Hyperion wrote:This is a MAAAN'S procedurally generated multiverse , but it wouldn't be nothing without a... dedicated man...
I hear what you did there.
So let's get specific: what game features do you folks think would attract more of the distaff sex to Limit Theory, and to this Limit Theory forum?
I don't think it's fair to ask people to answer that question, knowing that answering honestly could provoke personal criticism, without risking it myself. So here's my answer: human avatars and tamable pets.
To put it more generally: personal stories and nurturing relationships. Is that a generalization? Yes -- but it's one based on some years of observation and analysis of aggregate personality types and MMORPG features and players. The games that attracted a higher proportion of female players have been the ones that modeled people (e.g., The Sims) and that allowed taming and raising
creature pets (FarmVille, Star Wars Galaxies).
So far, Limit Theory -- from Kickstarter to Prototype through the multiple Update Videos -- has appeared to be about space, computer graphics programming, ship models, shooting other ships, functional shopping, technology/research, a node-based user interface, scanning things, mining, and economic theory. Notice the rather distinct lack of "stories" and "people" and "relationships" in that list.
None of that is intended to be a criticism. LT is what it is. This is an observation that if you could create a list of things that men tend to like in computer games, and things that women tend to find attractive, the former list would probably come closer to the list of features I cited for Limit Theory so far.
Assuming that analysis is tolerated, how could it be used? I don't expect Josh will be adding creature pets or avatars to LT 1.0. But there's one possibility I can see, and that would be to strongly emphasize the NPC AI's ability to enable emergent stories. Being able to make friends for a long time with a particular NPC, and for all NPCs to communicate goals and beliefs and emotional states (beyond mere competitive utility) to the player's character and each other, and then for those other NPCs to act plausibly based on that information... if that kind of thing were emphasized through gameplay features, and if those features were highlighted and dramatized in an update video,
then I would bet that you'd see a meaningful increase in the number of women expressing an interest in Limit Theory.
Again, I express no opinion here on how I believe anything "should" be or about the behavioral preferences of any individual man or woman; this is my opinion on how I think things are regarding sex-based behavioral predisposition patterns in large numbers of people.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.