There's no objective independent measure for "fun" or "enjoyment".
Of course there is. Brain imaging technology like fMRI can measure if you feel enjoyment.
However, it does not mean that "fun" or "enjoyment" is the same for everyone. In fact, obviously different people enjoy different things.
Prove it. The fMRI measures blood flow in the brain. It is used to tell if a brain is functioning correctly. Cite a signal study where an fMRI was used to measure fun.
sure ...
"Measuring the Experience of Digital Game Enjoyment"
I know you have not read a signal one of these but I'll go through them, and format them so they not quite so bad llooking. I'll edit this as I go through them
Measuring the Experience of Digital Game Enjoyment A paper where the goal was to measure enjoyment in games. So they start out assuming the premise. Paper includes things like "stepping outside the traditional science box" (sounds like an ad for homeopathy). The study involved a lot of different kinds of test but the fMRI portion used the "Think aloud protocol" where you describe your subjective feelings. An initial scan the artificial never states that fMRI proved the enjoyment was objectively measured. Only that they hoped to do so in the future.
I have work in 30 minutes so I'll go through the rest after.
Actually I can deal with this one now
Think Aloud during fMRI: Neuronal Correlates of Subjective Experience in Video Games: Here is the abstract, in whole:
Experience of computer games can be assessed indirectly by measuring physiological responses and relating the pattern to assumed emotional states or directly by introspection of the player. We combine both approaches by measuring brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during Think Aloud (TA). TA assesses subjects’ thoughts and feelings during the game play. The comments and playing behavior were recorded while the brain scans were performed, content of game and TA was analyzed, and related to the brain activation. The fMRI data illustrated that brain activation can be matched to behavioral and experiential content. One category (focus) was associated with increased visual activity and its displeasurable experience with preparatory motor activity. We argue that the combination of subjective introspective with neurophysiological data can 1) reveal meaningful neural mechanisms and 2) validate the introspective method.
What is this? It never claims it found an objective standard for enjoyment? That is was based on subjective introspection and they where HOPING to validate the introspective method. Not saying the researches did anything wrong or where being dishonest, but they didn't walk away with an objective standard for enjoyment. So posting it in this context as if they did is dishonest on your part.
There's no objective independent measure for "fun" or "enjoyment".
Of course there is. Brain imaging technology like fMRI can measure if you feel enjoyment.
However, it does not mean that "fun" or "enjoyment" is the same for everyone. In fact, obviously different people enjoy different things.
Are you arguing for the sake of arguing ?
Perhaps we should measure the pleasure responses of 1 or 2 million gamers and then design an MMO accordingly ? Should be a smash hit, yeah ?
I did not say it is cheap enough to use to measure every gamer (although I do know of neuro marketing companies that uses physiological response to study product design ... including games).
But you cannot say brain imaging (and other measures like EEG) is not objective.
How to use it .. that is another story.
Imagine the possibilities...
Once the measurement and analysis techniques become sophisticated enough, we'll be able to make games that will be guaranteed to be smash hits in their target market !
You will not be able to resist buying them, because you'll be absolutely sure that game X is "your type of game", just compare its classification to your "entertainment profile definition" !
I will not live long enough to experience that, and I'm somehow thankfull...
LOL and they paid this guy to make this speech,i have been saying this from day 1.
MY most famous statement is ....if Wow is so good why is it every time we hear talk about Wow it NEVER talks about the game,it always talks about the numbers.
It is no different than looking at casinos.Casinos are not smart or great,it is stupid naive people that make Casinos rich.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There's no objective independent measure for "fun" or "enjoyment".
Of course there is. Brain imaging technology like fMRI can measure if you feel enjoyment.
However, it does not mean that "fun" or "enjoyment" is the same for everyone. In fact, obviously different people enjoy different things.
Are you arguing for the sake of arguing ?
Perhaps we should measure the pleasure responses of 1 or 2 million gamers and then design an MMO accordingly ? Should be a smash hit, yeah ?
I did not say it is cheap enough to use to measure every gamer (although I do know of neuro marketing companies that uses physiological response to study product design ... including games).
But you cannot say brain imaging (and other measures like EEG) is not objective.
How to use it .. that is another story.
Imagine the possibilities...
Once the measurement and analysis techniques become sophisticated enough, we'll be able to make games that will be guaranteed to be smash hits in their target market !
You will not be able to resist buying them, because you'll be absolutely sure that game X is "your type of game", just compare its classification to your "entertainment profile definition" !
I will not live long enough to experience that, and I'm somehow thankfull...
The issue is that everyone's response is different. So it is still a management decision to say what kind of audience they would want.
But yeah ... it is already happening, and only going to become better.
Here is a company that actual uses neuro-methods (not fMRI though) to do video games research. http://www.hcdi.net/video-game/
LOL and they paid this guy to make this speech,i have been saying this from day 1.
MY most famous statement is ....if Wow is so good why is it every time we hear talk about Wow it NEVER talks about the game,it always talks about the numbers.
It is no different than looking at casinos.Casinos are not smart or great,it is stupid naive people that make Casinos rich.
"NEVER"?
What on earth are you talking about? WOW's gameplay gets talked about all the time.
The topic I bring up most frequently being how WOW's Demonology rotation (and several other similarly deep rotations) serve as strong evidence of the game's combat depth. Since depth is what makes games interesting, I always make a point to ask others for similar evidence of depth in other MMORPGs. In all the times I've asked it there has been one example from one game (FFXIV's Lancer) that was similarly deep.
Many other conversations about WOW's design decisions get discussed often, like fast travel or death penalty.
WOW is slightly off on perfect travel design (Diablo 3 is close to the ideal, giving players the option to instantly fast travel anywhere they've previously explored by slow travel,) but better than a lot of early MMORPGs. This is good entertainment for the same reason that a movie will show you 5 seconds of travel montage instead of the many hours or days that the travel would actually take. It gets to the point. It covers only events relevant to the viewer, and avoids wasting the viewer's time with dull drudgery.
WOW is slightly off on death penalty too, but far better than earlier MMORPGs which wasted players time with penalties ("I can't play the game for the next 10 mins while my vitae penalty wears off") and drudgery ("I can't experience deeper game systems like combat until I've finished this shallow corpse run.")
WOW is good because they made the right design decisions. Decisions to fill players' time with rich, deep gameplay. It isn't the richest or the deepest, but it is richer and deeper than other MMORPGs, and in the end that led to its superior financial situation.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Being an artist does not make you a business man, and being a businessman does not make you an artist. Being a critic makes you an asshole. That's all I know.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I think making a hit game is pretty much the same as making a hit movie. A lot of things have to come together, some of which not under the control of Devs for a great game to be produced and be successful. IE: You can create a great game and do everything right but if a more popular game comes out right before yours most of the attention will go to that game instead of yours. So there you are struggling with a great game partially because the competition is killing you.
Games like movies depend on popularity, not so much in individuals but in groups of gamers. The better the group response the more successful the game.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The topic I bring up most frequently being how WOW's Demonology rotation (and several other similarly deep rotations) serve as strong evidence of the game's combat depth.
Pressing the same ability sequence over and over isn't "deep" gameplay...
The other arguments are pretty subjective as well, and for travel you might as well have replaced it with GW2 as the best example fitting your suggested prime model.
Death penalty constantly has the counterargument that the penalty should have meaning, not simply being a slap on the wrist for failure. IE, "make death matter and be a threat to overcome as otherwise it's pointless to even be dying" tends to be the opposing stance.
WoW is mostly like Star Wars, right place for the right product at the right time. It didn't have to be the best, it had to be the opener to enough new ideas to a market sitting on the edge of wanting to experience something different. Blizzard has a positive reputation backing it up as well, which makes a world of difference for people coming out of the RTS fandom of Blizz' and elsewhere to hype the game into it's popularity.
This is why other people also bring up Lineage 2 as the counter to WoW at times when talking about game quality and popularity.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The problem is when people explain the reason for it being bad is they don't like it.
That doesn't make it bad.
People don't like going to the dentist, does that mean it's bad?
Nope i say something is bad it is in relevance to it's design ideals. Example if you portray your game as a mmorpg it had better be a mmorpg and not just some single player game with a login screen.
We can use your DENTIST analogy,if you went to the Dentist and he pulls out a hockey stick and says lets play a game,then it is bad,you went there for dentistry work ,not a hockey game.
So if it cannot do a mmorpg justice in it's design,it is a bad game design.That is not a case of weather i like each individual idea or not,all ideas can likely work in some type of game just not in every game or do not belong in every game.
I will use another example that bothers me of late.Somersaults who the heck thought adding in somersaults to a mmorpg would feel natural,good or realistic,this is not gymnastics were are playing here.Or how about jump puzzle ideas in a rpg,how does that even make a single shred of sense?Or xp for doing quests,again how does that make sense that your Warrior becomes a better Warrior from delivering some mug to another npc?
There are MANY more examples,it just looks to me like no care or thought is put into game design,it is simply "oh that is a cool idea,let's toss it in there,even if it makes no sense at all.It is like that game that was adding in hover boards..seriously?What's next medieval games with space ships and basketballs?
So i feel at least to me,it is quite alright to use the term BAD without any bias whatsoever.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Pressing the same ability sequence over and over isn't "deep" gameplay...
The other arguments are pretty subjective as well, and for travel you might as well have replaced it with GW2 as the best example fitting your suggested prime model.
Death penalty constantly has the counterargument that the penalty should have meaning, not simply being a slap on the wrist for failure. IE, "make death matter and be a threat to overcome as otherwise it's pointless to even be dying" tends to be the opposing stance.
WoW is mostly like Star Wars, right place for the right product at the right time. It didn't have to be the best, it had to be the opener to enough new ideas to a market sitting on the edge of wanting to experience something different. Blizzard has a positive reputation backing it up as well, which makes a world of difference for people coming out of the RTS fandom of Blizz' and elsewhere to hype the game into it's popularity.
This is why other people also bring up Lineage 2 as the counter to WoW at times when talking about game quality and popularity.
Optimal play always exists. In everything. Always.
Game depth is a measure of how difficult it is to play perfectly.
WOW is objectively deeper than virtually all other MMORPGs (with the only exception anyone has managed evidence of being FFXIV's Lancer class.)
Deeper is a relative term. If you want to subjectively call that amount of depth "shallow" (with the assumption that obviously the other MMORPGs are shallower) then you're free to. But without evidence of combat that is at least as hard to play perfectly as WOW, you aren't really saying anything (except that you apparently think the entire genre is extremely shallow.)
GW2 uses D3 style waypoints, so why do you care which game gets mentioned? It's all the same thing.
As for death penalty, objectively fewer players are (subjectively) interested in the game slapping them in the face after failure. The most common source of fun in games by far is pattern mastery (Koster, 2004). Players play games for fun, not for punishment. Death still has meaning in these games because you don't get a reward unless you win. Any extra "meaning" that the slap-in-the-face theoretically provides isn't worth the fact that you're being slapped in the face and most gamers don't play games seeking pain and punishment. Some masochistic ones do seek pain, but that group is objectively few in number.
Why bring up Lineage 2? It's one of many games that released +/- 1 year from WOW (the so-called "right time".) It was known as the poster child of korean grinder MMORPGs, which meant it wasn't considered high quality, which is why it's unsurprising that it didn't achieve success anywhere close to WOW.
WOW was a game with the right design, right IP, right art, right performance, right controls, and right marketing. Those are the reasons it succeeded. The design decisions in particular are the reason players stuck around long-term (any big company can throw a lot of money at installs, but only a well-designed deep game is going to have those players stick around with high retention.)
Understanding all those factors and then dismissing it as "right time, right place" is willful ignorance. All of these factors are in front of you (in particular the depth of its core activity) and you seem to assume success isn't always the result of a bunch of deterministic factors (and it always is.)
Does this mean I believe a well-designed game will always achieve amazing success? Of course not. I've designed well-designed games and watched them tank due to lack of support from the other departments. Anyone making the "right time" argument is essentially claiming Blizzard was lucky, when their track record had been hit after hit leading up to that point. You don't release hit after hit with luck.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Calling a game objectively deeper on a value that is only subjectively considered a form of depth (how many buttons you press in a predefined sequence) is not logical.
GW2 as a counterpoint on travel is the case of bringing up a game that is billed as an MMO and exists in the same subsequent genre.
And here you use contradiction again with "objectively fewer players are (subjectively)". An objective claim of a subjective value is not meaningful in any way.
I do believe my own statement as well was "right place for the right product at the right time" not simply "right time, right place" as you put it, as that was my commentary on your simplification and attribution of factors that were not congruent with the game's state at release or otherwise was dismissive of the factors involved with the game's launch beyond it's performance as an isolated value as you had presented it.
In other words, you should really stop trying to deflect your errors.
Lineage 2 was brought up because it has been recognized in it's popularity for many reasons well beyond the one counterargument you presented. Sure, it is brought up as the poster child of "asian grinder" mmos, but it is also a game that's brought up in reference to implementation of in-game laws, crafting systems, player politics, pvp combat and management, and many other aspects of MMO wherein it has offered a different take or features as a still popular eastern title.
Designing a game and seeing it well implemented are two very different realities. Something can look great on paper and be terrible in practice, so anything you want to claim should be done so with a container of salt at the ready.
EDIT: Also a point on the comment citing Koster.
"Different genres of game present different problem types [GDCA: Games Are Math slides posted]. These often cluster around specific things such as estimation of trajectory, odds calculation, solving NP-hard problems, and so on. People will come to these different games and different problem types with their existing pattern libraries, and therefore have “built in” skills in dealing with one type of game versus another."
(Koster, 2013)
Also worth noting that Koster admitted "I intentionally excluded a lot of stuff we call 'fun' from the definition." (GDC Vault "A Theory of Fun 10 Years Later")
In this diatribe he actually refers to the fact that his game theory only applies to a single component of what forms of entertainment engage people, calling it "kfun" as it only applies to the release of dopamine in relation to satisfaction of figuring out a problem. This is followed with a reference to research by Irving Bierdman and Edward A Vessel of "Research says that dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' systems." to which he relates there is a considerably broader spectrum for things to engage one than singularly "kfun".
Narrowing the argument by using an intentionally finite definition of what can and does entertain players in order to fulfill personal interest is not conducive to forming a good argument nor is it good for making a well-designed game. If all one wants to do with treadmill the same basic concepts over and over again it might be good enough, but otherwise even Koster demonstrates realization it falls woefully short.
Understanding patterns extends into the concept of understanding how objects move, how things interact with one another, playing fields and player/AI behavior, puzzle logic, hazard recognition and avoidance, etc. That you seem to simplify 'pattern recognition' to it's most basic level does a disservice to Koster and game design in general. There is a reason there is a wide array of genres where things shift between platforms and jumping puzzles into first person action, brawler combo mechanics, and the macro/micro skills of RTS management. IT's all functionally a matter of learning the mechanics of any given system and the patterns therein, but it is by no means as simple or finite as memorizing a hot-bar queue. What players derive "fun" from as consequence varies greatly, and as koster points out himself "kfun" (dopamine release from problem solving) is but a finite aspect of the overall spectrum that game theory and design provides.
Post edited by Deivos on
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Calling a game objectively deeper on a value that is only subjectively considered a form of depth (how many buttons you press in a predefined sequence) is not logical.
And here you use contradiction again with "objectively fewer players are (subjectively)". An objective claim of a subjective value is not meaningful in any way.
Lineage 2 was brought up because it has been recognized in it's popularity for many reasons well beyond the one counterargument you presented. Sure, it is brought up as the poster child of "asian grinder" mmos, but it is also a game that's brought up in reference to implementation of in-game laws, crafting systems, player politics, pvp combat and management, and many other aspects of MMO wherein it has offered a different take or features as a still popular eastern title.
Designing a game and seeing it well implemented are two very different realities. Something can look great on paper and be terrible in practice, so anything you want to claim should be done so with a container of salt at the ready.
EDIT: Also a point on the comment citing Koster.
"Different genres of game present different problem types [GDCA: Games Are Math slides posted]. These often cluster around specific things such as estimation of trajectory, odds calculation, solving NP-hard problems, and so on. People will come to these different games and different problem types with their existing pattern libraries, and therefore have “built in” skills in dealing with one type of game versus another."
(Koster, 2013)
Also worth noting that Koster admitted "I intentionally excluded a lot of stuff we call 'fun' from the definition." (GDC Vault "A Theory of Fun 10 Years Later")
In this diatribe he actually refers to the fact that his game theory only applies to a single component of what forms of entertainment engage people, calling it "kfun" as it only applies to the release of dopamine in relation to satisfaction of figuring out a problem. This is followed with a reference to research by Irving Bierdman and Edward A Vessel of "Research says that dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' systems." to which he relates there is a considerably broader spectrum for things to engage one than singularly "kfun".
Narrowing the argument by using an intentionally finite definition of what can and does entertain players in order to fulfill personal interest is not conducive to forming a good argument nor is it good for making a well-designed game. If all one wants to do with treadmill the same basic concepts over and over again it might be good enough, but otherwise even Koster demonstrates realization it falls woefully short.
Understanding patterns extends into the concept of understanding how objects move, how things interact with one another, playing fields and player/AI behavior, puzzle logic, hazard recognition and avoidance, etc. That you seem to simplify 'pattern recognition' to it's most basic level does a disservice to Koster and game design in general. There is a reason there is a wide array of genres where things shift between platforms and jumping puzzles into first person action, brawler combo mechanics, and the macro/micro skills of RTS management. IT's all functionally a matter of learning the mechanics of any given system and the patterns therein, but it is by no means as simple or finite as memorizing a hot-bar queue. What players derive "fun" from as consequence varies greatly, and as koster points out himself "kfun" (dopamine release from problem solving) is but a finite aspect of the overall spectrum that game theory and design provides.
The game is deeper based on the difficulty involved in mastering it. While that does take the form of an elaborate button sequence here, I wouldn't reject other forms of depth that were presented with solid evidence. However no evidence has been presented at all -- just your vague criticism. Vague criticism is useless.
The games industry is literally built upon the objective traits of subjective opinions. So yeah, it matters if (objective) millions of players subjectively enjoy your game. It matters a lot.
Nobody's saying Lineage 2 was devoid of merit. Its minor redeeming values were the reason it achieved its 2 million player plateau (otherwise it would've done worse.) But we're discussing how WOW's much higher quality and depth caused it to be far better than that comparative mediocrity. And the big difference is WOW didn't stumble over basics like excessive grindy repetition.
Koster excluding things called fun is consistent with the way I always describe his book: his book describes the most common way fun is experienced in games. In a recent thread I tried explaining just how deep pattern mastery goes, because players understandably don't understand just how many patterns exist. But once you understand how many patterns there are, you see that they definitely constitute the majority of ways players experience fun in games.
That other thread predates this one. So no, any evidence of a MMORPG with deeper patterns than WOW would be accepted. That evidence doesn't have to be a more complicated button rotation. It could be anything genuinely deeper that happens with similar frequency (because spreading depth over too much time makes it shallow.)
But until you have that evidence, you're making vague (and therefore useless) criticism. Do you have evidence of a deeper MMORPG than WOW? No? Well then my theory that game quality (which includes game depth) was a huge part of WOW's success seems undaunted by this mini-novel you've written.
(Also, given that we're talking about a mainstream game whose success did rely on this most common type of fun, pointing out that other types of fun exist is largely irrelevant. We're discussing WOW, and WOW provided this type of pattern mastery much more liberally than other MMORPGs (both historic and modern) and that was a significant contributing factor to the game's success.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I watched about 5 minutes of it from the recommend start point. It mostly sounds like an ad for his class and less of an actual lesson. It also sounds like rambling nonsense.
People who are forced to teach as a side project, forced to make Youtube tutorial, are ALWAYS people who didn't make it in the free open market.
NEVER trust a person who didn't succeed in the open market, telling you how to succeed.
NEVER trust Youtube tutorials, seminars, TEDtalks, telling you how to succeed. If these people had any idea how to succeed in the open market, they wouldn't be doing those low paying speeches.
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO.
Have you met Blizzard? Their whole concept is to eschew experimentation, leave that to others, and just copy what everyone liked in MMOs A, B and C. Those MMOs then fail, because they can't match the maturity of Blizz's 10+ year old code, and the new ideas these new games implemented either get assimilated into WoW, or forgotten until MOO design idea come full circle again in a decade or so.
And just to brighten everyone's day, here is the MMO joke of the week, brought to you by our fellow forumite Axehilt: "And the big difference is WOW didn't stumble over basics like excessive grindy repetition."
Give the man a hand! It doesn't get much better than this!
You can sell Heroin and make more money then selling school supplies. Doesn't mean everyone should run out and sell Heroin. But Heroin is out there because people pay a lot of money for it.
If I'm a big publisher like EA I can make the preemo pure next level intensity Heroin and sell it. You will look at it and go "man I HATE this stuff, I cry every time I use this product. WHY do I buy this shiit" and then you'll take a hit and spend $300 on it Use it for 2 weeks then go into depression.
I ran a lot of RPG and board games at my house with a lot of friends. It's great, we all have a lot of fun and I don't charge a dime.
Stop buying Heroin
Don't take a hit of Heroin just because your friends are doing it
LOL and they paid this guy to make this speech,i have been saying this from day 1.
MY most famous statement is ....if Wow is so good why is it every time we hear talk about Wow it NEVER talks about the game,it always talks about the numbers.
It is no different than looking at casinos.Casinos are not smart or great,it is stupid naive people that make Casinos rich.
"NEVER"?
What on earth are you talking about? WOW's gameplay gets talked about all the time.
The topic I bring up most frequently being how WOW's Demonology rotation (and several other similarly deep rotations) serve as strong evidence of the game's combat depth. Since depth is what makes games interesting, I always make a point to ask others for similar evidence of depth in other MMORPGs. In all the times I've asked it there has been one example from one game (FFXIV's Lancer) that was similarly deep.
But how could you call this type of combat "deep", if all you need to do to win is get an autohotkey program and macro it?
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
I agree, by reading most of the comments in this thread, you would think most of the posters are investors in some mmorpg company! Its not about making a game you as a designer would play, but designing the system that milks the most cash from the "playerbase"...
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
This is a very weird view. Why would you prefer devs who know nothing and just make things based on blind faith?
Sure .. you can complain they don't cater to your preferences, but if they do, don't you want them to do it right?
The reason why Blizz is so successful is because they test, test and test more. Dig up some of their GDC presentations. They will try many solution for a simple thing (like healing) and run tests to see how players play, and find the design that fit the game the best.
(Also, given that we're talking about a mainstream game whose success did rely on this most common type of fun, pointing out that other types of fun exist is largely irrelevant. We're discussing WOW, and WOW provided this type of pattern mastery much more liberally than other MMORPGs (both historic and modern) and that was a significant contributing factor to the game's success.)
Repeating the same flawed logic does not make it logical.
A subjective value remains subjective. To build objective data you have to draw conclusions based on knowable and traceable factors. That does not include explicitly "fun" in that matter, that is a statement more so of addiction.
Your assertions on Koster end up being mostly contradictions of his own remarks, but there is the point that "kfun" is an exceptionally finite aspect of the overall spectrum of ways in which human brains are engaged for entertainment. TV for example very seldom instigates dopamine from problem solving, and a majority of twitch shooters follows suit. To proclaim the success of a single title and a narrow band of a genre to be symbolic of the genre when there are considerably larger genre groups which succeed without reliance on that form of dopamine release doesn't work.
All we are left with as an argument is your demand for 'evidence of a game with "deeper patterns". IT's a meaningless situation at best with the realization that you've already established what is ultimately a very opinion driven scenario. Like someone might suggest GW2 as having technically deep combat mechanics, but because they don't rely on particularly complex upfront schemes and instead offer a controlled set of abilities with some relatively flat individual use it is readily hand-waved before the points about combo fields and cross/class ability synergy comes up. Or someone might bring up an even more distinct contrast of a shooter like Planetside wherein the base controls are little more than aim, shoot, melee, and grenade. And yet there is the realization that much of that belies the complexity of user kit configurations, weapon types and balances, functions, secondary tools, vehicles, placed equipment, troop tactics, etc.
WoW focused on one very particular type of gameplay and setup with a depth that is served in it's own narrow band. When comparing such a finite band of mechanics and concepts you might have an argument, but as always (and has been the problem with your arguments in the past) things don't exist in a vacuum. You're discussing WoW, we're discussing MMOs.
Seeing as you already attempted to misquote me and make false arguments a couple times in your responses, it seems you haven't changed much from vehemently arguing a particular opinion to the point of manipulation, so not much further to be said.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
This is a very weird view. Why would you prefer devs who know nothing and just make things based on blind faith?
Sure .. you can complain they don't cater to your preferences, but if they do, don't you want them to do it right?
The reason why Blizz is so successful is because they test, test and test more. Dig up some of their GDC presentations. They will try many solution for a simple thing (like healing) and run tests to see how players play, and find the design that fit the game the best.
Now that is polish and fun.
I suppose I don't believe in the idea that something can be made enjoyable when done in such a mechanical way. I'd rather someone come up with an idea and execute it as best they can without a formulaic equation. Instead just let it flow out like an artist who is painting a picture.
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
I agree, by reading most of the comments in this thread, you would think most of the posters are investors in some mmorpg company! Its not about making a game you as a designer would play, but designing the system that milks the most cash from the "playerbase"...
I generally agree with you. It sounds more like developers than it does like players. It also sounds like they are more interested in the financial game then the actual game in most cases.
I suppose I don't believe in the idea that something can be made enjoyable when done in such a mechanical way. I'd rather someone come up with an idea and execute it as best they can without a formulaic equation. Instead just let it flow out like an artist who is painting a picture.
"enjoyable" is subjective.
For me, most Blizz games are enjoyable, abate clearly not forever. So yeah, i totally think their way of iterating game design (in what you said a mechanical way) is 100% great for my enjoyment.
Someone executing "best" without iterating through play-testing? That "best" is just not good enough for me. But again, that is just me.
You are watching too much artsy movies .. games don't "flow out" like a painting. It involves lots of hard work of adjusting and testing code, graphics, game play systems, and details.
This thread is a good example of why I don't believe I like MMOs anymore.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
You seem to think that good game design and profit are mutually exclusive. They're not: In fact I just provided strong evidence that the best-designed MMORPG also made the most money.
This implies that if money is the goal, good game design is also the goal. While you can do a lot of little things to produce superior short-term revenue, long-term revenue is reliant on the quality of your product.
You also seem to think experimentation doesn't happen, which is strange because more experimental games are released yearly than ever. If you value experimental games, then play them!
Just don't expect the most expensive genre to be the one that provides experimentation. In fact don't expect a whole lot of experimentation by the time you can call it a genre, because a genre by definition is a set of constraints that defines a certain type of game (and if you want experimentation, you deliberately want to ignore those constraints and make something new.)
I've never taken a single game design class. My comments are rooted in personal experience, observable traits of the industry, and books from even more experienced individuals (though Koster's and Schell's were the only two I found truly useful. Most of the others I've read were essentially devoid of useful info, with maybe 1-2 others being a little useful for newer designers.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You seem to think that good game design and profit are mutually exclusive.
There are lots of evidence to show that clearly it is not (given that "good" is subjective). Take Deus Ex Human Evolution as an example. It has very good reviews, and like by many (hence "good" for the critics and player), and it sold well.
Comments
Measuring the Experience of Digital Game Enjoyment
A paper where the goal was to measure enjoyment in games. So they start out assuming the premise. Paper includes things like "stepping outside the traditional science box" (sounds like an ad for homeopathy).
The study involved a lot of different kinds of test but the fMRI portion used the "Think aloud protocol" where you describe your subjective feelings.
An initial scan the artificial never states that fMRI proved the enjoyment was objectively measured. Only that they hoped to do so in the future.
I have work in 30 minutes so I'll go through the rest after.
Actually I can deal with this one nowThink Aloud during fMRI: Neuronal Correlates of Subjective Experience in Video Games:
Here is the abstract, in whole:
Experience of computer games can be assessed indirectly by measuring physiological responses and relating the pattern to assumed emotional states or directly by introspection of the player. We combine both approaches by measuring brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during Think Aloud (TA). TA assesses subjects’ thoughts and feelings during the game play. The comments and playing behavior were recorded while the brain scans were performed, content of game and TA was analyzed, and related to the brain activation. The fMRI data illustrated that brain activation can be matched to behavioral and experiential content. One category (focus) was associated with increased visual activity and its displeasurable experience with preparatory motor activity. We argue that the combination of subjective introspective with neurophysiological data can 1) reveal meaningful neural mechanisms and 2) validate the introspective method.
What is this? It never claims it found an objective standard for enjoyment? That is was based on subjective introspection and they where HOPING to validate the introspective method. Not saying the researches did anything wrong or where being dishonest, but they didn't walk away with an objective standard for enjoyment. So posting it in this context as if they did is dishonest on your part.
Once the measurement and analysis techniques become sophisticated enough, we'll be able to make games that will be guaranteed to be smash hits in their target market !
You will not be able to resist buying them, because you'll be absolutely sure that game X is "your type of game", just compare its classification to your "entertainment profile definition" !
I will not live long enough to experience that, and I'm somehow thankfull...
MY most famous statement is ....if Wow is so good why is it every time we hear talk about Wow it NEVER talks about the game,it always talks about the numbers.
It is no different than looking at casinos.Casinos are not smart or great,it is stupid naive people that make Casinos rich.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
But yeah ... it is already happening, and only going to become better.
Here is a company that actual uses neuro-methods (not fMRI though) to do video games research. http://www.hcdi.net/video-game/
What on earth are you talking about? WOW's gameplay gets talked about all the time.
The topic I bring up most frequently being how WOW's Demonology rotation (and several other similarly deep rotations) serve as strong evidence of the game's combat depth. Since depth is what makes games interesting, I always make a point to ask others for similar evidence of depth in other MMORPGs. In all the times I've asked it there has been one example from one game (FFXIV's Lancer) that was similarly deep.
Many other conversations about WOW's design decisions get discussed often, like fast travel or death penalty.
WOW is slightly off on perfect travel design (Diablo 3 is close to the ideal, giving players the option to instantly fast travel anywhere they've previously explored by slow travel,) but better than a lot of early MMORPGs. This is good entertainment for the same reason that a movie will show you 5 seconds of travel montage instead of the many hours or days that the travel would actually take. It gets to the point. It covers only events relevant to the viewer, and avoids wasting the viewer's time with dull drudgery.
WOW is slightly off on death penalty too, but far better than earlier MMORPGs which wasted players time with penalties ("I can't play the game for the next 10 mins while my vitae penalty wears off") and drudgery ("I can't experience deeper game systems like combat until I've finished this shallow corpse run.")
WOW is good because they made the right design decisions. Decisions to fill players' time with rich, deep gameplay. It isn't the richest or the deepest, but it is richer and deeper than other MMORPGs, and in the end that led to its superior financial situation.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Games like movies depend on popularity, not so much in individuals but in groups of gamers. The better the group response the more successful the game.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The other arguments are pretty subjective as well, and for travel you might as well have replaced it with GW2 as the best example fitting your suggested prime model.
Death penalty constantly has the counterargument that the penalty should have meaning, not simply being a slap on the wrist for failure. IE, "make death matter and be a threat to overcome as otherwise it's pointless to even be dying" tends to be the opposing stance.
WoW is mostly like Star Wars, right place for the right product at the right time. It didn't have to be the best, it had to be the opener to enough new ideas to a market sitting on the edge of wanting to experience something different. Blizzard has a positive reputation backing it up as well, which makes a world of difference for people coming out of the RTS fandom of Blizz' and elsewhere to hype the game into it's popularity.
This is why other people also bring up Lineage 2 as the counter to WoW at times when talking about game quality and popularity.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Example if you portray your game as a mmorpg it had better be a mmorpg and not just some single player game with a login screen.
We can use your DENTIST analogy,if you went to the Dentist and he pulls out a hockey stick and says lets play a game,then it is bad,you went there for dentistry work ,not a hockey game.
So if it cannot do a mmorpg justice in it's design,it is a bad game design.That is not a case of weather i like each individual idea or not,all ideas can likely work in some type of game just not in every game or do not belong in every game.
I will use another example that bothers me of late.Somersaults who the heck thought adding in somersaults to a mmorpg would feel natural,good or realistic,this is not gymnastics were are playing here.Or how about jump puzzle ideas in a rpg,how does that even make a single shred of sense?Or xp for doing quests,again how does that make sense that your Warrior becomes a better Warrior from delivering some mug to another npc?
There are MANY more examples,it just looks to me like no care or thought is put into game design,it is simply "oh that is a cool idea,let's toss it in there,even if it makes no sense at all.It is like that game that was adding in hover boards..seriously?What's next medieval games with space ships and basketballs?
So i feel at least to me,it is quite alright to use the term BAD without any bias whatsoever.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Game depth is a measure of how difficult it is to play perfectly.
WOW is objectively deeper than virtually all other MMORPGs (with the only exception anyone has managed evidence of being FFXIV's Lancer class.)
Deeper is a relative term. If you want to subjectively call that amount of depth "shallow" (with the assumption that obviously the other MMORPGs are shallower) then you're free to. But without evidence of combat that is at least as hard to play perfectly as WOW, you aren't really saying anything (except that you apparently think the entire genre is extremely shallow.)
GW2 uses D3 style waypoints, so why do you care which game gets mentioned? It's all the same thing.
As for death penalty, objectively fewer players are (subjectively) interested in the game slapping them in the face after failure. The most common source of fun in games by far is pattern mastery (Koster, 2004). Players play games for fun, not for punishment. Death still has meaning in these games because you don't get a reward unless you win. Any extra "meaning" that the slap-in-the-face theoretically provides isn't worth the fact that you're being slapped in the face and most gamers don't play games seeking pain and punishment. Some masochistic ones do seek pain, but that group is objectively few in number.
Why bring up Lineage 2? It's one of many games that released +/- 1 year from WOW (the so-called "right time".) It was known as the poster child of korean grinder MMORPGs, which meant it wasn't considered high quality, which is why it's unsurprising that it didn't achieve success anywhere close to WOW.
WOW was a game with the right design, right IP, right art, right performance, right controls, and right marketing. Those are the reasons it succeeded. The design decisions in particular are the reason players stuck around long-term (any big company can throw a lot of money at installs, but only a well-designed deep game is going to have those players stick around with high retention.)
Understanding all those factors and then dismissing it as "right time, right place" is willful ignorance. All of these factors are in front of you (in particular the depth of its core activity) and you seem to assume success isn't always the result of a bunch of deterministic factors (and it always is.)
Does this mean I believe a well-designed game will always achieve amazing success? Of course not. I've designed well-designed games and watched them tank due to lack of support from the other departments. Anyone making the "right time" argument is essentially claiming Blizzard was lucky, when their track record had been hit after hit leading up to that point. You don't release hit after hit with luck.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
GW2 as a counterpoint on travel is the case of bringing up a game that is billed as an MMO and exists in the same subsequent genre.
And here you use contradiction again with "objectively fewer players are (subjectively)". An objective claim of a subjective value is not meaningful in any way.
I do believe my own statement as well was "right place for the right product at the right time" not simply "right time, right place" as you put it, as that was my commentary on your simplification and attribution of factors that were not congruent with the game's state at release or otherwise was dismissive of the factors involved with the game's launch beyond it's performance as an isolated value as you had presented it.
In other words, you should really stop trying to deflect your errors.
Lineage 2 was brought up because it has been recognized in it's popularity for many reasons well beyond the one counterargument you presented. Sure, it is brought up as the poster child of "asian grinder" mmos, but it is also a game that's brought up in reference to implementation of in-game laws, crafting systems, player politics, pvp combat and management, and many other aspects of MMO wherein it has offered a different take or features as a still popular eastern title.
Designing a game and seeing it well implemented are two very different realities. Something can look great on paper and be terrible in practice, so anything you want to claim should be done so with a container of salt at the ready.
EDIT: Also a point on the comment citing Koster.
"Different genres of game present different problem types [GDCA: Games Are Math slides posted]. These often cluster around specific things such as estimation of trajectory, odds calculation, solving NP-hard problems, and so on. People will come to these different games and different problem types with their existing pattern libraries, and therefore have “built in” skills in dealing with one type of game versus another."
(Koster, 2013)
Also worth noting that Koster admitted "I intentionally excluded a lot of stuff we call 'fun' from the definition." (GDC Vault "A Theory of Fun 10 Years Later")
In this diatribe he actually refers to the fact that his game theory only applies to a single component of what forms of entertainment engage people, calling it "kfun" as it only applies to the release of dopamine in relation to satisfaction of figuring out a problem. This is followed with a reference to research by Irving Bierdman and Edward A Vessel of "Research says that dopamine can release for 'richly interpretable' systems." to which he relates there is a considerably broader spectrum for things to engage one than singularly "kfun".
Narrowing the argument by using an intentionally finite definition of what can and does entertain players in order to fulfill personal interest is not conducive to forming a good argument nor is it good for making a well-designed game. If all one wants to do with treadmill the same basic concepts over and over again it might be good enough, but otherwise even Koster demonstrates realization it falls woefully short.
Understanding patterns extends into the concept of understanding how objects move, how things interact with one another, playing fields and player/AI behavior, puzzle logic, hazard recognition and avoidance, etc. That you seem to simplify 'pattern recognition' to it's most basic level does a disservice to Koster and game design in general. There is a reason there is a wide array of genres where things shift between platforms and jumping puzzles into first person action, brawler combo mechanics, and the macro/micro skills of RTS management. IT's all functionally a matter of learning the mechanics of any given system and the patterns therein, but it is by no means as simple or finite as memorizing a hot-bar queue. What players derive "fun" from as consequence varies greatly, and as koster points out himself "kfun" (dopamine release from problem solving) is but a finite aspect of the overall spectrum that game theory and design provides.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
The games industry is literally built upon the objective traits of subjective opinions. So yeah, it matters if (objective) millions of players subjectively enjoy your game. It matters a lot.
Nobody's saying Lineage 2 was devoid of merit. Its minor redeeming values were the reason it achieved its 2 million player plateau (otherwise it would've done worse.) But we're discussing how WOW's much higher quality and depth caused it to be far better than that comparative mediocrity. And the big difference is WOW didn't stumble over basics like excessive grindy repetition.
Koster excluding things called fun is consistent with the way I always describe his book: his book describes the most common way fun is experienced in games. In a recent thread I tried explaining just how deep pattern mastery goes, because players understandably don't understand just how many patterns exist. But once you understand how many patterns there are, you see that they definitely constitute the majority of ways players experience fun in games.
That other thread predates this one. So no, any evidence of a MMORPG with deeper patterns than WOW would be accepted. That evidence doesn't have to be a more complicated button rotation. It could be anything genuinely deeper that happens with similar frequency (because spreading depth over too much time makes it shallow.)
But until you have that evidence, you're making vague (and therefore useless) criticism. Do you have evidence of a deeper MMORPG than WOW? No? Well then my theory that game quality (which includes game depth) was a huge part of WOW's success seems undaunted by this mini-novel you've written.
(Also, given that we're talking about a mainstream game whose success did rely on this most common type of fun, pointing out that other types of fun exist is largely irrelevant. We're discussing WOW, and WOW provided this type of pattern mastery much more liberally than other MMORPGs (both historic and modern) and that was a significant contributing factor to the game's success.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
NEVER trust a person who didn't succeed in the open market, telling you how to succeed.
NEVER trust Youtube tutorials, seminars, TEDtalks, telling you how to succeed. If these people had any idea how to succeed in the open market, they wouldn't be doing those low paying speeches.
Everyone is very logical and post their points for and against certain things.
Everyone is basically thinking as a person who wants to make money more than anything else.
The best game can be achieved by gathering logical data from users and building a game based on that.
The way I can generally tell if someone is passionate about what they are doing is if they will shout loudly about what they like no matter what other people say or what logic is presented before them.
When an industry is in it's infancy there is a lot of room for experimentation and not many people really gave much thought to what others liked IMO. They just put something together they liked, put it out there so to speak, and if people liked it so be it.
I'd rather people just make games and not go to classes to learn (how to do it right). This often takes away all creativity of the people making the game and makes no sense unless they are in it just from a money making point of view.
And just to brighten everyone's day, here is the MMO joke of the week, brought to you by our fellow forumite Axehilt:
"And the big difference is WOW didn't stumble over basics like excessive grindy repetition."
Give the man a hand! It doesn't get much better than this!
You can sell Heroin and make more money then selling school supplies. Doesn't mean everyone should run out and sell Heroin. But Heroin is out there because people pay a lot of money for it.
If I'm a big publisher like EA I can make the preemo pure next level intensity Heroin and sell it. You will look at it and go "man I HATE this stuff, I cry every time I use this product. WHY do I buy this shiit" and then you'll take a hit and spend $300 on it Use it for 2 weeks then go into depression.
I ran a lot of RPG and board games at my house with a lot of friends. It's great, we all have a lot of fun and I don't charge a dime.
Stop buying Heroin
Don't take a hit of Heroin just because your friends are doing it
Just say no to Heroin
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
I agree, by reading most of the comments in this thread, you would think most of the posters are investors in some mmorpg company! Its not about making a game you as a designer would play, but designing the system that milks the most cash from the "playerbase"...
Sure .. you can complain they don't cater to your preferences, but if they do, don't you want them to do it right?
The reason why Blizz is so successful is because they test, test and test more. Dig up some of their GDC presentations. They will try many solution for a simple thing (like healing) and run tests to see how players play, and find the design that fit the game the best.
Now that is polish and fun.
A subjective value remains subjective. To build objective data you have to draw conclusions based on knowable and traceable factors. That does not include explicitly "fun" in that matter, that is a statement more so of addiction.
Your assertions on Koster end up being mostly contradictions of his own remarks, but there is the point that "kfun" is an exceptionally finite aspect of the overall spectrum of ways in which human brains are engaged for entertainment. TV for example very seldom instigates dopamine from problem solving, and a majority of twitch shooters follows suit. To proclaim the success of a single title and a narrow band of a genre to be symbolic of the genre when there are considerably larger genre groups which succeed without reliance on that form of dopamine release doesn't work.
All we are left with as an argument is your demand for 'evidence of a game with "deeper patterns". IT's a meaningless situation at best with the realization that you've already established what is ultimately a very opinion driven scenario. Like someone might suggest GW2 as having technically deep combat mechanics, but because they don't rely on particularly complex upfront schemes and instead offer a controlled set of abilities with some relatively flat individual use it is readily hand-waved before the points about combo fields and cross/class ability synergy comes up. Or someone might bring up an even more distinct contrast of a shooter like Planetside wherein the base controls are little more than aim, shoot, melee, and grenade. And yet there is the realization that much of that belies the complexity of user kit configurations, weapon types and balances, functions, secondary tools, vehicles, placed equipment, troop tactics, etc.
WoW focused on one very particular type of gameplay and setup with a depth that is served in it's own narrow band. When comparing such a finite band of mechanics and concepts you might have an argument, but as always (and has been the problem with your arguments in the past) things don't exist in a vacuum. You're discussing WoW, we're discussing MMOs.
Seeing as you already attempted to misquote me and make false arguments a couple times in your responses, it seems you haven't changed much from vehemently arguing a particular opinion to the point of manipulation, so not much further to be said.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
For me, most Blizz games are enjoyable, abate clearly not forever. So yeah, i totally think their way of iterating game design (in what you said a mechanical way) is 100% great for my enjoyment.
Someone executing "best" without iterating through play-testing? That "best" is just not good enough for me. But again, that is just me.
You are watching too much artsy movies .. games don't "flow out" like a painting. It involves lots of hard work of adjusting and testing code, graphics, game play systems, and details.
This implies that if money is the goal, good game design is also the goal. While you can do a lot of little things to produce superior short-term revenue, long-term revenue is reliant on the quality of your product.
You also seem to think experimentation doesn't happen, which is strange because more experimental games are released yearly than ever. If you value experimental games, then play them!
Just don't expect the most expensive genre to be the one that provides experimentation. In fact don't expect a whole lot of experimentation by the time you can call it a genre, because a genre by definition is a set of constraints that defines a certain type of game (and if you want experimentation, you deliberately want to ignore those constraints and make something new.)
I've never taken a single game design class. My comments are rooted in personal experience, observable traits of the industry, and books from even more experienced individuals (though Koster's and Schell's were the only two I found truly useful. Most of the others I've read were essentially devoid of useful info, with maybe 1-2 others being a little useful for newer designers.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver