作者：Brian Poel

有人称许多社交游戏都怂恿（或强迫）玩家邀请朋友加入自己的阵营，但却并未提供鼓励大家欢聚游戏的有效方式。玩家时不时在涂鸦墙发布的贴子或者推送信息，请求好友帮忙搜集最新的“装饰品”以完成任务，这种方式其实只能反映玩家社群协作性和互动性的冰山一角。社交游戏据称可为玩家创造互动合作体验，那么我们应在哪些方面扬长避短，根据彼此熟悉的小群体玩家特点设计游戏？

cityville(from gamersunite.coolchaser.com)

大群体中的小帮派

虽然我对“搜集装饰品”这种机制有点不屑，但还是得承认它实际上催生了一种有趣的小团体行为——那些活跃玩家因彼此互助而创建了一个小帮派，他们与大量的非活跃玩家之间形成了鲜明对比。随着时间的发展，这些玩家就可以分辨出哪些好友是自己可以救助的对象，哪些是可有可无的朋友。他们的游戏行为也就演变成了一种“团体活动”。

Like按钮

在我的游戏玩伴中，有些人已经养成了每发送一个任务道具请求，就在涂鸦墙上“Like”该消息的习惯。当他们整理原来的贴子时，也会添加一条评论，声明自己还需要多少个“装饰品”才能完成任务。这是一种很有趣的求助广告，同时也有助于告知众人哪些人已对其伸出援手。我们并不是在布道说教，鼓励大家在私底下互帮互助，发扬做了好事不留名的传统美德，而应该认识到，这种行为可以让玩家通过好友的好友，与同样活跃在这款游戏中的其他玩家建立新的好友关系。

互惠主义

有些权威人士称这种社交互动行为“很邪恶”，因为它让玩家将好友视为一种可剥削挖掘的“资源”来利用，而且它还让玩家产生一种心理上的互惠期待；社交游戏中的虚拟礼物并非免费的午餐，它总会让玩家因“欠对方人情”而不得不投桃报李。

在这一点上，我也承认这类游戏确实让人们产生了一点社交压力，它也是这种互惠互利行为的“阴暗面”，但我还是更乐于从光明面来解读这种现象。与他人玩游戏其实比独自玩游戏更符合人的天性，它可以产生更多快乐和难以捉摸的愉悦感，同时也更易带来丰富的游戏体验。玩家知道自己在游戏中帮助了好友，同时也明白对方也会有所回报，这让他们产生了一种达成共识的责任感，并因此而获得成就感和满足感。

我认为目前的社交游戏在促进好友相互影响上所发挥的作用仍然有限，究竟怎样才能在一个“大型社交”游戏中创造一种亲密感呢？

个人交际圈

因为有了好友的支持（游戏邦注：尤其是关系非同一般的好友），整个社交游戏也就会对玩家产生非凡的意义。想想看，在《CityVille》这款游戏中，好友在你的城市中开店做生意，而且还为他们的商店取了极为搞笑的名字，这种感觉的确妙不可言。我真的很喜欢好友在我的地盘上打下他们自己的“烙印”，也很乐意在他们的城市中贴上我的建筑标签。

依赖感

这方面的典型是我最喜欢的一款非Facebook游戏《GoalLine Blitz》。它是一款足球游戏，其中有许多球员均由玩家操控。在一个公开的团队竞争环境中，你的成功与否取决于球队中其他玩家的表现。这就在玩家之间创造了一种极为强列的依赖感和互惠心理，以及一种强大的共荣共存的游戏体验。

存在感

在一些游戏的大群体中，玩家角色的存在性很容易被边缘化或者淡忘。所以理想的设计原则应该是最大限度地减少这种影响，或者创造一个严格限制标准，以免这种情况发生或者持续恶化。

kingdoms-of-camelot(from insidesocialgames)

在《Kingdoms of Camelot》（游戏邦注：以及其他题材类似于《Travian》的游戏）中，它的大型竞争机制设计主要考虑了超级公会之间的决斗这种情况。因为这种机制，玩家群体中难免会有领袖脱颖而出，而其他玩家则沦为默默无闻的小角色，失去了当初作为“基层人员”而为集体做贡献的那种热情。

对我来说，这种集体贡献的二八分配法则缺乏真正的合作性，开发者在设计过程中就应该考虑到玩家群体的最大规模限制，同时也要兼顾群体中每一名成员心里的参与感，以及他们渴望被其他成员认知的存在感。

需要指出的是，搜索维基百科和谷歌，就可以发现有些心理学研究已针对最佳团队成员数量的问题展开探讨。所以开发者应根据最理想玩家数量设计游戏，以保证玩家的参与度和活跃频率，不过这种方法可能更适用于一些针对细分市场的游戏，而非Zynga旗下这种老少皆宜、用户广泛的大众社交游戏。

异步玩法

我曾听说不少硬核游戏开发者称Facebook社交游戏未来发展趋势之一就是结合实时玩法，或使用Unity等高级的3D开发技术。但我认为这种说法多少忽略了社交游戏最重要的元素之一——与好友在异步状态下玩游戏。异步玩法不需要用户与好友在实时环境中共同参与游戏，但却仍然不失彼此互助之感，这一点实在很神奇。

过去的游戏玩家曾使用邮件玩角色扮演游戏，后来又通过在BBS发贴玩游戏，到今天还是有人通过电子邮件玩游戏。早期的棒球游戏玩家通过实体邮件进行互动，尽管这个行业早已充斥互联网和服务器等技术，但这种游戏仍然存在固有的异步特点。还有一种情况也很常见，我们常在第二天讨论昨天晚上看的电视节目内容，这也算是一种“异步”娱乐体验。

异步玩法具有一种悠闲而不会产生紧迫感的优点，它应该为开发者所推崇而非因技术局限性而将其抛弃。异步玩法本身就是一种充分、完整而有趣的游戏特点。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Designing for Small-Group Play in Social Games

Brian Poel

Many social games encourage (or coerce) players to invite as many friends as possible to join them, yet provide few meaningful ways for these friends to play the game together. The occasional wall post or notification asking friends for the latest “widget” to complete a quest is such a small gesture towards community and cooperation. Social games hold a unique promise towards collaborative play — but will we see innovation in this aspect of game design?

Small Groups within Larger Groups

Although I rag on the mechanic of ‘collecting widgets’, it does provide a window into an interesting aspect of small group behavior  – the active players cooperate with each other, creating a small group of collaborators amongst the larger group of not-as-active players. Over time, players figure out which of their friends can be depended on to help complete quests and which can’t. It can almost feel like a ‘team sport’ at that point.

The Like Button

Among my game-playing friends, some have evolved the habit of “Liking” wall posts when they send a requested quest item. Also when people place the original post, they’ll add a comment clarifying how many of the ‘widget’ they still need. It’s an interesting method of advertising for help, and also for the helper to let folks know that they have helped out. I know it’s not very biblical, as we should perform our good deeds in private, not shout them from the street corners, but this behavior can lead players to create a new Friend connections with a Friend-of-a-Friend, because you know that this new person is active in the same social games.

Reciprocity

Some pundits rail against this style of social interaction, calling it “evil”  because players treat their friends as ‘resources’ to be exploited, and because of the psychological hooks of expected reciprocity; the idea that any gift is not truly free, because of the implied social expectation of returning the favor.

Yes, I can see why games take advantage of this social pressure and why there’s a perceived ‘dark side’ to this sense of mutual dependence — but I’d prefer to focus on the bright side of these connections. Playing a game with other human beings is, by its nature, going to be a little messier and unpredictable compared to playing by yourself — but it’s also what makes it a richer experience than solo play. Knowing that you’re helping your friends get further in the game, and knowing that they’re helping you — there’s a shared sense of responsibility for that success and enjoyment.

If anything, I think Social Games don’t currently go far enough with having friends influence each other’s games. So how do you create a sense of intimacy in a ‘massively social’ game?

Personal Touches

Games should look and feel different because your friends are helping you, and even better if they are different because specific friends are helping you. I think of how CityVille allows your friends to build business Franchises in your city, including the funny names that they give the businesses. I really liked that ability for my friends to put their ‘stamp’ on my play space, and liked being able to place my franchises in their city.

Dependence

One of my favorite examples is from a non-Facebook Game called GoalLine Blitz. It’s a football game, with fantasy-football-like qualities, but all of the individual players are controlled by human beings. In an overtly competitive, team-based environment like this, your success or failure really does rely on the contributions of the other humans on your team. This creates an extremely strong sense of dependence and reciprocity, but also a powerful feeling of shared experience.

No Wallflowers

In some games it’s easy to fade into the background while still, technically, belonging to the larger group. Ideally, the design of your game minimizes the impact of this or creates strict boundaries that prevent it from happening or perpetuating.

In games like Kingdoms of Camelot (and all the other games based on Travian, which is probably based on something else…), the massively competitive design builds in a need for very large guilds to form in order to fight the other very large guilds. Invariably, leaders will emerge in such a structure (formally or informally) and other members of these groups will fade into the shadows without contributing meaningfully to the ongoing drama the way that the primary movers-and-shakers are doing.

To me, though, this 80-20 distribution of effort is missing the opportunity for true cooperation. There must be some human limit as to how big a group can be and still have each member feel a sense of belonging and feel like their participation, or lack thereof, is needed and noticed by the rest of the group.

Note to self: hit Wikipedia and Google and see if there’s a psych study out there that gives insight into this magic number. Designing a game that specifically works within the boundaries if this number could encourage investment and daily-active-usage… although it might fit better in a niche game rather than the more ‘mass market’ games like Zynga’s portfolio.

Asynchronous Gameplay

I read a lot about core game developers getting into social gaming and insisting that ‘the future’ of social or Facebook games is integrating real-time play or fancy 3d technologies like Unity. I think this is missing one of the best parts of social network gaming — asynchronous play with friends. NOT having to play at the same exact ‘real’ time as your friends, but being able to play with them nonetheless — that is pretty magical.

Really old school gamers played roleplaying games by mail, and later added in ‘play by post’ with bulletin board systems, and still today play by email. Early fantasy baseball players played over the physical mail, and even though that industry exploded with the introduction of the internet and server hosted play, it’s still inherently asynchronous. Heck, even the watercooler effect of watching a TV show the night before and then discussing it at work the next day is a form of asynchronous ‘play’ surrounding a shared entertainment experience.

There’s a beauty and a leisurely style to asynchronous play that should be embraced, not discarded like an inadequate side effect of the lack of some new technology. It is sufficient, complete and interesting all on its own.（source:plotluckgames）