In Response To: I wanna be a World Designer! (RC Master)
: The latest job that went up on Bungie's career page is the position of a
: world designer .
: Bungie is seeking a passionate, creative, and omnipotent designer to build
: world activities within in our next universe. Your vision will become the
: Authority of Great Player Experiences, your ever-expanding mind will
: unleash the Sacred Secrets of Replay Value, and your voice will lead our
: players to the Promised Land.
: As a World Designer at Bungie you will work with Designers, Producers,
: Artists, and Engineers to design our game worlds, develop engaging
: multiplayer experiences , and create dynamic AI encounters that will be
: talked about for years to come. You will evaluate gameplay pacing, flow,
: difficulty curves, and balance to polish all game activities for an
: optimum player experience. You will partner with user testing to evaluate
: ideas and implementations. You will ultimately be responsible for setup
: and fine tuning of gameplay experiences, including everything from story
: moments to player respawn points , and everything in between.
: Emphasis mine.
: It is interesting that the role of World Designer includes not only
: "engaging multiplayer experiences" but also "dynamic AI
: encounters". And again, both "story elements" and
: "respawn points". Things which were, in Halo, completely
: separate. Read it the right way, and you could construe it as lending
: credence to the MMOAG rumour.
: Perhaps this is what dmiller was alluding to about not having 'Mission
: Designers' anymore.
: What I also found interesting on the Jobs page was that the previous role of
: "Player Investment Designer" has been removed. Perhaps this role
: has been filled? Or perhaps bungie have clarified what they really want
: with the recent introduction of the role of " Economy Designer
: ": It’s the economy, stupid! Drive players to invest in our game
: economy by analyzing the subtleties of behavioral economics and pondering
: the pitfalls of specialization and free trade. Theorize why people make
: irrational economic choices and use the tricks you’ve learned to ensure
: players only make the irrational choices you want them to. Create an
: economic system that will fulfill a player’s needs just as much as
: shooting an alien in the face.
: The Economy Designer at Bungie will develop a robust and rewarding game
: economy that drives player behavior toward intended goals and validate
: those systems through intense simulation, testing and iteration. You’ll
: design the systems and mechanics which drive in-game trade , satisfy the
: players’ need for possessions and wealth whilst ensuring rewards retain
: their intended value despite attempts to exploit or grief the system. You
: will determine what data is necessary to mine, ensure we have all of the
: hooks necessary to gather that data, and come up with all of the
: interesting metrics and questions we should ask of that data. You will run
: simulations of these mechanics based on expected player behavior and test
: these simulated results against actual player behavior; tuning the live
: system accordingly.
: Emphasis mine.
: Now, functionally, this role shares much with the previously listed one for
: 'Player Investment Designer" in terms of 'drive player behaviour',
: investing, possessions and being robust against exploits and such.
: However, this role is much more mathematically and well, economically
: orientated. For the Player Investment Designer they wanted someone with 3
: years industry experience to help them to get players to invest, but they
: want someone who actually has a degree in economics for this!
: I find the line about 'drive in-game trade' interesting. Of course it could
: literally just mean: you play, get credits, spend on armour. But again, if
: you read it the right way you could construe it as trade between players.
: Or at least something more in-depth than the one way street that was in
: Reach.
: Thoughts?
: p.s. I don't actually want to be a world designer, I don't think my grasp of
: colours is good enough :P
Intriguing; sorry, I don't have much more to say. I am not one to type very long posts.
;-)
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