[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Rewards

[cruise]

[Note: replying to lots of people in one]

Thus spake Raph Koster...
> cruise wrote: 
>> a) Players don't need rewards if the activity is enjoyable.
>> b) Rewards for activities often reward the wrong behaviour.
> 
> I agree with these two points, but I would add
> 
> c) Players will choose to do an unfun thing endlessly if there's a
> reward for it
> d) Players will neglect fun things if it causes them to fall behind in a
> rat race.

Absolutely.

> ANY reward distorts the playing field in that way, and dropping all
> rewards isn't a viable strategy either.

Why not, given a) ?

> A lack of rewards is a very good way to make your game inaccessible and
> unfun to most people.

To those who only want rewards, yes. How much data do we have on what 
players actually want (instead of what tehy're willing to play)?

> I agree on the power increase bit tho. :)

Thus spake John Buehler...
 > I'm an advocate of the disruption theory.  The theory that "available
 > enjoyable activities" increases with more players would only make
 > sense to a socializer.

Not necessarily - as a simple example, the many sub-games created by 
players offer more opportunity for you to find something enjoyable, 
which would not exist without many creative minds coming together.

Socialisation is involved /at some stage/ but you don't have to be 
involved in that stage if you don't want to.

Thus spake Sean Howard...
 > Get a room full of jerks together and the enjoyable activities will
 > not increase.

Well, no, obviously. But get a roomful of friendly mature people 
together, and it will. Left to a random distribution, the likelihood of 
the former is far greater, yes. One of my aims to figure out how to 
encourage the latter.

 > You can fail to live up to your own designs and aspirations, but once
 > the game is release, the players will find a way to enjoy it the way
 > they want to enjoy it.

When I said "your game", I meant as a player, not a developer:

Thus spake Hideto Koudanshi...
 > I started UO with the intent of being a medieval merchant with a
 > little shop, making and selling my poorly-made junk on my way to
 > master craftsman as I chatted with "yon customers whot be upon my
 > establishment forth with." It was made evidently clear with all the
 > convenient NPC vendors and the fact that spending amoment talking to
 > me was keeping SuperDudeKiller from getting out there and KILLING
 > THINGS!!1!1!ELEVENTYONE!

Players pursuing different goals from you can be detrimental to your (as 
a player) enjoyment. The trick is to ensure either:

a) All players have the same goal (and method of achieving it).
b) Pursuing different goals and methods are not disruptive.

Both seem very difficult, though a) becomes easier with smaller groups, 
b) is more feasible with larger playerbases.


Thus spake Sean Howard...
 > I see encouraging a particular play style as discouraging the
 > opposition play style. Encouraging grouping discourages soloing, and
 > so on. Rewards should NEVER, and I repeat, NEVER be used as a social
 > control mechanism. Behaviorism has been proven wrong repeatedly and no
 > psychologist worth his degree would ever attempt to apply it to human
 > behavior.

Which was a large part of my point - rewards are over/mis-used to a 
large degree in current MMOG's, and we really need to think of something 
better.

 > If I were to design some sort of reward system, it would be something
 > where every reward is available to every person through multiple
 > means. I'm very much a virtual communist.

Communism is like lycra - it's a great idea in theory, but gets ugly 
when applied to real people :D

This really depends on the player. Some people /want/ a directed 
experience where they have to figure out a specific way of doing 
something (eg. old point-and-click adventures, murder mysteries). Other 
players prefer to be free to experiment and choose their own way.

For that second group, only rewarding a specific activity acts as a 
psychological limit on their choice.

Thus spake John Buehler...
 > Right now, games seem to focus on one type of "reward": recognizeable
 > personal achievement.  That is a viable "inherently enjoyable" form of
 > entertainment for a lot of people.  The population of current games
 > demonstrates that.  So people ARE involved in an inherently enjoyable
 > experience right now.  Unfortunately, what designers have done is to
 > make every variation of gameplay the same thing; they're all focused
 > on recognizeable personal achievement.

 > Much of the griping about the treadmill and so on is that players who
 > are hoping for other "inherently enjoyable" activities are finding the
 > trappings of what they are hoping for (crafting, questing, exploring),
 > only to find that the activities themselves are rooted in
 > "recognizeable personal achievement".  The challenge to the gaming
 > industry is to figure out what is "inherently enjoyable" about stamp
 > collecting and work that into the game. Or juggling, or making beer -
 > or even engaging in medieval combat.

It is ironic, is it not, that all the achiever/killer ends up getting is 
a social reward - personal recognition.

If we cannot make a game without rewards, we at least need a more 
diverse set of rewards. The "group" reward has been suggested before 
(apologies, I cannot remember who): all players are fighting a common 
enemy, and progress is only measured by the position of the front line 
of the war - no personal levels, or powerful loot.

Any other suggestions?