[Thought Experiment] Player motivation map

Here's a thought experiment for anyone designing a game. Build up a 'user flow' diagram to determine what your players will do and why. Think about all the possible actions the players can do as well as all the possible motivations players have to do them.

For example, I'm going to take a basic eastern MMORPG.

 

Possible Actions: 

Grinding

Farming

Quests

In-Game events

Organized Play (Team Play)

Organized wars

Socializing/Community building.

Possible Motivators: 

Power

Greed

Competitiveness

Expression / Build creation

Exploring

Socializing

Then figure out what actions are "fed" by what motivators. That is, which actions will satisfy particular wants and desires of your players.

Farming

Motivators: Power, Greed, Competitiveness, Expression

Questing

Motivators: Power, Greed, Competitiveness

Grinding

Motivators:  Power, Greed, Competitiveness

Organized Play

Motivators: Socializing, Power, Greed, Competitiveness, Expression

Socializing/Community building:

Motivators: Socializing.

Then figure out which action is rewards some motivations *the most* in your game so you can refine your list down.  In most games, Organized play isn't the best way to satisfy power leveling. However, organized play can be the only source for some hard to acquire items. In this case, farming and organized play both satisfy greed the most in different ways.. so our refined list looks like..

Farming

Motivators: Greed

Questing

Motivators: None

Grinding

Motivators:  Power, Competitiveness

Organized Play

Motivators: Greed, Socializing, Expression

Socializing/Community building:

Motivators: Socializing.

Now you have a pretty good idea of what is going to be the dominant actions that are going to be taken in the game. If you have a better idea of specific actions in your game, you can further refine this chart to determine what actions a potential player will do. Further refinements to this list can include: availability of the various actions you can take (for example, if there are only 3 quests in the entire game then questing can't satisfy its motivators because it's not available all the time). You can also figure out if you need to design more actions to satisfy base motivators, like specific quests designed to attract players who are driven by say, greed and socializing.