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玩家的游戏需求源于设计师的发明创造

发布时间:2012-03-22 09:39:32 Tags:,

作者:Raph Koster

Tobold在其MMORPG博客中指出,人们总是指责游戏行业在创新上的不作为——总是不断推出续作。例如《暗黑破坏神3》、《星际争霸2》、《侠盗猎车手4》、《光晕3》、《模拟人生3》、《孤岛惊魂3》、《辐射3》以及无数版本的体育类游戏。为什么游戏公司不能更有创意一点?因为游戏公司只是根据玩家的需求制作游戏,而玩家并不想要原创游戏。

ice-cream-cone-dishes-spo(from jiaxin99599.web.officelive.com)

ice-cream-cone-dishes-spo(from jiaxin99599.web.officelive.com)

如果我问你“是否想要巧克力冰淇淋?”,你可能会做出肯定的回答。如果我问你“是否想要更多的巧克力冰淇淋,这次上面会有些许巧克力屑点缀?”,你可能仍然会做出肯定的回答。

如果我说“顺便提下,这里还有芒果沙冰”,你可能会尝试,也可能不会。但是,如果你不知道有芒果沙冰的话,可能就不会提出这个要求。

玩家想要的东西以原本知道的东西为基础。如果他们什么都不知道,也就不明白到底想要什么。如果我在菲律宾只吃过一种甜点,那么它可能会迅速成为我最喜欢的甜点。

从游戏语法的立场来看,题材=游戏。事实上,相同题材中的不同游戏只是某些小元素有所不同而已。所用的动词都是相同的,你只是进行不同的组合而已,比如改变地图、怪物、武器、跳跃距离和故事情节。但是,新动词的加入(游戏邦注:比如《传送门》)能够产生极具吸引力的体验,让我们大为惊奇,并会被视为新的进步。

但是,想出新的动词(游戏邦注:也就是新游戏)是非常困难的。也就是说,可能需要付出昂贵的代价。事实上,多数的组合不是很有趣。即便是那些有趣的组合,也只是部分群体玩家觉得有趣而已。弄清楚可能认为这种组合有趣的玩家群体数量相当困难且成本高昂。正因为此,许多游戏开发商更趋向于选择已经为玩家所接受的组合方式。

但是,当有人实现了对动词的全新组合,那么他们就等同于创造出全新的题材。牛奶沙司突然出现,玩家开始渴望获得更多种类的口味。公司往往偏好的是满足后面顾客对多种口味的需求。

玩家总是渴望能够体验全新题材的游戏,只要提供的这种新题材确实令众多用户感到有趣。所以,认为创新的缺乏应当归咎于玩家的过错,这种想法并不十分准确。当然,玩家想要巧克力冰淇淋,而我们偶尔发明出的却是牛奶沙司。

依我的观点,设计师首先面临的挑战是,要认识到冰淇淋并非唯一种类的甜点。要打开自身的思维,比如想到果馅饼之类的东西。第2个挑战在于,公司需要意识到快速原型构建技术可以让他们以相对廉价的成本证实果馅饼概念是否满足客户需求。

这也正是我们觉得一些讨论很古怪的原因。当你听到以下说法:

“我觉得所有的MMO游戏采用的都是类似《无尽的任务》的模型,相似点如下:

1、你通过按动按钮施放技能。

2、适合角色等级的内容总是集中在同一片区域中。

3、没有永久性的死亡,只有死亡惩罚。

4、NPC会重刷新。

5、随着游戏进展,你会变得越来越强大,然而你获得的进展只是不断前进以及与更强大的对手作战。

6、游戏主要专注于战斗。制造和外交等内容只是游戏中的小层面。我的问题是,如果MMO不遵从上述结构,能否有效地运转?我目前看到的情况是,这样的MMO游戏无法运转。”

听到上述言论就像是听到有人认为所有的甜点都必须冰凉、用奶制品制作、用华夫脆筒盛装、上面有许多巧克力和点缀。

首先,我会为这样的人感到惋惜,因为可见他们从没有品尝过奶油香蕉派或带有鲜奶油的新鲜浆果。随后,我会让他们去研究下其他的甜点。

但事实上,发明新甜点本就不是玩家的工作,所以你不能为他们的无知而感到恼怒。

出于某些原因,玩家做的并非总是理性的事情。但是,我觉得有一件事情很有必要去做:如果我们提供更多种类的甜点,用户就会去尝试它们。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2008年7月2日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Do players know what they want?

Raph Koster

If I say to you, “do you want chocolate ice cream?” you probably say yes. If I say to you “do you want more chocolate ice cream, this time with sprinkles on top?” you probably still say yes.

If I say “by the way, there’s also this mango sorbetto,” you may or may not try it. But you aren’t going to ask for mango sorbetto without prior knowledge of its existence.

Players know what they want from what they know. And they don’t know what they want from the unknown. For all I know there’s a fantastic dessert eaten only in the Philippines that would rapidly become my favorite dessert ever.

From a game grammar standpoint, genre = game. A fresh game in a genre is really just ringing changes on relatively minor factors; the verbs are the same, you’re just getting different statistical combinations here and there. (New maps, new monsters, new weapons, new jump distances, new storylines). The addition of a new verb (hello Portal!) is a highly engaging experience that can pleasantly surprise us and be seen as a major new advance — even though adding or changing one verb out of a set of twenty is a fairly minor change.

Coming up with new sets of verbs, e.g. new games, is very hard. Meaning, it can be expensive. Many — nay, most — combinations don’t actually work and aren’t fun. On top of that, even the ones that are fun are fun only to a segment of the population. Figuring out what segment and how big it is can be painfully hard and expensive. Because of this, the true homo economicus, the corporation, tends to prefer instead to bet on sure things, often leaving vast quantities of money on the table because they simply don’t know how to pick it up.

When someone does it, however, in creating this new combination of verbs they are creating a whole genre. Suddenly custard exists, and players can start to crave varying flavors of it. Companies are often driven to this just because there’s so damn many people making these crazy elaborate ice creams with all sorts of nuts ‘n’ stuff mixed in them that it’s getting expensive to stand out.

Players will eagerly tackle a fresh new genre, when it’s offered and actually fun to a broad population. So saying that it’s the fault of players that there is no innovation is not really accurate. Of course players want chocolate ice cream. And every once in a while we get the custard genre invented.

The first challenge, to my mind, lies in designers educating themselves enough to know that ice cream is not the only possible sort of dessert. To get them thinking broadly enough that they can think of things like flan. The second thing that needs to happen is for companies to realize that rapid prototyping techniques exist that can prove out the notion of flan relatively cheaply.

And that’s why the whole text mud debate falls oddly on the ears of some of us. When you see a statement like this:

I think all MMOs are similar to the EQ model in the following ways:

- You have skills accessed from clicking a button.

- All the content for your level is contained within a short travel of each other.

- There is no permadeath, just a (varying in size) death penalty.

- NPCs respawn (Except that bloody wounded child in the Wil Lands of Zelata, eh!?).

- As you progress, you become stronger, but you can only progress further by moving on and fighting stronger opponents.

- The game focuses mainly on combat. Crafting, diplomacy, etc are minor aspects of the game. But my problem is – how would an MMO work without following that structure? AS far as I can see – it wouldn’t.

…it is almost exactly like reading someone who thinks that all desserts must be cold, made from dairy products, served in a waffle cone, have chunks of chocolate in them, have colored sprinkles on top.

My reaction is generally to feel sorry for this person, because they have never had banana cream pie or fresh berries with whipped cream… but my second reaction is “look up from your tiny frame of reference, people!”

But I can’t really blame them. In the end, it isn’t the players’ job to invent new desserts, and you can’t really get upset with them for not knowing what is possible with a blowtorch, sugar, egg whites, and cream.

Despite what Tobold says, homo economicus is increasingly considered a myth in economics. Players do not always do the rational thing, for many reasons. But there’s one thing that I do think people are logical enough to do: if we offer more kinds of desserts people will try them. (Source: Raph Koster’s Website)


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