Category: MMO Design (Page 10 of 36)

Guild Matchmaking

October 3, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Whenever a band breaks up, you often hear the quote, “Hey, you know how tough marriage is? Imagine being married to 5 people.” In that light, it’s a wonder any band stays together. I assume drugs and groupies has a lot to do with it.

Joining a guild in most MMOs is like being married to 40 people. When you’re in a high-end raiding guild, you’re playing with, and depending on 24 other people to be minimally competent and to not try to cyber the Priest when the guild is in the act of taking Leo down itself. Some guilds are run by drill sergeants, and their guilds respond well to orders being barked. Other guilds have a more laid back leadership style. Some guilds have language that would make a sailor blush. Other guilds try to keep things family oriented. Continue reading

Brandon Reinhart on Raid Pacing

October 2, 2007 / Damion Schubert

I’ve been thinking a lot about raid design, as my guild has finally hit the raiding game.

About a month ago, I almost posted that WoW Raids are too hard. But that didn’t feel right. Continue reading

Why MetaPlace Just Might Work Out

September 27, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Once upon a time, massively multiplayers were pretty much entirely a culture steeped in open source. This is back in the MUD days, when great worldbuilding meant concise yet interesting blocks of text, and the term ‘massively multiplayer’ was still waiting to be invented by some overzealous marketing droid.

Success was defined by reaching 100 simultaneous users. Wild success was reaching 200. The developers actually feared wild success – we were usually running on the back end of university email mainframes and whatnot, often without the IT department’s permission, and wild success meant they might notice, and pull the plug on your world. There were many, many stories of MUDs who encountered a service interruption of that sort, and who lost their entire player base in the 2 week period it took to find a new internet-connected mainframe to call home.

UO’s Tenth Anniversary

September 26, 2007 / Damion Schubert

UO reached it’s tenth birthday today, a fact that surprised me even though we celebrated Meridian 59’s decennial not long ago.

My thoughts on this pioneer of the MMO industry are best captured in an article I wrote quite some time ago: The Beautiful, Broken Legacy of UO.

Congratulations, UO. May you live 10 more.

Random Linkage of the Week

September 18, 2007 / Damion Schubert

The chairman of ITV says that games are evolving in a moral vacuum. Wait, the TELEVISION INDUSTRY is accusing anyone else of being morally bankrupt?

A Chinese gamer died from playing games 3 days straight. Tasteless comment overheard elsewhere: “”Shit, I hope that’s not the guy I hired to powerlevel my new character.” In all seriousness, there’s been about half a dozen of these in Asia over the years. Has there ever been one in the US? What, culturally, is the difference? Continue reading

Blizzard as an Anomaly

September 17, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Steve Danuser has an excellent post, discussing why Blizzard succeeded with WoW. His conclusion, that it all comes down to Blizzard’s ability to execute, is in my opinion dead on. Ask any venture capitalist: ideas are cheap. Success comes down to the ability to actually put those ideas into action. Surprisingly, few game companies have that. Most end up attempting to do to much, and execute too little of it well.

Brian has taken umbrage at this statement, bizarrely (and in my opinion, very mistakenly). His pathway to Blizzard’s success is simple. Spend a shitload of money. Have a huge name. Have a huge fanbase. Ship when ‘it’s done’. Easy as pie. And all a factor in their success. Continue reading

Is the Bartle’s Four Important?

September 13, 2007 / Damion Schubert

So Brandon keeps grilling me on the Bartle’s Four. Is it still important? Is it relevant?

One viewpoint.

At AGDC this year, Erik Bethke talked about data mining the GoPets experience. GoPets was originally designed to be a purely social game. They ‘carpet bombed’ the social quarter of Bartle’s grid, in Erik’s words. They did okay. Continue reading

Next Week, China Bans Unregulated Griffin Flight Paths

August 29, 2007 / Damion Schubert

True story: once upon a time, I pitched a game idea to China that revolved heavily on player created content. Their response was to reject it, because the game leaned heavily on players voting on good content vs. bad content. China doesn’t like games that espouse democracy.

Cut forward to this article: China bans real-life reincarnation (thanks Amber). Continue reading

In Other News, People Who Go To Singles Bars Like Sex

August 29, 2007 / Damion Schubert

Turns out, people who like to play MMOs like to socialize!

Looking at nearly 1,000 online gamers from around the world, researchers found that three quarters of gamers make good friends with the people they meet online. Almost half have met in real-life situations, and one in ten went on to develop physical relationships…

The study also determined that more than 30 per cent of gamers found themselves attracted to another player, and that 40 per cent chose to discuss sensitive issues with online friends rather than real-life friends.

“As well as making good friends online, 81 per cent of gamers play with real-life friends and family, suggesting MMORPGs are by no means an asocial activity, nor are the players socially introverted,” said Griffiths.

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

August 27, 2007 / Damion Schubert

So, Patrick’s had a chance to think about it for a little bit, and he’s decided that he doesn’t like items very much. In fact, ’suck’ is the word that he used. I used to be one of those ‘items are unimportant’ guys. In fact, the Meridian 59 item system he designed so lovingly was designed by me. Confession: our low item count was caused more by a lack of art assets than any desire to make a spartan experience.

There are some very good reasons to have items in your game. Brian covers the obvious, which is that it gives Blizzard a way to keep the game going. Continue reading