Foreword
Hello everyone, I have come to "cross-border" to study SoC again. This series is mainly for SoC games, and at the same time, I will talk about it in several chapters, through several SoC masterpieces, from the system, gameplay, sense of purpose, construction and management and other dimensions to split and explain. Because there is a lot of content, it may be written in chapters. This series is more for game developers.,If you're interested in this kind of game, you can also take a look.,The content will be dry.,You may need to read it repeatedly.,If you like it, you can also like it.。 It's also a coincidence.,SoC's game type is also what I'm more interested in.,And after playing Valhalla.,I found that the business building elements in it are still more interesting.,So the simulation business experience of this kind of game is also a part worth scrutinizing.。 Therefore, the main analysis of the game object of the article is as the title, which is the previous hit "Valheim", let's make a difference, it's not Ubisoft's one, don't cue. At the same time, SOC has a lot of distinctive but also fun masterpieces, such as the famous minecraft, Don't Starve, Ark, etc., but the Valhalla released in 2021 is a masterpiece of production, although looking at the picture pixel 3D is rougher, but it can't hide the well-made production of this game, the complexity of the system, and it can be regarded as a combination of all the elements you can think of in SoC. So here we go—Table of ContentsWhat is SoC?What is its definition?The summary will tell you about the history of SoC, and if you are thinking about playing this type of game, or even want to make this type of game, you can learn about it. What is the core loop of SoC games?This is the focus of this article, and it is also the core framework of the SoC, which is the core method of this type of game to capture and retain players. Why is a day and night system standard for SOCs?Is there any special role other than adding a sense of realism?Where does the survival experience of SOC come from?How to do a good sense of survival?You can learn how the underlying logic of SOC's sense of survival is realized, and where the underlying sense of survival of SOC comes from. What is the audience for the SoC genre?How to make social and multiplayer?Multiplayer mode is also a more important part of SoC games, how to balance PvP and PVE?What exactly are SoC players playing?This is where the sense of purpose comes fromA sense of purpose is the ultimate secret of all games, and what is the difference between it and a traditional RPG or sandbox game?What is the future trend of SOC?What is the future development direction of SoC according to different platforms?What's the difference between it and traditional multiplayer MMO or even chicken games?
What is SoC Game?What are the elements?First of all, before understanding this category, we have to be clear about how SoC is defined: I dare to bet 1 yuan on the survival element of survival, everyone who is interested in SoC loves to watch Bell and Deye's wilderness survival. Survival Survival is a very core gameplay of SoC, players need to manage their own survival needs, such as food, water, temperature, physical fitness, etc., in addition, the game's harsh environment often has a variety of enemies to attack players, such as zombies at night in Minecraft, all kinds of neutral hostile creatures in the famine. Players have to find food resources while building camps, crafting equipment, and arming themselves to keep themselves alive. With the proposition of open-world survival in place, the stage is very important, and the free, seamless, and open game world is also the core feature of this type of game, and it must be big!Players can freely explore the world (some areas require abilities to explore), starting from east to west in an hour. The big map is just the surface, the most important rule is that you need to have a relatively rich ecology, resources, terrain, flora and fauna, etc., so the huge open world is the foundation, which is why many SOC games use procedurally generated maps. There is also one of the more important world systemsDynamic Environment System:A dynamic world, a day-night environmental system includes dynamic weather, a day-night cycle, and a rich and diverse range of climate zones. These are also important components of the design of the SoC game world. Create Crafting
To get rich, you have to build a house first, "you have to have a manufacturing table", "you need more wood", to get rich, you have to build a tree!But as long as this sentence applies in a certain game, then it has a **SOC category. The foundation of construction and crafting is the in-game crafting system, and when the player has a crafting table, the nature of the game begins to change. The gameplay of building and synthesis supports two growth elements, the construction of homes and the improvement of the character's survivability, so this crafting element supports the later vitality of the game and supports the gameCharacter growth and world exploration. The above is an explanation of the elements of the SOC. In fact, if you combine the above games in pairs, you can find a very successful product, let me give a few examples at random:s+o, survival + open world combinations are many RPG games, such as "Fallout Series", "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim", and "Red Dead Redemption 2". o+c, open world + creation is more of a sandbox game, mainly exploration + construction-based, representing "alien explorer astroneer", "minecraft" and "lego infinite" in creative mode. s+c, the combination of survival + construction is a simulation of management or a partial SLG game, representative works include "Ice Vapor Age", "This is My War", "Lack of Oxygen", "Fallout: Shelter". What is the core loop of SoC games?This is the focus of this chapter, the core framework of SOC, and the core system for capturing and retaining players. The pleasure of exploration (the acquisition of resources and the interaction of the world) is essentially the most basic instinct of human beings, the original driving force for human ancestors to leave the African continent, and the foundation of human beings to continuously expand their own living territory and discover the new continent for the first time. 
Players' curiosity about this continent is why the game is designed, and using the player's curiosity and desire to explore is the magic weapon to win. In Valhalla, the player's exploration of the surrounding environment is partly out of curiosity, the player needs to know what is in the woods, and needs to see what the other side of the sea is like. When the player finds health in the lower left corner, discovers resources, finds a cabin or an enemy, the goal comes to mind: stay alive. The concept of survival appears in the player's subconscious, I can't die, in this purpose, the protagonist needs to constantly explore the world to find resources, food, self-defense, safe shelter, these goals become natural. Think back to the first time you played Minecraft, what were you doing for the first 3 minutes?Whether it's wandering around, exploring, chasing pigs to pick up meat to eat, or finding a high ground to find a place of interest, so exploration is one of the core of this type of game. 
Valhalla's different styles of areas have the theme of exploration, then the game needs to provide a very rich environment to support players to explore, and each area will have certain differences in terms of visuals, gameplay, and resource types, and players will have different experiences and challenges, which will be similarly reflected in Minecraft, the game contains deserts, dense forests, snow-capped mountains, islands, mineral veins, and other areas of various styles. Let's take the world of Valhalla as an example, and we can see some differences in visuals, difficulty, and gameplay:
Differences between different areas of ValhallaWhen players first start playing your game, curiosity will drive them to wander around, but just hanging around is not enough to make players addicted, so how to do a good job of exploration requires the following driving methods: One of the core goals of resource-driven exploration is the acquisition of resources, which actually have multiple meanings: building resources, survival resources, and materials for character equipment. The resource system corresponds to the game's crafting system, which we will talk about in detail below. From the above world table, we can see that when designing the game world, different areas have different special resources, and different areas will have different difficulties with the growth of the character, so the designer needs to focus on making the resources produced in this area serve the current stage of the player. How to make differences between different stages, and not let players directly separate and persuade players to retreat from stage to stage, designers can refer to the era in the above table, most of the SoC games are done through stuck points, as shown in the following figure. 
Exploration Cycle Combat Growth DriveIf finding resources to survive is one of the goals of exploration, then making your character stronger and defeating strong enemies is another powerful driving method, and the exit of resources in the game is not only to build a home, but also to build and upgrade the character's equipment. In Valhalla, the game's abundant variety of enemies further enhances the RPG's attributes. Players will always encounter a variety of enemies on the way to find certain resources, these enemies increase the combat experience at the same time, but also force players to improve their abilities, and a key design point is that the enemy may also drop the only ** resource, so the battle is the player's channel to vent, and it is also the only way to obtain some resources. Players who have mined in Minecraft should also know this. Obtaining resources (mining) isPlayer Objectives, skeleton shooters and zombies that appear underground lead to the targetObstruction。To defeat these enemies, players need to find more resources, build equipment to arm themselves, and improve their combat effectiveness. With all of the above, the exploration loop in the diagram above is further enhanced. The C in the SoC (the joy of creation, the growth of the character's ability) SoC, the more important definition is Create is also Craft, building, manufacturing, creating, no matter how it is translated, but the content covered by this C contains the following two:Home buildingProviding a construction system with a high degree of freedom is the standard configuration of almost all SOC games, those successful SOC games often have powerful home building and DIY functions, Dragon Quest Genesis small players, grounded, no man's deep space, etc., while meeting the shelter, players often have strong DIY aesthetic needs. Going back to basics, the home building system covers the following functions:
Freedom to build:Players can build their own shelter anywhere they like, the size and shape of the shelter are designed and built by the player himself, and the player can build it into the various looks he wantsFunctional Buildings:Different building facilities provide specific functions, such as farmland, mills, etc., which are also categorized here, they can build different types of things separately, and if you are willing to design, your game can even support the player to build a shrine, the effect is to bring you back to life after death (suddenly only wolf painting style);Defense Attributes:In fact, many SoCs will deliberately emphasize this, a very important attribute of the shelter is to resist external enemies, players who have played MC should have a deep understanding, when you build a house on the first night but there is no bed, the zombie sound outside is whistling, and that sense of security is ** this. Not only MC, Terraria, Don't Starve's Campfire, etc., offer such an experience. 
In the road of home construction, the more difficult thing to do is the manufacturing system, or the part of the manufacturing chain. The home-building crafting chain connects all the content in the early, middle and late stages of the game, and is also a very important part of the management and development part. It is closely related to the resources and stages of the game, different stages unlock different manufacturing tables, different tools, ** facilities need different materials, and they also need to be constantly polished by designers. I will list a few parts that need to be planned and students focus on:1.Resource output and distribution, divided by the region of the world, the stage of the game, and the way it is produced. For example, in the figure below, I take the distribution of underground minerals in MC as an example, which is just a simple summary: the game divides different underground mine depth areas from easy to difficult according to different stages; The resources produced at different depths are different, but some resources overlap; The deeper the depth, the more dangerous it is, the harder the enemies, and the more advanced equipment is required. 
Minecraft resources are briefly divided2.Resource useGenerally speaking, the resources used for manufacturing are mainly used for the following purposes, such as walls, fences, fences, windows, floors, and other functional facilities, processing facilities, such as furnaces, bakeries, anvils, grills, etc., and there are unique functional buildings in different eras, such as furnaces can only be made by players entering the Bronze Age; The character's ** and armor equipment, pickaxes, axes, armor, etc., these are basically the characters to improve their combat effectiveness; Craft food or potions to restore your character's health and stamina, increase attributes, and more. 3.Consumption of manufacturing materialsFor example, the core of the flame spirit in Valhalla is an important material for the game to enter the Bronze Age, and many crafting tables and key facility portals need it, and the core of the flame spirit also needs the player to explore the dungeon, so the entire material will become the primary strategic target for players to explore and build in the middle of the game. 4.Rational use of resources in the early, middle and late stagesIn some management games, the core resources needed in the early stage of the game are no longer needed in the later stage, and there is no use value, which is actually an unreasonable design. Because the type of resources in a game should not be too much, otherwise it will be very difficult for players to mine resources, and the cost of memory and operation will be very high, so in some SoC games, the core resources in the early stage of the game will also have a large consumption in the later stage, such as wood, an important material for home construction and tool construction in the early stage, but it can be used as fuel for the furnace in the later stage. 
The content of this part of the resource and manufacturing is actually quite complicated, the above is just a few frameworks, and the design of this system is a very test of the system and numerical skills, this part is actually more complex, the amount of knowledge is still more, I may need to open additional pits, I will not repeat here. Character gear manufacturingThe second is corresponding to the growth of the character, and the growth of the character can actually be divided into 3 parts:
Here we focus on the last one, the growth of equipment, in RPG games, the character's equipment ** basically depends on two: fighting monsters to drop complete or drop some fragments of materials. Pass NPC quests, or trade forges. Crafting and crafting, however, as RPGs become more complex, the game's character equipment may also involve blueprints, materials, enchantments, etc., but the core framework is still obtained directly or indirectly through exploration. A large part of the equipment materials in the SOC** are obtained through the collection of resources, and some are obtained by killing some monsters, such as the troll cloak in the middle of Valhalla, which can only be made after the player kills the troll to obtain the troll skin, including the silver suit in the later stage, which requires the player to challenge some elite enemies to obtain the material.
But players who have played MC can recall that the ** armor in MC basically only needs to be obtained through mining, without challenging any bosses, which is essentially a difference in the direction of the two games, I personally think so. In Valhalla, combat and RPG are relatively sufficient, so the materials needed for equipment usually need to be obtained in combat, which is the same as in traditional RPG games, and getting good equipment requires defeating powerful enemies. However, the abundance of enemies in the MC is relatively small, and the core conflict of the MC is more between the player and the harsh environment, rather than the player and the enemy, and good equipment is often to keep yourself from dying easily, rather than killing stronger enemies.
The above table of resources required for different levels of equipment is to manufacture different levels of equipment, and the proportion of resources required: SoC type games with partial RPG elements, the proportion of character equipment materials, only an approximate proportion, for reference only, it can be roughly seen that the ** of equipment is mainly collected in nature + dropped by enemies, according to the different stages of the game, the proportion of materials required for different levels of equipment is probably the same, in fact, this proportion is in the basic knowledge for experienced game developers or players, But releasing it can be regarded as consolidating the foundation. The theory is actually very simple, but when you really make a game, there are a lot of things to consider, but everything is the same:The materials that players need at different stages are in line with the difficulty of the current stage, and the character's abilities, equipment levels, and enemy strength need to be in a delicate balance on the same level, and the spiral increases from the beginning to the end of the game. Day & Night System: A cycle of building and exploringWhy do most SoCs or management games have a day and night cycle? Is it just for the sake of realism? Actually, the day and night cycle usually plays a more important role in games with a management system, which is to distinguish between exploration time and construction time. The construction of the SOC is carried out through the following loop, the player is out to explore during the day, and at night to go home to rest and build, which is why the SOC type of day and night cycle is effectively used, the sun rises and the sun sets. In addition to Valhalla, Vrising also has the same mechanic, but as a vampire theme, the opposite of the traditional SoC is to build during the day and go out to explore at night, including this is my war, etc., so many management games usually involve a day and night system for this reason.
Generally speaking, the division of day and night is more of a designer who recommends that you progress through the game reasonably and smoothly, and you can build at home during the day or go out and explore at night, but players don't encourage you to do so. That's why there are monsters at night in the MC, on the one hand, it puts pressure on you to survive, and on the other hand, it makes you don't just get resources, and ignore your home and personal growth. There is also a special situation, that is, for players who like challenges, some mysterious creatures or resources will only appear at night, such as a game with a type of MC, and the survival war will appear werewolves on the night of the full moon. That's all for this issue.,This article originally contained a sense of survival.,But if you add it.,Maybe the whole article will be more difficult to digest.,There's too much content.,So I dismantled.。 The next article will focus on the sense of survival in SoC games, and how planning should be designed as a result of the sense of purpose. Finally, thank you for seeing the little friends here, and see you in the next part!
Author: Oatmeal.
The first Zhihu,