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contrarianarchonI've been reading some play articles because of an offhand mention by brin_bellway. It's interesting, really. I don't think the author prizes "engaging core loop" at all - there's this sense that that stuff is just what you do between tactical decisions (I mean, I this might just be really strong engagement with that second-layer loop, since he does seem to like the "accelerated" features that reduce space between challenges. ). It's an interesting mindset, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while, is the low-level experience of game-play and user interfaces. There have been several games that I notionally would find quite interesting but which I will not play because the user interface is sticky and hard to make do the interesting things. On the other hand, MTGarena has a wonderful UI (in actual games) and also MMO-adjacent levels of cheap rewards. I've been enjoying playing that a lot - I've stuck with it much more enduringly than I would have imagined I would, much more than I do nearly any video games. And yet it has no trading features. I'm annoyed about that. It's honestly incredibly antisocial in many facets, really. But I've gotten decently good - I think I win more than I lose in draft matches, for one thing. I don't think I actually like playing a video game that much, it feels like a time-sink in a way that reading or chatting doesn't (always) feel. ... or maybe that's just this game? Maybe a more social game might feel otherwise? I don't know, beyond the vague guilty sensation that I might like to play a MMO at some point. Not that I have the time for it, with life and all my other internet-hobbies being what they are.
play articles because of an offhand mention by brin_bellway. It's interesting, really. I don't think the author prizes "engaging core loop" at all - there's this sense that that stuff is just what you do between tactical decisions (I mean, I this might just be really strong engagement with that second-layer loop, since he does seem to like the "accelerated" features that reduce space between challenges. ). It's an interesting mindset, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while, is the low-level experience of game-play and user interfaces. There have been several games that I notionally would find quite interesting but which I will not play because the user interface is sticky and hard to make do the interesting things. On the other hand, MTGarena has a wonderful UI (in actual games) and also MMO-adjacent levels of cheap rewards. I've been enjoying playing that a lot - I've stuck with it much more enduringly than I would have imagined I would, much more than I do nearly any video games. And yet it has no trading features. I'm annoyed about that. It's honestly incredibly antisocial in many facets, really. But I've gotten decently good - I think I win more than I lose in draft matches, for one thing. I don't think I actually like playing a video game that much, it feels like a time-sink in a way that reading or chatting doesn't (always) feel. ... or maybe that's just this game? Maybe a more social game might feel otherwise? I don't know, beyond the vague guilty sensation that I might like to play a MMO at some point. Not that I have the time for it, with life and all my other internet-hobbies being what they are.
