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

[Michael Hartman]

Sean Howard wrote:
> "Damien Neil" <damien.neil at gmail.com> wrote:

>> It's not at all coincidental that players don't have an avatar in
>> The Sims.  There's a disconnect between them and the characters.
>> When a Sim gets a promotion, it's the Sim--not the player--that
>> has a new job.  The fun of the game comes not from advancing the
>> lives of the Sims, but from manipulating them.

> But YOU do advance in the Sims. As the family gains more money and
> becomes more successful, you gain access to more furniture to
> buy. When they have a kid, you have a new toy to play with. It's
> the same with something like Warcraft. When the Orcs overrun the
> human base and destroy the keep, THEY didn't win. YOU did. You
> could say the same thing about team sports - even though the
> football team did it completely without your involvement, WE won!
> Yay!

I can honestly say that I have never heard players of The Sims talk
about any "achievements" they obtained in the game. They talk about
crazy things that happen or wild things they designed, etc. The fact
that you can interpret some of the things that happen in The Sims is
irrelevant to the fact that it is clearly not the driving force
behind the popularity of the game. When you go to fansites, they
don't talk about how they became the top level sports star or
busienss people. They tell stories about the characters in their
"world."

> In SWG, the merchants have the ear of the devs rather than the
> consumers, leading to server monopolies, price fixing, resource
> mafias, and all sorts of business practices that would get you
> thrown in jail in a controlled capitalist society, and frequently,
> they do this with the help of the developers.

> Developers need to start listening to the silent majority in these
> games.  Failure to do so is creating negative experiences for
> gamers and sending them away.

This is right on the money. Developers need to understand that the
tiny vocal minority who writes 99% of the forum posts and emails,
represents less than 1% of their users. You cannot rely on
unsolicited player feedback.

You have to go out and ACTIVELY seek feedback from a variety of
player types in your game if you hope to understand what is going on
in your own game, and make design adjustments (or expansions) for
the good of your entire playerbase.

--
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.thresholdrpg.com)
President & CEO, Threshold Virtual Environments, Inc.
University of Georgia School of Law, 1995-1998
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990-1994
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