Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Depth Perception: Casual and Hardcore Views of Depth











  • Having more to do.
    • Character advancement.
    • Game as meditation.
    • Relaxed play.
  • Having more to learn.
    • Personal advancement.
    • Game as intellectual exercise.
    • Serious play.

Visualizing the Interactions of Depth





These Depths Converge in the Long-Run



Verilazic said...

Nice analogy.

Brian 'Psychochild' Green said...

If I understand you correctly, I think the "having more to do" measurement is usually put in terms of "breadth" of the game. I do like the idea of breadth being perceived as depth to more casual players, though. Some years ago when my blog was young I tried to tackle the topic of breadth vs. depth. I suspect these terms are used since most people trying to classify these concepts are the hardcore.

I think I like your definition of depth better than mine from years ago, though. "Having more to learn" makes a lot of sense.

Unknown said...

My problem is that there is a middle segment (possibly small, I don't know) of people caught between the "I want to whack-a-mole for 200 hours to get the goody" casual players and the Elitist Jerks / FoH / LoS type uber-guild 50 man raid players. I want the game to be "easy" enough to play solo or with 1 or 2 friends, but I also appreciate having systems in the game that promote and reward player-skill, providing depth. For example, in the original EverQuest, pulling was an unintended but main system of gameplay. It provided depth, in a way, because there were clearly those that excelled at it much more than others, so there was a satisfying degree of perceived depth to learning how to pull, in general and per zone/subzone area.

evizaer said...

I only defined the two extremes to provide context for everyone else. No one occupies either of the extremes here. Everyone's somewhere between. That's why I put that "visualization" section in, because it shows the continuum between the two depths. Each player will move around within the depth-shape of a game in a different way.

Tesh said...

I loathe busywork. It's no more appreciated in games than in math class. It does nothing to foster education or intellectual advancement. That's mildly excusable in games rather than school, but I still find it unsatisfying.

That's probably why I've moved on to game design instead of *playing* the things. The puzzles are far more interesting.

Verilazic said...

Unfortunately, while no one is actually at the extremes, I think a number of people (and companies) seem to only think in terms of the extremes, to the detriment of everyone.

Adam said...

I think this a good post on the subject.

I was discussing this with a friend that was reading the syncaine/tobold today thing with me.

Football came up.

Football is a very deep game. It's deep because the level of practice, body control, intuition, aggression and knowledge needed to succeed is very very great.

It's pvp against the best players in the world.

Yet the "bredth" of it is very narrow with its 100yards of field and simple rules.

Note that not nearly as much depth is involved in -watching- football.

This to me is why Darkfall content is so much stronger... the character control and skill is so much more important then other MMO. I think this is true to a greater extent with FPS games in general then most of the more sedate "cerebral" gamers would like to think.