http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-col ... es-success"If our model was subscription based, we might be spending all this time racing to add as much filler content as possible to keep players chasing the carrot. Instead, as content designers with the goal of creating fun, we get to spend this time refining our content and making it amazing. As designers, this is both liberating and refreshing in an industry in which developers rarely get time from publishers to actually polish their games. (High-five, NCsoft!)"
- Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.
- Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!
- Fun impacts development. Explorable dungeons have multiple paths you can take and random events. Because of this you don’t feel like you need to play the same dungeon over and over again if you want to chase the prestigious rewards at the end, but can instead mix up that experience to keep it fresh and fun.
- Fun impacts customization. The event and personal story systems allow you to get a sense of customization from your characters. Playing through the game, each character can experience completely different content, and the world can always stay fresh and new in the pursuit of new story lines, and an ever-changing dynamic event world. It means going back to a place you’ve already been with a character can be fun, and it means making a new character on an entirely different personal story chain can be fun as well.
- Fun impacts gameplay. The pursuit of fun in content led us to make many gameplay decisions, including:Everyone who helps kill a creature gets experience and loot, so you’re not competing with other players; everyone gets rewarded for events with karma they can spend to buy rewards they want, rather than get a random roll of stuff they might not want; content scales in difficulty, so if more people show up, there is still stuff for you to do; everyone is able to revive one another, so you view other players as assets that can help you achieve your goals, rather than people who might get in your way; everyone can harvest resource nodes and get the rewards in the world together, rather than racing other people to them who might steal it from you. All of these things are just more fun!
