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

[cruise]

> John Buehler spake thusly...

>> Do we need to perhaps think about re-educating players somehow,
>> rather than forcibly removing or hiding the xp/levelling? Current
>> game-fashion seems to be favouring sandbox-style games, yet might
>> it be necessary in some situations to enforce certain gameplay on
>> players? It's well known that players make bad game designers -
>> but can we say players make bad game /players/ in that they don't
>> always know what they'd enjoy when given the option?

> If you sell a Ferrari, you'll attract Ferrari consumers.  If you
> sell a Toyota Hybrid, you'll attract Hybrid consumers.  If you
> sell an M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, you'll attrack Abrams
> customers.  The point is not to educate players, but to create a
> certain experience and accept the players that are drawn to it.
> If people believe that they will experience something that they
> are after by playing your game, those are the people that will
> become your players.

> Never try to tell customers what they should do with your game.
> THEY tell YOU such things.

This has always been my thought too - I've always preferred games
which gave me choice, and all games I've designed have it as their
foundation. Yet:

Damien Neil spake thusly...

> It is definitely true that players will almost universally choose
> the path of least effort or greatest reward over the path of
> greatest entertainment.

Yggdrasil spake thusly...

> My point to all of this is that I think we have focused overmuch
> on the punishments and rewards and not nearly enough on what
> triggers us to "chase" those rewards.  This research may also go
> some way to explain why we keep seeking the seeking itself,
> despite the fact that nearly everyone expresses dissatisfaction
> with the rewards themselves.

> I personally believe that we seek to seek, and that in the absence
> of other stimuli, seeking the shortest distance is a rewarding
> aspect in and of itself.  I just don't think we do a very good job
> of offering compelling other stimuli, by which I mean alternate
> seeking patterns and ultimate rewards.

Can "entertainment" be seperated from reward, or the seeking
behaviour? The presence of non-game forms of entertainment suggests
it can - but should it be in games? Isn't the fundemental definition
of a game something that involves competition (against others, or
the "environment" of the game rules)? As such, victory, however it
is defined, is inherently a reward. And the game is the process of
obtaining, or seeking, that reward.

It seems that mainstream MMO's have lost sight of what the reward
should be.  Reaching the highest level (or just the next level) has
become the goal.

Yggdrasil spake thusly...

>   players behaving as described below are behaving as they have
>   been trained to behave by the games themselves.

Damien Neil spake thusly...

> The problem, as I see it, lies not in the players but in poor game
> designers.  It's absurd to reward players for doing something and
> then criticize them for doing it.

So again, the onus is us as game designers to provide different
rewards. The distinction between this, and John Buehler's (and my
own thoughts) above is that players should be free to pursue "the
goal" /however they like/. The game designers, however, provide "the
goal" itself, and the context in which it is acheived. We provide
the tools and materials, the players make what they want.  However,
if what the players make is always shoddy and falls apart, then it
is time to take a look at the tools and materials we're giving them
(not simply banning said shoddy items from being made, which seems
to be the usual response in many MMO's to "exploits").

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