[MUD-Dev] DGN: Reasons for play[was: EmergentBehaviors spawnedfrom...]

[cruise]

John Buehler spake thusly...

> What I'm hearing is that entertainment is derived either by
> participation or by observation, and that participation
> necessarily involves overcoming challenges.

Yes and no :P Yes, in that participation necessarily involves
overcoming challenges, no in that I don't see the two as mutually
exclusive.

I heard that we should let go of competition (and therefore
participation) in games - but without that somewhere, it's no longer
a game.

> I'm postulating that by dropping the observation component, you've
> lost half of the available entertaining moments that can take
> place, either in conjuction with participation, or apart.  As an
> example, delighting an explorer is strongly predicated on
> observing stuff.  By focusing on overcoming a challenge, one might
> think that the challenge involved with *finding* the stuff to
> observe is the key to the entertainment.

If /just/ observation is your goal, why are you playing a game, and
not watching a movie? Arguably you could have an exploration only
"game" (for want of a better term), which allows a player to explore
varied scenery (I can imagine a SimGlobe, that the player can fly
round to watch sunsets from a mountain, or herds of wonderful
lifeforms migrate across plains, etc.). But fundementally, that's
cognitively the same as choosing which movie to watch.

I'd also take issue with the claim that delighting an explorer is
predicated on observing. At least as "explorer" is defined by Bartle
- it's competition against the environment and the game designer's
rules. Mountain climbers may get spectacular views once they reach
their goal, but that isn't why they climbed the mountain.

While observational goals shouldn't be ignored (such as storyline),
it isn't the /defining/ aspect of a game.

> In a quirk of logic, even observing stuff is a state change in the
> universe and could be called a case of overcoming a challenge,
> which is why I discarded the value of a purely academic analysis.
> Which is not to say that I ignore all attempts at understanding
> how to deliver a delightful experience.  I'm a rational man, and
> believe in analysis.  What I don't believe is that overcoming
> challenges is the key to presenting entertainment in a multiplayer
> environment.

No - but I do see it as the key to providing a /game/ in a
multiplayer environment. You don't need competition if you don't
want it - but it's not a game without it.

> I'm replying here because I think that your view is shared by the
> majority of the list participants, and it produces blind spots for
> designers.  Perhaps this is why I'm always bringing up Disneyland
> as an example of how to delight people; it is an entertaining mix
> of participation and observation.

How much participation do you have at Disneyland really, short of
choosing which ride to go on next? Again, it's nothing different
from choosing a film or book.  I agree entirely that choice is
important - but the choices should be what competition they want to
experience, else we're not offering the player a game.

For me, observational goals are flavour and add to the fundemental
entertainment of competition which defines a game.

--
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / transference.org ]
  "quantam sufficit"
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