[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Rewards

[cruise]

Thus spake Sean Howard...
> But that's just it. You won't minimize anything, because even one person
> will have different reasons for playing games depending on the game.
> That's because games aren't just one thing.

Of course they aren't - I never implied they were. In fact, that's 
pretty much the point. Since games are composed of numerous elements, 
then the better the various components complement each other, the more 
harmonious the end result.

> So, knowing WHY we play games won't deliver what you think it will. It
> might give you insight into a single person's mind, but collectively, it
> will become little more than white noise. There's too many reasons. It's
> like asking why somebody reads a book. Everybody has there own different
> combination of reasons, and even if you nail one, you could just as easily
> offend another one, rendering their enjoyment null and void.

Obviously - again, that was my point. If we understand motivation, we 
can be aware of and control that effect. Honestly, this sounds like, 
"It's too complicated, why bother?" Which is fine, we're just going to 
have to disagree, since I feel it is a solvable problem.

> Making a better sandbox, a better mmorpg, doesn't come from being smarter
> about exclusion. It comes from being inclusive. Give players the freedom
> to play for their reasons, not yours. Thomas Jefferson once said "I would
> rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to
> those attending too small a degree of it." Thomas Jefferson was a good
> designer.

Okay, here's my attempt to illustrate what I think happens. Imagine a 
computer game as a sheet of rubber (no, seriously). You can push down on 
it with at one point and you can stretch it large distance. However, if 
you now try to push down in a second direction, you can't. You have to 
relinquish some of the depth from the first point to be able to gain 
depth with your second point. As you add more points, each of them gets 
less depth. However, if all those points press in the same direction, 
then they all achieve a nice big stretch :P

So, up until now, I've effectively been saying: "What direction do 
people want to push in." Your answer, quite correctly, is, "There is no 
one direction." Yes?

People are closer to weird 3D shapes - they have odd bits sticking out 
in strange directions, and press down in several places in different 
ways at the same time. MMOG's are a huge barrelful of these random, 
malformed (no offence :) shapes chucked together, all fighting between 
themselves over which direction to push in.

Reducing the number of shapes per sheet (people per instance/game) 
obviously helps - but I see no fundamental reason that we can't sort or 
organise these shapes to focus the direction they point in. And the 
first step to doing that is to analyse the potential shapes we can get - 
ie. analysing motives and wants of our players.


Uh...yeah :P Excuse that somewhat surreal detour through my imagination, 
but it's the best way I can think of to describe how the problem 
"feels". Apologies if that's the confused any(every)one...