# Under- and Over-Design

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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Under-design is a frequent problem with virtual worlds that have been written from scratch. Developers spend so long creating and building the world that they forget to add any gameplay. There’s not a lot for players to do, but lots of things for them not to do it to. Alternatively, there is a lot to do but only to the same things, over and over again. Either way, there simply isn’t enough. The virtual world may be immense, beautiful, and finely crafted, but just a shell. What players want, there’s no way they can have: It’s like going on a shopping expedition and finding that all the shops are closed [^129].

Over-design is also a problem. In this scenario, designers go into such detail that it overwhelms all activity. What players want to do is lost in the noise of what they have to do to facilitate doing it. There is a place in virtual worlds for a modicum of annoying detail, and some players will find particular details more irritating than do others; when they feel it’s irrelevant, though, they’ll rebel. I don’t want to have to specify the barb style, shaft length, and flight composition/configuration of the arrows that I buy, I just want something I can shoot in my bow!

Both over-design and under-design are the result of the same thing: misdirected focus. The designers look at something in too much detail: For under-design, it’s the infrastructure of the virtual world; for over-design it’s the structure built on this foundation.

They both illustrate another aspect of selective depth: Too much detail in one place gives an impression of shallowness elsewhere—even if looked at objectively the detail elsewhere is just right.


[^129]: Apparent under-design can arise from unrealistic deadlines or insufficient development staff. The designers might have done their job properly, but if there isn’t time to implement their design fully, then what the players see could be the same as if the designers had under-designed.