[MUD-Dev2] [Design] 4Cs (was Who to design for?)

[Sean Howard]

"Mike Sellers" <mike at onlinealchemy.com> wrote:
> Experiences like in a FPS are more direct in psychological terms; those
> like in a Tycoon game are more indirect: "you" aren't represented in the
> world, or if you are, it's incidental.  This is a big dividing point for
> many people that drives a lot of genre adoption or avoidance.

I don't think I've ever talked to a person who made that distinction. In
fact, I've never met a gamer, FPS or otherwise, who hasn't likewise played
SimCity or the Sims - though plenty vice versa, which seems
counter-intuitive to your statement. You'd think the casual gamer would
have an easier time with a more direct experience.

Now, if you wanted to talk about the abstractness of the content, like
whether raising ten cents on Hot Dogs will make your theme park more money
without angering too many simfolk versus have $100 so you can buy a Hot
Dog Stand, then yes, I think concrete versus abstract is a very big
division between people - and I'm not just talking games. We can't even
communicate together, it seems at times. But that divide does NOT extend
to the directness of the experience.

I honestly cannot think of a single example where the directness of the
experience has truly mattered. Only situations in which people had wished
more or less directness based on their expectations, but that's hardly the
same thing.


> But really, they don't: there are many people (more women than men) who
> find achievement systems to be poor motivators at best.  Our society is
> highly slanted in the direction of achievers, but that doesn't mean this
> fits everyone.

You are preaching to the choir there - though I feel I should point out
that I think your gender classification is off the mark. I've never been
motivated by rewards (ask my high school teachers, or heck, my previous
employer). That doesn't mean that I can't find a non-intrusive,
non-dependent, non-required achievement system to be beneficial to a
gaming experience. They are only poor motivators when they are at odds
with the intrinsic goals of the player... which they usually are, but not
always.

> Competitiveness is a sub-phenomena of achievement (see for example
> discussions on 'agon' gameplay as according to Callois).

I don't think that is true, but no counter-examples are coming to mind at
the moment, so I'll let it slide :)

> In our parlance, Committed players tend to focus more
> on sociability, while Core players tend to focus more on achievement (but
> these are not simply "Achievers" and "Socializers" in Bartle's terms).

I find that "tend to" part to be an excellent example of why this system
won't work. If you can only make predictions based on what a PORTION of
each segment MIGHT do, then there is obviously a superior model out there
to be found. I am fundamentally against any system which puts the
movements and desires of a majority (and usually a small majority) over
the minority.

>> If not curiosity, then how about creativity?
>
> In most psychological models, these two are almost synonymous. :)

Oh, come now. That's absurd. Surely even a quick examination of people you
know would produce someone who is curious, but not creative, or creative
but not curious! If they were indeed linked, then you would not, for
example, be able to reward curiosity without rewarding creativity, and yet
you've got games which are distinctly curious (Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto,
most MMORPGs) but not creative, and games which are distinctly creative
(the Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon, MUSHes) but not curious. You get both on
occasion, but they seem separate far more often than not. As someone
curious and creative to a fault, I notice these things.

Instead, I see curiosity and creativity in the same way that one views
intelligence and wisdom in a d20 game. One increases the available
knowledge while the other uses it.

I will say that curiosity and creativity CAN be linked, and usually work
better together. If we notice one aspect at all, it is usually because it
is superior due to the other. The smartest, most creative people also tend
to be the most curious. But that's at the upper end of the spectrum. The
da Vincis and Einsteins... and perhaps those with ADD.

I've read, at length, several books which have linked creativity (or at
least a superior sense of it) to ADD. They were really fascinating
insights into how creativity works, and how those with ADD skip jumps or
make non-obvious connections between things. Folks with ADD also tend to
be quite curious simply because boredom is threatening to someone with a
brain working at warp speed. It's the relativity of boredom.

> Differentiating players based on creativity or curiosity isn't likely to
> lead to different forms of gameplay more amenable to some than others
> (with a few extreme exceptions like "The Incredible Machine" perhaps).

Ooh, that's where I disagree the most. I think one needs only to read the
player reviews of different online games to see that it can make a HUGE
difference. If you read about Club Caribe/Habitat or Second Life, you'll
read nothing but about the creativity of the players. If you read the
reviews of World of Warcraft, they talk about the graphics, or how easy it
is to solo, or how many zones are in the game. Read a review by a
role-player: it has a completely different focus than one by a raid
leader. Sometimes, you'll find a hybrid like early SWG or Ultima Online
(perhaps EVE Online?), and the player reviews for those spend equal time
on gameplay and the creativity the other players have brought into the
sandbox.

I think acknowledging creativity (curiosity, at least, seems covered) as
an integral part of the memories and fascination with online gaming will
yield more gameplay elements which support creativity. For instance, is it
enough to have a simple room than you can decorate as in EQ2, or does that
room benefit from having a physical location in the world like SWG? Should
crafting be something which yields assembly line-like results, or should
it be like what SWG has hinted at with the ability for a crafter to decide
not just the quality of the item, but even the function and form (in the
case of droids, camps, and just yesterday, pets)? Making the distinction
between the creative crafter and the non-creative crafter is extremely
important to allow for the needs of both.

> Perhaps.  The point of a system like this is to help qualify gameplay
> features, to see where a design is strong or weak, and how different
> kinds of people might be attracted (or not) to a game.

I'm all for that, but there is an innate problem in doing that based on an
incorrect model. You will absolutely identify weak points and player
motivation - but if the model isn't up to snuff, it will identify things
wrong. When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail.

That's why I dislike those Bartle types of Achiever, Explorer, Socializer,
whatever. Every time I've seen them applied to a problem, the solution is
immediately laughable and easily proven wrong with one or two quick
examples. It creates four different behaviors, then tries to fit every
single aspect of an online game into those four behaviors, and on failing
that, it starts breaking crap up into 40% Achiever, 10% Explorer, and
stuff. Then it reaches this velocity of acceptance where a lot of people
never bother to look outside that system.

If you want my opinion (or even if you don't :), the ONLY way to create a
working system is not to figure out why the majority is the majority, but
to figure out why the minority is the minority. Why is it that when a
group of people TEND TO do something one way, there are a bunch who do
not? What is their motivation? What makes them different?

The majority is a group of followers. They will do whatever the designers
tell them too, and whatever gripes or complaints you get will be shallow
and ultimately worthless in producing anything other than a slicker
version of whatever broken system was there in the first place. The
minority are leaders. When everybody else is going one way (usually
because everybody else is going that way), the people in the minority go
the other way, and they absolutely REQUIRE a reason for it. If you create
a system which asks why the majority is the majority, all you'll be doing
is reinforcing the gameplay decisions which created that specific majority
in the first place. But if you try to examine why, for instance, there are
soloers in a multiplayer game, you will QUICKLY realize why the
assumptions of forced-grouping falls apart.

Don't ask why people do something you tell them to. Ask why they don't.

-- 
Sean Howard