[fernly]

About a year ago I somehow got an invite to the beta and played maybe 20 or 30 hours, on and off, over several weeks. The whimsy and quirkiness of the design elements were always impressive. And it was commendable that they were building a family-friendly, kid-safe game that could still be appreciated by adults. But somehow it just didn't hook me and I stopped going back.

In hindsight it reminds me of my experience with Second Life: once you've got the basic ideas, and toured some of the more creative or amusing islands, what is there to do? At least in 2L you could build something that would remain in the world. In Glitch there were endless skill-building exercises that had meaning only in the game world. The only payoff for building a skill was to be able to learn some more skills.

Meanwhile millions are obsessively playing Minecraft, whose design could not be farther from Glitch in every way.

[jes5199]

It's almost like Glitch was more fun for the game designers than for the players. It was full of gorgeous art and silly jokes. But, for the player, there wasn't much to do, except collect N of these so you can get another X.

[greenmountin]

This may be true. I took a break for a while, but have been back at it with the primary motivation to... cheat and scheme. To start with, I've been scraping the auction house data, hoping to analyze the best pricing strategies and/or quick-pounce on cheap items. I used this to learn Python, SQL, and basic EC2. I scraped their encyclopedia, dumped the Wiki, and was matching up ingredient lists for crafts. Then I was also going to use screenscraping and image recognition to bot my herb farming... Guess I will have to find another flash game for that.

I didn't play (much) because I liked grinding and quests, but for a different challenge. I really appreciate that they set up the JSON auction house feed.

[msluyter]

That was my experience as well. Although exploring the world was initially interesting -- and I enjoyed outfitting my character with a fez -- after a while wandering around squeezing chickens got a little dreary. And when you leveled up and learned new skills, most of the time they weren't all that interesting. Becoming 10% more efficient at gardening or whatnot.... It definitely seemed to be lacking a hook of some sort. I bet there are some interesting lessons for game designers there.

[wmf]

Don't forget achievement and rare item grinding. There's always more grinding to do (which is why I left).

[noodle]

I was in the same boat.

It was missing purpose, I think. I could grind out levels, but I didn't have any reason to. There wasn't any compelling reason to actually play the game beyond just scoping out the art (which only lasts so long).