[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN} Who to design for?

[cruise]

Thus spake John Buehler...
> In reading the recent articles about permadeath and food, combined with the
> post of the interview with the ex-Sigil employee, I'm wondering if there's
> value in some discussion about who MMOs really should be designed for.
> 
> I can well imagine that the very idea of claiming that anyone should be told
> that they should be designing for any particular demographic will incur
> rancor from some folks here, but I'll pursue the notion anyway.

I'd hope not. Surely the concept that "you can't please all of the 
people all of the time" isn't up for debate?

We've had the discussion about "differing" agendas, and how to mitigate 
their effect somewhat, but it's self-evident that the fewer people 
involved, the easier it is to improve the ratio of good things to bad 
things for that group.

> What do people think really is the experience that people are likely going
> to be drawn to in monstrous numbers?  Clearly World of Warcraft has drawn
> the masses.  But why?  I ask that not to analyze World of Warcraft as a
> panacea, but to ponder the value of things like permadeath, food, realism,
> treadmills and so on as a means of drawing people to a game.

Blandness, lowest common denominator, etc. The rest of the entertainment 
industry figured that out years ago...

> Who do YOU design for?  Are you trying to reach "the masses" with your
> designs or are you interested in designing the game that you want to play,
> and you're assuming that there are enough people like you that it could be
> financially successful?  Or are you going by what you know about games that
> have been financial successes, and trying to think up a favorite variation
> of that that "fixes its problems"?

As may be deduced from my many posts to this list, I'm interested in 
trying to figure out in the most general sense what it is that appeals 
to people about games, building up a list of "ingredients", so I can 
then pick and choose different recipes to appeal to different groups.

At least, that's the idea. I don't expect to ever reach that, but the 
closer I get, the easier it becomes to appeal to a variety of people 
with a variety of games.,

> Do you start your design with the game or do you start with your target
> player?

To me, they're the same thing.