Blackrock, why is it so difficult for you?
Why is is so hard for you to do the right thing? To hit the sweet-spot?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY:
1. You should start asking yourself questions about how valuable YOUR spare-time actually is to you.
2. The enjoyment you get is strongly connected to your motivation. Maximising player motivation should be your goal (staff), and players should be more united when it comes down to the quality of their time spent.
3. When making an argument, consider not only your own enjoyment, but also that of your fellow player. What is it that connects you both? And how does the staff deliver in reaching that?
4. Critically review the different features of the server and mirror them to the core principles given. What room of improvement is there in maximising player motivation?
5. Customer is King is what they use to say. Satisfy your players and more will come. The easiest way to get people satisfied, is to motivate them. Give them a purpose, a goal, give them a way to excell, to master, but do this in a free context where people feel that they are autonomous. That they can decide what road to take from A to B.
6. Some rewards demand certain specific and narrow achievements. Just think about an athlete getting a golden medal in the olympics for walking to the boothstand. Or obtaining a Gladiator title from BG's. Ridiculous, right? But most rewards DON'T need such narrow achievements in order to justify them. In those cases autonomy is a better motivator.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. You should start asking yourself questions about how valuable YOUR spare-time actually is to you.
I could have started this topic like so many others about what I dislike about what's happening on Blackrock right now.
I could have named some arguments and try to convince you.
You could have read them and think about how much you agree or disagree.
Or you could have thought about how pointless any of these topics really are when considering the succesrate of similar topics in the past.
When really all I truelly want is you to ask yourself this one simple question:
How valuable is spending your spare-time on something you enjoy to YOU?
And now answer it.
2. The enjoyment you get is strongly connected to your motivation. Maximising player motivation should be your goal (staff), and players should be more united when it comes down to the quality of their time spent.
Now I think I can safely say that your spare-time is probably very valuable to you. And even though I don't have an idea about WHAT it is SPECIFICALLY that makes it so valuable to you, I do think I can make some generalisations about it based on science.
The way I do it is based on two assumptions I make about how you spend your spare-time:
1. The stuff you have to do (clean your room, do homework, etc.)
2. The stuff you want to do (play games, do sports, go out with friends, etc.)
Now I think a third assumption I can make is that you playing WoW is you wanting to do it. And here's where it get's interesting. Want is based on desire. Desire is based on drive, and drive is based on deep motivation. And even though I have no clue about what motivates YOU deeply to do whatever you want to do, science tells us that there are 3 core principles of motivation we all share. Principles that are at the core of any motivated decision you make that came from inside yourself, because you WANTED to, NOT because you HAD to. These are:
1. Autonomy: the ability to make your own choices.
2. Purpose: the ability to set a goal/follow one and get there.
3. Mastery: the ability to get better at something through practice.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
So when you answer to yourself the earlier question truethfully, you basically tell yourself how important spending your spare-time on something that motivates you DEEPLY is to you.
3. Consider not only your own enjoyment, but also that of your fellow player. What is it that connects you both? And how does the staff deliver in reaching that?
Now let me finalize this topic with giving you a final question to ask yourself. Now this question is a little harder than the last one, because what I am asking of you is to try to answer this question with not only yourself in mind, but the rest of the population of Blackrock as well. Why? Because when you try to make an argument for change to a people's managing staff, you should consider these people in your arguments. By using the 3 points above:
When you look at Blackrock's current situation, what do you think about it's current performance in motivating people?
Answer this to yourself.
4. Critically review the different features of the server and mirror them to the core principles given. What room of improvement is there in maximising player motivation?
For me personally:
Free Gear for all --> perfect, gives people autonomy to do whatever they want. Allows people to refresh meaning/purpose to a system that has been around on countless pservers for ages.
Professions from 2v2/3v3/soloq --> almost perfect, gives purpose but limits autonomy on how to get it. Allow isle/bg kills to get it too.
Transmogs from soloq/3v3 --> semi perfect, gives purpose but limits autonomy even more by not allowing to obtain it from 2v2, isle of battlegrounds.
Staff-community communication --> imperfect. It is sporadic, non-transparent and decisions made sometimes seem unclear and unsupported. This gives people sense that their autonomy is based on arbitrary non-clear and sometimes non-sensical or out of context arguments made by staff that seems to be only partially involved in their game enjoyment.
5.Customer is King is what they use to say. Satisfy your players and more will come. The easiest way to get people satisfied, is to motivate them. Give them a purpose, a goal, give them a way to excell, to master, but do this in a free context where people feel that they are autonomous. That they can decide what road to take from A to B.
I always thought that the main goal of an entertainer is either one or the two:
1. Make money.
2. Make people enjoy themselves.
Usually those are combined. Since enjoying customers are motivated customers. And motivated customers lead to making money. Either directly or indirectly. Is it then not logical AND sensical to make any goal or direction you want to go in at least in principal be loyal to achieving maximised enjoyment and loyalty?
Something to maybe think about.
6. Some rewards demand certain specific and narrow achievements. Just think about an athlete getting a golden medal in the olympics for walking to the boothstand. Or obtaining a Gladiator title from BG's. Ridiculous, right? But most rewards DON'T need such narrow achievements in order to justify them. In those cases autonomy is a better motivator.
I am not asking for a dumping-down of requirements for certain achievements. That is after all against one of the key principals of motivation: purpose. People want meaningful purpose. And yes, some rewards DO demand a certain limited autonomy to get it. Just think about it: obtaining Arena Master title in battlegrounds is just plain wrong, no? It kills our purpose.
But I am trying to make a case here. Not all rewards need to be that limited in availability. In fact, whenever possible, science tells us that more autonomy is usually the best way. So whenever you're thinking about giving out rewards to enhance purpose, perhaps think about how strong your arguments really are AGAINST giving multiple ways to achieve it.
Thanks,
Judgelwl