[MUD-Dev] Homogeneity and choice (Was DESIGN: Why do people like weather in MMORPGs?)

[kalldrex-muddev at yahoo.com]

Wayne Witzke <wayne.witzke at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does this really make sense, though?  I mean, people don't just
> consume entertainment to be "happy" all the time. Some of my
> favorite movies, for instance, certainly didn't make me feel happy
> by the time the credits rolled.  Forgive me all of you who haven't
> seen it as this might give a tiny bit away, but American Beauty
> was far from being a generally "happy" movie, and ended on an
> extremely sad note.  In fact, I would say that it was very
> disturbing in many respects.  Yet, I consider it one of the
> greatest movies of all time, and many people agree that it was an
> excellent, well done, and well worth watching.

I think you are looking at the definition of entertaining too much
like it is a black and white issue.  First of all, to me, there is a
real difference between being happy (especially in your very extreme
examples of being happy) and being entertained.  Sure, you weren't
happy while watching American Beauty but you surely were entertianed
by it enough to think that it was a good movie, otherwise you
wouldn't think very highly of it.

The same thing transfers to games.  You can still be entertained
when bad things are happening to you or your character in game.  If
this wasn't the case then there would be no one risking their life
in games exploring and trying to take out new monsters.  If you
found a really big monster that you and your friends in game have
never seen before, you may want to take it out not knowing if you
succeed.  Just because you die and the monster takes out your group
doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining and you don't have to
necessarily win all the time to be entertained either.

In the recently cancelled game Wish, they had no instant
teleportation.  Some people found this to be very boring and
annoying because it was a pain to get from point A to point B but a
lot of people also found it entertaining because it opened up a lot
of gameplay elements that aren't there with instant teleportation.
Even though it was harder to get to another area, especially one
accross the map, people still found entertainment in the long travel
time.

My point is, if something isn't entertaining to you, then it is
boring to you.  Like the person before you said, if it isn't
entertaining then there is obviosly a design flaw in the game for
you.  However, just because something is "bad" doesn't mean it
doesn't make the game entertaining for you, I know I definentally
wouldn't like a game like you described where everyone is on Prozac.

--Matthew Shapiro
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