Engineering Faith » Virtues
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Since Faith took place over millenia, and was based on ongoing effects like churches, laws, and beings, Virtues moved gradually. Every five minutes, you gained or lost a little bit of each Virtue depending on how you’d set up your faith. (I’ve written about the problems with the Virtues system on the Sidebar page).
It turns out that in games, people play for instant gratification. They want to click, and see an effect that they like. Unfortunately, in Faith, this display of your incoming Virtues was about as close as you got to instant gratification.
What people really loved, though, were the graphs. (The graphs broke badly from a server move and were one of the few things I couldn’t get a screenshot of.) Faith graphed your success over time compared to your neighbours, the average, and other metrics. You could graph any particular virtue you were interested in, too. It sounds plain at first, but never doubt how much people will love a graph of their awesomeness going up.