three months. A lot of people, myself included, are wondering when the subscriber numbers are going to bottom out and how many subscribers the game will have then.

We know in the last update that WoW lost 1.3 million, bringing it down to 8.3 million subscribers. Now the loss is only 600,000, so about half the loss as before. If that pattern continues, the game will lose another 300,000 in the next three months. That gives us a sequence of 150,000 -> 75,000 -> 32,500 and so on. In a year’s time the game would have around 7.1 million subscribers. However, the next expansion will definitely raise subscribers for a few months after it releases.

I believe Blizzard will release the next expansion pack about 8 months after the last Mists of Pandaria content patch. The last Mists of Pandaria content patch is 5.4, but it has not released yet. It is on the test server though (since June). Judging by past history it will be about 2 months (August) until 5.4 is released on the live servers. Eight months later would put the expansion release in April 2014.

It is July 2013 now and the expansion will be out in April 2014 for a total of 9 months until the expansion’s release. In 9 months, the game will lose 300,000 + 150,000 + 75,000 for a total of 525,000 subscribers lost by the time the next expansion is out. That leaves around 7.2 million subscribers still subscribing. I believe the expansion will add 500,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers for a month or two. Then, the game will either stay flat around 7 million or start losing subscribers again.

I know there are still a lot of active players that love the game, but each expansion is probably going to bottom out further and further just a little bit. The current expectation is that the last expansion will be when characters can get to level 100. That is only two expansion packs. The next expansion pack in 2014 will bring subscribers down to 7 million. The following expansion pack in, I predict, 2016 will bring subscribers down to 6 million. Finally, in 2018 I predict a free-to-play mode will be added to the game, with the subscription option still available.