Game Development: Cigar Box

[pppp]

By saying "way" I mean things players do in order to achieve their goals. By "destination" I mean these goals. Some people enjoy working towards a result while others value the result more than work towards it.
Some people would enjoy building a top level fighter, others will be happy buying an account with it, because they see it as means to achieve some "fun" (Bullying newbs presumably).

By achieving I mean overcoming a problem, finding a method to successfully accomplish a task, not the fact of being granted with some bytes by the devs.

It's just your way of having fun. It may be shared by other people or may be not. Let other people have fun their way, be it "good" or "bad" in your eyes.

Stages to where? Ending the game? Winning in... what?

Metal spiraling was just an example. Different people define different goals. Somewhere in the forum there is talk about rabbit q at the end of w10. It's mostly irrelevant competition but still can be fun to take part in.
"Stages" I define loosely. There does not need to be any "problem" to solve, just amount of effort to be put in and some round numbers to brag about. Solving a problem and implementing the solution is an effort too.

Someone may see being first to reach 1k (2k, 3k whatever) metal q as an achievement and a reason to brag. By coming late and buying progress (e.g. hq metal + hammer or hq rabbit ) one saves the effort of early stages but at the same time forfeits this kind of achievement.

I used rabbits to show how nonsensical some goals may be. But since I am certain some people laughed at that I take it as achieving some fun.

[Agrik]

By saying "way" I mean things players do in order to achieve their goals. By "destination" I mean these goals. Some people enjoy working towards a result while others value the result more than work towards it.

Yes, in a general life. Games are a subset that doesn't have a tangible, material result of one's activity, thus game goals are much closer to just experiencing the "way", passing it, than goals in a general real life. You state happiness, well, this is a "goal" indistinguishable from experiencing the "way".

Some people would enjoy building a top level fighter, others will be happy buying an account with it, because they see it as means to achieve some "fun" (Bullying newbs presumably).

Then it will be more precise to say "others" get happy not from buying a place in a database, but from bullying newbs, right? And this is good example of how...

It's just your way of having fun. It may be shared by other people or may be not. Let other people have fun their way,

...we crash into a problem that some people enjoy getting happy at expense of others. So we can't have them happy at once, at least until we give them two non-intersecting games.

As far as we're discussing game design, I don't see it as a way to bend the game to get more personal fun as a customer. I'm looking at the level of a game's purpose, the goal that the devs pursue. So I'm sorry, I don't understand the "it's your way to have fun". It's not a question of my ingame fun, I just want to see a game that is a game, not a shop selling happiness straightforward for money. Even if it won't make me happy as a customer.

be it "good" or "bad" in your eyes.

What do you suggest to do if, for example, other people behaving "bad" (in my eyes, of course!) destroy my happiness? When I perceive that they just spread troubles for everyone except them, in the real-life manner. Do their "ways" have the upper hand? Do I have to give up being happy?

There does not need to be any "problem" to solve, just amount of effort to be put in and some round numbers to brag about. Solving a problem and implementing the solution is an effort too.

All efforts I can imagine is a kind of solving and managing things, probably very small things like moving a cart through a very cramped base, but still needing brain activity. Such efforts worth a reward. Unlike spent time.

Someone may see being first to reach 1k (2k, 3k whatever) metal q as an achievement

And someone may see a number of co-customers forced out as an achievement. I don't think it's a good thing for the game devs to reward indiscriminately all the achievements a human can think of. Concerning those a) and b) variants, I think that rewarding an ability to waste time does nothing good to people.

[Granger]

I think that rewarding an ability to waste time does nothing good to people.

Especially in case it's the time of others.

[pppp]

IIRC one of development goals was actually enabling bad deeds and ways to punish these and then watch morality to emerge based on game constraints. Look here. Kind of trying to prove that morals are not something given upon us by God but instead are adaptation to real life constraints.
In that perspective the experiment goals, which are primarily not biased answers, are somewhat conflicting with business goals which would be maximizing player count which in turn would inevitably bias the result. I cannot answer for devs what are their current goals though. I do agree limiting damage players can do to others is good business-wise. Griefers are not sufficient customer base, besides they tend to destroy their environment by overhunting their prey thus have to move to another game.

Yes, certainly majority of games, including traditional board games or <<stone-paper-scissors>> involve someone winning and someone losing so you can say one party is having fun at the expense of the other.

In a way, every game is a shop selling moments of happiness for exchange for your time and possibly money.

Moving a cart trough a cramped base is not the sign of brain activity, sorry to disappoint you. Brain activity would allow for designing transport corridors.

Again, being better at selling <x> is part of the game. It would be an awkward exercise in proving socialism idiocy to demand that every player has right to sell equal amount of <x>.

[Agrik]

I do agree limiting damage players can do to others is good business-wise.

Just in case it was addressed to me. I didn't state that players inflicting "damage" to each other's char is a bad thing per se, business- or other-wise. There are many competitive games with a gameplay that includes affecting something that "belongs" to the other player or impairing his ingame acting abilities.

Yes, certainly majority of games, including traditional board games or <<stone-paper-scissors>> involve someone winning and someone losing so you can say one party is having fun at the expense of the other.

While the process of competition is enjoyed by both parties, and that's the idea. The reward isn't. One can try to imagine a player who dislikes a process, but wants to be a winner... in a thing he does not hold interesting? This would be quite strange and is possible only if the "game" is not a game but something else. A show, a kind of work or some other way to earn money, etc.

So, one party gets process + winning joy, while the other gets joy of process, reduced by losing. Both cases are a sum of two parts. Giving players a process, creating the means to play is a net positive part. It is a deed one can monetize, or get praised for. In contrast, rewarding a winner with ingame bytes is a zero-sum action: the reasons to be happy and unhappy for two groups of customers are the same with a different sign, because all ingame figures are virtual and relative. Excessive focus on that second part, i.e. setting too big rewards for a too small brain activity, does not increase game worthiness, but boosts ingame inflation (here we get Qs in thousands) instead.

In a way, every game is a shop selling moments of happiness for exchange for your time and possibly money.

In a way... but not quite so. Selling happiness per se would mean the seller guarantees some exact quantity of a sold thing regardless of your actions. This is not a case with games: anything that makes you happy regardless of your actions is not a game process. It can be something admixed, but still not a subject of a game design discussion. I'd say that games sell possibility of happiness. The means to have fun, but not the fun itself for money.

Moving a cart trough a cramped base is not the sign of brain activity, sorry to disappoint you. Brain activity would allow for designing transport corridors.

Saying "brain activity" I mean not a level of achievements worth bragging about but an activity technically involving a thought, well, a little above zero. Not all bots in games are even capable to navigate in tight non-premapped places. As opposed to click-and-waiting for X time, click-and-sailing, click crafting for Y times that all represent nearly-zero activity to position a pointer and press a button. Oh, and counting, if one prefer to avoid excessive clicks until the one with the brain arrives.

[pppp]

I am not really sure what you are arguing about at this point. Looks like a long offtopic line of strawmen.

[Agrik]

Er... strawmen as in a strawman argument? I'm sorry, probably I misunderstand written to me sometimes or misuse some words. What phrase seems to you to be unrelated to what you've said?

I argue that things like a spent time counter, a dependence on the starting date, a winner's reward size, or a happiness assured in exchange for money are not what makes a game. A game is made by brain activity it requires. By thought challenge it presents to a player, be it a simple game or a hardcore one. I'm fine if people see anything from not-a-game list as a way to be happy for themselves, but there is no need to mix everything in one project. There is no need to have workers earning, elders bragging, fighters yearning and people eating on the same playground where players are playing, even with the intention to make thus them all happier. As I imagine.

It's probably an offtopic of some kind, but not more than the post I've commented.

This rabbit hole is quite offtopic but whatever

[pppp]

But spending more time you can solve more partial challenges thus achieve more "winning". Assuming two identical people (as: 100% brain clones) starting 1 month one after another, and spending the same time, playing the same way, the first one will be always ahead.
The challenge is to design the game environment in such a way that by playing "in the same way" (or more realistically "as good") relative distance between the two players will diminish over time.

[Granger]

The challenge is to design the game environment in such a way that by playing "in the same way" (or more realistically "as good") relative distance between the two players will diminish over time.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=59967 does that even better by reducing the absolute distance, while providing a way to keep the world meaningful.

Challenge is more to make them like it.

[pppp]

The challenge is to design the game environment in such a way that by playing "in the same way" (or more realistically "as good") relative distance between the two players will diminish over time.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=59967 does that even better by reducing the absolute distance, while providing a way to keep the world meaningful.

Challenge is more to make them like it.

Man, stop spamming with that idea, you are a mod, have some decency.