The mom test .

iixviiiix

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

Scot

This is recipe for turning the gaming community into morons. Would a chess club, a football club, a climbing club or a card games club etc think it a good idea to see how good its game was by seeing if people could play it without instruction?

Bu it has already happened, as the former CEO of EA John Riccitiello said when he joined the company "I want to make games that your mum could play!". That went down well with the shareholders which is what so much of gaming is about these days.

Rungar

I prefer the controller test. There is something called familiar exposure though. If you learn one thing, say equipping a weapon, if the other things you learn work with the same principle you will pick it up much quicker. 

cheyane

Hey!! I resemble that test I am a 65 year old granny and mum too.

lonesol

Scot said:

This is recipe for turning the gaming community into morons. Would a chess club, a football club, a climbing club or a card games club etc think it a good idea to see how good its game was by seeing if people could play it without instruction?

Bu it has already happened, as the former CEO of EA John Riccitiello said when he joined the company "I want to make games that your mum could play!". That went down well with the shareholders which is what so much of gaming is about these days.

It is already to late for that. If you want to see it in action just look at EverQuest project 1999 than progression servers. Swg pre cu and cu vs nge. Load up star wars that new one fallen order, it's so easy you could chew on the mouse and smack your face off the keyboard and win. Diablo 2 vs 3. Mario 1 2 3 vs cat mario. 

People can't handle hard games, and it's not just difficult games because the complex game mechanic like swg , or ryzom either. Take heroes of the storm a very simple game, and I see people failing so bad and stumbling on basic concepts it makes some games unplayable. 

Another example of how unpopular complex games are take distant worlds it is super complex well I didn't think so, but the majority did. Game compared to stellairs is super unpopular, and stellaris is a direct copy of distant worlds with dumbed down game concepts.

Then take the older games like dungeons and dragons online, project 1999, swg pre cu and cu, the majority need a for dummies book written on it to figure out how to play them. I remember one guy I played dnd online with threw a huge baby fit because I we were all grouped trying to figure the quest out by our selves, and he died. Started raving about how I should of spent hours watching the youtube video haha.

The average gamer has no ability to play a game, can't handle any difficult concepts, and or game play, more importantly they can't handle loss at all. Which is why you can't sell say original mario with perm death and start over. When I played starbound I literally found 0 players but me out off the then 100kish players to play a hard core server, meaning when you died u started over. They all cheated.

Which is why all modern games too me are garbage and I don't play them. Eso is so easy again chew on the mouse and smack your face on the keyboard your gonna win. Even if you fall down you just instant respawn. Vs ryzom where the majority and I mean like 99 percent of the mmorpg community wouldn't even be able to figure any of it out by them selves with out a guide. You have to make your own abilities, and if you mess up you are punished . 

So that age is dead. They sit down and go hmm make a fun complex game and sell maybe 10000 copies, or make a game so simple you can throw your keyboard at the wall and dance on it and win selling a million. 

Rungar

I have found that people need only 3 choices "at a time". More than that and you are asking for trouble. Less than that you are asking for trouble. 

3 is the magic number and while there are exceptions to all rules i think you need to use the rule of 3 to appeal to the most players possible while maintaining the depth you want for your game. So design everything around a three choice system and you will get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.

Scot

cheyane said:

Hey!! I resemble that test I am a 65 year old granny and mum too.

Yes but you know how to game, this is about putting a video game in front of someone who has not even played one before and if they can work it out on their own that's supposed to be a success. To me it gives video gaming the hallmark of stupidly and people who don't game can rightly ridicule us. If a hallmark of gaming is making sure all gaming is moving towards having the difficulty of Candy Crush, that is how people will see gaming.

What Lonesol says is true, what I am aiming to do is getting people to wise up to this and seeing the process has not stopped. "Ever more easy mode" is a trajectory we are still on and if enough gamers realise this we may get a little claw back. But certainly we are not going back to the old days in a big way.

Wellspring

Rungar said:

I have found that people need only 3 choices "at a time". More than that and you are asking for trouble. Less than that you are asking for trouble. 

3 is the magic number and while there are exceptions to all rules i think you need to use the rule of 3 to appeal to the most players possible while maintaining the depth you want for your game. So design everything around a three choice system and you will get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.

Interesting concept. What's an example of the 3 choice system in action?

Sovrath

That feels elitist to me.

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Po_gg

While this test wouldn't tell anything about the game's quality, it's a fun experience nevertheless, both to the "moms" and the spectators alike   https://youtu.be/KHoOrFdgYR8?t=73

Jokes aside,

Scot said:

What Lonesol says is true, what I am aiming to do is getting people to wise up to this and seeing the process has not stopped. "Ever more easy mode" is a trajectory we are still on and if enough gamers realise this we may get a little claw back. But certainly we are not going back to the old days in a big way.

I've been talking against streamlining and easification for over a decade now, and I'm pretty sure that "getting enough people to wise up, and may get a little claw back" ship has sailed already.

Even if you replace that "enough" with "all" the players who actually care, it's only a small fraction of the gaming population now, "thanks" to the massive influx of non-gamers. Mobiles just made it even worse.

Lonesol was talking about the "average gamer", and the case is, due to the expansion of the numbers, that average is totally different now compared to where it was even just 15 years ago.

(since Farmville used to be considered as the milestone, what's opened the non-gamers floodgate onto the industry)

Sovrath

Wargfoot said:

Sovrath said:

That feels elitist to me.

It isn't, but you wouldn't understand. 

But basically you're only allowing people who can immediately grasp the concepts of the game to test it?

His explanation is a bit hard to follow.

olepi

Arcade games fit the bill. A mom could probably play Mortal Kombat right off the bat, just start mashing keys.

Expecting somebody who has never played a video game to be able to play a MMORPG effectively doesn't seem reasonable.

Rungar

Wellspring said:

Rungar said:

I have found that people need only 3 choices "at a time". More than that and you are asking for trouble. Less than that you are asking for trouble. 

3 is the magic number and while there are exceptions to all rules i think you need to use the rule of 3 to appeal to the most players possible while maintaining the depth you want for your game. So design everything around a three choice system and you will get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.

Interesting concept. What's an example of the 3 choice system in action?

the simplist one is the trinity: 3 roles
another example is three reserves Health, magic, stamina

I explain it further here but you have to do a little reading first. It wont hurt I promise( Ui and stats...in halfway down the page).  

Wizardry

Just being able to play a game doesn't make the game good whatsoever.

It might if anything give "some"indication the UI was done well but that is about it.Even so i have played a UI i thought was really good,suited me perfectly yet others complained so there is no guarantee of anything good at all,it just depends on the individual.

Theocritus

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

MMOs are complex?

alkarionlog

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

actually if is anything my mom can play I would keep distance, no way I would waste time in this kind of crap

Scot

Theocritus said:

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

MMOs are complex?

They are compared to Candy Crush, but don't worry, new MMO designers are moving us every closer to that glorious accolade, The MMO As Easy Mode As Candy Crush! The next time someone asks you "but aren't video games just for kids?" you will know why that's a perfectly valid question.

Hatefull

I just loaded up SWGemu for the first time...I had to sit there and remember how to play! It took a minute but between memory and some random keypunching I got it, then I finally set up my hud and am now running around SWG again!

Sadly it is a really good emulator a lot of the bugs are back as well lol! More to the point this conversation is very interesting and SWG (Pre-cu, and nothing to do with the NGE trash) was a game with a very intense learning curve. Once you got the hang of it, it is all good but those first couple hours can be a bit rough.

WoW was the gateway drug that proved simple and flashy sells games and even now comparing vanilla WoW (before there was an add-on for literally everything in the game) games to me have gotten progressively easier. Obviously, there is some learning on my part that has occurred, but half the time any more when I am starting a game, I skip the tutorial, and no, when I do that I do not flood general chat with how do I...?

Having said all that, I think there is certainly room and a need for mindless fun, I just do not think that should be the standard.

Hatefull

Theocritus said:

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

MMOs are complex?

Load up SWGemu, there is no tutorial, and if you can find general chat you may get some help, but load it up and grind out one of the starter classes. Let me know how far you get. I mean, if you want a challenge.

Are MMO's complex today? not anything like what they used to be (again, gamers have learned over the years certain truths that last from game to game) but some of the old school MMO's would certainly challenge you. Especially If you have zero gaming experience.

iixviiiix

Theocritus said:

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

MMOs are complex?

Yes, talk from my experience of lead newbies around the games for 2 decades .

Some game have too much tab that people already quit before they even able to know what those tabs were.

alkarionlog said:

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

actually if is anything my mom can play I would keep distance, no way I would waste time in this kind of crap

Alots of old classic games did the "mom test" too so i sure that you may once play some of those games too . yeah , if so you may did waste your time in crap lol .

It's a test to see if the game is user friendly enough for people to get in and nothing about the rich and quality of contents

cameltosis

I don't think the "mom test" is a good idea at all.

It may well tell you how easy or hard your game is to learn, or how good your tutorial is, but beyond that the test is meaningless with regards to being a "good" game or not. 

As with all games, you've really just got to pick your target audience and then design around them. If the game is really complex, then you're going to need a hell of a lot of tutorials in order to on-board a non-gamer mum. That's great if you can do it, but at the same time those tutorials are gonna piss off a gamer vet who already knows how things work.

Theocritus

Hatefull said:

Theocritus said:

iixviiiix said:

Basically it is a test that you let people who don't into (or knowing about) video game test the game.

And if they can play the game without you even to tell them how to , then it is good.

Do you think this is a good test ? cause alots of games (specially MMO) are so complex with many unuse tabs

MMOs are complex?

Load up SWGemu, there is no tutorial, and if you can find general chat you may get some help, but load it up and grind out one of the starter classes. Let me know how far you get. I mean, if you want a challenge.

Are MMO's complex today? not anything like what they used to be (again, gamers have learned over the years certain truths that last from game to game) but some of the old school MMO's would certainly challenge you. Especially If you have zero gaming experience.

Yeah I had post WoW in mind....I know some of the older school games were not that easy...I remember in EQ we had to type responses and set up macros so we wouldnt have to type the same thing over and over.

Tiller

Am I the only one to notice the OP seemed to be testing us all for Typoglycemia?

delete5230

Now I want a soccer mom.
26 5'6" 135 lbs. Blond would be nice.

One that would boss me around and tell me what to do.