Tactica Online Mini Q&A #6

MMORPG.com has published the sixth installment to their ongoing Tactica Online Mini Q&A series with Imaginary Numbers’ Luke Carruthers. Check it out:

Q: Many online games use the pursuit of better loot and character development as ways to keep players interested in playing for the long-term. Since these do not apply to Tactica Online in the traditional sense, what are some of the hooks built into the design to make players addicted to the game and keep coming back for more?

A: When did fun gameplay become inadequate? Perhaps Tactica Online has an advantage, being without a subscription fee, but having to rely upon treadmill tricks to keep players around seems like a doomed effort. As soon as they find something that’s more fun, they’ll leave anyway, and the fact that players form communities means they’ll take others with them when they go. We’d much rather deliver an experience that keeps you coming back because they enjoy it.

Of course, if you’re taking this approach, it’s important to recognize that any game that stays the same inevitably becomes uninteresting, so one of the keys to keeping things fun is regular change. This needs to be balanced against allowing players to become comfortable with the game as it stands, which means you have to carefully walk the line between too much change, overwhelming players with the need to relearn everything, and too little change, leaving veteran players with increasingly stale gameplay.