Mini-Games

[Hoofhurr]

Hacking in Bioshock was basically a mini-game but I thought it was well integrated. I actually think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. What makes a mini-game different than any well-developed game mechanic? Looking at it this way, if you break any game down into its mini-games you'll see that the more mini-games you have the better imo. They just have to be seamlessly integrated like the art from dozens of artists have to be integrated to make a cohesive graphical world.

IMO pet classes are a mini-game of their own. Auction House's are a mini-game. Inventory management is a mini-game. Respeccing your talents is a mini-game. Min/maxing is a mini-game. Manual aiming is a mini-game. Piloting aircraft in Planetside is a totally different mini-game than playing infantry imo. Kiting is a mini-game.

It's the mini-game-type, highly-specified, mechanic development that gives a game the built in variety needed to keep players' attention over time. If a magic user plays exactly the same as a warrior even though the character is using spells instead of arrows this isn't going to reinvigorate the player to resub for another month. If, however, the mechanics involved in magic using are rather different than those in meleeing then you have that player engaged for longer than you otherwise would have because the 'player' is learning something 'new', not the character.

There are really only two main issues I can see with trying to have as many mini-games (substitute mechanics) as possible. 1) Increased development time. 2) All mini-games are not created equal. So if you have one mini-game for warriors and one for magic users, how do you ensure that they both are equally challenging and don't innately give one player a
disadvantage?

Engaging in strategy over simple tactics is also a mini-game. Yes maybe you could just log in, go to the nearest battle and shoot as many people as possible for an hour and have plenty of fun. But maybe you want to be a little more involved than that and form a squad and direct them to various goals. Maybe you want to be even more involved than that and coordinate your squad with other squads to achieve bigger goals. Those levels of involvement imo are mini-games in their own right if the game provides goals of that sort. Anyone who has tried to coordinate multiple squads knows that at that point you're basically not even playing your own character anymore. You spend 99% of your time communicating and directing other people's characters and 1% participating with your character directly. In that way, the social aspect of MMOGs are a mini-game as anyone who has run their own guild knows perfectly well. Assigning ranks, buying guild tabards, structuring your chat windows to streamline your social networking, kicking out asshats, etc. These all = mini-games.

In conclusion, if your 'mini-game' is some tacked-on, ancillary, and otherwise distracting mechanic then I'd say cut it before it goes live. If, however, your mechanic is well developed, seamlessly integrated and it adds to the multi-dimensionality of the game, keep it in!