- Removed - Being revamped [Edited by - jaawo on September 22, 2006 7:04:55 PM]

you should take a look at some of the studies already published on this topic. the answer is all of the above, but different for each user. there's some stuff that categorizes gamers into different categories (pvp, explorer, gear, etc). Basically the idea is that MMOs are addictive because they often provide some of each so all the demographics are satisfied.

[EDIT: also your survey is not a good one. by providing 5 canned answers, you force subjects to classify themselves into your pre-defined boxes. i.e. you're guaranteed to demonstrate that one of your 5 hypothesis is correct when in fact the true answer may lie outside of them. providing a text entry field would produce better non-biased results. it would definitely be more hassling to parse the results, and would result in less subjects responding but it's better science. *shrug]

-me

That was an awful survey.

Besides the fact that I can vote more than once, the radio box option is not a good one. By giving people, say, 100 points, and allowing them to distribute those points between some number of categories, you will see a significantly better set of answers and actually get some useful information. This is besides the problems of your non-random sample, of course, which is expected.

In many voting systems like this, you can acutally use negative points as well, but that seems less helpful here.

Palidines suggestion for open questions instead of closed is also good, but you run into some of the same problems, and categorizing can be a pain.


I'd highly suggest you change your survey.

Were it not for the quests, I wouldn't play an MMO. In fact, I stopped playing WoW when I'd almost entirely run out of non-massive-iterative raid quests in the new areas. I also wouldn't play were it not for the social part, but I, personally, don't love PvP combat.


Not that you've asked for this advice, but you should get someone with grammar and writing skills to edit your story summary. It sounds interesting, but is an unusually difficult read due to the poor writing.

Competition.

I haven't seen the survey, so I'll just throw up an arbitrary list of things in the order of their importance to me, starting with the three C's:

1. Communication
2. Co-operation
3. Competition
4. Shared objectives and team accomplishments
5. Personal growth and achievement
6. Reasonable learning curve
7. Top-level plateau of awesomeness, achievable within six months.
8. Guns
9. Boobs
10. Zombies/Ninjas/Robots/Pirates

Addiction is caused by emotional swings, going from good to bad or hot to cold often, the greater the swings, the heavier the addiction.

Just as people won't get addicted to something they dislike, they also won't get addicted to something thats perfect to them (a game that is too easy will get boring).

In terms of RPG's this hot and cold is created with the randomness of loot, you may get something good, then junk for a while, then something good again, if you keep getting good items and easily defeating enemies you'll get bored, if you keep getting junk you'll get frustrated.

Having competition does the same hot/cold thing, sometimes you win a duel, sometimes you lose.

Even things such as the wow servers going down adds to the addiction of the game, they are providing hot and cold, if they go down every now and again, your experience the next time you can get on will be all the more enjoyable.

Quote:

Original post by mtgcs2000 Addiction is caused by emotional swings, going from good to bad or hot to cold often, the greater the swings, the heavier the addiction. Just as people won't get addicted to something they dislike, they also won't get addicted to something thats perfect to them (a game that is too easy will get boring). In terms of RPG's this hot and cold is created with the randomness of loot, you may get something good, then junk for a while, then something good again, if you keep getting good items and easily defeating enemies you'll get bored, if you keep getting junk you'll get frustrated. Having competition does the same hot/cold thing, sometimes you win a duel, sometimes you lose. Even things such as the wow servers going down adds to the addiction of the game, they are providing hot and cold, if they go down every now and again, your experience the next time you can get on will be all the more enjoyable.

That's some good analysis! I never thought about it in that way, but it makes perfect sense. I apply it to the time when I was addicted to SWG, and look at the game systems it had then compared to now, and I can really see why I think the current version sux compared to the original.

For me? Nothing. MMO's tend to be rather boring to me. EVE is the only one that I find entertaining enough for long term gaming (admittedly I don't really play it either).

Most other players tend to be too juvenile in my eyes, so that angle is moot.

I'm only 25 but I guess I'm already too old. :(

I found the concept of EVE exciting, and even when I started playing and mining it was fun and had a lot of good things going for it.

Then I tried combat.

It was repetitive. Circular combat every time. No strategy. I can sort of live with that.. I would have quit after a while anyway due to that, but then came the real killer... Gate campers. When you lose everything you just worked for, the fun just goes away. Yes you can stay out of the lower regions, but it wasn't even that low. Yes you have insurance, but that doesn't cover the loot you just got.

Ah well. Just my 2 credits.

EvE's main problem is it's gross violation of my #6 and #7.

In terms of learning curve, it takes a month to figure out what you're doing, by which time you've got a month invested and it doesn't seem worthwhile to go back and get rid of your ten charisma points, and then you've got two months and twenty million isk worth of learning skills to work on, which is ridiculous.

As to skill plateau, there's no end-game in EvE, so guys that have been playing for three years are so strong that it literally takes three years of training to match them, by which point they've had six years to train skills and raise money, and will continue to stomp on you.

All the top-level content, including capital ships, T2 capability and control of 0.0 space, is owned by the veteran elite.

That said, EvE's the only MMO I'll play, because it has the top 5 of my personal requirements.