great stuff, really, makes me happy to see skinner’s work in MMO’s and casinos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement

/wave

As to the idea of rewards other than loot pinatas, it’s going to matter what the player is looking for. I’m not creeped out by NPCs like Bhagpuss, but I do just ignore them. Let me change the *world*, though, and I’m a happy camper.

Though I do kinda like when the NPCs have something different to say after something has happened. Saluting is silly though.

Every time you die (and you typically die every minute or two), you are told how you’re doing compared to previous attempts. The game keeps many stats, and generally chooses the one that makes you look best – “You lasted longer as a Scout than ever before”, “You almost tied your record for most damage as a Heavy”, and so forth.

This system rewards you for improving compared to your past experience, rather than in comparison to other players. Even if you are brand new to the game (in fact, especially if you are brand new to the game), you receive constant reward and positive feedback. It feels like a real accomplishment when you beat your old record.

Achievements in MMOs come close, but I’d like to see more: “You just beat your previous best DPS”, or “Highest lifetime crit”. We always look bad compared to the hardest of the hardcore players, so give us more personal accomplishments to focus on.

In WoW, the Deadly Boss addon has an element of this – when you down a boss, it tells you the time you took as well as your previous best time.

I absolutely agree with openedge that getting logical drops is the best loot system. That mechanism alone makes me feel more loyal to a game and more interested in combat than any other.

On the rest of the bio-psychological motivators, not unusualy I find only a slight tally with my own experience. I think I may just have an extremely low “pain point” in gambling terms. I have enjoyed playing fruit machines and other mechanical and electronic gambling machines since I was a child (yes, when I was a child that wasn’t just permitted, it was encouraged). However, I have never lost any significant amount of money in a session (in dollar terms probably never more than a couple of dollars).

I’ve always been one of those annoying people who knows exactly how much they are prepared to lose when they start playing and can stop at exactly that point. I was banned from playing poker with a group of friends at college because I would happily play for four hours and never go more than a few coins above or below the stake I statred with. I loved playing the game but I had no interest in gambling on it.

Similarly, in MMOs, while I do love opening up the mob after the kill I don’t really care what I get. There certainly is some biochemical hit when something good drops, but I am always mildly pleased to see anything. Rat ears, whiskers, rusty daggers, slime, you name it I will loot it. I’ll also enjoy looking at it and examining it, soemtimes even for the hundredth time (why I expect to see anything new in a rat’s whisker after a decade I couldn’t say, but you never know..this one *might* be different). Then there’s more fun sorting the stuff in my bags, before I sell it. I sell everything. Even if I have thousands in gold in the bank I still sell all the 2cp piece drops.

Mechanisms like the one you describe where you get noticed for doing something, even by an NPC, and rewarded for it utterly creep me out, though. I hate to be noticed. I detest it when NPCs begin to address my character by name or salute them. I loathe it when they “remember” who I am. I don’t like that in real life and I don’t like it any more in a game.

The introduction of targetted rewards like that in a big way wouldn’t make me more addicted but they might possibly make me look for a new hobby.

Age of Conan does this well. Kill animals, get pelts, claws, etc. Kill Human based mobs, get cash, weapons, etc.

That to me is a good system.

But, I also agree with your well written post (enjoyed the quip at the end) that rewards of a different nature, like tokens for doing things a specific way…

Achievements are ok for example…but, all it shows is a badge of honor. How about something to reward that badge?
Guild Wars is one such game that rewards specific “achievements”, like the Hero’s Handbook, where you complete quests, which give you XP, etc…but, then you can turn in the book for a reward..A Novel (hehe, punny) approach, eh?

I think most of the games do not do well thought out loot systems, and I really want one game to be worth it.

I want The Secret World to offer me cash or ammo for my weapons after killing human mobs. How about items of power when killing mythical creatures (like claws from a creature to use in making an antidote for their poison…).

Good post, and cheers.

I personally hate our modern achievement systems. They do not provide the players with a feeling of achievement, but to me they are rather TO-DO lists. And just take a look how achievements are organized in the achievement tab. The second point is what you already noticed: Achievements are given out for everything, a popup for everything and entry in your to do list for nearly everything one can imagine. Even single-player games copied achievements, often in a so crude way that it hurts. The achievement page of “Sins of a Solar Empire” full of really ridiculous things to do really cried:

We noticed that there is something cool about achievements. So we copied them. Unfortunately, we apparently did not understand and get it why they are great at all. This is why you got this crap.