Graham Edgecombe

Online games and new beginnings

Resets and rollbacks. It all happens in the vast majortiy of online games, yet, why do sometimes you get the thrill of starting over? What makes a new beginning in a game 'fun'? Some web-based games reset on a scheduled basis - meaning players lose all their progress? This doesn't happen very often in large, full-scale MMORPGs as players don't like losing their progress! In this article, I'm going to be discussing all about resets and what (I think) makes them good in some cases, and bad in others.

The main reason for me writing this post is that a game I play, named Wurm Online will be having some aspects of it reset while they fiddle with the server setup. I previously mentioned this on my blog in a post entitled 'Wurm Online Servers'. Basically, a few of the servers are being closed down with players on these servers being forced to move to others.

The game is pretty unique: lots of your actions are persistent in the world. You can build houses and villages, terraform the land and mine out caves. These changes stay there and are not in separate instances. There is one instance, making it different from other games that have player owned houses and constructions.

So, the shutting down of a server is quite significant in Wurm Online's case. Hundreds of people on these servers have invested large amounts of game time (generally people range from 30-90 days spent online in the year the server has existed) in building villages, towns, monuments, caves and their own communities. All of this is going to be gone at the flick of a switch (or rather, the press of a key!) - and there are two different attitudes clear in the community.

Some of the players like the resets and welcome them. There is a brand new, empty world where everyone is roughly equal again. There are no maps, no roads, no safe areas at the start. You literally are a brave explorer in the new world. The other players do not like resets. They have invested their time for nothing and would rather not waste it on something which is going to go away in a few months time.

So what makes resets good and what makes them bad? One of the obvious reasons, is that a reset makes everyone get back onto a level-setting. Most online games are progressed through investment of lots of time, which makes it harder for newer players to catch up. Naturally, the newer players like to have a chance to be the best, whereas older, veteran players mainly are against such options.

In some online games, resetting to ensure a level playing field is necessary in many cases. Lots of browser-based games have a reset every few months or some open new servers. This ensures a level-playing field and is important to ensure fairness as you commonly attack other players, with few restrictions (there is sometimes noob or level difference protection, but not often).

However, in others, it is not so important. Most MMORPGs have different areas/zones for lower and higher level players, allowing them to progress fairly. For instance, RuneScape used to have a 'wilderness' - a player killing area in which there are different levels. In lower levels, you can only attack people of a similar level to you, as you ventured deeper you could be attacked by higher level players (or attack lower level ones). Now, they have changed the system and use a minigame called 'Bounty Hunter' which finds you a suitable target of a similar level (I believe).

In Wurm this is slightly different. In fact, in Wurm, you could say it is much more like a browser game. You can attack anyone, anywhere on the wild servers (and almost entirely on the home servers too now, so long as they are of a different kingdom). Of course, the new server setup will change this but it's just an example.

However, Wurm is very much skill-based and you don't generally compete with others, in which case you would expect people to be annoyed at a reset: usually you only mind about your own levels and progressing them - and you don't want to lose them after your hard work! However, the opposite is seen to be true and I think it is because of the unique way Wurm works - it's not like any other game.

The first time you build a house on Wurm, the first time you've made your mark on an empty part of the world, you feel really good. You have made a lasting change. This is the reason why I feel working to start again is fun. It's hard when you are starting out - you are starving with no decent food, you have few skills and tools and you need to put lots of effort in to build a nice place, making it seem valuable and worth more.

In conclusion, some games are more suited to resets than others. These are typically games where there a gap between experienced and non-experienced players can build up without restrictions in the game to stop competitions between the two groups. In general, these games allow players to get insanely high skills/resources/etc whereas on other games there are limits to levels - these games are typically never reset (unless in a technical failure) because new players can catch up and be equal to the older players. Some of these games also restrict who can attack who to ensure newer players can still enjoy the game in relative safety. However, in almost all games, it's sometimes great to be a newbie with a new character, beginning to build up your skills and money!