And in that case, what makes a good game?
In an effort to figure out what exactly draws people to a game, I’ve read a lot online about RPGs, MMOs, etc. online to hopefully impact Ashianae’s journey in a positive way. There is an amazing article on Gamesutra.com called “Rethinking the MMO” which can be found here. The article is good and provides information on the features and concepts needed to run an MMO successfully. While the article includes a lot of information for someone willing to do a bit of reading, the most important aspect mentioned in the article is that the game is fun. I mean, one of the biggest game killers in game development may be a “boring game.” This leads to the question of “How do you make your game fun?” It’s a question that haunts me constantly, because while I can imagine our game to be fun and include elements that tend to make games fun… how can you be sure that your concept will lead to a “fun” game and will keep people engaged? ?
Two consistent answers seem pretty obvious when it comes to creating a fun game: an environment that’s rich and full of depth, and an environment where “stuff” happens. The second may sound too easy to remember, but in fact it is perhaps more important than the first. Depth is an important aspect of the game, but when even an encyclopedia contains such depth, it won’t be enough to make the game interesting and fun (unless, of course, you just enjoy reading an encyclopedia).
The aspect of making “stuff” happen, and making it happen frequently, however, is something that constantly seems to keep players entertained… and if you’ve established some depth to your game, then theoretically you should have more fire to make some games and activities worthwhile. In the game we first started, and continue to work on here and there when there’s time, it’s an excellent example of the above condition. AWRPG (the server title in Active Worlds) and Draeda (the name of the game) contain amazing depth including pages and pages written by the developer and books full of stories and events written by the players. However, while this depth is something that makes the game very rich, the game clearly falls flat when little “stuff” happens, on a large scale. From what we have seen in the four years of operation, more activity equals more players, more interaction and more fun.
In fact, this can be seen in most virtual environments I’ve come across, whether they’re full games or not. Active Worlds (www.activeworlds.com) is experiencing an all-time low in the number of paying accounts online at the same time, in part due to a decline in activity in the environment (at least, that’s my contention). In all cases, you can typically trace the number of active users to the number of events taking place at any given time, and in turn the excitement generated by those events. So the answer seems simple: make more events, make more “stuff” happen. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. In fact, even in large-scale games like EVE Online that draw thousands of players at once, I often find myself bored and without *something* to do, even in an environment so deep that I can literally do whatever I want. In many cases it seems that *something* does not grab me and compels me to interact in an attractive way. So the question is, what *things* have you seen and been a part of in online games that have made them fun, engaging, and something you didn’t want to tune out? Dig deep and see what comes to mind. For Active Worlds, a lot of those events were things like the AW version of survivor, community awards, building competitions, socials, etc. In our AWRPG game, many of those events were story events around the world that caught people and forced them to get involved.
What do you think? Is creating a fun game the most important factor in game development and online game creation? Share with us what keeps you engaged in the games you play, plus of course the motivation to be the best. And likewise, what makes a game feel old? Is it the lack of new events, or the complete lack of events?