Games Decisions

For our own research we looked at readings about game theory and other core aspects of video games, one such reading was Building A Princess Saving App by Dan Cook. In this article Dan and several other game designers and producers talked about the mechanics of small scale MMO games, one such example that they mention is the MUD Minecraft, which still has a vibrant community despite its usage of small servers. Dan discusses how a core aspect of these kind of games is the ability of players to connect with each other and form bonds and friendships, therefore a social structure with activities and incentives to come together as a group are necessary in such games. The articles than goes into detail on other mechanics of  these games such as enemies and buffs before discussing the issues that come into play when randomness and RNG are introduced to such a game.

A second reading that we were touted to look at as part of our research was Decision Making and Flow Theory . However the link we were given just provides several other links, mainly for the amazon pages of several books. So i'm not quite sure what to do with it.

One final reading that I looked at was Rethinking the MMO by Neil Sorens, this article discusses the core fundamentals of what makes an MMO game. One interesting note I picked up from this article was that the term MMO and is actually a lot like a marketing term more so than an actual genre. For example compare World of Warcraft to a game like Diablo 2. World of Warcraft can host hundreds of players on the same server, meanwhile Diablo 2 can host a maximum of 8, however both are considered MMO and Diablo 2 is even known as being a major example of a successful MMO.

(MMO Game "Diablo 2")

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