Extra Credits

Advanced Social Curve Design - Empowering the Community (2015x25)

: 01, 2015

Social play allows players like Emily to take on greater challenges than solo play. With the player's confidence in the game's mechanical challenges well established, the design can now push them towards social challenges. For example, the player may recognize instantly how to beat a high level raid boss, but to succeed at their plan they need to recruit other players to form the right party. Their successes naturally lead to them making friends with players they get along with, and at this point the community takes initiative into its own hands as players elect to join guilds or even step up to leadership. At the peak of social curve design, the prestige players get from coordinated play (exclusive loot, titles, and other visible bragging rights for beating the most difficult quests) becomes more of a reward than stats alone. While the designer must provide tools to make it easy for those players to coordinate with one another, they should still avoid the pitfall of making interactions automatic since that would undercut the entire cycle of social challenge and reward.