What every member of a large MMO project should know


    Ordinary programmers usually all know this very well. But the managerial staff often believes that it is absolutely not necessary to understand the gaming economy, client-server architecture and the psychology of the gaming community. After all, there is a cool team of specialists who will take care of everything.
    The result is obvious: it is difficult to recall at least one large MMO project released over the past two years, which would have avoided the standard set of rakes. It seems that the MMO industry is not able to learn from its mistakes.
    So, a list of questions everyone should know the answers to, from a top manager to a tech support worker for a large MMO project.

    Game defense



    1. What is a game bot? What is the difference between clickers, ingame bots and outgame bots?
    2. Suppose that all accounts where the bot was launched at least once fall into the ban with a 100% probability, and before they even have time to throw off any resources that have been spent on them. Does this mean that botsworthy is now unprofitable?
    3. What is a dup, what is it connected with and how are they protected from it?
    4. What is packet spoofing? Why should any data from the client be checked by the server, including object coordinates, skill rollbacks, and item identifiers?
    5. What is a gaming radar? Why is it impossible to transmit information to the game client that should not be shown to the player?
    6. What is a fly hack, speed hack, wall hack? Why is even checking packets on the server often unable to handle them?
    7. What is brutus? How to avoid massive hacking of game accounts using brutus?
    8. Test task number 1 . AutoIt and some "model" game client are launched . What is AutoIt? Write a simple clicker that can kill mobs.
    9. Test task No. 2 (increased complexity) : The Cheat Engine and the "model" game client are launched . What is a Cheat Engine? What are offsets and why are cheaters looking for them? Find the offset chain for the player’s nickname.
    10. Name at least one international cheating resource and at least three large cheating resources of Runet. Explain why if you are engaged in a truly large-scale project, there must certainly be someone in your team who regularly looks at these resources?
    11. Who are the Gold Sellers? Name at least one major Goldseller resource Runet. If your project is f2p, and you sell game currency for real, will this protect your game from gold sellers?

    Holes in the game mechanics



    1. What is overflow? After reviewing the 5 proposed game concepts, show which of these games will suffer from overflow and why.
    2. What is twinning? After reviewing the 5 game concepts proposed to you, indicate those where twin-player players will get a tremendous advantage over the rest.
    3. What is a levelcap? Why is it impossible to release a game where there is nothing to do on the cap, hoping to create additional content while the players swing?
    4. Imagine a game built on the confrontation of several races. Could it be that the majority of experienced players will go for the same race, which as a result will get an overwhelming advantage? Is it possible to protect yourself from this?
    5. Suppose that for every minute online, a player is credited with a game currency, experience, or some other valuable resource. Explain why such an idea ultimately leads to an increase in server load, but does not affect the time spent by the players in the game.
    6. What is a multi-window (multi-instance)? Having considered the 5 game concepts proposed to you, indicate those where multi-windowers will get an overwhelming advantage.

    Game economy



    1. When players do quests and kill mobs, they get items and money for it. Since there are many players, and mobs are constantly beaten, the money supply and the mass of items in the game are constantly increasing. How can hyperinflation be avoided?
    2. Imagine the situation: the game suffers from the dominance of bots. Bots farm game currency, causing inflation. Suggest a minimum of three ways to eliminate inflation without touching the bots.

    Work with the community



    1. Why is launching game servers at the start of a project extremely undesirable to do on Friday night, and on weekends too?
    2. What should I do if a player, in violation of the rules of the forum, posted a description of the game bug with detailed instructions on the forum of your game? (The option "theme to the basket, the author in the ban" is immediately considered as a sign of managerial unsuitability).
    3. If your game has bugs that have been fixed for at least a week, but which some players are already aware of, then it’s better to pretend that everything is in order, and the video with the bugs is fake, or publicly acknowledge their existence, promising how to fix the situation? List the advantages and disadvantages of both options.
    4. Why do moderators and community managers need to be recruited not after the start of the project, but even before the start of the CBT? Name at least two large game projects where they didn’t do this, and tell us what it ultimately led to.
    5. Do you think it’s normal if there are only two posts from the administration and 200 posts from the gold sellers on the game forum in the section “communication with developers” with 800 pages of messages from players? If not, what would you do to change this situation?
    6. Situation: the vast majority of players are confident that the project administration is protecting the gold sellers for a certain percentage of profit. What miscalculations of the project team could lead to the formation of such an unflattering opinion among the community?
    7. Despite the availability of technical support, players stubbornly post requests for help to the forum. What can this be connected with and how would you change this situation? (The option “give bans to everyone who does this” should immediately be considered as a sign of unsuitability).
    8. If players say that the boss drop has been cut 10 times compared to the previous month (which is not true), how would you stop such rumors? The option to "write on the forum that this is not true" is considered a sign of unsuitability, because Nobody will believe such a post anyway (admins hide, etc.).
    9. Suppose a player wants to complain about a bot. Do you think it is normal if for this he has to shoot a 10-minute video, shake it without fail in mp4 1024x768 and send it to Technical Support, the reaction time of which is no more than a day? What do you think should be the ideal way to leave a complaint about a bot so that the vast majority of players use it?
    10. Suppose your project is successfully launched, the servers are full, the traffic is caught up. Does this mean that you can relax, not give any more interviews, dismiss community managers and stop posting any news except for those pre-prepared and shoved into cron?

    General Philosophical (the correct answers depend on the specific company)



    1. If the reputation of your company does not affect its revenues in any way, is it worth it to worry about - is this an additional expense?
    2. Should the internal kitchen of the company be tightly closed from the players so that they do not know the characteristics of the iron on which the game is spinning, the names of those who are responsible for the project, or (especially) the general atmosphere inside the project team?
    3. About your project or, even worse, about your company, or even about you personally, they wrote on Lurka. Is it necessary to immediately run to court and send a complaint to Roskomnadzor demanding to immediately block the villains?
    4. Does the behavior of your employees look like the behavior of Russian deputies and senior officials? Do players love your company as much as they like the State Duma?

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