The Ideal Purge Game

[Snowreap]

Some would say it's "the ultimate sandbox" and I guess some people like that but I find it to be less than ideal and I think it's a huge part of why EVE has always schlepped around the bottom of the MMO pile.

to put it another way: some people are too stupid or too lazy to come up with their own goals, and need others to set goals for them. the question then becomes, "who should set those goals? the game developer or the players?" Blizzard says the developer should do it. CCP says the players should.

they're both right.

there's no single answer that's right for all players. some players really don't want to come up with goals -- they see it as work, and they want the game to set clear goals for them to pursue, because pursuing goals is fun (or they see it as a waste of time because meaningful e-peen comparisons can't be made when different players are pursuing different goals). other players want to come up with the goals themselves, because that's the fun part -- actually pursuing the goals is an exercise left for less imaginative players.

the biggest problem with player-set goals is that the game needs a good way to hook up the goal-setters with the goal-achievers. in that kind of game, it doesn't work if you have too many chiefs or too many indians -- you need the right balance.

-ken