What makes a game
compelling and emotionally involving? The answer may vary with each player, but
are there some core game-design principles that will make the majority of
players “bond” with a title?
We threw those
questions to Guild Wars 2 loremasters Ree Soesbee and Jeff
Grubb. Here’s what they had to say:
Jeff: The question of
emotional connection in a game is a tough one to answer, I think. How do we
keep people from saying, like in Alice in Wonderland, “You’re nothing but
a pack of cards” and dismissing the game entirely? How do we engage the
players and make them care?
Ree: I think one of the
first things any game has to do is to encourage the player to connect with
their avatar in the game. In order to get the player to invest in the game
world and think of the NPCs as compelling characters, the player has to think
their own character is interesting and worth spending time with.
Jeff: Yeah, it really does
start with the player’s avatar, with their character in the game. You have to
like yourself in order to like the greater world. And one of the challenges I
see for creators in an MMORPG is that you want the character to be as
accessible as possible to a variety of players, without making them bland
and forgettable.
People are equally
repelled by viewpoint characters that have no substance and by those whose
entire development is mapped out step by step—you aren’t playing a character so
much as following a well-trod road of others.
Ree: There has to be some
middle ground between the two.
Jeff: And I think we find
that middle ground with your initial character creation in GuildWars 2 We give you choices beyond just race and profession, and we
make those choices meaningful for your experience in the game. If you’re an Ash
Legion charr, your experience will have a different feel than if you’re Iron
Legion. If you’re an asura from the College
of Synergetics, you get different life
experiences than if you’re from the College
of Dynamics.
Ree: Of course, after the
biography, there’s still a lot of work to do—to keep the player invested, and
to continue to remind them of the choices they made for their character, while
not subdividing the game too much.
Character creation is a
big part of fostering a connection between player and character, but it can’t
do all the heavy lifting. The more choices a player can make during the game,
the more that avatar becomes theirs.
Dynamism, from internal
storyline choices to the direction of a world event, gives the player
attachment. Knowing that “such a thing” happened because they chose that option
is like an investment in the character, and the game. It means you were
important to the world, and the world recognized your decisions.
Jeff: There are some basic
design assumptions we make—we think your character is at heart a good person
and a hero. Your first immersion into the game, regardless of race, is a
situation where you can act heroically and bring yourself to the attention of a
more powerful hero who becomes a mentor to you in those early levels. You
have some darkness in your past, but your general character arc is positive.
You’re kind of a big deal to the people around you, so you have an initial
investment in your larger world.
This article is taken
from http://www.arena.net/blog/the-emotional-connection
