You should read the paradox of choice. People, in fact, do not enjoy the freedom of choice, and more times than not become increasingly stressed because of it.

Actually, if I recall correctly, while you are partly correct, there is still some enjoyment to be found in choice. If you were to graph Happiness vs. # of choices it would make a bell curve. That's to say that little choice is really bad, some choice is really good and too much is bad as well.

little choice is really bad, some choice is really good and too much is bad as well

In real life you have an infinite spectrum of choice, and that is great. In view of that I would say "little choice is not good, some choice is better, and a lot of choice is great."

I think people get confused about how much choice there should be in games because they confuse the issue of how much available choice there should be for a player and the issue of giving that player the ability to filter a lot of available choices into some choices he actually wants to consider. The latter can be achieved without culling available choices (and thus impovrishing the game) by simply introducing the player to the essential game mechanics and giving him enough tailored information about the gameplay. The tailoring of the information to the player is essential in order to avoid information overload. How to tailor that information is not so difficult either. Simply give the player an information tree he can traverse, so that at any node he is presented only with a manageable number of nodes to chose to expand upon. This maintains the large array of choice whilst allowing the player to manage it easily.

[quote name='Zummy' timestamp='1297808078' post='4774679']little choice is really bad, some choice is really good and too much is bad as well

In real life you have an infinite spectrum of choice, and that is great. In view of that I would say "little choice is not good, some choice is better, and a lot of choice is great."

I think people get confused about how much choice there should be in games because they confuse the issue of how much available choice there should be for a player and the issue of giving that player the ability to filter a lot of available choices into some choices he actually wants to consider. The latter can be achieved without culling available choices (and thus impovrishing the game) by simply introducing the player to the essential game mechanics and giving him enough tailored information about the gameplay. The tailoring of the information to the player is essential in order to avoid information overload. How to tailor that information is not so difficult either. Simply give the player an information tree he can traverse, so that at any node he is presented only with a manageable number of nodes to chose to expand upon. This maintains the large array of choice whilst allowing the player to manage it easily.
[/quote]

While I allow you to have your own opinion and if you disagree with a theory that's fine. I respect your view, however, I believe you should at least watch the video that way2lazy2care and I are referring to.

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

It's quite a lengthy watch, but I believe that it'll provide a little more insight. If you still disagree afterward, that's totally acceptable, I just thought I'd share it because it seems that you haven't watched it yet, and you may learn something.

Please don't take anything I said offensively, I know I'm a little harsh and blunt by nature, but this was all to be in good intentions.

Actually, if I recall correctly, while you are partly correct, there is still some enjoyment to be found in choice. If you were to graph Happiness vs. # of choices it would make a bell curve. That's to say that little choice is really bad, some choice is really good and too much is bad as well.

That is true, but the bell curve caps out at a surprisingly small number of choices. Also, I haven't seen the TED talk, so thanks for posting it. I actually heard him talk on NPR and have read snippets of the book.

@OP: You are making the questionable assumption that you have an infinite number of choices in real life, and the questionable assumption that the majority of people are happy in real life as a direct cause of having so many choices. I think you'll find a lot of people either are not happy in real life, or they are happy because of how limited their choices are

@OP: You are making the questionable assumption that you have an infinite number of choices in real life, and the questionable assumption that the majority of people are happy in real life as a direct cause of having so many choices.

No I'm not.

[quote name='Zummy' timestamp='1297808078' post='4774679']
Actually, if I recall correctly, while you are partly correct, there is still some enjoyment to be found in choice. If you were to graph Happiness vs. # of choices it would make a bell curve. That's to say that little choice is really bad, some choice is really good and too much is bad as well.

That is true, but the bell curve caps out at a surprisingly small number of choices. Also, I haven't seen the TED talk, so thanks for posting it. I actually heard him talk on NPR and have read snippets of the book.

@OP: You are making the questionable assumption that you have an infinite number of choices in real life, and the questionable assumption that the majority of people are happy in real life as a direct cause of having so many choices. I think you'll find a lot of people either are not happy in real life, or they are happy because of how limited their choices are
[/quote]

Anytime, do you have a link to the NPR thing? I'm interested, but I couldn't find it on my own.

Anytime, do you have a link to the NPR thing? I'm interested, but I couldn't find it on my own.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1617604

You should read the paradox of choice. People, in fact, do not enjoy the freedom of choice, and more times than not become increasingly stressed because of it.

This is very true. Psychological studies have shown that people seem to max out at around 5 options (it is because we can only hold 7 +/-2 things in our working memories). If they have more than this they can't seem to hold the information necessary to make a reasonable decision. With sandbox games, there are usually far more than 5 options for a player to do at any one time, so the whole idea starts off with a problem.

Now there are some ways to solve the 5 option limit, one of which is called "Chunking" where you are able to group similar options into a single "Option". However, the problem with this is that it takes a decent amount of experience with a system to be able to Chunk it.

Theme Park style MMOs solve this by carefully controlling the number of options the player has at any one time until they should be good enough to start chunking by themselves (actually all games do this). Actually, thi si good in theory, but many games fail to do this well, usually by giving the player too many options at too soon a time.

What is needed is a way for Sandbox games to control the amount of options the user has at any one time until they can manage to chunk on their own. One options is to have starting areas that have only a few things a player can do and let the player travel out to the more complex areas at their own pace.

Now there are some ways to solve the 5 option limit, one of which is called "Chunking" where you are able to group similar options into a single "Option". However, the problem with this is that it takes a decent amount of experience with a system to be able to Chunk it.

Theme Park style MMOs solve this by carefully controlling the number of options the player has at any one time until they should be good enough to start chunking by themselves (actually all games do this). Actually, thi si good in theory, but many games fail to do this well, usually by giving the player too many options at too soon a time.

What is needed is a way for Sandbox games to control the amount of options the user has at any one time until they can manage to chunk on their own.

Yes! This is the kind of thing I meant with my post on 15 February 2011 - 08:52 PM.

EDIT: but I think an information tree is a more refined, elegant and flexible system, that tries to solve the same problem (information overload) in a similar way

EDIT 2: Ofc the options should still all be there, but the game should feed the information required to make choices in a manageable manner

I agree a large number of options in sandbox games can be overwhelming but I don't think always limiting the number of options is the best solution. At some point players are going to master the amount of options they have and know what to do with them. Then they will be ready for more.

Isn't it a bit more simple of educating players what they can do so that once they know what they want to do its easy to choose which option? For example, you start playing EVE and zip through the tutorial. Followed by "hmm.. now what?". Someone links you What to do in EVE online and you may start to piece it together of whats next. Options are only intimidating when you don't know what they are or what they mean.