Well, unfortunatly face book games are number five on cracked's list of Five seemingly innocent ways you risk your identity every day. So I don't play them.
Also they're designed to be highly addictive, so there's that.
Facebook "Games"
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darkmaster
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Last edited by darkmaster on Fri Oct 07, 2011 3:20 pm, edited 4 times in total.
I'm still playing Dragon Age Legends. They keep coming up with ju-u-u-u-ust enough new-looking stuff that it keeps me interested.
I was also "playing" Project Legacy (an Assassin's Creed 2 tie-in), although it's more along the lines of a story that requires repeated clicking and waiting for cooldown timers in order to read. They stopped updating it though, so I guess that means I've finished it.
I was also "playing" Project Legacy (an Assassin's Creed 2 tie-in), although it's more along the lines of a story that requires repeated clicking and waiting for cooldown timers in order to read. They stopped updating it though, so I guess that means I've finished it.
Facebook game design is deliberately addictive in everything they do. These addictive traits can be used to hook your D&D players. Including things like Chamomile's "defeat that bad guy by coming back next session", and hogarth's "show up any time, for however long you want, we'll fit you in".
It's not "collect 5", it's "collect 8, but here's 2 free to get you started, and we'll give you a bonus when you get to half way, and there's rewards all the way". That sort of shit greatly improves the rate of buy-in.
Wizard wants to build an item? Sure, that'll take eight months. But only two weeks if he involves the other 3 PCs, who will not only not suffer any cost for helping, but be rewarded for their own character. Said Wizard can trivially help them do their own stuff at the same time. Yes, really. People show up, everyone wins.
Like, if you brew a potion, and three PCs help (at no cost), it should both be quicker and give you 4 potions instead of 1. Combat should work similarly, so that each character makes more of what the others are doing (easier to Cast with a Fighter there, easier to Fight with a Caster there).
Also, that big item, you can totally have it next week, if you can be there, even for just 5 minutes, even on Skype.
As a side note: don't make fights harder when more people show up. That's punishing attendance, and you should not do that. If everyone shows up you just blow through more fights and get more rewards (in fact, bonus rewards too).
People who show up less often need bigger rewards when they do. Not so they catch up, but so that they aren't disheartened into abandonment. Conversely, people who promise to show up and then don't, they can totally miss out.
1 million is a much smaller number than 999,999 to our poor, feeble, monkey-brains. If you want players to feel rewarded, always offer them many-significant-figure rewards with first digit >4. Similarly, costs should be expressed with as few digits as possible, with first digit <3, even if the costs are typically much larger in real terms.
Randomised rewards have a lack of predictability which lets players believe whatever they're enjoying at the time has created the reward, and even the things you're certain to get feel better if you can't know when you're going to get them.
Short-track progressive rewards that are harder to get as you go; like +1, +2, +3, +4 at time cost 0,1,3,7 (first one's free). Again, suck you in, most of the cost is for the last little bit.
Incompatible currencies or 1-way exchanges, like if you can turn loot into money but not money into loot, you make loot a more highly valued reward (doubly valuable at least in that it has a 2nd value when it's 1st one fades). Having loot (exploration) and XP (fights) and action points (clock) to reward different things and prevent players giving up certain desirable aspects of the game.
Getting more to do once you've played for a bit. Easy mode and massive initial rewards followed by more challenge and complexity. Reboots whenever you want them. Alternate characters to try out new lines. Always starting at the beginning, but with bigger rewards each time to rip you through to the interesting part.
You know those characters you all abandoned? How about we just play one or two sessions with them, and here's some huge free rewards, but only if we play. And yeh, I guess if we're enjoying it, we can keep going.
It's not "collect 5", it's "collect 8, but here's 2 free to get you started, and we'll give you a bonus when you get to half way, and there's rewards all the way". That sort of shit greatly improves the rate of buy-in.
Wizard wants to build an item? Sure, that'll take eight months. But only two weeks if he involves the other 3 PCs, who will not only not suffer any cost for helping, but be rewarded for their own character. Said Wizard can trivially help them do their own stuff at the same time. Yes, really. People show up, everyone wins.
Like, if you brew a potion, and three PCs help (at no cost), it should both be quicker and give you 4 potions instead of 1. Combat should work similarly, so that each character makes more of what the others are doing (easier to Cast with a Fighter there, easier to Fight with a Caster there).
Also, that big item, you can totally have it next week, if you can be there, even for just 5 minutes, even on Skype.
As a side note: don't make fights harder when more people show up. That's punishing attendance, and you should not do that. If everyone shows up you just blow through more fights and get more rewards (in fact, bonus rewards too).
People who show up less often need bigger rewards when they do. Not so they catch up, but so that they aren't disheartened into abandonment. Conversely, people who promise to show up and then don't, they can totally miss out.
1 million is a much smaller number than 999,999 to our poor, feeble, monkey-brains. If you want players to feel rewarded, always offer them many-significant-figure rewards with first digit >4. Similarly, costs should be expressed with as few digits as possible, with first digit <3, even if the costs are typically much larger in real terms.
Randomised rewards have a lack of predictability which lets players believe whatever they're enjoying at the time has created the reward, and even the things you're certain to get feel better if you can't know when you're going to get them.
Short-track progressive rewards that are harder to get as you go; like +1, +2, +3, +4 at time cost 0,1,3,7 (first one's free). Again, suck you in, most of the cost is for the last little bit.
Incompatible currencies or 1-way exchanges, like if you can turn loot into money but not money into loot, you make loot a more highly valued reward (doubly valuable at least in that it has a 2nd value when it's 1st one fades). Having loot (exploration) and XP (fights) and action points (clock) to reward different things and prevent players giving up certain desirable aspects of the game.
Getting more to do once you've played for a bit. Easy mode and massive initial rewards followed by more challenge and complexity. Reboots whenever you want them. Alternate characters to try out new lines. Always starting at the beginning, but with bigger rewards each time to rip you through to the interesting part.
You know those characters you all abandoned? How about we just play one or two sessions with them, and here's some huge free rewards, but only if we play. And yeh, I guess if we're enjoying it, we can keep going.
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.
Yeh, but I was talking about the things you can take from facebook games to help with D&D. The fact that D&D is not in itself a facebook game (other than when it is) doesn't mean they have nothing worth stealing, as a better author that I might have demonstrated above.hogarth wrote:Alone. You forgot the word "alone".tussock wrote: hogarth's "show up any time, for however long you want, we'll fit you in".
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.