When do games become boring? From: troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu (John M. Troyer) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 01:05:48 +0000 My question (and it's more rhetorical than anything else, which is why I'm crossposting to .design and .pbm; nevermind this is a silly question to ask when the game's been up for 1 day) When will players get tired of Arena? (or more generally) When do players get tired of games? (One Answer is 'When they get predictable'. Unbeatable strategies and completely explored adventure games are predictable. Games like chess and face-to-face role-playing presumably never get predictable.) [ Note: ARENA is Scott Turner's play by e-mail gladiator game that he announced on r.g.pbm today; similar to commercial PBMs Duelmasters and Adventurers' Guild, you pick out strategies and then receive text descriptions of battles. Note I have never played any of these commercial games. ] I ask mostly because I think this kind of game is fairly uninteresting to begin with. Since there is little interactivity, you are mostly interested in if you win or not. Since the turn reports are machine- generated, they are tedious to read (The 'Wizards of a Different Color' guy may disagree with me here, but literature, it's not.) So with instant turn around, I could see someone (like myself) sending hundreds of turns in over the next few days, and coming out next week bored with the whole process. (Or with a 'killer' gladiator design that I now don't have to tinker with at all.) Here are some other factors that are applicable to games, especially pbm games, as a whole: 1. quick turns leads to quick mastery/discovery of all features/burn out, as mentioned above. Daily or weekly turns would spread out interest over months (which is what the commercial games do to keep you sending in $$$.) 1a. quick, unlimited turns lead to the most interested/geekiest burning out the fastest. Enforced longer turns stop the (over)enthusiastic players from burning out, and keeps them in the game contributing. 2. longer turns facilitate greater role playing. In Atlantis 1, the players demanded weekly turns so that they could get in all their diplomatic email. There's not as much coordination required in Arena, but there certainly is much taunting to be done. 3. game structures can facilitate role playing. Duelmasters gives the top fighter in each arena/league special privileges. There is also a newsletter. This fosters more role-playing/grudges/factionality, and keeps up player interest. 4. long-term goals keep up interest. There is nothing to do in Arena with your money except buy more weapons, and after 18 wins I can buy the most expensive weapon + armor there is. Having the best record gives you no other reward except bragging rights, and there is no place to brag. (No newsletter.) Note that I'm not slagging on Arena. I was just thinking about doing something similar myself, and so have been pondering these questions lately. Given the time/energy, I'm sure Scott may put some things like this into the game. Scott himself said > ARENA is still in "beta test". Or maybe even > "alpha test". [...] and it certainly isn't as developed as I'd like. So let's beat this dead horse again. What keeps up your interest in a game? (or more specifically a pbm/pbem/computer game?) (or more specifically one of these dueling games?) conversely, what would _you_ put into one of these games to make it interesting? procrustean procrastinator, john troyer@cgl.ucsf.edu Referenced By Up