[MUD-Dev] When will new MMORPGs that are coming out get originalwiththe gameplay?

[David Kennerly]

Sasha Hart wrote:

> Suppose subscriptions to Puzzle Pirates went into the
> stratosphere.  Does that mean it is easier to get money for ANY
> original idea - say, "Dairy Tycoon Online?"

I'm not sure how we made this leap.  I apologize if I accidentally
implied anything of the kind, for no such implication has been
proposed.  Logically, any occurence of an event P (PP) implies
nothing of an unrelated event Q (DT), even if P and Q belong to a
common set S (MMO).

> Would producers be convinced if someone argued that Puzzle
> Pirates' success will apply to Dairy Tycoon Online because both
> are original?

Such a hypothetical producer would possess an incompetent intellect.
Original gameplay in an MMORPG is not necessarily linked to a farm,
ice cream management (or whatever it is you envision as Dairy Tycoon
Online) MMO game.

More to my original point: players teach developers.  The smart
developers are attentive students to player behavior.  It's not what
the player says that smart developers learn from.  It's what the
players do.  That includes their decision to not play or pay.  In
fact, it wouldn't be reasonable to conjecture that all decisions
that developers are concerned about fit under the umbrella of how
players play and pay, or fail to.

If there's any question of motivation, Why?  I don't think people
question a restaurant's primary concern for how their patrons eat
and the rituals surrounding the meal.  I don't think there's
anything less wholesome about play behavior.

I gave a dozen examples, because I'm asserting that players are the
most active agents of the selection process for gameplay in
successive generations of MMORPGs and MMOGs in general.  If and when
players vote for original gameplay, smart developers work on it.

For fun, one could imagine the developer as the rat in the maze to
which the players experiment.  When the developer strikes the right
result that gets him his survival credits, he will continue to seek
the same or a new method to get a similar end result.  Play behavior
itself is such an amorphous maze that it's changing after each
iteration.  But if there are constant elements that continue to get
the developer his survival credits, it'd be a poor decision to not
consider those elements.  Whether or not they become the end product
is a matter of the development process.  But still, in this process,
the smart developers get the most valuable information from player
behavior phase of the development cycle.

Players educate all the time, on the microscopic scale, feature by
feature, and patch by patch.  On the macroscopic scale, game by
game.  Each time I see players' reaction to an original or
unoriginal gameplay feature inclusion, that's a lesson to me.
Sometimes the lesson is clearly a rejection.  No doubt it's a lesson
to each interested observer.

Yet when most players eat with gravy what the originator of this
thread was dissatisfied with, smart developers will make to order
the same old house special.  It's what the players want, certainly
not each player, not even some developers.  Many restaurants know
what to cook and how to cook it to their customers' tastes, not
necessarily their own.  And so do many MMOGs.  When players want the
same old same old, as expressed by his spending--NOT BY HIS
COMPLAINTS--smart developers listen and adapt to satisfy this need.
Case by case, it may be due to familiarity with what the player has
already learned, like D&Dish mechanics for most American CRPG
players, or a more primal playing need that is hardwired into all
domesticated primates, like social rank transitivity, a sense of
personal improvement, and conflict.  Player behavior sets the odds
of what developers may bet on.

David
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev