1) What is a game?
It is a task.
A simple as this sounds, everything else revolves around this central aspect of the game. If you think about it, there is very little difference between playing a game and say.. going to work other than how enjoyable it is to do.
What is the task one needs to accomplish in DSB?
One team needs to take over the map. Its as simple as that.
2) What differs between a fun task and a boring one?
What separates a game from a menial task is how it challenges a player in one or more of these areas: skill, luck, speed, logic, creativity, and strategy. While skill, speed, logic, and strategy are obvious, elements of luck and creativity deserves a little more explanation. Luck plays a large role in many games. From something as simple as rolling a die in the board game Monopoly, or bluffing in a game of poker. Creativity is how much a player can express himself within a game. Some games have none, some a little, like avatar customization in World of Warcraft, and some are almost entirely about self-expression, such as Sims or Minecraft.
Does Death Star Battle challenge players in skill, luck, speed, logic, creativity, and/or strategy?
Obviously, DSB demands a high level of skill for players to be successful. Speed also plays a large role, as game conditions change on the second. These are its two strongest points.
One could argue that strategy plays a heavy role in DSB, but I would disagree on this.
From Wikipedia's article on Strategy in Game Theory
My experience in the game has shown that there are few strategic options players choose from to win the game. I am not saying there aren't any strategies possible, just that I've never really seen them expressed in a public match game, and that League had few with small differences. I am quite open for someone to respond to this with a sensible counterpoint; my exposure to League was limited, but this was what I gleamed from it.A player's strategy, in game theory, refers to one of the options he can choose in a setting where the outcome depends not only on his own actions but on the action of others.[1] A player's strategy will determine the action the player will take at any stage of the game.
Luck, creativity, and logic play very little to no role in our game.
3) Games have rules that define what and how a player interacts with the game and other players
A game is not just the task one has to accomplish, but in how they can accomplish it. For example, it would be easy to win chess without rules: you would just remove your opponent's king from the board on your first move.
Game rules are the methods that a player can express things like skill and creativity in a game. Driving home from work involves a lot of rules: driving under a certain speed, obeying traffic lights and signs, not hitting other cars or pedestrians, etc. Being in a race has the same objective, but with much different (and less) rules, and is considered fun.
Do the game rules in Death Star Battle make the game fun?
This is a highly subjective question.
My own view point on this is that the rules worked 10 or so years ago, but should have been considered a work in progress at the time rather than something dogmatic. People lost interest in holding the flags over time and therefor winning the game. I believe this was always an issue of the rules needing changes to make the objective more enticing.
Our rules heavily emphasized player's personal skill over other aspects of game play (speed, luck, creativity, logic, and strategy), and became more and more focused on this aspect of game play above all else (remember the streak phase of our game?). As turf battles are more about strategy than anything else, our rules became in direct conflict with the actual objective of the game.
4) Players like achievements and are more apt to continue to play a game they feel they have accomplished something in.
Achievements in a game vary greatly based on the type of game it is. In your basic RPG, the player's avatar grows in power and gains new abilities over time, usually quantitized as levels. In others games rewards are given for completing particularly complicated tasks (ones that usually requires the player to perform remarkably in either skill, luck, creativity, speed, logic, or strategy). In more social games, simply being able to customize ones avatar or other personal effects in the game environment is a reward, as it lets the player stand out more as an individual or have more social ranking.
Is there an achievement system in Death Star Battle and is it effective in player retention?
DSB had two achievement systems that I can remember.
One is the purchase system that allows players to buy upgrades and items for their ship. This is very popular in the game, and one could argue overshadowed the actual objective.
The other is the score board in the game GUI that allows players to gauge each other in total points, kills, death, etc. This was augmented a while back by an in-map score board that was more 'official' than what was displayed in the players own client.
I feel both are very strong in player retention. I personally used to strive to be on the top of the charts, especially the in game map scores years ago. While I did not favor the upgrade system, many players did, and therefor in that aspect it was very successful.
Discussion points
To simplify DSB in the above context, it appears as such:
Objective: Win control over the Death Star Battle map.
Focuses: Skill and Speed.
Rules: Hold the majority of flags for a set period of time.
Achievements: Get temporary upgrades to ships and have your name on a score board.
The above, isn't working: player levels are almost non-existent. This could be a symptom of the game simply being forgotten, or of the game simply not enjoyable to players anymore.
If one wanted to update the game to be hopefully more enjoyable and attract more players, thought should go into how to make the game more enjoyable for more people (adding focus on areas of luck, creativity, logic, and strategy), changing the rules to be more enjoyable, and perhaps adding new ways achievements in the game (as long as they don't interfere with the basic structure and balance of the game).
Any thoughts?
