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Loot Theory In Modern Games
HDRL is running an analysis of loot systems in modern games. They talk about how in-game rewards, formerly the domain of RPGs and adventure games with powerups, have expanded to exist in every genre, as achievements and unlockable bonuses have become standard fare.
"For the majority of gamers, once the novelty is gone, they move on. To keep players interested, rewards are required. ... The Diablo series is a perfect example of the theory in effect. Just as in the story of the donkey and the carrot, a game's rewards cannot be too frequent, nor can it be too infrequent. If rewards are too frequent, they lose value in the eyes of the player, and they lose interest. If the rewards are too infrequent, the player loses sight of the carrot, and likely loses motivation to keep playing."
On Newgrounds, many of the new flash games posted there have an achievements system, it's like they have to have it these days. And that is a good thing imho, I enjoy getting these too. The game will have more play value for me due to wanting to achieve these things. It's not like we're drones made to play games right? The achievements make it fun, and that's good. Right?
In addition the Booty Theory also works, if your audience is male.
The way it works is: Add lots of hot women into your game.
You can mix the two, to get the Booty Loot Theory, in which the in-game character gets laid a lot.
I like using other peoples loot. I also like making my own loot.
Games like that are ones that allow hacking around with the game to make new mods and redesign the game.
Who here still lays Mechwarrior 3? Betcha not many. Now, how many play Total Annihilation? Knowing about the multitude of mod sites and Spring, quite a lot.
There's no unlockables in TA, other than mission mode and the tiers of technology, but that's expected in RTS'es. There's no hidden 3rd faction or hidden maps.
And trust me, loading a completely new mod on the network and playing 6 friends on a mod that we've never seen is crazy as hell in a great way.
The game its self (story wise) can be ran through in a matter of hours... but then you can re-run the whole game over and over getting better equipment etc so you end up better/stronger/faster.
I know its a old idea, but its strange to see how well it still works. Also crazy how many people will just grind hours away going for one item which pops in huge rarities... (I remember spending weeks in parts of everquest trying to get said items off random bosses) and I'm pretty sure this must still happen in things like wow?
Really, where is this going to take us? I tend to wonder how this is going to change in the future, or will we always just be looking for the next great bit of loot? - Sounds like the other artical posted other day which basiclly said people grind for higher levels, when in reality i think better items are a far more lucritive reward.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Total score!
Really, who didn't do things like try to land on the 3,6,9 timer for Super Mario Bros? Who needs a study for that?
Then the big hit of crack comes in... groups. All of a sudden things start going faster. With another person you're able to complete the quests more easily. You can tackle quests above your level with someone else that you would have had to wait to handle on your own. At that point the whole game world opens up. It isn't just about you fighting some monsters. It is all about you and whoever else you can make friends with getting things done together. Questing solo gets boring and you start looking forward to doing it with others. That becomes the biggest reward. The social dynamic enters into the game. The team work aspect enters into the game. That is the best loot of all... especially for gamers who might not have strong social lives to begin with. All of a sudden they belong and they have a purpose. I see it quite frequently in WoW. There will a young guy (usually) who will farm materials all day to make potions for the guild to use while raiding. That person will farm materials so that other guildies can make better items for themselves. That person dervives pleasure and a sense of belonging by contributing to the efforts of the guild.
Has you heard of UO?
That's why there are so many promises of cake... test subjects... err, players... require rewards to stay motivated.
Bleep bloop
SoTN had some ultra-rare items that almost never dropped. So if you got one, you were blown away - and you would play the game over and over again to see what ultra rare you would get on the next playthrough.
It's called this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
That's what many of those games are :)
EVE has everything you liked about UO, but it is based on a modern scientific world rather than medieval magic. No character classes, just ancestry, specialization and career. Any character can do anything it wants with no limitations. No grind system either. Skills are trained in real time even if you are logged off. You won't be able to max out your skills in this game! PvP is inherent in this game - because the economy is so realistic, you can't do anything without affecting other players. They offer a free 14 day trial but be warned - this is no WoW.
While I grant you that games like WOW are extremely popular, even to the point of adiction, there are some players who avoid such games. I'm one and I want to say why I hope this "all games must have this" approach does not, in fact, come to pass.
I get a different type of achievement out of playing on-line games. I build my skill. I enjoy playing First Person Shooter games like Quake 3, Unreal, and other similar FPS games. But as long as I'm not playing against cheaters (and there definitely cheaters on-line), I can start any individual game on a fair footing against my opponents, the only factor that will influence who wins and who loses is player skill, not stupid repetitive tasks to build up some in-game form of currency that is then used to unbalance players. Even worse (IMHO) are the games that will sell players an edge for hard cash, making everyone who doesn't cough up money their licking boy. I see this as little more than a ligitimized and sanctioned cheat. I'm not going to buy the super weapon from some game supplier to over power the other players, and I'm not going to play in a game against people who do.
In a sense, even games like WOW sell the player better weapons or tools, they just do it by a rewards system (called loot here) that doles the advantages out over time. Thus the stupid requirements of repeditive tasks, "kill 1000 chipmunks and tan their pelts". So while the rich and vast world of WOW greatly appeals to me in eye candy value, I completely have no interest in playing it based on it's Hammurabi economy type of play. I neither wish to be some one's cannon fodder nor to be given what I consider an unfair advantage against others just because I completed some (usually extremely repetitive and boring) tasks.
I could see a loot system in games appeal to me, but it would have to be a system that doesn't affect overall game play, and as yet I have not seen such a system in play. In a game like Unreal, such a system could acknowledge players accomplishments with eye candy rewards that don't affect the actual game is any significant way. Perhaps extra and special skins granted to players for special acchevements (hopefully none that give an edge in being harder to see though, like all back ninja suits) or special flame paint jobs for a character' vehicles. Or a noble title added to a player's name (obviously not to be permitted when the name is first created). Granted, these type of things are harder to come up with than just "leveling up" a player to a level 95 Knight Elf Mohawk, or giving him a sword that has a +23 kick ass factor, but they prevent the games from favoring the players who have played the longest rather than favoring the better players (usually related but certainly not always). Loot systems have unfortunately come to replace the gaining of actual skill in the game play, and for that reason I hope that the prediction that is made in this article, while obviously a growing trend, does not come to completely dominate gaming.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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This is something that's been bugging me for a while, I could care less about loot. One of the things that keeps me from playing online RPGs is that the only thing they have to offer is "more loot". Warcraft players just talk about the loot they've gotten, or will get, and I'm playing Lord of the Rings Online right now and it's much more of the same.
We absolutely have to find a better reason to play than "loot". What about the joy of playing? What about the story? Are these things no longer important to us? Do we need that kind of reward to keep us in the game? I swear, games are becoming a sick reflection of our materialistic society in some ways.
I am looking for the analysis, not just a blog comment. Can someone provide a link?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
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That's what I hate about CoD4. When you start, not only it's hard to fight more experienced player, but on top of that they have better weapons, perks and all that. So what happens is that you're really widening the gap between experienced players, which means the "noobs" get "pwned" a lot more than they naturally should. I think that sort of system is pretty weak, and it calls for a rethinking of it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about removing that sort of promotion, or even reversing it. No, rather, I think it has to be approached differently. I won't solve the problem in 5 minutes of thinking time, but an idea could be instead of giving you an edge that makes you an even more deadly killing machine than you already were, you could gain access to new skills, no responsibilities, new capabilities that wouldn't make you more deadly a soldier but nevertheless achieve new things by gaining strategical advantages, i.e. you could gain some sort of intelligence and leadership others don't get so you could turn into a sort of leader. If you look at it, in CoD4 as you climb the rank ladder all you get is better guns and such. They could at least get some inspiration from reality, when you become a colonel in the Marines they don't reward you with an AK-47 and better ammo.
You just got troll'd!
While yes it helps with the replay value it also creates a culture that is constantly looking for more frequent rewards in the game. I have seen the older game not really care either way over this new reward system; the one that grew up with out it. However, I have seen the younger gamers become overly obsessed with it to the point that they will not play games with out this reward system in the game. Good or bad, I guess time will tell.
WoW copied all the Everquest ideas you mentioned above - quick quests, many quests, group quests. Everquest launched many years before WoW. WoW just had a much better marketing system with the success of the Warcraft line. But they didn't do anything groundbreaking.
Seriously, if you want a game where too much time is spent on side-missions, just try collecting all of the secrets in GTA3, Vice City, or San Andreas (or GTA4) without any guides to point you to where *insert objects* are. Hell, finding all of the oysters was pointless as hell in GTA:SA, yet plenty of people still did it
Now if you want a less-properly done example: Madden Cards in Madden 2002 (Sorry, I think that was the last Madden game I bought, maybe it was 2003). That was just frustrating.
So there you have it: nearly the most abstract Skinner Box conceivable. He had two buttons on the screen to press ("bet max" and "spin") and a display telling him he had been rewarded.
He played for something like three hours.
In hell, you will find a mountain of broken, feces-covered typewriters and a stack of copies of the First Folio.
If you think Larry gets laid a lot, you did not play the games :)
I long ago was sick of this, and it's getting worse and worse. Look at what's going on with Team Fortress 2, for example...
What's even worse, is the newer systems don't even have "Game Shark" like programs to unlock everything. I just want to have everything at my hands and play the game without having to jump through hoops to experience everything I already paid for!
I see the newfound prominence of loot systems as being a standard progression of the gaming culture as it moves beyond the somewhat antiquated and abstract point-system. Very few games outside puzzle games (especially narrative games) can get away with using abstract points as a compelling measure of performance for players anymore. Tying those rewards to in-game mechanics seems to be a much more fluid and logical approach. It is much more common and intuitive for players to discuss their progress in a game in terms of the accomplishments they've achieved and subsequent loot they've acquired than to simply compare scores.
BTW, Final Fantasy Origins (PS) has updated versions of the original Japanese Final Fantasy 1 (NES/Famicom) and 2 (Famicom). Final Fantasy 2 (SNES) released in America is actually Final Fantasy 4 (Super Famicom) in Japan.
FF4 was just re-released on the DS in both locations. I don't know if it has the Pink Tail item in it but I know for a fact that FFOrigins does not. :)