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Old 08-09-2013, 02:35 PM   #1
dark acacia
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Is your game still fun?

I don't know when it started, but I've adopted a practice whereby I begin to hunt for new games when the current game I'm playing starts to be too boring or too frustrating for my continued enjoyment. I find that it saves me a lot of time and stress and I get to see more games. Whether it's an MMO or an FPS or a MUD, if I'm not enjoying the experience after a reasonable period of time, I'm heading out.

What's the point in sticking around in a game that isn't fun and doesn't seem like it's going to get any better? Sometimes the OOC or global channel in a game is a good barometer of how much fun the other players are having, and often I find places where people are so miserable about the game but too invested to leave it for something else. These same people are usually the first to run to the defense of the game if someone has a criticism of it, and they usually have a reason for why they stay like they like the community or they can't imagine it being more fun anywhere else or they try to convince others (and especially themselves) that they are actually having a good time.

I will sometimes ask an aggravated player why they still play if they seem to be having a bad time, and I will often remind angry people when a game doesn't go their way that it's only a game, and if they make inappropriate remarks against the other team or their party because the game didn't go their way, I'll try to get them to consider just how much they and their attitude actually contributed to the defeat.

I think it's pretty demoralizing to one's own party or team when there's some loudmouth who's all upset because the HPS caster wasn't healing at potential, or the tank didn't hold the right spot well enough, or the team is full of noobs because the enemy PvP team was more organized. It also does a disservice to the game's community when someone's upset about the course game and then vents it out on whatever they call the global OOC channel.

Everyone who's played a particular game regularly for an extended period of time should often stop and ask themselves these few questions: "have I stopped having fun here?" "Am I getting angry or upset about the game too often?" "Is the stress of the game too much to make the game worth it?" "Am I playing this game only out of some sense of owed duty or loyalty to the game or a group within the game?" If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," then maybe it's time to start shopping around.

Life is too short to spend it playing a game that you're not enjoying.
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Old 08-09-2013, 06:19 PM   #2
ww_crimson
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Re: Is your game still fun?

As an admin/IMM, I still find it fun to work on our MUD. I enjoy improving it and hope that it allows others to get the same level of enjoyment out of it that I have.

As a player, I still find the game enjoyable as well. I would say we don't have a super complex world but it's given me 15 years of entertainment.


I've tried playing quite a few other games in the past few years and I just can't really find much enjoyment in modern games compared to mudding. I've tried:

Torchlight II
Guild Wars 2
Diablo 3
Starcraft 2
Far Cry 3
Borderlands 2
Skyrim

and at least 2-3 others.. The only one that I am still interested in at all is Starcraft 2. I feel like most modern games require too much of a time investment, or they lack replayability. This is of course, my own opinion.

I guess I'd be inclined to agree with your overall statement though. If you don't like what you're playing, try something new. We've lost a few players over the last 3 months because they weren't happy with the changes that we were making. At the same token, we are now hitting 15-20 players online almost every day because of the changes we've been making. At one point we only had 8 on during peak hours. So yea, some people need to explore new territory I think to keep things fresh.
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Old 08-10-2013, 09:06 AM   #3
Fifi
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Re: Is your game still fun?

12 and a half years in it's still more compelling than a great book. It's still fun.
No global or ooc chanels though.
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Old 08-10-2013, 10:19 AM   #4
Molly
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Re: Is your game still fun?

I stopped playing as a mort myself many years ago, there simply isn't enough spare time for me to do that. And once you've seen the cogwheels and levers behind the curtain, most of the "magic" is gone too.

I still enjoy the creative process of building however, and spend a fair amount of time daily on creating new zones or improving the existing ones.

I also enjoy the OOC chatter on the open channels, sometimes the discussions there are amazingly interesting.

As for other games, Muds or otherwise, I simply am not interested enough to shop around.

But Dark Acacia's advuse is a good one. Whenever I see a player being frustrated over some game issue or player relation, I usually ordinate them to repeat daily: "It's just a game!"
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Old 08-10-2013, 11:33 AM   #5
dentin
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Re: Is your game still fun?

About five years ago, I realized that the game I had been working on for so long wasn't actually any fun for me to play, pretty much at all. So I decided to change that. The Alter Aeon of today is much different, much better, than the Alter Aeon of 2008, and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't get a lot of time to play mortals, but when I do, I have a good time and enjoy it.

In the process, we lost a lot of older players of the kind you mention - the ones who are eternally unhappy, who eternally complain, yet never go elsewhere. The atmosphere of the game is a lot nicer, and there's more players as a result. It's always sad to see someone move on, but I think I'm ok with this.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

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Old 08-13-2013, 11:10 AM   #6
Newworlds
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Re: Is your game still fun?

Polling the players, 9 out of 10 still say it is.

However, the only way to keep any game fun is by keeping it dynamic rather than static. Also, no game is fun if the players aren't the central point in events and policies. In Ateraan 80% of the events are player run and controlled so there are several events per week that go on in the game. I think this is extremely helpful for interaction and roleplay.
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Old 08-13-2013, 05:03 PM   #7
dark acacia
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Re: Is your game still fun?

How are you polling your players? Are you simply asking them "Yes or no: is Ateraan still fun?" If you ask the question simply, I suspect that your long time players will reflexively answer "yes" even though they might be dealing with things that reduce the overall purity of their enjoyment (purity in this sense being the difference between a player truly enjoying himself, versus trying to convince themselves that they are having fun). They might consider Ateraan to be The Game of Games no matter what and convince themselves however well that they are having fun, and then answer the simple question accordingly.

Are you asking them to think critically about their session-to-session experiences, and to consider how often they are bored or frustrated with the game. Are they coming back out of habit or loyalty or because they genuinely want to? If they took a week-long break from the game, will they be very enthusiastic about getting back into the game?

I'm asking these questions and provoking discussion not because I want to see the downfall of successful MUDs, but because I've had these issues with games I was stuck in in the past; I kept playing games I wasn't enjoying out of a sense of habit and familiarity. I'd have a terrible time and then I'd hurry to log in again anyway, trying to find that elusive thing which would miraculously make the whole experience worthwhile. Finally prying myself away from habitual gaming, and later adopting a more detached attitude towards new games, has made my gaming time a lot less stressful for me.

Do MUDs really want to keep as many people as they can, even if a significant number of them are just soullessly pounding commands into their clients? Is the level of MUD success truly represented by the number of connections?

I wonder if it would be beneficial for the MUD community to increase inter-game traffic. Encourage people to try out new games (newly released or just new to them) and to shop around, and in the meantime put in that extra effort to make your own MUD that much more fun: help players to increase the purity of fun they have in your game; check in on newbies, talk one-on-one with longtime players now and then, find new ways to improve the game in order to make the game more attractive than a competitor, and so forth.
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Old 08-14-2013, 01:04 PM   #8
Newworlds
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Re: Is your game still fun?

I guess you would have to ask yourself what determines success.
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Old 08-15-2013, 09:19 AM   #9
Malifax
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Re: Is your game still fun?

My problem is similar to Molly's, but I think--more.

I ran a game for seven years, and over that time I gradually lost interest in playing. After we closed our doors, I tried to find a game to play, but just couldn't get interested in anything. Since then, the fact I've come to grips with is that my passion has shifted from playing games to building them.
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Old 08-21-2013, 12:28 PM   #10
Newworlds
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Re: Is your game still fun?

Great attitude. What game are you refering to though?
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Old 08-21-2013, 06:22 PM   #11
Fifi
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Re: Is your game still fun?

Armageddon Mud.
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