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Original post by Risujin Quote: Lots of stuff already written on this. A good place to start would be here. Interesting read, and you could even extend the reasoning beyond MUDs. I think the author does generalize way too much however. Reminds me of horoscopes. [wink]

Actually, the paper is extended from single player.

If you look at the four quadrants on one side you have World, and the other you have players. In a single player game you would not be dealing with other players. So the Motivations are pinned to the World Side (Explorer/Achiever).

Generalized?? Nah I think it is too specialized. He's only talking about 2 dimensions (World-PLayer / Action-Interaction). There is undoubtedly a huge number of dimensions when dealing with player motivation.

Now there are lots of intersting things in the paper, mostly opinions and conjectures that you can take or leave.

However, the thing I think is the MOST intersting is the idea of controlling player motivation through system design. I think there is something really powerfull there. And if you look as some game titles, look at thier systems, and then look at thier player bases, you'll see it working.



EDIT: And like I said in when I originaly linked to the paper; its a good place to start. Get on Google scholar and look for papers that cite that paper, and you can see were people argue for or against some of the ideas, or extend upon them etc.. also maybe check out GameStudies.org. I think they might have published a few papers on player motivation.

The Ideas in the paper are actually fairly excepted. It is surprising that alot of times when filling out questionaires for various Game Beta Testing that they will ask: Which one are you? (Explorer/Achiever/Killer/Socializer).

I think I've seen that question on about 20+ Beta application forms.

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Original post by JimmyShimmy (Same with Half-Life’s scientists-how many times did you kill them for there reaction?)

I didn't.. it didn't fit the character of Gordon to do this really, and I personally didn't like the idea of killing innocent people out of character.

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It’s strange but being evil is what most do in games (if given the choice).

No. Alot of people like to play games to be the hero. Some people like to play the game to observe. Not everyone will choose evil just because the option is available. That is what role-playing is about.

If you play GTA, sure... the character is predominately evil so doing bad things is in character in the game. But you *aren't* your GTA character, you are just getting the chance to play the role.

Only dumb people with bad genetics can't tell the difference between being in character and not. dumb people are stupidly evil, they are the worst evil because they are so friggin dumb.

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Generalized?? Nah I think it is too specialized. He's only talking about 2 dimensions (World-PLayer / Action-Interaction). There is undoubtedly a huge number of dimensions when dealing with player motivation.

Yeah, this is kind of what I meant. He lumps all players on a 2D grid, undoubtably doing injustice to many.

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However, the thing I think is the MOST intersting is the idea of controlling player motivation through system design. I think there is something really powerfull there.

I think the very process of game design is matching player motivation to game mechanics. It is a sad day when game designers dont take motivation into consideration. If you cant answer the question "why would people play your game?", your game sucks.

I appreciate all your replies.

As I said I am aware my poorly written peice was very general-I was just going off on what was in my head at the time.

Not so much about carrying out evil deeeds but the level of interactivity and the options that are availible to you is really enticing.

Still I do find playing god in games (torturing, having the choice to kill a scared individual) is very satisfying...

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Original post by JimmyShimmy I appreciate all your replies. As I said I am aware my poorly written peice was very general-I was just going off on what was in my head at the time. Not so much about carrying out evil deeeds but the level of interactivity and the options that are availible to you is really enticing. Still I do find playing god in games (torturing, having the choice to kill a scared individual) is very satisfying...

Woah there, buddy...

I think, the level of interaction is very important for the player. The player wants to control many aspects of his virtual environment, thats one reason, why physics are important in modern fps games. The player wants to interact with his environment for making his enemies life as hard as possible...

The virtual reality in some genres is also important... the player doesn't want to stuck at an invisible wall, so you have to create 'natural' walls, e.g. closed doors or crates. If this 'walls' are set up logically, the player accepts them, but if there is a stack of crates without a clue what they are doing there, the player doesn't agree to them. So you have the question 'How to bring more realism in my levels?'.

The player wants to use his environment for getting nearly unlimited ways to complete the mission objective (if there is one). The player wants to get more realistic relationships. So he can interact with the world how he's doing it while walking around in a wood or in the city thinking about things, which aren't allowed to him. So he can test it in the game. He can trap his enemies with the skills earned in his life.

But there are also games with totally unrealistic environments... they won't agree with the description shown above. There the player has the fun to test what happens if he does something with his environment. There he's going to earn the skill during the game and later use it e.g. in multiplayer games for trapping his enemies.

But this is only one part of the things, a player might like in a game.

The traditional games like tetris or chess are another example. The player doesn't want to use his earned skills, he want to earn skills during playing the game.

So the player has fun while observing the consequences of his actions (e.g. killing someone -> the friends of the victim want to kill the player [abstract]) or shooting a chain to let something attached to it fall down on his enemys.

In chess these consequences are only the steps of his opponent, but this makes also fun...

cya WirrWar2850.