作者：Simon Ludgate

你玩游戏的动机是什么？这些动机与玩游戏时体验到的乐趣有何联系？我们如何设计出让最多玩家沉浸其中的最有趣游戏？我认为，驱动玩家玩游戏的动机很多。有些产生强大的影响力，有些影响力较弱，有些甚至产生负面影响，使玩家丧失动力并劝阻他们玩某款游戏。这些动机将玩家分为各种类型，有成就型、杀手型或社交型等。

本文我将着重探讨“价值最大化”这个动机，它有多种多样的表现形式，如出售战利品换取大笔金钱、等待购买最完美的武器、将治疗药剂留到关键时刻使用、留存三枚火箭用来对付最终BOSS、不浪费弹药等。基本上每次玩家在游戏中获得某些东西时，让其产生最大价值的驱动力都会或多或少地构成影响。

final fantasy XIV(from jleack.blogspot.com)

价值最大化的个人体验

我之所以撰写这篇文章，原因在于价值最大化是我玩游戏的强大动机之一。记得早期玩《毁灭战士》等FPS游戏时会不断切换武器用光弹药，这样在地上看到弹药的时候就能够捡起来。走过弹药补给点却因为弹药已满而不能补充，这对我来说是种莫大的折磨，应该避免发生这种事。尽管我不喜欢使用霰弹枪，但依然会用其射杀某些怪物，这样就可以拿到更多的霰弹枪弹药。我想让每个弹药补给点的价值最大化。在这种前提下，价值最大化便与武器偏好动机产生冲突。

在货物和货币管理游戏中，价值最大化通常会给游戏的货物和货币层面带来大量的乐趣，即便它们相对整体游戏体验来说可能并不重要。我玩《网络奇兵2》时会收集所有遇见的东西，储存在某个房间中。我将所有研究用品放在货架上，这样在需要时便可在同一间屋子内拿到。我有个名副其实的军火库，里面摆放着成排的武器和弹药之类的东西，以防自己某时用上这些。我在使用弹药时甚为节省，尽量训练自己的劈砍技能，这样就能从机器出售中得到更多的金钱。从Vaun Braun转移到Rickenbaucher在游戏中是个艰难的时刻，因为我不得不舍弃自己精心储备的物品，面临把哪些物品带到游戏下个部分的痛苦抉择。此刻，我的价值最大化动机与游戏进程动机产生冲突。在游戏临近结束之时，价值最大化通常会受到抑制。因为我知道游戏即将结束，所以会拿出最好的东西把它们用光。

玩《魔兽世界》时，我在多次冒险经历中得到了大量的物品。这些物品可以储藏起来，但我选择放在拍卖行上出售。最终，在不做“金币农民”的前提下，我获得了5万多金。动机间的关键差异就在于此：价值最大化不一定是利益驱使或以富裕为动机。此动机的目标不是变得富裕，而是让游戏给予你的东西发挥出最大的价值。我玩《魔兽世界》的动机不是打金、操控拍卖行或其他能赚到钱的行为，而是尽力让自己已经做过的事情的货币价值最大化。有时，某些自己储存却很少用到的东西在拍卖行上的价格飞升。我利用此趋势出售大量存货，不是为了从中获取盈利，而是想让那件物品体现出最大化的价值。

但是，价值最大化也会成为让人丧失动力的因素。在玩那些需要分配技能点数却无从修改的游戏时，有时我发觉自己分配技能点的方式并非最佳方案但选择却不可更改，这种感觉让我丧失斗志。多数情况下，我会利用作弊码或游戏编辑器来更正自己的错误，重新获得自认为失去的价值。

网游中的价值最大化

价值最大化玩家对MMORPG（游戏邦注：全称“大型多人在线角色扮演游戏”）特别感兴趣。在此类游戏中，价值最大化包括三个关键要素：战利品、市场和范围。在许多MMORPG中，玩家会无意间获得战利品，做任务过程中可能获得物品以及稀有随机掉落道具。连出售给商人的垃圾都是种有趣的可玩性元素，因为玩家必须决定携带或丢弃哪些物品。这不仅取决于物品的价格，还必须考虑物品是否可以堆叠以及接下来是否会得到更多的相同物品。尽管这些东西的货币价值很少，但回城出售时获得更多钱币也可以视为一种奖赏。

第二个要素是市场。市场能够让玩家获得所有东西的实际货币价值，回答“我出售此物品会获得多少钱？”和“我购买此物品需要花费多少钱？”这两个问题。因而，无论玩家何时得到东西，都需要从以下三种行动中做出选择：保留、在市场上出售或卖给商人、丢弃。如果玩家觉得可以让物品发挥出比货币价值更高的价值，他们就会保留它。比如，假设某玩家获得价值1金币的草药，而用这种草药可以制造出价值10金币的药剂，那么保留草药就显得更具价值。如果物品可以堆叠，玩家可能不会马上将其制成药剂（游戏邦注：假设草药每组可堆叠20个，但药剂只能堆叠5个，那么同样空间以草药为单位囤积的商品数是药剂的4倍）。也就是说，玩家不需要即刻让商品体现其最大化价值。而且，玩家也有可能因技能点不足而无法制作这种药剂，这样他也会选择囤积草药，希望其将来能产生更高的价值。或者，参与市场投机行为的玩家会储存物品等待其市场价值的上涨（游戏邦注：比如某草药现在可能只值1金币，下个补丁发布后可能价值100金币）。

当然，玩家的存储空间通常有限。这也正是游戏中的强大市场决定价值最大化是积极还是消极因素的关键所在。市场越强大（游戏邦注：即玩家购买和出售物品方便且两个过程的价格相当接近），市场销售中的价值越稳定。换句话说，如果玩家有些以后可能会用到的物品，但已没有足够的空间储存，他们能否现在出售，在需要时再购回呢？此类市场交易的成本越低，玩家越能忍受银行放满而不得不出售某些低价值物品带来的困扰。

第三个要素是范围。MMORPG通常将玩家间的互动作为游戏的核心元素，但“范围”可运用于所有元素，包括那些影响价值最大化的元素。比如，许多MMORPG中玩家无法选择所有的制造技能。《魔兽世界》玩家只能选择两种专业技能，《无尽的任务2》玩家只能选择一种。在《最终幻想11》中，玩家可将每种技能提升至60/100，但之后所有技能总共只能提升40点（游戏邦注：只有一种制造技能可以提升至100）。这种设计的结果是，玩家必须直接或通过中间市场进行交易，才能获得所有通过制造产生的东西。在《无尽的任务2》中，如果想要1件武器和某些装备，你只能自行制造1件，其他装备只能购买。

范围的有趣动态之一在于，它在前文所述的两种选择（游戏邦注：保留或出售）之间创造了非同寻常的价值层面。对武器锻造师来说，矿石比布值得保留。然而对裁缝而言，布却比矿石更为贵重。因而，玩家会用他们得到却无用的材料换取可以使用的材料。这种交易经常通过市场系统开展，玩家出售无用材料获得钱币，再花钱币购买有用的材料。所以在制造技能中，三种价值最大化元素紧密结合起来：玩家在玩游戏的过程中获得材料（战利品），但他们无法使用所有获得的材料（范围），于是将无法使用的物品换成可以使用的东西（市场）。

示例：最终幻想14

下面我将把上述理论套用到MMORPG《最终幻想14》中，这款游戏让我这个以价值最大化为动机的玩家有些沮丧。《最终幻想14》的制造系统很有趣，主要原因是每件战利品都是制造材料，游戏中能制造的东西很多而且许多制造过程需要大量由其他专业制造的子材料。你一从冒险中获得随机战利品，就要开始想革细工师会付多少钱收购羊皮或者雕金师会花多少钱买羊角之类的问题。如果银行满了，要舍弃哪些东西？将每组12个的毛利草出售给裁缝师获利高，还是将每组12个的褐铁矿出售给裁缝师收益多？在三大关键要素之首——战利品方面，《最终幻想14》的表现极为出色，这是个战利品天堂！但游戏的另外两个要素却显得稀松平常。

就范围而言，制造方面似乎并没有限制性因素。到目前为止，似乎只要每个玩家投入足够的时间和精力，都可以将所有制造技能升至最高。因而，对每件战利品来说，玩家需要决定的是他们要自己使用还是出售给他人。尽管已有相对较大的160格储存空间，但仍然不够玩家使用。游戏还把每种物品分为4类（游戏邦注：基础、+1、+2、+3），如果你想全部保留，就需要4倍的空间。你知道裁缝师再提升3个等级就可以使用那些棉铃，革细工师再提升2个等级就可以使用那些渡渡鸟毛皮，甲胄师再提升4个等级就可以使用那些铜块，但你没办法把这些材料都储存起来！所以，限制制造技能的不是游戏设计，而是银行的空间。

《最终幻想14》的市场也很薄弱，进一步增加了价值最大化玩家的苦恼。《最终幻想14》里没有中间市场，如果你想知道某件商品的价值，就需要查看每个玩家的摊子，方能知晓他们出售的东西及其价格。任何时段都有数千名玩家在线，因而你的摊子被他人光顾的可能性非常小。所以，即便你以某个极具竞争力的价格出售物品，也可能因为无人查看摊子而卖不出去。

制造需要由其他制造者提供的子材料又是个挑战。应该注意到的是，如果有人想要出售商品，他们只能出售给那些有需求的人。然而，只有当其他人想要制造出需要这件子材料的物品时，需求才会产生。玩家在游戏中无法对外宣布他们对某种子材料的需求，因为《最终幻想14》只允许发布已有物品的“购买订单”。但是如果你已经有这个物品，就无需再发订单购买了。

从价值最大化角度来看，交易比率和稳定性是市场的关键层面。如果你以最低价格出售某些物品，绝对希望能在同类物品中最先售出。在拍卖行等中间市场中，所有可购买的同类物品按价格高低排列，这样你的物品首先出售的概率相对较高，除非有人以更低的价格出售。但是，你在中间系统上出售的商品并不一定能被每个潜在买家看到。

价值最大化玩家需要迅速交易商品，以不断使战利品价值达到最大化。至少，他们出售商品的速度要等同于获得速度。如果你的战利品是30个物品，那么就想把这30个全卖出去。出售物品所需的时间越长，而且如果你无法马上将所有物品全盘出售，游戏产生的挫败感就愈发强烈。你想要玩游戏并继续从中得到乐趣，但却做不到，因为背包已经满了。

我应该再次着重强调下，驱动价值最大化玩家玩游戏的不一定是利益。他们的目标不是让市场充满便宜的商品，或以低价抢走其他人的生意，或者尽量赚取金钱。他们只是想要让自己获得的每件物品的价值最大化，在尽量短的时间内换取尽量多的回报。换句话说，价值最大化玩家不是想出售物品，而是想让物品被出售。将时间耗费在市场交易上会影响到价值，这使得将物品出售给商人成为最佳的价值获取方式，因为这种做法更快而且游戏商人买下的物品数量无限。这或许会诱发价值最大化玩家思考为何他们要玩网游，假使他们不在市场中与其他玩家互动。他们不制造商品出售，也不出售材料，所有东西要么自用要么出售给商人。有效的价值获取决策会引发和刺激价值最大化玩家产生兴趣，他们很反感那些无法与其他玩家交易的市场系统。

为价值最大化玩家设计游戏

在游戏开发中，需要时刻谨记价值最大化可能是某些玩家的动机，你所要做的就是刺激这个动机。即便你制作的只是款简单的单人游戏，也要为玩家提供些许有限的资源。如果你设计的是射击类游戏，添加些特别的稀有枪支弹药，让价值最大化玩家决定使用的最佳时机。还可以在游戏中增加些货物或货币供玩家使用，想想Capybara的作品《英雄交锋》，游戏将单位选择和钱币作为小型次元素，却能够不断刺激价值最大化玩家。

如果你的游戏中有银行系统，可以让玩家选择要在银行中存放何种东西。给玩家提供许多只有微小差别的武器，这样他们就要选择保留和使用哪些东西。设计某些非同寻常但非常稀有的消耗性物品，玩家就需要决定要为那些东西腾出多少空间以供存放、要保留多少此类东西以及何时使用。价值最大化玩家偏好能在短时间内使状态有所改观的药剂类消耗性物品，由于补给依然极少，所有通常不会影响到游戏的平衡性。

制造系统也是个增加价值最大化玩家动机的绝佳方法。在游戏世界中设计某些看似无用但可以通过制造配方转变成有价值物品的东西，对价值最大化玩家来说，此等世界处处充满潜在的有趣物品。但是，要注意不可将制造配方设计成包含许多特别常见的物品和某件特别稀有的物品。这会使得制造系统枯燥无味，因为如果没有那件稀有货物，普通货物将一文不值。而且在获得稀有货物之后再获取普通货物也很简单，那么这些普通物品在稀有物品获得之前就会被当成是垃圾。

开发MMORPG必须牢记三条价值最大化原则：给予玩家大批战利品；限定范围使许多此等战利品只对其他玩家有用；设计强大的中间市场，玩家可以与他人交易战利品。内容丰富的制造环境（游戏邦注：尤其是制造所需的子材料需要由其他玩家制作）是种刺激价值最大化玩家的强大方式，然而这种方式只有当市场基础架构允许玩家迅速交易商品时才能够发挥作用。想想上文中提到的《最终幻想14》所显现的问题，如果玩家有个《EVE-Online》式的市场环境就更好了，他们不仅可以出售商品还能够发布购买商品的需求。跨制造专业材料在开放市场中出售很有难度，但在买家公告市场中却可以很快出售。

价值最大化只是驱动玩家玩游戏的诸多动机之一，我认为如果你刺激的玩家动机越多，就能让越多人觉得你的游戏很有趣，也能给你带来更多的营收！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Value Maximization as Player Motivation

Simon Ludgate

What motivates you to play a game? How do these motives tie in to the experience of having fun while playing a game? How can we design games that are the most fun possible to the widest range of people possible? I’m of the opinion that players are not driven by a single motivation while the play games; rather, a wide range of motivations come into play to drive a player forward in a game. Some have a strong influence, some have a weak influence, and some even have a negative influence, demotivating a player and discouraging them from playing a particular game. Thus a player profile is more than a general tag, an “achiever” or “killer” or “socialiser”.

In this article I’d like to focus on one such motivation: value maximization. Value maximization is the motive to get the most out of whatever you’ve got in the game. This could be selling your loot for lots of money, waiting for the perfect weapon before buying anything; holding on to those healing potions for just that critical moment, saving those three rockets for the last boss, making sure no ammo goes wasted, and so on. Basically, anytime the game gives you something, the drive to get the most value out of it influences players to a greater or lesser degree.

Personal Experience with Value Maximization

I am writing this article because value maximization is one of my stronger motivations when playing games. I remember playing early FPS games like doom and continually switching weapons to use up ammo so that when I found ammo on the ground I could pick it up. To me, walking over an ammo drop and not actually getting it because that ammo was full was a traumatic event that had to be rectified. Even if I didn’t like using the shotgun, I shot things with the shotgun so I could pick up more shotgun ammo. I wanted to maximize the value of every ammo drop. In this case, value maximization was in conflict with weapon preference motivation.

In games with inventory and currency management, value maximizers generally derive a great deal of fun from the inventory and money aspects of the game, even if they are relatively marginal to the overall game experience. In System Shock 2, I would hoard everything I came across and stash it in one room. I’d truck every research canister down with me and fill the shelves so if I ever needed one I’d have them all in one room. I’d have a veritable arsenal: rows of weapons, ammos, and the like, just in case I ever wanted to switch to one of them. I was frugal when spending my nanites, but eager to train hacking so I could get more bang for my buck from vending machines. Moving from the Vaun Braun to the Rickenbaucher was a difficult moment in the game, because I had to leave my stash behind: I had to make the difficult decision about what I’d take on to the next part of the game. My value maximization motivation was in conflict with my game progress motivation. What I ended up doing was generally suppressing value maximization at this point, and simply picked the best of everything and started using it up, knowing that the end was near.

When I played World of Warcraft, I got lots of stuff while I was on my many adventures. This stuff I would either hoard (and end up rarely actually using) or sell on the AH. I ended up with plenty of gold (over 50,000) despite never actually partaking in a sort of “gold farming” behavior. This brings up a key difference in motivations: value maximizers are not necessarily profit-driven or motivated by riches. The goal isn’t to become rich; the goal is to get the most out of what the game gives you. My motivation in WoW wasn’t to farm for gold or to play the AH or to do other activities that gave me money; rather, I tried to maximize the monetary value from the activities I did do. At many points of the game, a certain thing I had hoarded (and rarely used) shot up in price on the AH. I took advantage of this and sold a lot of my supply. Not because I wanted profit, but because that was extracting the maximal value from that item.

Value maximization can also be a demotivating factor, however. In playing games with skill point allocation and no respec function, I often found myself demotivated when I felt I had spent my skill points in a way that was not optimal and I had no way of changing my choices. In many such occasions, I was driven to find cheat codes or game editors so I could “fix” my mistakes and re-obtain the value I felt I had lost.

Value maximization in Online Games

MMORPGs are of particular interest to the value maximizer. They contain three key elements for extracting value: loot, market, and scope. In many MMORPGs, players get loot even when they’re not trying to get loot. This could be gathering a node while you’re doing a quest, getting a rare random drop, or other such chance encounters with items. Even vendor trash can be an interesting gameplay element, as players must decide which items to carry and which to throw away, determined not only by the value of the item but also whether or not it can stack and whether or not players expect to get more of it. Coming back to town and selling that vendor trash and getting more money for it can be rewarding, however minor the actual monetary amount.

The second element is market. A market allows a player to derive an actual monetary value to everything: how much money would I get if I sold it? How much money would it cost me to buy it? Thus, whenever a player gets anything, they have to decide which of three actions to take: keep it, sell it on the market or to a vendor, or discard it. A player would want to keep it if they feel that they can extract more value from the item than its monetary value alone. For example, if a player loots a herb that sells for 1 gold, but with that herb that player can make a potion worth 10 gold, then it is more valuable to keep the herb. The player might not make the potion right away if they’re storing in volume (if you can stack herbs to 20 but potions to 5, then you can store 4 times more herbs than potions!), thus the player need not generate the immediate maximal value from the item. Likewise, the player might not be able to make the potion yet (just 10 more skill points!), thus the player may store it in the hopes of extracting further value in the future. Likewise, the player may be engaging in market speculation (it’s only worth 1 gold now, but it will be worth 100 gold next patch), and will store the item until its market value goes up.

Of course, players generally have limited inventory space. This is where a strong market in a game determines whether value maximization becomes a motivating or demotivating factor. The stronger the market (meaning that it is easier for players to buy and sell items for as close the same price as possible, as quickly as possible), the more stable the value transaction of a market sale is. This is to say: if a player has something they want to have later, but cannot store it, can they sell it now and buy it back later? The lower the cost of this sort of market dealing, the more a player can suffer the inevitability of having their inventory filled and having to sell some of their lower value items.

The third factor is scope. By scope, I simply mean that MMORPGs are generally designed with interactions with other players as a core element of the game, and that this applies to all elements, including those that affect value maximization. For example, in many MMORPGs players cannot engage in every crafting profession. In WoW, players can only pick two. In EQ2, players can only pick one. In FFXI, players can get every craft to 60/100, but only gain 40 more points total after that (thus only get one craft to 100). The result is that players must deal with each other, either directly or through a centralized marketplace, to obtain everything that can be obtained through crafting. In EQ2, if you want a weapon and some armor, you could craft one but have to buy the other.

One of the interesting dynamics of scope is that it creates very different value levels between the first two choices (do I keep it or do I sell it). To a weapon crafter, ore is valuable for keeping, but thread is not. To a tailor, thread is valuable for keeping, but ore is not. Thus players will want to trade the components they get and cannot use for components they can use; this trade usually goes on through a market system of selling the unusable components to get money, and spending money to buy usable components. Thus in crafting do the three value maximization elements come into play in the strongest sense: players obtain crafting components while playing the game (loot), cannot use everything they get (scope), and exchange the items they cannot use for those they can (market).

Case Study: Final Fantasy XIV

I want to apply this examination to a recent MMORPG that has given me quite a bit of frustration as a value maximization motivated player: Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV has one of the more interesting crafting systems, mainly because every piece of loot is a crafting component, there are so many things to craft, and many crafts require large lists of sub-components crafted by other professions. To a value maximizer, this is titillating: everything is potentially valuable to someone! As soon as you start getting random loot on your adventures, you start to wonder how much a leatherworker will pay for that sheepskin and a goldsmith will pay for that ram horn. When your inventory fills up, which do you toss? Do you think you can sell that stack of 12 moko grass to a weaver for more than you can sell that stack of 12 limonite to a blacksmith? For the first of the three key elements, loot, FFXIV shines brightly. It’s loot-heaven! But in the other two, the game falls flat.

For scope, there seems to be no limiting factor in crafting. So far, it seems like every player can take every craft to the max, given enough time and effort. Thus, for every item looted, a player has to decide whether or not they will use it themselves or sell it to others. Even with a relatively generous 160 units of storage, players quickly run out of space, particularly because very item in the game also comes in four varieties (base, +1, +2, +3) and, if you want to keep them all, they take up four times more space. You know you’ll be able to use those cotton bolls in three more levels of weaver, and those dodo skins in two more levels of tanner, and those bronze nuggets in four more levels of armorer, but you can’t store them all! So, you’re forced to limit your crafting endeavours not by game design, but by inventory limits.

The market in FFXIV is weak, which further frustrates value maximizers. There is no centralized market in FFXIV: you have to look at each player’s bazaar to see what they’re selling and what price they’re charging if you want to know what something is worth. If you want to sell something, you have to put it in your bazaar and hope that someone interested in that particular thing happens to look in your bazaar. With several thousand players on at any given time, the odds of having your bazaar looked at are absurdly low. Thus, even if you are selling an item at a competitive rate, it may never actually sell because no one might happen to look at your bazaar.

A further challenge is that crafts require subcomponents made by other crafters. Note that, when someone wants to sell something, they only want to sell it if there’s a demand for it. However, that demand only occurs for a sub component when someone wants to craft the item that requires it. Players cannot indicate their desire for a sub component, because in FFXIV you can only place a “buy order” for an item that you already have. But if you already have it, why are you buying it?

The key part of the market from a value maximization perspective is the rate and stability of transactions: if you’re selling something for the lowest price, you want your item to sell before anything else sells. In a centralized market like an auction house or broker system, where all items available are listed together and sorted by price, you are relatively assured to sell your item first (unless someone undercuts you). However, in a decentralized system your sale is not necessarily seen by every potential buyer.

The value maximizer needs to exchange goods rapidly in order to continue maximizing value of loot: they need to sell stuff at least as fast as they’re getting it. If you loot 30 items to sell, you want to sell all thirty. The longer it takes to sell the items, especially if you cannot sell them all at once, the more frustration arises with the game. You want to be playing and having fun in the game, but you can’t, because your bags are full.

Again, it’s important to stress that the value maximizer is not necessarily profit-driven. Their goal isn’t to flood the market with cheap goods, to undercut everyone else, or to make as much money as possible. Rather, they want to extract as much value as possible from every item they obtain, and this often means liquidating them for as high a price as can be obtained in as short a time frame as possible. This is to say: a value maximizer does not want to be selling items; they want their items to be sold. The time that it costs to conduct market transactions becomes lost value; to the point where the best value obtained for items actually becomes vendoring them, because that is simply so much faster and capable of handling a much larger volume. This may lead the value-maximizing player to ask why they’re even playing an online game, if they’re not engaging in a market with other players. They cannot craft goods to sell, they cannot sell components, everything is just for their own use or the vendor. Decisions about value that would otherwise interest and stimulate the value maximization motivated player are nullified by an oppressive market system designed to foil any effort to actually exchange goods with others.

Designing for Value Maximizers

When developing a game, keep in mind that value maximization as one of the motivations your players may have. Stimulate this motivation. Even if you have a simple single-player game, provide your players with some sort of limited resource to manage. If you have a shooter, add some rare special ammo that makes value maximizers try to decide when the best time is to use that ammo. Add some sort of inventory or currency for players to play with: consider Capybara’s Clash of Heroes and their use of unit choices and money as a minor side-element (it wasn’t really gameplay limiting) that nevertheless stimulates value maximizers.

If you have an inventory system, give players interesting choices to make about what they store in that inventory. Offer them many slightly different weapons so they can chose which ones to keep and use. Present them with many different but sufficiently rare consumables so players have to decide how much inventory to put aside for those, how many to keep, and when to use them. Consumables such as potions that give a temporary boost in stats are an absolute delight for value maximizers to play with, with a generally low overhead cost in game balance (provided the boosts are sufficiently minimal).

Crafting systems are also a wonderful way to add motivation for value maximizers. By filling your game world with things that are otherwise junk but adding some crafting recipes to turn those things into valuable items, you have produced a whole landscape full of potentially interesting objects for value maximizers. However, avoid the trap of designing crafting recipes to include many extremely common items and one extremely rare item; this makes crafting an uninteresting value proposition, because the common goods are worthless without the rare good, and easily enough obtained after the rare good is obtained. Instead of assigning value to the world’s goods, they’re simply ignored as junk until that one rare item is obtained.

When developing an MMORPG, keep the three value maximization principles in mind: give players plenty of loot, implement a scope that makes much of that loot only valuable to other players, and implement a strong centralized market so players can exchange that loot to others. A rich crafting environment, especially one where sub-components are made by other players, is a very strong way to stimulate value maximizers; however, this only works if the market infrastructure allows players to trade those goods promptly. Consider the FFXIV problem above, and how much better things would be if players had an EVE-Online style market, where they could not only sell goods, but also indicate the desire to buy goods. Cross-crafting components are challenging to sell to an open market, but very easy to sell to a market of declared buyers.

As always, value maximization is only one of many motivations that will drive your players to play your game, but I think that by stimulating as many motivations as possible you and ensure your game will be as much fun as possible to as many players as possible (and get you as much money as possible!). (Source: Gamasutra)