Goatman NotMyFault
NorCorp Shipyards
The Predictables
135
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Posted - 2014.09.01 17:37:00 -
[2] - Quote
found a little article.....
"MMO EVE Online is totally boring... but people like it that way. That's what EVE's lead designer Kristoffer Touborg told PC Gamer, anyway. When asked about the appeal of repetitive, low-risk, low-reward occupation of mining in the game, Touborg said:
Part of it, I think, is that people like boring. Or, well, maybe low effort, maybe low risk stuff. I used to do some of the really boring stuff just because you know that at the end of the road thereGÇÖs some reward. Trading, for example, is relatively low risk, but you make the money and it feels good. Seeing your bank account go up.
I think that not every game was meant to be Counter-Strike. Not everything has to be twitch action-based, super-intense, in-the-zone, adrenaline rush 24/7. Everybody complains about mining, but I think itGÇÖs the finest hangover feature you could ever do. IGÇÖd just switch the miner on, IGÇÖd watch sports on Sunday and be hungover and eat pizza. I think thatGÇÖs great. Not everything has to be super wild.
Touborg's comments are fascinating, and I think get to the root of the appeal of certain kinds of MMOs. There's more under the cut, and a general discussion of boredom in gaming, too!
Touborg on space truck-driving:
I really love to take mundane thingsGÇöonce youGÇÖve put them into a game environment, for some reason, they become fun. Like hauling minerals across EVE: itGÇÖs viciously boring, but people still spend eight hours a day doing something [in real life] and then they go haul minerals in EVE.
I met a truck driver who did this. He drove a truck in real life, and when he got home he drove a space truck. ThereGÇÖs so many real things that we think of as mundane, but they become great game features. One thing that weGÇÖll never put in, probably, but I love the idea, is marriage. Not because of the whole love and kissing thing, but because EVE is so much about trust. If you could marry two characters, theyGÇÖd have shared inventory and shared bank accounts and all that stuff. ThereGÇÖs all these dynamics that come out of sharing. Something as mundane as having shared credit cards, in EVE, becomes a feature. It doesnGÇÖt have to be like the biggest dragon you could ever find. Just take something from real life that might be slightly boring and put it in a different environment, and just watch what happens.
While I agree about boredom appealing to some gamers, Tourborg doesn't really focus on another important reason that it's "OK" for games to be sort of boring: Dynamics, specifically, in the musical sense of the word."
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