Interest and Disinterest

Interest and Disinterest are both game conditions. Yes, this is truth,bothof them are. It's not usual for such diametrically opposed concepts to have the same effect, so let's take a look at them and see why.

Interest

The applicable definitions of Interest are:

A) A feeling of curiosity or concern about something that makes the attention turn toward it.

B) Somebody's involvement with something that makes its progress or success important to him or her.

Encarta ® World English Dictionary ©

The goal of a game is to produce Interest. Interest in the plot, Interest in the combat, Interest in the competition, Interest in progression, Interest in the characters. The more things the player is Interested in, the more the game is successful.

A successful game produces Interest. An unsuccessful game does not. How to produce Interest is a topic on its own, and I will address it in time. For the purpose of this article, we're looking at the game condition aspect of Interest.

Well, it's fairly obvious, and doesn't really need to be explained. Interest in a game makes the game fun. Enough said on that.

Disinterest

Disinterest is simply defined as a lack of Interest or care. How, then, does Disinterest make a game better? One would think, at first look, that Disinterest would ruin a game. Well, yeah. Disinterestin the gamemakes the game less fun. Clearly, not giving a rats about the outcome of the plot kind of sours the thought of playing the game.

So how, then, does Disinterest play into making a game fun? As much as it would be easy to say "Disinterest in a person's life makes them spend more time playing the MMO," I don't think this is true, or healthy. No, let's keep the focus on the game, not on external concerns.

Disinterest in an aspect of a game gives a sense of depth and choice. Obviously, there are some aspects that you want to keep people Interested in. Plot, for example, is rarely safe to do away with. Others are almostexpectedto have some Disinterest. Take crafting in an MMO, for example. In your typical MMO, there are quite a few categories of crafting. Light, medium and heavy armor, weapons, and potion-making, to name a popular selection. Well, a player with a tank toon probably isn't Interested in the light armor crafting profession. This extends out to collecting cloth from mobs, and any other corollaries of the profession the game implements. While the crafting ingredients are, for the tank, merely vendor trash, he can't help but observe that thereisanother profession out there that he isn't taking advantage of.

Since this tank toon is Disinterested in cloth armor recipes, it adds depth to the game. If a player has to choose things to be Interested in (onlyarmorer oronlyweapon-smithing, for example) then the enforced Disinterest actually adds to the game, rather than detracts.

There are other examples, but choice plays a large role in Interest/Disinterest and the more you can cause the player to have one or the other the more fun he will find the game. For every choice the player has to make, he has to have Interest in one thing and Disinterest in the other. Enforcing Disinterest actually makes a game have re-playability. Next time around, he'll chose the other path, and if you can keep his Interest on it, he'll play happily all the way through.

Attention and No Attention

Attention is a game condition. No Attention is a no-game condition. Attention is closely tied to Interest, in that Interest cannot exist without Attention. With Attention can either come Interest or Disinterest. Since both interest and Disinterest are game conditions, it is vital, therefore, to produce as much Attention as possible.

Attention in a game can be either focused or broad. A player can have his Attention focused on a single mob that he's killing, or broadly over the whole of a story arc.

Attention also plays a role in map design. Landmarks and other functional aspects attract Attention because the plot requires it or because it structures the flow of a fight. A chasm across a battlefield enforces Attention on the bridge, which, in turn, produces Interest or Disinterest.

Attention can also be produced by beauty and aesthetics. A stunning vista, a cruel gorge, a brilliant cascade, these things and infinite others draw Attention. With Attention always comes Interest or Disinterest. If some part of the story is engaged in the scene as well, then you magnify the Interest, both in the story and in the scene. A fearsome cliff face is awe-inspiring to gaze upon and adds depth to the world, but if you then engage the player in climbing that cliff, he will take exponentially more pleasure from the same piece of environment.

The more flows of Attention to something, the bigger the Interest/Disinterest will become. Example: A quest line that culminates in the hunting of some legendary beast, fighting on a branch of a enormous tree with a drop to your death on either side, with a brilliant sunset with lens flares occluding the beast your hunting… Let's count the lines of Attention. 1) quest, 2) legendary beast, 3) monster tree, 4) fatal plunge if you fall off the branch, 5) aesthetics of the sunset, and 6) bloody lens flare making it difficult to see the monster and anticipate it. All these points of Attention combine to produce someseriousInterest. And, players following a different toon will hear about it and the intense Disinterest they feel makes them want to roll that character next.

Let's compare that to your typical MMO quest. Well, let's be frank. Killing 10 of the wolves pestering the NPC's village just doesn't have many Attention flows. Really, it only has one, the reward for the quest. This barely produces Interest at all, and with the typical grind, barely stays above boredom. You can spice it up a bit by putting it in an interesting landscape, and for some games, that's their only saving grace.

No Attention comes under several disguises. Boredom, for one. Boredom is very different from Disinterest, and should be avoided at all costs. No Attention is also different from Disinterest. Disinterest must have Attention to exist. You cannot feel Disinterest for something that has none of your Attention.

No Attention can be produced by routine. Something that once produced Attention can be more or less put on automatic. This is the 3, 2, 1, 1, 1 uses of skills, or the collection of crafting resources, to name a few. If something is done too often, or too repetitively, the Attention it once produced loses the potential to produce Interest.

Remember/Forget plays a role in No Attention. If something is forgotten, it once again attracts Interest when Attention is brought to it. In game terms, this would be like using skills reserved for tough fights. Having to expand out beyond the 3, 2, 1, 1, 1 routine attracts Attention and produces Interest in the use of skills which would otherwise be commonplace. This doesn't mean every fight should be like this! If your reserve skills become routine, you lose the influx of Interest in using those skills during boss fights. But it does mean thathavingthose reserve skills is important, and making use of them equally so.

Fighting can also produce No Attention. This occurs when a goal is sufficiently desirable that minor inconveniences like petty mobs getting in the way actually produces No Attention to the mobs. Whocaresabout these stupid mobs! They're so low level that I don't get any XP for killing them anyway. Why do the designers make me have to fight them? They're just speed bumps, nuisances, a needless stop on my way to reaching the infinitely more interesting goal! When the fighting isn't producing Attention and therefore Interest, a good rule of thumb is to not have the fighting necessary. If you must fight, make it attract Attention, and therefore Interest or Disinterest.

Things that produce No Attention should be avoided, or changed so that they instead produce Attention. Attention on a routine slides into No Attention. By breaking up the routine, you can revitalize some of the Interest.

For more insightful thoughts on game development, tune in later or visit my website.

What is a game condition? A game condition is an aspect of a game situation that promotes the continuance of the game. Opposed to these game conditions are no-game conditions. Game conditions and no-game conditions are the two sides of the coin that define games. In my other article, I described the three cornerstones of a game; game conditions and no-game conditions flesh it out more and add some specifics.

The first game condition is Not-Know/Forget, coupled with Know/Remember as no-game conditions.

But wait, you say, how can knowing something provide a lessening of a game? How can not knowing something make a game better? In a similar fashion, you would think off hand that remembering something would present more game, rather than less game.

Let's take a look, then, and see how these things assist and deter from a game experience. Let's start with

Not-know and Know

You fire up a game for the first time and it's a new experience. Things are exciting! Who knows what will happen! Some of the content may have been given away by the name or box art, or perhaps you've read some reviews; this game is an RPG, says so on the cover. Okay, well, you have some idea what to expect from an RPG. It's going to start off by introducing a character, typically by putting him/her into a day-to-day situation and having them react to something that is out of the ordinary.

Sure enough, the game starts off, your protagonist is wandering a field looking at flowers. Then BAM! enemies port in and kidnap your sister! The game starts introducing the fighting mechanics, and things get going. Well, this is all very commonplace. It is all Known. And, probably, you're feeling kind of bored by now. Yes, I know that if I want to attack someone, I should probably select the "attack" feature in the menu. Yes, I know how to use potions. Yes, I can, indeed, see that the cycling character icons indicate when my turn is coming up. But no, the game insists on grinding through a half-hour long tutorial telling you things you already KNOW.

Right off the bat, we're presented with a no-game condition. This is not FUN. This is not a GAME. It's a bloody tutorial, ffs. If I wanted a tutorial, I would read the manual. Let me play! This enforced Know is reducing the fun of the game.

Okay, you say, that's a fairly obvious example, but if you know nothing in a game, you won't have any fun either, right? Well, let's test that out. Same scenario, only we're going to skip the tutorial fight. Let's say your friend plays it through while you're nuking some popcorn, then hands you the controller. You pick it up. So far, you know nothing. Well, that's not true. You see a character in the middle of the screen. Logical deduction would suppose that was you. Left analog stick rotates the camera, right stick moves the character around. Bam, you're playing the game. You don't NEED a laggy pop-up telling you in one- and two-syllable words what the analog sticks do.

You walk down the hallway a bit and the screen has a seizure then suddenly you're fighting enemies! What do you do?!?! Well, as luck would have it, it becomes your turn. You have a blinking finger pointing at "attack". At this point, it would take a seriously handicapped person to get stumped. No buttons do anything except for "X" and that makes your character attack.

Things continue, you die, figure it's time to try out those other options. Who would have known, that "Magic" option gives you magic spells to aid you! Jeez, this stuff is complicated!

Okay, enough sarcasm, you get the point. Anyone with an IQ over 50 could figure this stuff out. It's not really necessary to have a half-hour long tutorial describing in intricate detail the fine print behind what the "attack" option does. And if it was necessary, that's what manuals are for. Or a help section in the menu for those people who maybe haven't played a few dozen RPGs already, or are new to games and don't know what a potion is.

Let's take another example. MMOs are getting to be fairly popular and account for the majority of money made in the gaming industry. But, as any scrub can tell you, the formula is getting old. "Go to zone X and kill ten goblins, then come back for this pre-revealed reward." To be frank, it's boring. Maybe when you first start playing, you haven't yet figured out what all your skills do (A game condition, Not-know!) and so it's still interesting to hike over to zone X and lay some down discretionary smack. But after you've killed your six-hundredth mob, you know the drill. Skill 3 to set up some damage over time, then 2 to stun, then 1, 1, 1, 1 until 3 wears off or the mob is dead. After a while, you know exactly how many 1s it will take to kill, if it's worth expending the mana to refresh the DOT, etc.

There is no longer any not-know in the action of killing goblins. You KNOW how to do it now. It's no longer interesting. The game has faded. And then your next quest comes up. "Go to zone V and kill 20 goblin-variation-C!" At this point, any experienced gamer groans inside, checks the quest reward to see if he really wants to do it or not, then probably sighs and figures the quest XP will advance him faster than killing 300 of some other equally uninspired monster.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! This is not a game! This is work! And it's BORING. Where has the fun gone? I'll tell you. The fun has gone with the acquisition of knowledge. You KNOW what will happen. You KNOW that there really isn't a chance that you'll die, barring some freak storm of critical hits against you, but even then you have contingencies.

Well, good job, Devin, you figured it out. That doesn't assist us in the least. We know the quest system is boring. We know something needs to change. But what? How? All these new MMOs are coming out, with "revolutionary" new systems, but once you pick them up, the newness fades and then you KNOW everything about it and it loses its gloss and fun.

So what's the solution? How do we keep things fresh without making a new game engine for every zone? We only have so many man-hours to program this game, you know, we can't make every game be thirty games in one.

I'll tell you, and it's simple. You remove the Know aspects you, as the game developer, have control over. Let's take your typical quest. There's an NPC with a big fat!over his head. You talk to him, he tells you something of a sob story about his poor mother that got eviscerated by those nasty Scourge. He points to a stack of shoulder pieces and offers one of them and a sum of 20 gold if you would be so kind as to slaughter a baker's dozen. You accept the quest and your map has a direction arrow pointing to where you need to go and a clearly delineated zone of where said Scourge could be located. You go there and start killing your allotment of 13 Scourge. A little ticker counts down how many you've killed, politely informs you when you've completed, and gives you an arrow back to the poor bereft man.

Well, you can probably sense the trend. Everything is known! There's no question from the very beginning of your entry into town to the point where you equip your new shiny shoulder pads. But, you say, that's how games were in the very beginning! You got lost on your way to the questing zone, you couldn't find the monsters you were supposed to kill, you didn't know how far through the quest you were. These changes were innovations on a bad design!

My answer to you, dear reader, is that knowing everything removes the sense of fun. So, let's mix things up a little bit. Let's see where we can remove some of the all-knowingness of the player to make a quest a little bit more exciting than a tired series of 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, repeat ad nauseam.

I personally think it's a good idea to keep the!over the NPC's head, so we'll leave that be. Nobody wants to run through the town and talk to every NPC just to find the next set of quests. In an ideal world, you wouldn't have to go TO the quest NPC, but we'll leave that for another discussion.

Next is the contextual blurb that gives the "kill 10 of X" some weight and purpose. Honestly, I think it's a bad idea to have bounty quests like that, except as a rarity. So, for the purpose of this discussion, we'll say they are hardly ever used as a quest plot. Instead, we'll say "Oh jeez, the monsters have stolen the (story contextual object) and it's a bad scene. Please help us recover it. The last place they were seen was (obvious landmark) to the north." It might show a screenshot of the landmark to help clarify what is being looked for.

Okay, let's break that down. First of all, this gives the quest Purpose. In the first example, nobody gave a damn about his mum being killed by monsters and nobody wants to avenge him. He's a pointless NPC with no back story or contextual weight. Next, while giving directions (no directions would be a lack of Purpose, as well as a lack of Freedom) it doesn't give you ALL the data. Yeah, the monsters are by the waterfall. This isextremelydifferent than a waypoint on the map. Also, it makes the maps a little more interesting. Landmarks have purpose rather than "ooh, shiny."

Well, this waterfall is a bit of a mystery, so you climb the watch tower in town and lo and behold, there it is on the horizon, visible over the surrounding forest. (Or you could just go North until you trip over it.) So you hike over to the waterfall. The (story contextual object) is NOT a random drop off one of these mobs, it's sitting in a chest in the center of their camp. Now, in a typical MMO, your job would be to slaughter these mobs until one dropped the quest item and then you'd go back to town. In all likelihood, you would have two quests, one to kill 10 mobs and one to get the object, just to make sure you spent enough time in the zone. Well, by putting the object in the middle of the camp, you're more or less guaranteed to have to kill 10 of the mobs. It's kind of unavoidable. So you kill the scurvy swine , get the quest object and head back to town.

As an anecdote, the monsters could have a template, but have a random element added in. The base monster, for example, has 200 hp, but can vary from 150 to 250, with appropriately scaled armor, damage, etc. Experience granted for killing monsters would scale as well. This breaks up the Known about the monsters somewhat and can make the game a little bit more re-playable.

The NPC is appropriately grateful, gives you some hard cash and gives you a pick of a few different items. Note that this is virtually identical, in effect, to your typical MMO, with one major difference. You didn't do the quest knowing beforehand you were getting 12 gold and 3 silver, you didn't know beforehand what items you were going to have a choice of and you weren't told that you would get 2183 experience for completing the quest.

So this quest actually would be fun to play. While maintaining virtually the same structure of your average MMO, the Known elements are smudged around a bit and make the game enjoyable. It makes the players observe, think, react and plan rather than "this group of mobs will require 3, 2, 1, 1, 1 rather than 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1."

I could belabor this further, but I think you get the idea. The less is Known, the more fun the game will be. The less Known is enforced on the player, the more the game is enjoyable. The more is Not-known, the more challenging the game is and the more it breaks from the routine.

Let's take a look at the similar topic of

Forget and Remember

Games are often gauged by their re-playability, especially single-player games and MMOs. What makes a game re-playable? Well, obviously making things different the second time through, and this falls under the Know/Not-know category. When I play a game the second time through, I remembereverythingabout the game. From how difficult a particular mob is to kill to terrain oddities. This makes it hard for me to enjoy a game a second time through, as it is all Known for me.

While not everyone has the same level of detail recall as I do, there is a way for a game developer to break up the routine, especially in an MMO. A break in the expected flow of things makes the player uncertain of the next action. This could be as simple as, to use the above example, randomizing which of three groups of mobs stole the quest item. The first time it's the group by the waterfall, the next time it's a different group on top of a cliff somewhere, etc.

It is true that this expands the map development considerably, but if you think about it, it's notthatmuch more work. Let's say a particular zone has three distinct groups of mobs. The neighboring town has two quest chains it peddles out to the passing players.

Let's get specific. Three groups of mobs: the goblins by the waterfall to the North; the snake-people in the woods to the East; the bird-men on the cliff-aeries to the South. Two quest chains: recovering the magic item that raises a protective field around the town, hunting down and saving the children of the town that have been kidnapped.

Upon entering the town, the player (or the player's group, gotta keep friends together after all) is assigned variables. Quest chain A is with the goblins, quest chain B is with the bird-men. So the birdmen have stolen the magic item while the goblins have kidnapped the children. The quest text is appropriately doctored for the situation and any scripting done has to be done for each group.

"Oh no," you say, "this is too much work!" Well, I respond, do you want people to have fun playing your game or not? The re-playability will keep people paying you their monthly fees, and if you have to hire a few more level designers,suck it up.

This is just one example of removing the Remember from a game. There are other ways, but this article has gone on long enough. Suffice it to say that any way you can remove Remember or produce Forget, you should do everything you can to implement it.

For more insightful thoughts on game development, tune in later or visit mywebsite.

What is a Game?

A game, in general terminology, is as broad a spectrum as it gets. According to the dictionary, a game is "Something played for fun". This sparks a new conflict. What is fun? What is not fun? And, in the interest of selling games, "How can I make this game more fun?"

The word "fun" is even more ephemeral than "game". "A time or feeling of enjoyment or amusement" doesn't narrow down, in game mechanics, what does and does not make a game fun.

So let's break a game down into its parts. In this way, we can see what aspects of a game get in the way of the "fun" and what aspects enhance it.

Purposes

This is the first element of a game, and perhaps the only one that is actually understood. In a game, the purpose is usually what is described when someone asks what the game is about. "Collect all the red gems" or "Stop the bad guy". Usually fairly clean cut, the purpose is what gives the player guidance and drive.

In more complex games, there can be multiple purposes. Take an MMO. Usually, the purposes are along the lines of "complete the requirements of the quests I have." This dovetails into a broader purpose of "level up". Once you reach the end of the game, that purpose gives way to another, usually "get powerful gear".

In any decent game, the purpose is given in plain English right out in front. A game where the purpose is confused or obscured usually fails to grab the player's attention and he wanders before the game is played very much.

Barriers

Barriers are the next element that forms a game. When one thinks of barriers, the first thing that comes to mind are walls, or other terrain elements that impede or direct movement. This is an extremely limited summation of a barrier, and leads to barriers being poorly used in a game.

A barrier is simply anything that impedes a direct progression to the purpose.

In game terms, this expands beyond simply walls. Enemies are barriers. Ammunition limitations are barriers. Time is a barrier. Literally ANYTHING that makes the player have to perform an action in order to progress is considered a barrier. Anything that leads to failure in a game is also a barrier. Failure could be as simple as not hitting a headshot, or as final as dying and having to load a saved game.

Barriers are just as important as purposes. A game with too few barriers is boring. Why? It's too easy. There's no challenge, no sense of accomplishment. The purpose is cheapened by the ease of the progression. Imagine an MMO where you kill a few rats and you hit max level, then an NPC walks up and dumps a chest at your feet with all the best gear. Where's the game? Even if the MMO has the most epic story ever written,there is no game. People want to play a game, not read a novel or watch a movie.

On the other hand, barriers can be too hard. Not enough of a resource to progress. Boss fights that go on forever. Sudden death traps. Bugs also fall under the category of barriers, as they prevent the usual progression. Bugs, of course, would be qualified as a bad barrier. Enemies that clip through walls or don't take damage, weapons that don't function, graphical glitches, and worst of all, game crashes.

This leads naturally to the last element of a game.

Freedoms

What is a freedom? Anything that the player can do is a freedom. Movement, being able to climb a ladder or hang from a ledge. Weapons and combat are freedoms, as is any information. Data, in a game, is a freedom, as the lack of it presents a barrier.

Freedoms allow progression toward the purpose. In an RPG, having equipment slots is a freedom as it then lets youdosomething. Having armor slots lets you equip that new helmet, being able to pick up that flaming sword lets you kill the ice monster.

As with any freedom, people dislike it being taken away. Invisible walls impede logical movement. Weapons that don't perform predictably, or any other freedom that doesn't operate as usual, reduce the "fun" in a game. This, of course, doesn't take into account paradigm shifts that alter the gameplay world significantly. Being in space naturally changes movement, a horror game might throw in a level where you don't have any ammo, etc. But these barriers usually come with their own freedoms, and vice versa.

Putting it together

Any game, therefore, is composed of purposes, barriers and freedoms. There are many variations, but those basic definitions are what makes something into a game. A lack of one of these elements, or too much barriers or freedoms, turns a game into a chore.

To give an example, let's take a specific game, Rift. I played during the early betas, so things have been smoothed out considerably since, but this rough stage of the game gives an excellent example of what happens when these elements aren't in balance.

You start out and the game world is presented to you. The text is too small to read easily (barrier) but gives you some data (freedom) about the world. The intro quests build up to presenting the purpose, which gives the player a sense of drive, making the beginning zone flow quickly.

The combat is simple, clicking skill buttons, of which you can only have 8 active at once (barrier, you have to pick and choose your active skills. Also a freedom, the ability to customize your loadout.) The graphics are visually appealing, the environment acts the way you'd expect it to. So far, so good. The freedoms act as expected, the barriers aren't too difficult or unexpected.

You finish the intro zone and get warped to the main world. And this is where the game falls apart. There is no purpose. Oh yes, there are people who want you to go kill 10 of ___ or collect a dozen ___, but that's not a real, driving purpose. You're supposed to "save the world." How does slaughtering a few dozen hapless mobs for the nebulous peace of mind of a random NPC progress toward the end goal? It doesn't.

Then there are the rifts. Gameplay-wise, they're a failure. Conceptually, promising, but in practice, what do they bring to the table? Barriers that don't impede a purpose. Later on in the game, the rifts give loot as a reward, and then provide the barrier to the purpose of gearing up, but early on they literally do nothing. Worse than nothing, in fact.

After you progress a bit, the rifts stop being swarmed by players and they have a chance to spread out and drop monsters onto the playing field. So you're level 15, grinding through your pointless NPC quests, and a posse of half a dozen level 30 ELITES show up and thrash you so hard you don't even know what hit you. One minute you're walking along, the next second you're dead with impossibly large damage numbers scrolling up over your head. There's ZERO hope of you defeating even one of these guys, let alone the eight currently desecrating your corpse. Well that was fun, you laugh, I'll just respawn and avoid them. So you respawn, deal with whatever piddling death penalty, then hike back over to continue grinding out your weak and flawed purpose. But now the quest zone is crawling with these level 30 elites, making it virtually impossible to progress on your purpose.

Talk about a BARRIER. This one was so iron-clad and impenetrable that it almost killed the game dead. You had to finish the quests so you could level enough to progress to the next zone, but your questing ground wasswarmingwith insurmountable barriers. And it wasn't like you could call together a few of your buddies and deal with the rift, letting you continue with your questing. The rift itself had 30 to 40 elites in it. And until you killed the rift boss, it would continue sending out overpowered elites to contaminate your questing zone. You couldn't even call together theentire populationof the zone to deal with the rift.

Eventually a few max level guys rode in and swatted the rift like a gnat and moved on.

Well, there was some purpose presented there, get overpowered like those guys and save the noobs. But the purpose was never presented to the playerin the game. Oh, sure, every MMO has the purpose of leveling up, but nobody told me "Look son, you haven't a prayer of handling these rifts. Just eek out what meager experience you can until you come of age." I'd be happy with that. A challenge! Bring it! But no, the only purpose presented to me was "My garden is overrun with mutated vegetation. Help!"

So I finished that set of quests and moved on, only to be stopped dead in my tracks yet again by a different set of rift mobs roaming the countryside in search of tender noobs.

And then I stopped playing. Too many barriers! No purpose! The game was notfun. I was notenjoyingdying repeatedly doing a quest two levels below me. And worst of all, it made me feel like the game didn't want me playing it.

So Rift during the beta was a good example of a barrier getting out of control and what happens when a game lacks purpose.

These three subjects are the building blocks of any game. Later, I'll go further into what makes a game fun and what makes it grind on your nerves.

For more insightful thoughts on game development, tune in later or visit my website.