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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Often, encouraging social interaction comes at the cost of hardcore gameplay rewards. The chatter and discussion that makes social games fun is almost unheard of in achievement-based play, because you're always working hard enough to make conversations difficult or impossible, and there's almost always one "right way" to do things, so you don't have much to talk about in terms of strategy or cooperation once everyone learns to play.

Yes, in any game there is compromise, however, I don't think that social play needs to be only for non hard core gamers.

You are only focusing on one aspect of social play: chatting. It is just like saying that hard core game is only about rapidly pressing buttons.

Chatting is about socialisation, not social play (there is a difference).

Social play involves conflict, whereas socialisation is about catching up with friends. You can use socialisation in social play, but they are not the same thing.

This is what I have been talking about, to create social play, you need to create gameplay for socialisation. Allowing socialisation does allow social interaction within the game, but this does not necessarily lead to social play. You can create gameplay that forces players to interact, but again, this does not guarantee social play.

In these cases, any social play that occurs is coincidental. If you are wanting to create social play, the best way to do it is to create gameplay that involves social play.

To do this you need to create a challenge based on social interaction, and then give the players ways (actions) to attempt to overcome these challenges.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage My WoW experience was a cold, sterile one. The only time we really had for socializing was when we were waiting to form a group or waiting for a summon to an instance. The rest of the time it was just work. PvP in EvE was a good time, since there were long periods of inactivity during which we'd chat about the countries we were from or trade links to hilarious youtube videos or make fun of one another's penises, and mining ops in that same game were essentially devoid of gameplay, so we'd drink and laugh and hold corp meetings while everyone was cycling their lasers and warping to and from stations. Those social opportunities came during times that are widely lamented by players as being boring.

Yes, the reason that WoW tends to be lacking in social play is that they don't design for it. They design for socialisation, but not for social play, which supports my position.

With your experiences in EvE shows that socialisation is well catered for, but you can also see that there is not gameplay going on.

Hardcore gamers are looking to overcome challenges and to rise to the top of the competition ladder. These require gameplay and this is why hardcore players have not participated in the social aspects of these games as much. It is because they are looking for challenge, and socialisation does not offer it.

If you design social challenges for player to overcome and give them the means to attempt to overcome them, then this will give them the gameplay they need to become interested in social interactions in the game.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage So make the actual work somewhat flat and uneventful, but marry it to a social interface so people can have an experience analogous to meeting their neighbors at the laundromat. Put the gameplay at about the level of Solitaire: Too complex to do afk, but not so taxing that you can't do other things.

If you integrate the gameplay into the social interactions, then you can have the gameplay more complex and meaningful.

If you simplify the gameplay so that more socialisation can take place, then you are likely to loose the hardcore players. If it is too simple, then players will see your game as little more than a glorified chat room.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage If there was a restricted supply based on manpower, people would be compelled to hire manufacturers, pay them, maintain a shop, and otherwise involve many player characters in the process. If you went to a blacksmith and signed in to do some work, then the boss compared the value of the goods you produced to the value of the materials and utilities you consumed and paid you 40% of the difference, getting a part-time job would be like a casino in the game. You go in, you do some simple task, you get some money and maybe XP, and then you leave whenever you want to.

Economic interaction is not social gameplay. Also the gameplay you described is not social gameplay. Sure it requires interaction between players, but this will be little more than looking for who can offer the cheapest deals.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Labor management could include temp agencies and job boards to help people find work(ers) and all kinds of other middlemen could spring up as the system takes shape. The bottom line is that players should have to work with other players, instead of harvesting armor from the woods and fields.

It is not the work that is important, but that you need the correct challenges for social play.

Thee need goals and abilities (actions) that are geared towards social interactions.

Using work and crafting to create social play is no different to trying to use combat to create social play.

Call me captain obvious, but it seem to me the only real way to create social play is to create gameplay about socialisation.

Think of it in terms of crafting in a game: If you want to craft a sword, you don't craft armour do you. If you want to craft a sword you craft a sword.

It is the same with social play: If you want to create social play, you don't create economic systems. If you want to create social play, then it would be a good approach to create social gameplay.

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Original post by samoth Forcing people like this is never good. Lord of the Rings Online did that kind of thing, and it was, if I'm allowed to say, epic fail. They tried to force people into cooperating by designing the craft system (which was pretty lame overall anyway) in such a way that you could not produce half of the things you needed for your craft. At the same time, you were only allowed to take one craft proficiency. Enough materials provided, you could max out your crafting in an afternoon, b ut you just couldn't get them alone. Thus... they got two effects for the price of one: first you make a mule for getting what you need, and second it's piss boring, so you cancel your subscription after the first month (or the first two months at most).

There can be a combination of both solo activities and group activities just like with fighting mobs.

Plus the social aspect doesn't even have to be one where people have to be online at the same time. ATITD is a good example of what I am talking about.

People don't play social because MMO games, in general, are tribal and insular. Make it so that people are forced to actively work for economic stability (not prosperity), and social links will form.

More downtime (from usual MMO activities), combined with more activities which you have to do (finding food, working for food, trying to find a rich man to marry for food, etc.) would ensure that people relied on the ensuing social bonds to survive. That could be good.

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Original post by methy People don't play social because MMO games, in general, are tribal and insular. Make it so that people are forced to actively work for economic stability (not prosperity), and social links will form.

Or the players wont like the instability, blame poor game design, and quite en-masse, thus further destabilizing the economy, driving more players away... No, that sounds like a very nasty feedback loop.

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More downtime (from usual MMO activities)

The majority of my compatriots - all hardened MMO players, from EQ to today's - actually hate the current downtime, and want it reduced, not expanded. Downtime is not fun and should never, ever be forced on someone.

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combined with more activities which you have to do (finding food, working for food, trying to find a rich man to marry for food, etc.) would ensure that people relied on the ensuing social bonds to survive. That could be good.

More like terrible. Remember the primary motivation for playing a game is to have fun, not to do chores. It sounds good on paper, but in reality it's a very poor idea because many players - especially casual ones, which by this point is the majority of the market - wont like the idea. If they only have an hour to play, and it takes 45 minutes a day to take care of all these chores... no, that's certainly not worth it.

Instead of chores and forced downtime, you should have large benefits for those who decide to enter the social world. For instance, if there is a political system where leaders are chosen not by combat, but by votes, and those leaders have large influence on game mechanics (maybe the economy, perhaps spawns, or even and perhaps especially both factional warfare and interfactional relations), then there is a strong motivation to forge ties, to learn about what's going on in the game world, and to have a voice. Denying traders global information access would also improve social connections, because one would need to either look around (unfeasible in a large world) or use connections to find out what's valuable where.

Don't try to force players to interact. The moment you try to dictate what players can do, they'll leave - or at least I will.

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Original post by Zouflain Don't try to force players to interact. The moment you try to dictate what players can do, they'll leave - or at least I will.

Yeppers, and this is some tough territory. In MOO3, the devs created a three-ring system for starship fleets: Core, picket and Scout. Ok...so? Then they decided what ship types are allowed in each range band. Then they insisted on ratios of ships in the three rings...

After a while it does not look like providing a game/playground for others to play. It doesn't even resemble simulating what players ought to do in a given universe. It more closely resembles an antagonistic parental relationship. Which just breeds teenage rebellion in the players.

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Original post by Dasha I am trying to think of a way to make crafting a large part of the game. To give more value to player crafted items, and to also create a little realism. My main goal is to create a better social aspect in my game.

What is crafting? Is it the step between raw materials and finished loot?

I didn't read the entire thread so if something was stated already, I apologize.

I'm not really sure exactly what game you're creating, but in general:

If you've got a class-based game, simply separate the crafting class from the fighting class. You need to make sure that your crafting system is elaborate, fun and always gives something to do, however. Allow the player to set up shop in town, hire NPC's to sell goods, man the shop, mine minerals, create your own union, etc. Otherwise, what is someone going to do as a max-level crafter? Log in once a week to make a rare item request? Boring.

If you've got a skill-based system, simply make both crafting and certain melee skills both primary skills. That way, you can take Fletchering, Carpentry, One-Handed Swords and Parry, but will inevitably never be quite as good as the warrior who takes One-Handed Swords, Parry, Cleave and Power Attack unless you give up some craftsman skills. The system kind of balances itself in that way.

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Original post by Zouflain Quote: Original post by methy People don't play social because MMO games, in general, are tribal and insular. Make it so that people are forced to actively work for economic stability (not prosperity), and social links will form. Or the players wont like the instability, blame poor game design, and quite en-masse, thus further destabilizing the economy, driving more players away... No, that sounds like a very nasty feedback loop.

Oof, that might happen. If you tried that with World of Warcraft playerbase. In the many text based (even current browser based MMOs) games to implement close to enforced economic interaction, interdependence has given birth to quite deep social networks. Kinda like real life like that.

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Quote: More downtime (from usual MMO activities) The majority of my compatriots - all hardened MMO players, from EQ to today's - actually hate the current downtime, and want it reduced, not expanded. Downtime is not fun and should never, ever be forced on someone.

The majority of your compatriots who are all MMO vets might well think that. I, and several others, don't. I could well be wrong, but I'd argue it's because we mean different things when we say downtime. Consider again your real life social networks - there's a lot of downtime, no? You spend time at the pub, or watching the game, or fishing or whatever. You're always doing something, but not it's not really towards anything. It's just leisure time.

I spent a LOT of my time in Norrath's various incarnations doing stuff, but not really towards anything. Me and my buddies would hang in Vent, getting tanked, sharing jokes, while running a group, or re-arranging our apartment, or spamming chat channels, or messing around with the UI, or whatever. Not really towards anything, just chatting with people and doing something mindless in the background. I'm not advocating downtime as sitting doing nothing and talking to no-one... no-one does that in real life, do they?

I'm advocating the view of an MMO life as a real life. Some tasks are towards something, money, expression, or whatever. These are focused, important and often exciting. They also don't often lend themselves to getting a strong social network. You don't make friends in your office, you make friends around the water cooler, on lunch break, or at after work drinks. Downtime. You and all your MMO vets might not be down with this, but that doesn't meant that it should never, ever, be 'forced' on the rest of us.

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Quote: combined with more activities which you have to do (finding food, working for food, trying to find a rich man to marry for food, etc.) would ensure that people relied on the ensuing social bonds to survive. That could be good. More like terrible. Remember the primary motivation for playing a game is to have fun, not to do chores. It sounds good on paper, but in reality it's a very poor idea because many players - especially casual ones, which by this point is the majority of the market - wont like the idea. If they only have an hour to play, and it takes 45 minutes a day to take care of all these chores... no, that's certainly not worth it.

Again with the bold text. Unfortunately, you, and most designers, seem to operate on the idea crafting (and by that I mean the bit in between raw materials and the intended result), is a chore, and therefore not fun. Imagine a world where games had gone down a very different path. I could be some radical on this forum, claiming that MMO games should have combat systems. "No," you'd thunder. "People just get home from work, they want an escape, especially casual players. They don't want to be risking their virtual goods on the battlefield, having to fight goblins for gold coins! Most people in the real world hate fighting, so don't make them fight when they want to be having fun!"

Crude, but saying that the primary motivation for playing is having fun, and therefore having to struggle for survival is a bad thing is just as crude, and far more ignorant. If the goal of the game isn't to be the baddest wizard with the most plat, but instead the goal is to survive, then suddenly finding food isn't a chore, but the aim of the game. Look at A Tale in the Desert, people LOVE logging in to do 'chores' for the entirety of their playtime. Because that is, as the Crystal Method might say, the name of the game.

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Instead of chores and forced downtime, you should have large benefits for those who decide to enter the social world. For instance, if there is a political system where leaders are chosen not by combat, but by votes, and those leaders have large influence on game mechanics (maybe the economy, perhaps spawns, or even and perhaps especially both factional warfare and interfactional relations), then there is a strong motivation to forge ties, to learn about what's going on in the game world, and to have a voice. Denying traders global information access would also improve social connections, because one would need to either look around (unfeasible in a large world) or use connections to find out what's valuable where.

The problem with large benefits for people who want to enter the social world is that a lot of people want to enter the social world. If you can rise to the top, the the goal will become to rise to the top, and if only a few people can do that, then it's another limiting artificial restriction. Why can't I raise and army and launch a coup d'etat, taking down the democratic institutions? I think online gaming has great potential to allow for immense player freedom, as the Egyptian Game shows us, but the downside of that is that the players need to be proactive, and not rely on the developers to guide them.

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Original post by methy Oof, that might happen. If you tried that with World of Warcraft playerbase... interdependence has given birth to quite deep social networks.

If you're targeting a niche and don't want a large player base, then I suppose that's possible. But faults within games are sited as design flaws even if the real problem lies within the players themselves. Take Eve's lag problem - the only reason any region lags is because a blob is fighting another blob, and the only reason blobs exist is because other players blob. The game itself isn't faulty. Likewise, if the economy ever suffers, those who aren't diehard fans will blame the game itself, and if it gets bad enough, will certainly quit. The slightest error on the design teams part may introduce an exploit that players can and will take advantage of. Take Eternal Lands - the market was very well designed, but players exploited the fact that flowers spawned near merchants to such a degree that the economy collapsed. Players quit because they saw it as the designs fault, not the fault of the exploiters. In a game where economic stability is not even a given, faults such as these will run rampant, and history shows that this will cause nothing but problems and a great potential for quitting users.

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You spend time at the pub, or watching the game, or fishing or whatever. You're always doing something, but not it's not really towards anything. It's just leisure time.

If I want to hang out at a pub, I'll go to a pub in reality. If I want to play a game then I will play a game. Even if that were not the case, even if I liked being in an internet pub, I should never ever be forced into it. The designer does not and cannot know how much I want to do, or will have fun doing, any given activity. They cannot possibly plan out a "perfect" or even near perfect setup for any of their given users. They can, however, provide options that users can take to maximize their enjoyment. Forcing players down a certain path eliminates all of those options, and hurts gameplay for everyone but a small minority who'll happen to like the exact path the designers created. It's a poor design decision to try to take options away from players. Skipping downtime should always be an option. Always.

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I spent a LOT of my time in Norrath's various incarnations doing stuff, but not really towards anything.

That's you, not me or anyone I play with. We banter and get to know one another while we work towards achieving something. We joke about the loot we get, about the level design, about the monsters and what have you. We complain about our daily issues while we vent the anger on an ogre's skull. Downtime consists of annoyance, a sense of wasted time, and a delay of expected rewards (which is a massive psycological deterrent, by the way). And I'm not saying that my playstyle is right and your playstyle is wrong. I'm saying you should always have the option to play that way, not a hard coded mandate to do so.

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I'm advocating the view of an MMO life as a real life.

I do not and will not play "real life." I have a life, I don't need it in a video game.

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You and all your MMO vets might not be down with this, but that doesn't meant that it should never, ever, be 'forced' on the rest of us.

You put force in quotes, but realize that it comes from your own use of the words "ensure" and "rely," which to anyone who can read between the lines means quite clearly to force one to do so. If it weren't forced, it couldn't be "ensured" now could it? If a player doesn't want to rely on social contacts, they shouldn't have to. If a player prefers PUGs to social networks, then let them have fun with their PUGs. You wont benefit anyone by forcing your way down other peoples throats, but you will alienate other players.

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Again with the bold text.

If you would prefer capitals for emphasis, I can oblige you quite readily.

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Unfortunately, you, and most designers, seem to operate on the idea crafting (and by that I mean the bit in between raw materials and the intended result), is a chore, and therefore not fun.

You're arguing against some imaginary target, apparently, because I never said crafting was a chore. If you want to craft, go for it! A game that forces you to craft, however, is poor in design for the reasons I mentioned before both about forcing players to do anything, and about removing all truly casual players from even being able to play (75mn to take care of chores, 60mn to play...). I love crafting systems, and I like games where they are an integral part of the system... but I never craft. I don't play games that require you to craft. That isn't my play style and because of that, I am alienated from games that try to force me to play that way.

So why would you alienate players like that? What reason could you have to punish players who like to play differently? And just how many players do you think you'll have once you've alienated all the ones that dislike enough of these forced paths to quit or avoid the game entirely?

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I could be some radical on this forum, claiming that MMO games should have combat systems. "No," you'd thunder. "People just get home from work, they want an escape, especially casual players. They don't want to be risking their virtual goods on the battlefield, having to fight goblins for gold coins! Most people in the real world hate fighting, so don't make them fight when they want to be having fun!"

HOLY SICK FUSION OF RED HARRING AND SCARECROW ARGUMENT BATMAN, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A FALLACY!

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Crude, but saying that the primary motivation for playing is having fun, and therefore having to struggle for survival is a bad thing is just as crude, and far more ignorant.

Great thing I didn't say that, or I'd be really red faced right about now. I said that chores aren't fun, and quite frankly they aren't. I never said struggling for survival isn't fun, because my favorite games are ones where you really have to work to survive. I could alude to my glory days of Eve piracy, where I had to spend hours at a set of belts hunting the right target - if I missed one, it would be much time before I could have another chance, and if I made a mistake and attacked the wrong target... oh the set backs! That struggle, and the fact that if I failed too consitently I would essentially be "destroyed" made the game the most fun I'd had in years! But never did I have to go mine pigs for pork, and then take that raw pork to a cook and get it cooked, then eat the pork before I could play. I could just jump in and get to work. I hope you see the difference there.

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The problem with large benefits for people who want to enter the social world is that a lot of people want to enter the social world. If you can rise to the top, the the goal will become to rise to the top, and if only a few people can do that, then it's another limiting artificial restriction.

You, of all people, are actually talking about artificial restriction?? And that is not an example of artificial restriction. When you are pitted against players and the only thing standing between you and the top is your skill, that isn't artificial. Artificial, unless you really want to start equivocating, would be something like "level 10~20 area only" or an instance. That's like saying not being able to be the fastest man alive is an artificial restriction because there can be only one fastest. The only restriction is your speed.