[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Player-generated content

[Damion Schubert]

On 10/9/07, John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>
> Cruise writes:
>
> > Thus spake John Buehler...
>
> > > I think that the need to rate the difficulty of a task is declaring a
> > > problem. It suggests levels. If not levels, then at least it suggests
> > > that the game world is not intuitive to the players. The level
> > > scenario is the worst, of course, where players are intent on tuning
> > > the exact experience that they go through in order to efficiently
> > > advance. I've ranted on that before and I won't again. In general,
> > > though, rating the difficulty of task should be intuitive.
>
> > This is a useful insight - I likewise much prefer level-less systems,
> yet
> > I hadn't managed to make this final connection. Interesting how
> ingrained
> > thinking in levels is...


It's really not about levels.

Players want to know how tough things are.  Period.  Sometimes, it's simply
hard to give visual cues necessary.  Is a wolf tougher than a tiger?  What
about a baby raptor?

When you have a non-linear game experience, you do not have the ability
to control which direction the player is going to wander, and usually you
are forced by the worldbuilders to occasionally drop a high-level zone next
to a lower level zone.

Lacking the context of some sort of difficulty meter, the one way for
players
to learn is to throw themselves at the monster and see if they die.  This
sort
of experimental punishment is not fun.  And when players do die, they don't
know if there's something they should have done differently - whether it was
truly within their grasp.

Setting players expectations of success is incredibly important in a
free-form
environment (where you can't linearly control the experience to ensure
players
get to content at the appropriate level), and games do it all the time.  Go
to
any online chess game, and you can see your opponent's chess rating.
Play the hacking game in BioForge, and there's a difficulty indicator.
Heck,
even crossword puzzles are typically marked as beginner, medium, hard
or expert.

Do you need levels to do this?  No.  But you need -something-.  Just saying
'it should be intuitive from the art' isn't feasible with realistic art
budgets.

This is the sort of thing that causes me to believe that
> achievement-based games are inherently limiting to game designers.  They
> have to concoct schemes that prevent players from violating the
> sacrosanct tenet that achievement must be earned.  It's not only a
> treadmill that must be run, but it must be run in a specific way.
>
> I'm wondering if achievement entertainment shouldn't always be
> predicated on player skill.  Achievements based on character 'skills'
> certainly make a product marketable, but I wonder how far the genre can
> go with that approach.
>

The problem with requiring player skill is that not a lot of players
actually
have it, and not a lot of players are going to hang around to earn it once
they figure out they suck at it.  This is problematic, not just for
companies
trying to earn 10 bucks a month from their customers, but from any game
trying to build a stable community.


--d