3 ms·
I discussed this a long time ago in a comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226688 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226688 The reward treadmill is th
by iron_ball 17y ago
I discussed this a long time ago in a comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226688 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226688
The reward treadmill is the secret to retention. Get 'em hooked with quick rewards in the early part of the progress curve, then string them along at the highest levels. Otherwise people will quit in droves before the expansions come.
- zephjc 17y agoI remember someone mentioning that WoW (and other good MMOs) have a 30 second rule, in that you can run 30 seconds in any direction and find something to do (even if its killing more mobs) in order to keep the player's attention
- loganfrederick 17y agoBungie, the Halo developers, as well as many other developers follow this philosophy. How can you take 30 seconds of fun and repeat that throughout the entire game? That's what many studios strive for.
- zephjc 17y agoThat's true too, but what I meant was more specifically for MMOs (and games that have the player move in similar ways) - any bits of fun in the game should be not more than a 30 second drive/walk/run from another one. Imagine, for instance, a map of Elwynn Forest (if you've played WoW) and construct a graph over it of all the quest-related things to do or see - none of them should be more than a 30 second run from the nearest neighbor. Whether this is actually the case is an implementation issue :)