Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them

The most popular card from the comedy set "Unglued" was this:

This card is split into two pieces and to play it you have to have both pieces. Some time after making this card it struck Mark that he could do the opposite. Two cards in one. For obvious reasons the two halves had to be of the same card type and they couldn't do permanents as this would create confusion. For a while Mark fought a battle to put split cards (as they would end up being called) in the set. Some people didn't want to take the risk of doing the split cards, while other people supported the idea. The argument against the cards was that they were pushing too far, they were bizarre and a card is one card, not two. In the end the split cards were printed and they were a huge success. They made rules to explain to the players how to play with them.

Mark tells by his own experience that many times he wants to do something, but many people are against him. They reject his ideas because they are experienced and feel that some ideas aren't going to be successful. He admits that he's done bad mechanics, but says that nobody has the same passion as him to prevent him from doing them. The argument that he uses is that when you do something grandiose and it fails, the players forgive you because they recognize your effort. On the opposite side, if you don't bring anything new to the players and bore them, they are unforgiving. The bigger threat shouldn't be to challenge the players, but to not take risks.

His personal view isn't shared by all. I personally don't agree with all that he says. Mark is pretty self-centered. I can agree that if a card isn't made, the impact of it on the game is never going to be known. The company has, say, a thousand employees. At the same time, the player base around the world is a thousand times larger. A grandiose idea can very well break a company in some cases. Magic has already suffered from near death when certain mechanics and cards were printed and had such a negative impact that it almost killed the game. With that reasoning in mind I can only think that some players may never forgive a company for their past mistakes.

In level design this is reflected upon the fact that the game has to have varied challenges, else there is a risk of boring the player due to the lack of any new challenges. Jedi Knight 2 is successful in having a plot that unfolds in a steady progression. The player gradually gains new and stronger powers and the level design follows it accordingly. In the end of the game the player earns the opportunity to control an AT-ST. Bioshock 2 has the same environment of the first game, but apart from some modified mechanics, the game is the same. The company that made it didn't spend much time to develop it and just wanted more cash by recycling the same ideas. The team that made Bioshock 2 didn't have much time to bring something completely new.

Even the art direction can be boring. Games such as Mario, Sonic, Tomb Raider, have a great variety of environments. Bioshock takes place in a city under the sea and is able to keep cohesion while at the same time depicting different parts of the city. Each level takes place in a specific part of the city and each one has its own identity. In Halo CE some of the later levels repeat environments that the player has already gone through in the first levels. Players want to see new things when they revisit the same places as before. What does 1993's Doom do to address this issue? If a previous area is revisited, new enemies spawn, some new items or secrets become available.

In Magic this happens when a previous world is revisited years later. The players want to see the old, but they also want something new. It's a hard goal to reach the equilibrium between the old and the new and it's not as simple as 50/50, half new and half old. Franchises such as Assassin's Creed, GTA, Halo, etc all have this dilemma between the old and the new. The players don't want to play the same game all the time, but they also don't want the game to lose its identity.

To conclude, Mark's own lesson "Don't design to prove you can do something" could be combined with this page's lesson as follows: "If I design to prove something, am I challenging the players at the same time?". That could be the case. How many companies attempted that and failed? I'm sure everyone must known at least one example of a game that broke a tradition and it didn't go well. To cite one, look for the outcry of Diablo 2 players when they got Diablo 3. Although I can't state that they've changed the whole game the way the did in comparison to Diablo 2 because they wanted to prove something. I don't know how the development of it went by. Unreal Tournament 2004 brought many changes to the game, one of which were the adrenaline pills which fundamentally changed how the game is played. Unreal Tournament 2004 didn't achieve the same success as the previous game, although we have other factors contributing to this.

I'd be careful with Mark's lesson because I see two different fears. One is the fear never bringing something new to entice your target audience. The other fear, which Mark didn't mention, is the fear of breaking some core's piece and the unforeseen consequences. As I mentioned previously, not everyone forgives and I while I agree with Mark that designers have to be bold. We should also be careful with what we do. I partially agree with Mark's reasoning behind stating that to not take risks is a bigger threat than taking them. I don't have professional experience, but I'd imagine that many would question "Is that risk really worth it?".