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Author Topic: What defines the quality of games?  (Read 7478 times)

Duke 2.0

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #60 on: December 26, 2008, 01:39:38 am »


 Indeed. That must be added to the list of fun modifiers.

 Also, needless modifiers are not fun.
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Reasonableman

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #61 on: December 26, 2008, 02:00:55 am »

EVERYTHING MUST BE EXPRESSED MATHEMATICALLY.

EVERYTHING.



And I say that modifiers are fun.
Particularly needless ones.
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Duke 2.0

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #62 on: December 26, 2008, 02:16:57 am »


 I suppose needless ones would be fun, depending on the needlessness of it. Pointless modifiers are another issue, as they directly interfere with the fun multipliers.

 Then again, we need to remember the Entertainment functions and how they effect the whole system!

 IDEA FOR ANOTHER NEEDLESS VARIABLE! This theoretical particle will validate our formulas and erase any problems with them! Of course, these particles are invisible to everything known to fundom and only interact with this one formula.
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kcwong

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #63 on: December 26, 2008, 02:20:45 am »

Seems no one mentioned this point yet.

The game must be sufficiently tested for bugs, and play-tested (so interface/gameplay annoyances are weeded out).

A game that crashes or bugs out every five minutes is bad no matter how good it might be otherwise.
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Reasonableman

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #64 on: December 26, 2008, 02:26:32 am »

So, as it stands so far:

Quality = Fun * Staying Power / Bugs and Crashes

Well, now that I think about it, frustration is an exponential function.

Quality = ( Fun * Staying Power ) ^ ( 1 / Bugs and Crashes)
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umiman

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #65 on: December 26, 2008, 04:15:25 am »

Yeah, I'm surprised no one thought of bugs and performance as well. It's a pretty important point. Thanks for catching it.

Muz

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #66 on: December 26, 2008, 04:22:27 am »

I think it's more of..
Perceived Quality = (Fun + Staying Power)/Bugs and Crashes + Hype*Biased Modifier

Bugs and crashes just pull you out of the game. That's why fun games like ToEE and Vampire: The Masquerade didn't sell well.

Also, things like Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 are highly affected by hype. Hype either makes a person love a game or hate it. Note that I added "Perceived" there. The Biased Modifier can be anything from negative to positive ;)

EDIT: No, wait, you're right. Frustration is an exponential function. A game with 10 bugs is much more annoying than one with 1 bug. And I have neglected Price! Thus, the more detailed formula is..

Percieved Quality = (Fun*Appreciation of Fun + Staying Power*Appreciation of Staying Power)^(1/Bugs and Crashes)
+ Salary/Price + Hype*Biased Modifier*Stupidity

Also, Salary has a cap somewhere, but price doesn't :P
« Last Edit: December 26, 2008, 04:34:37 am by Muz »
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umiman

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #67 on: December 26, 2008, 04:56:01 am »

I doubt frustration is exponential.

It would probably resemble a bell curve. My reasoning is as follows:
1. A game with bugs -> lim(x) would resemble an exponential function.
2. Once a gamer reaches point x in number of bugs, each additional bug he encounters will have a less significant impact than before.
3. At some point, the total number of bugs and performance failures will overwhelm the gamer, leveling the graph.
4. After another threshold, the gamer wouldn't even notice new bugs and would start to justify his purchase / investment / time, making each additional bug actually valuable. In other words, the gamer after reaching this theoretical point will be in denial.

Note that the numbers I'm talking about here could be anywhere between 5 bugs to 10,000,000. It really depends on your patience and / or boredom. An example of point 4 is beta testers. They may not be in denial, but the bugs they encounter actual have a negative frustration point in general.

Duke 2.0

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #68 on: December 26, 2008, 04:58:27 am »


 Now now, original formulas count most of that junk in as "Crap that gets in the way of fun." Of course, these new magic fun particles which we need for validation could cause some problems with that.
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Buck up friendo, we're all on the level here.
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Muz

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Re: What defines the quality of games?
« Reply #69 on: December 26, 2008, 08:02:43 am »

Lol, a bell curve doesn't make sense. It's more like an S-curve.. the player will still be frustrated when he comes across a bug, but only up to a certain point ;)

But IMHO, if the game reaches the point where it crashes every minute, it ceases to be fun. It's kinda like playing a computer game where the frame rate drops too low.

I propose that someone draw a graph of their frustration/fun levels by playing Dwarf Fortress on different frame rates.
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