[...] Originally Posted by PastorInsanity I’ve been amazed with the kinds of psychological insights RPGs have provided me with… http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/16…s-of-a-player/ [...]

[...] (Upcoming Theory-craft! The basic gist is that Blizz knows what they’re doing in terms of allowing us to level so quickly in TBC. There is a large amount of lateral content planned for level 70.) Well, if you’re like me you’re looking at the people who were saying “It takes as long to get from 60-70 as it did to get from 1-40 or from 1-60,” and you’re wondering what pharmacy they’ve been to and how did they mix the common household drugs. It looks to me, and I could be wrong, that it’s possible to get to 70 within a minimum of 28 hours played. That was a record set by a guy who had his guild killing mobs he’d tag. Even still, the ability to level so quickly instills a mild bit of fear in my heart. Will the expansion be over before Blizzard releases new content? Will we be able to have something to enjoy for a long time? Some of us may be thinking that the answer to the above questions are: Yes, the xpac will be completed by most very quickly, and we’ll be bored before Blizz gets on it. I would like to say that that may not be the case. I’ve been learning a little bit about MMOG economies today. They appear to run rather differently than real world economies because in MMO economies it’s possible to create value out of nothing (or a bit of time). Essentially it is very easy to create new wealth and so inflation can get out of control verrrrrrry quickly. In order to curb this there are a couple of tools that game devs use, as seen in the link below. http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/01/17/flation/ If the above -is- the case, then one can see why Blizz would make the level cap so low, and the levels so easy. Basically the levels are easy because gaining them proceeds on the same curve as the previous 1-60 levels did. One could postulate that Blizz did this in order to maintain a contiguous gaming experience from 1-X (where X is the current level cap). The reason the cap wasn’t raised higher, while this could be baiting the consumer, is simply so that the game won’t die out as fast. Either that or it’s the most expedient route to provide new content. Designing linear content of a similar volume to the content in TBC may actually have taken more work than designing the lateral content that appears to be in TBC right now. If that is not the case then one can still fall back on the idea that designing Linear content, in terms of a greater level cap, would create such inflation when the population hit X level that the game would quickly collapse under it’s own weight. Proceeding in a slow linear manner and a quicker lateral manner appears to be what Blizz is doing. There was a lot of lateral progression at 60 and look how long it kept us playing I’d also say that the economy isn’t as inflated as I’ve heard it can be in games like FFXI. So the plan appears to be working. If that’s the plan Blizz also appears to be using money sinks to reduce the amount of cash in circulation. I think the strongest examples would be Epic mounts and the Tier.5 armor quests. Follow that up with the Epic mounts in outland going for 5k gold one starts to see some fairly massive money sinks. Crafting, while it returns to the crafter, is also a money sink, and now that I think of it, the crafting system may actually be designed such that selling finished products is supposed to generate very little profit (as so often has seemed to be the case). So inflation goes down due to there being less free gold. The lateral content appears to come in at 70. One has two major dungeons to explore(The Caverns of Time and Karazhan), each with a couple of wings, plus a heroic difficulty mode. With all of that lateral content and a stable economy almost forced due to game mechanics it seems that TBC will have a lot more life in it than just 60-70. Your thoughts?! Other interesting links: http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/16/the-lifecycles-of-a-player/ http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/raphs_keynote.html Link on SWG’s Economy: http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/03/star_wars_galaxies_e.html_________________ [...]

[...] Raph Koster, The lifecycles of a player (June 16, 2006) [...]

[...] Full musings set finally since I have a few weeks of time on my hands: The perfect trick to play on that hot girl you hang out with Lifecycles of a player [not a joke; interesting] Mitch Hedberg’s 20min Comedy Central Presents…. Everyone loves Magical Trevor.. – I love this one Stephen Colbert vs Stone Phillips – Gravitas Rematch Could you pass the test to become a US citizen? – I’m sure Graves knows the answer to #19 Yay freedom! Think Different Funniest game of Tetris you’ll see all day That’s Ka-blamo! – when you’re mining for coal and you forget what coal is Kabumei: Art of the Sharpened Grenade Kickass Light-saber Fight – good twist ending Jedi Breakfast – live long and prosper bitch Lecture Musical – very well done for a lecture hall prank “60 Minutes” segment on The Colbert Report – Anyone can READ the news *to* you; I promise to FEEL the news *at* you I have plenty more to post over the next week or so that I have free, but to end this edition is probably my favorite clip from the show Lucky Louie. A great show on HBO if any of you have it. Lucky Louie answering “Why?” [...]

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[...] The Lifecycles of a Player The More Things Change…and if you haven’t read it before, Players Who Suit MUDs. The first two are articles by Raph Koster, who was a lead designer on Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. The last one is by Richard Bartle, who created the first MUD.Personally, I agree with most of what these articles say, at least in my experience. I’ll probably comment more on these later, but that’s a fair amount of information to digest. [...]

[...] The better you target your news, the greater the number of interested people who will see it. Learn More (it’s free!) Logged in as demo. Login Feedback Discussion – Register (no email required) – del.icio.us demo accounts – CleverCS – Web 2.0 Del.icio.usSearch Everyone’sSubmitted Links My TargetedLinks My TargetingLinks My LikedLinks My DislikedLinks My SubmittedLinks Link Targeting Raph’s Website » The lifecycles of a player – http://www.raphkoster.com/... games, community, sociology, psychology, culture, videogames, interesting, theory, players, gaming more like this / fewer like this – reply – targeting – surf 0 points, 0 liked, 0 disliked, del.icio.us import, 20 bookmarks, 35 days ago In Habitat I observed five distinct patterns of usage and social commitment: –photophunk The link above is currently targeted to 0 people based on the targeting rules below.Resubmit the link above to improve its targeting rules. Link targeting determines who will receive the link as a targeted link. However, it is the link score that determines the ranking of that link among targeted links. Consequently, accurate link targeting is critical for a high link score. Spam too many people with poor targeting and most of them will just vote your link down, thus reducing its rank among targeted links. Learn more. resubmit link above (so you can improve its targeting) No links found. For quick and easy link submission, drag and drop this bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar: Target Your News Submit [...]

The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 40 years old. In 2006, 93 percent of computer game buyers and 83 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

Per the research committed by the Entertainment Software Association, customers and users are differentiated. If the objective of game design is to retain users, then the objective of marketing is to attract customers and encourage customer-to-user conversion.

Also note that buy-in is not always a matter of passion; although, passion can contribute to the decision to buy in. I’m currently writing a hefty article/presentation on customer decision-making from an interactionist perspective. The customer-decision making process applies to any situation where purchase and re-evaluation decisions can take place.