Even though I'm still a long way from ever creating a sim, the fact remains that I will not take a break from coming up with ideas. I want to find ways to incorporate several different player-pleasing factors into any sim I may create in the future. So I'm going to ask all of you: what is important to you in a sim? Is it the community? Is it a specific feature? Is it the genre?
What draws you into a sim and what makes your simming experience more enjoyable?
On another note... I added an invisible stat counter to OV. In the past two and a half days, there have been over 200 individual visitors. That's not page views and I'm not counting repeating visitors. These are single, distinct beings. That's a lot of people. Still, what with such large and vast communities out there, I think I'll be able to manage more. Why don't you guys tell your friends about OV?
Also, why the heck aren't more of you following?
Because I'm to lazy to make an account? ^^'
ReplyDeleteAnd as far as the SIM goes, the community of a SIM is rather important to me. Though, I may not always be involved in the community, I still prefer the people to be friendly and helpful. Originality is was also attracts me to a SIM. SIM's that use the same idea as another site with just a few tweaks, rather bores me. =/ Why would I play the rip off, when I could just play the original? X]
Personally, I think all of them are of equal importance.
ReplyDeleteYou can have a wonderfully designed game with a horrible community and you'd feel uncomfortable due to the community.
You can have a horrible game with a wonderful community but you'd be put off by the game before you even got to the community.
To answer your question though; I feel the most important part of a SIM or a game is a specific feature, a unique 'selling point'.
I think another important part of running a sim is being on the users level and listening to the things they'd like to see (assuming it's feasable and wouldn't cause issue with any other scripts), as well as frequently doing updates and showing signs of life. Otherwise people will just get bored and lose interest after a while because it becomes something of a chore rather than a fun game. Repeating the same loops and nothing more.
(I followed you now by the way, I need to set up my accoutn more though xD)
I've always said the community is the best part of any sim; I always aim to make my sites community based and make sure I'm always active and engaged with the community. I hate sites where the admins don't exsist and have a 'I'm better then thou' attitude because they just don't mingle. Don't get me wrong, sometimes you need a break because along with the good things you get the negative sides too when you deal with a lot of member troubles and complaints but neverless I always feel it's important to let your community know you're there, you're active and you're listening to their input.
ReplyDeleteI always think having an original idea is a must. I'm sick to death of breeding sites (I cannot see the appeal anymore). Seriously. They're just copies of each other and use a different animal. At least when I made Feralis you had the option to have a custom wolf BUT there were other things to do which were more important. There isn't much out there like that now; all these new sims I see popping up I will skim and just go 'ergh, seen it' and lose interest. Don't get me wrong, there are a few sims out there I'm really looking forwards to like Arctic Lights for example, but I could list a bunch of sites I just look at and go 'eh'. I think an original idea is an important thing, as well as the features. I'd never seen inventories using 'catagories' before until I made them on Feralis and then they appeared everywhere - the point being it was an original feature, even though it was pretty much insignificant, it was something that made the site stand out and obviously worked as other sims now use the idea.
Another factor for me is the attention to detail which makes me want to play a sim. I've changed the layout to VS about 10 times or more, I'm constantly worried it could look so much better whereas some sims I clicked and think "are you blind? can you not see these colours clash horribly." not to mention they try to sell alpha accounts before even having a TOS written. I made sure the public area of VS was up to scratch before even considering opening, I got my artists to give us some images to spice up the boring pages like the TOS and privacy statement etc - attention to detail/OCD about being a neat freak = important in my books.
And lastly as I'm really waffling; effort from the staff. I love to see active admins, weekly updates, plans for the future, new art the lot. Quality images and coding (I admit, i like to bug test when I join sites in alpha to the max and it's nice to not find any) which is up to scratch. A layout which is easily accessible, navigation where you don't have to click a million times to get to one shop (don't get me wrong, I like maps but I also like quick linking after a while to save time), things where you don't have to click over and over again to raise a stat, jobs which mean something and could teach you things, sites which have done their research and know what they want to achieve and how they're going to do it, a good advertising campaign to show and finally, a wicked idea that makes me check the site daily.
Sorry for rambling - hope that helped a little?
Thank you, Tyrant. That helped a lot, really.
ReplyDelete