Comments on: Sphexishness

By: AI Is Hard, Unnecessary, and Sorely Missed | Kill Ten Rats

AI Is Hard, Unnecessary, and Sorely Missed | Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:04:29 +0000

[...] outside the assumed parameters, however, and the simple AI has no idea how to vary its behavior. It sphexishly follows its programming even if that programming works against its ostensible goals. You can kite [...]

By: EASK | Kill Ten Rats

EASK | Kill Ten Rats — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:31:37 +0000

[...] Your game should not insert 15 minutes of repetitive, dull, or not-fun space between units of fun, especially if the fun units take less than 15 minutes to consume. MMOs are great for time per dollar spent, but I frequently wonder how much of that time is entertainment as opposed to dead space and digger wasps. [...]

By: On Not Reading | Kill Ten Rats

On Not Reading | Kill Ten Rats — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:00:22 +0000

[...] a title (”Thin the Wolf Pack”), an objective (”bring 8 wolf teeth”), and I know the pattern. Orcs or bears attacked you, spiders ate your dog, I get [...]

By: Unthinking Teammates Wanted | Kill Ten Rats

Unthinking Teammates Wanted | Kill Ten Rats — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:03:16 +0000

[...] euphoric. And killing the next 1000 ogres will not involve any meaningful mental activity, so it is pure grind unless something else spices it [...]

By: Big Beaks at Kill Ten Rats

Big Beaks at Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:29:20 +0000

[...] am the first one to mock games for re-coloring mobs so that you are fighting the same guys at level 40 as level 4, only blue versions with new hats. Indeed, The Lord of the Rings Online™: [...]

By: Gameplay Content at Kill Ten Rats

Gameplay Content at Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 29 May 2008 05:04:50 +0000

[...] then switched to calling it “content” at the end. It all goes back to sphexishness: The actual content is what is new. “Kill ten rats” and “bring me ten rat tails” only add [...]

By: Dungeon Maintenance Fees at Kill Ten Rats

Dungeon Maintenance Fees at Kill Ten Rats — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 02:31:36 +0000

[...] area until you get to Townston. If that was fun, play until level 10, to see if the gameplay is sphexish. If you are still having fun, throw them $5 and start using the good items. It was much better [...]

By: Zubon

Zubon — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:42:56 +0000

I know what kept me in Diablo II: cows. I had a Traps Assassin, and few things brought joy quite like the corpse detonation trap. Take out one cow, detonate, it takes out a group, detonate… The huge masses of enemies were awesome. In retrospect, I don’t know how long that lasted, but detonating giant cow hordes was a high point.

By: Ethic

Ethic — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:28:49 +0000

@TheDreadlockedWonder: Thanks for the Gamasutra link. That explains a lot about why some veteran gamers find newer games boring. They have seen it all before, so it takes something different to get them excited. It’s why the first MMO is often the best experience for MMO gamers. Everything is new the first time. The MMOs that come after it are just new names for the same old things and you don’t recapture that original excitement of learning how to play. Thanks again for the link.

By: TheDreadlockedWonder

TheDreadlockedWonder — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:17:17 +0000

i definately agree that the Grind is the biggest downfall of gaming in general, but i believe this is especially true of mmo’s. we need to move past killing X number of [insert generic baddie here] for the VAUGE possibility of what we in the land of suffering call “phaT L3wTs”.

that aside, i still cannot explain why Diablo 2 took 2 years of my life away. seriously. its clicking. no real strategy or anything like that to speak of, the plot is not something that makes me care… just click. click for more death for more loot for more death. why is this fun?

anyway, as a way to possibly move past this, those of us who plan on being developers (which may in fact be all of you, im not sure who traffics this site) there is a great article on Gamasutra that suggests some really awesome ways of looking at fun itself, and how we can kind of break it down into learning new skills and using them.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1524/the_chemistry_of_game_design.php

go forth, and know it better man.