[MUD-Dev] The changing nature of fun

[Ted L. Chen]

brian hook wrote:

> The thread on "AI" (that is way, WAY off subject now) got me
> thinking about a pet "problem" of mine -- the changing, variable
> nature of fun.

> This is something that has come up on numerous occasions, and to
> me is probably one of the oldest and hardest problems.  I'm not
> talking about "what makes things fun", but the much harder problem
> of "Why is something not fun now and was fun before".

Here's just a proposal which is likely wrong on so many levels, but
might as well throw it into the wind.


  Complexity |             /
             |  Frust.    /    Fun
             |           / <-------
             |----------+-----------
             |           \
             |  Boring    \  Simple
             L_____________\________
                      Mental Choices (t)

Now, complexity is a time-independent phenomena.  You can say that
for each situation, it's by design (more weapon choices at lvl 40
than lvl 10 for instance).  And as the game progresses, that
complexity is still the same.

The x-axis is the number of 'mental choices' that the player has in
each situation.  I've prefixed 'mental' there because humans have
this great ability to learn by rote.  It makes us more efficient
when the environment doesn't change, but it also makes us more rigid
in that we narrow our number of choices unnecessarily.  This number
of 'mental choices' <= 'real choices'.

The changing nature of fun drops in when the number of 'mental
choices' decays.  On the graph above, it will always move leftward
into either Frustrating or Boring, depending on which
pseudo-quadrant you start in.

So apply this to your examples below.

> 		      "Forced Interdependence"

FI in the initial stages are fun.  You get to try out an almost
limitless combination of groupings.  After a while though, like you
said, you MUST have a cleric.  Really, you don't, but your 'mental
choices' have already been truncated because of past experience, or
global lore.

> 			 "Corpse Recovery"

Corpse recovery is also fun initially, especially at lower levels
where it usually happens in a very securable outdoors zone.  In such
places, you can approach your corpse from any which way, and easily
get help from people slightly higher than you.

In the higher levels, you start getting your corpse dropped in
weird, hazardous places (hazardous to 99% of the EQ population).
Your 'mental choices' get reduced to blitz the corpse or leave it,
which admittedly isn't much of a choice when you're a high level
player running around in your undies.

> 			   "Overcrowding"

Overcrowding simply ups the number of real-choices.  If you haven't
formed into cliques, then that impacts your 'mental choices' on who
to talk to, etc.  It's fun meeting new people.  However, if you're
already in a clique or group, it has no effect other than to
increase complexity.

And looking at the graph again, I angled the boundary between
Complexity and Fun.  I suggest that at some point, overcrowding
makes doing things so hard (i.e. lag, waiting lines, etc), that a
task no longer becomes fun.

> 	      "Bad Guys Can't Interact With Good Guys"

Well, this one's simple in that when you NEED something and you HAVE
to interact with the good guys, then you don't have much choice
there.

The usefulness of the Bad-Good interaction is that it occasionally
forces people out of their established 'mental choices'.  That is,
if you're bad and used to buying stuff from a vendor, all of a
sudden, you have to contemplate new methods of acquiring goods when
in good territory.  Like you said, "they feel a sense of
accomplishment by beating this problem."

> 			    "Down Time"

This is a complexity issue.  It ups it by making you take into
account recharge time.  Usefulness varies, based on where you are on
the graph above.  If you're on the bottom half, then it might bump
you out of Boring just by adding that little bit of
strategy/resource management.

> The above are just some examples of things that are fun and not
> fun, and the level of fun depends entirely on the player and the
> situation.  This is important -- NOTHING IN THE GAME CHANGED, BUT
> THE SUBJECTIVE ENJOYMENT ITSELF DID.  This is a major issue.

> Games that naively try to "fix" the above end up losing a lot of
> personality.

I quite agree with you.  I don't even think it is possible to fix
any system when you take in account people's behavior over time.
The graph has a nasty tendency to move left.

The Good-Bad interaction, and interaction with other players are the
only forcing functions I can think of at this time that bump it any
appreciable amount to the right.  Also note that graph movement
seems to go faster laterally in the choices axis than it does in the
complexity.  This is partially due to complexity being so closely
tied to the underlying game mechanic.

The usefulness of the graph is somewhat clouded.  You can't pinpoint
where your game fits on it, since it varies by person and situation.
What it does allow though is categorization of design decisions by
their primary effects:

1) Retasking Forcing functions
   ------>

   Increases your 'mental choices' without affecting task complexity.
   You can class this as weak, mild, strong depending on how much
   they can overcome the natural tendency to slide left.  Most things
   seem to fit the weak-mild category.
   (eg level system and MOB difficulty balance)

   1a) Intermittent Retasking Forcing functions
       A subset of the above that is periodic or one time only.
       Usually a pretty strong forcing function.
       (eg Bad-good interactions, day-night/seasonal cycles)

2) "Bad designer, No Twinkie" functions
   <------

   Decreases the 'mental choices'.
   Generally arises from setting 'goals' for the player.
   (eg rigid crafting recipes, static dungeons, stringent level
    requirements)

3) Hardness
   ^
   |

   Increases complexity through game mechanics.
   Usually considered a bad thing unless you're in the bottom
   half of the graph.  Once you're in the top half, you want to stay
   away from increasing hardness too much.
   (eg. bad UI)

4) Simplification
   |
   v

   Decreases complexity through game mechanics.
   Use this if you've realized that a set of 'mental choices' has
   been reduced to size one.  Be careful to make sure that it isn't
   a subset of a bigger one, lest you reduce that as well.
   (eg. good low-level AI, auto-loot)

5) Holy Grail Forcing function
     >
    /

   Increases mental choices AND complexity.
   You probably would want this to be the foundation of your game
   since it's the safest to implement and gives a good bang for your
   buck despite whatever quadrant the player starts in.

   Aside from that, you won't want to rely on it since it constantly
   increases complexity, which indirectly ties to production complexity.

   (eg. some weird bastardization of Chris Crawford's work? <g>)


You can have the other hybrid directions.  It's useful to know they
exist but I think most things can be categorized by the above.

As a first-pass design method, you can list your features, then
start drawing arrows signifying direction, strength (weak, mild,
strong), and periodicity.  Then start canceling out and see what
you're left with.  You want to end up with something along the lines
of Holy Grail or at least Retasking.

TLC


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