作者：Joshua Dallman

如果你想为玩家创造真正有趣的体验，你不仅需要掌握如何做到这点—-即关于游戏机制，故事，展示层，互动设计，同时你也必须了解可能会阻碍你做到这点的大陷阱。本文便是关于三个最有可能破坏免费游戏中玩家乐趣的陷阱。

发生故障

out of order(from gamasutra)

即在玩家加载游戏时，加载页面卡住不动。或者玩家通过加载页面后，并开始加载游戏玩法时，游戏突然奔溃了。再或者是玩家加载游戏时，游戏要求玩家更新，当玩家更新后，游戏却又出现卡住，奔溃或不再加载的情况。现在玩家不得不使用外部资源和链接等方法去联系你们的支持团队，他们可能会使用与自己游戏账号不同的电子邮件地址写邮件告诉你问题所在，不断等待着你的回复，并且这时候的他们不能再玩你的游戏，而这将导致他们郁闷地选择你的竞争对手的游戏。

如果你是免费游戏设计师或管理者，并且你的产品正遇到这种问题，你就应该暂时放下手上的一切工作并专心解决这一问题。如果这种情况发生在你的1%玩家身上，你需要考虑如果问题一天天持续下去的话你可能会因此失去多少玩家。你还要考虑到玩家变成付费玩家的转换率可能会大大降低，这是不容忽视的问题。

这不只是QA和工程师能够解决的问题了，还需要CS（售后服务）的加入。你的加载页面上是否设有一个CS系统，如此玩家便能在到达加载页面但却不能加载完整游戏的时候联系你们。这也让玩家能够将自己的ID和设备信息发送给CS以帮助他们更有效地追踪问题。你是否在加载页面上添加了服务器中断通知？最佳服务便是最直接的服务—-即在玩家联系你之前便告知他们问题所在。你是否设置了告知玩家主要服务器中断的推送通知？千万不要等到玩家上网搜索如何报告故障，否则你只会失去这些玩家。你应该抢在他们前面发现问题并解决问题。

这便是你可能呈现给玩家的最糟糕的体验。这就像是在玩家最喜欢的游戏前挂着一个“出现故障”的牌子。而在你解决了问题后，玩家可能再也不想回到游戏中了。

缺少信用

当玩家加载了游戏后，他们却发现自己之前拥有的付费货币，货币，道具，XP或级别不见了。也就是说，玩家花钱购买了付费货币，但是游戏并未守信用给予他们货币。

再一次地这也不只是QA和工程师能解决的问题，你的CS仍然很重要。玩家需要报告给开发者（游戏邦注：在游戏中自动发送他们的ID和设备信息）他们丢失了什么以及何时丢失了这些东西。CS应该使用工具帮玩家找回这些货币和道具。他们也必须相信玩家真的拥有他们所属的货币或道具。

除此之外，如果你只是还给玩家他们丢失的东西而未给予额外补偿，你便可能失去这些玩家。就像当我去饭店吃饭，服务员端来了一碟烧焦的食物，并让我再多等20分钟时，我便会期待他能送我一块免费的派或下次用餐可使用的优惠券—-这才能补偿我为此所浪费的时间，并且传达出低于标准水平的体验是内容提供者的过失。

这是你可能呈现给玩家的第二糟糕体验。这就像是收了玩家的钱但却不让他们玩一样。这会让你有何感受？

控制失灵

当玩家加载了游戏时，他们却因为一个平衡问题，协调问题或游戏设计问题而不能执行某些行动。也就是说，客户端不能及时回馈玩家的互动，或者不够精确，并给出玩家并未作出的互动，如消费付费货币。

再一次地，QA和工程师能够最终阻止并解决这些问题，但CS却能够解决当下最紧迫的问题。如果你能在玩家报告问题前便解决好问题，你便更有可能留住玩家并阻止他们选择拥有完好控制的你的竞争对手。控制失灵将重击游戏和玩家间的信任—-玩家总是希望自己输入的内容是准确的，而如果游戏未能实现他们的这一愿望，他们便会不再相信你的产品拥有最基本的功能。

这是你可能呈现给玩家的第三大糟糕的体验。这就像安置了一个失灵的射击按键而导致玩家死亡一样。当你在玩这样的游戏时你会有何感受？如果没有任何人出面解决这一问题的话你又会作何感想？

解决方法

service(from gamasutra)

对于这三大糟糕的情况，QA将会是阻止它们的最佳方法，并且这能让CS注意到那些瞒过QA并出现在最终游戏中的破坏控制的大问题。

对于这些最致命的陷阱，留住用户和利润的最重要角色不是设计师,项目经理，制作人和工程师，而是QA和CS这些经常被忽视或低估的工作。但在这里它们却是决定你的产品的成败的关键。而这里存在的唯一一个问题是，你服务玩家的频率，质量和准备性如何。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Three Biggest Ways to Fail Players in Free-to-Play Games

by Joshua Dallman

If you want to create fun experiences for your players, you have to know not only the best ways to do that – game mechanics, story, presentation layer, interaction design – but also the biggest pitfalls that can block that. This is a short article about the top three biggest pitfalls to player fun in free-to-play games. The critical disciplines in preventing and assuaging them may surprise you.

We’ll start with the worst player experience you can possibly deliver first:

OUT OF ORDER

The player loads your game, and the loading screen freezes. Or the player gets past the loading screen, and as the gameplay area loads, the game crashes. Or, the player loads the game, it requests the player update, the player updates, and now the game freezes, crashes, or doesn’t load. The player now has to hunt down your support team using external resources and links, write to you about their problem with an email address disconnected from their game account, wait for the reply, all the while being unable to play your game, inevitably driving them to your competition to get their gaming-fix.

If you are a designer or manager in free-to-play games and this is happening in your product – RED ALERT, RED ALERT! Drop everything you are doing and fix this problem. If it is happening to even 1% of your players, consider how many players you may churn and lose, forever, every day the problem continues unresolved. Consider that your conversion to paying players may be a similarly low percentage, and you don’t dismiss their importance.

It’s not just QA and Engineering that will come to the rescue of this situation, it is CS (Customer Service). Do you have a CS system that is accessible from the loading screen, so that players can contact you if they can at least get to the loading screen but fail to load the main game? This will allow the player ID and device information to be sent to CS for more direct tracking of the issue. Do you have service outage notices that can display from your loading screen? The best service is immediate service – notification of issues before the player has to contact you. Do you have push notifications to inform of critical service outages? Don’t make players google you to find how to report outages, or you have failed that player. Be integrated and ahead of them.

This is the worst experience you can give a player. In an arcade, it’s like hanging an “out of order” sign over the player’s favorite game that they came there just to play. After a few days of checking, they may not bother to come back.

NO CREDIT

The player loads your game, and they find that they are missing premium currency, currency, items, or even XP or levels that they had before. Alternately, the player purchases premium currency, their money is deducted, but the game does not credit them for the purchase.

Here too it is not just QA and Engineering that will fix these problems – it is your CS that is critical. Players need to be able to report, from inside the game and with automatic sending of the player ID and device information, what is missing and when it came up missing. CS should have a tool to credit players back these currencies and items. They should trust if the player really had said currency or item in the first place and err on the side of self-reporting, with only a cursory check for gross and obvious abuse.

In addition, if you are only giving back what was missing with no bonus for their trouble, you are failing the player. When I go to a restaurant and they serve me burned food, I expect more than the properly cooked version another twenty minutes later – I expect a free slice of pie, or a high-value coupon for my next visit – something that acknowledges that my time was just wasted and that a sub-par experience was just delivered and it was entirely the content provider’s fault. Do the same.

This is the second-worst experience you can give the player. In an arcade, it’s like taking the player’s quarter then not letting them play. How would that make you feel? How would you feel if instead of an arcade attendant to immediately refund your quarter, you had to write a letter to a company three states away and wait for a check?

BROKEN CONTROLS

The player loads your game, but they are unable to perform a certain action, due to a balancing problem, tuning issue, or game design problem. Alternately, the client is slow to react to player interaction, or is overly or under-precise, and registers an interaction that the player did not make, such as spending premium currency that the player never made an interaction for.

Again, QA and Engineering will ultimately prevent and resolve these issues, but it is CS that will resolve the immediate problem at hand. The faster you close the loop on that resolution between the time that the issue was reported, the greater chance you have at retaining the player and not having them move to a competing product that isn’t perceived as having broken controls. Broken controls strike at the heart of trust between a player and game – they expect their inputs to be registered and accurately, and when they don’t they lose all confidence in your product’s ability to perform the most basic functions.

This is the third-worst experience you can give the player. In an arcade, it’s like having a broken shoot button which technically allows the player to play, but forces them to die. How would you feel about your time and your quarter playing such a game? How would you feel if there was no arcade attendant to address your issue?

COMMON THREAD

The surprise to all three worst-case scenarios is properly investing in QA (and not rushing your product or its updates out) is the best way to prevent these issues, and properly giving attention to CS (and empowering them to treat customers like royalty) is what will do the most significant damage control once something has slipped past QA and is in the live game.

By this perspective of the top pitfalls, the most important disciplines to retain customers and make money aren’t game designers, PM’s, producers, and engineers, but rather investing in QA and CS which are often over-looked or seen as “secondary tiers” in their level of importance. They are not – they are critical first-tier disciplines that will make or break your product. Free-to-play games are hugely complex, and they will break. The only question is how often, how bad, and how prepared are you to serve your players when they do.(source:gamasutra)