Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: MMO Design (Page 18 of 36)

Telling Stories in an MMO

November 29, 2006 /

An interview with the head honchos of my studio has been posted. It features Producers Gordon Walton and Rich Vogel, as well as BioWare Creative Director (and my Lead Designer) James Ohlen. They’ve given up some more information about what we’re working on: namely, it’s going to focus a lot on story.

We want to bring a level of storytelling that’s equal to the single-player box games that BioWare has done. I think we can do that. One of the big challenges will be making our storytelling work in an environment that has multiple players.

Feel free to debate what that means… or even what you hope it means.

Original comments thread is here.

Warhammer Lifts Skirt, Shows a Little Leg (Plus: Reset Buttons)

November 27, 2006 /

Speaking of increased fan communication, Warhammer has responded to some fan questions on Slashdot, talking about their game and where it’s heading. In response to ‘what makes WAR special’:

That grand, enormous capital city you’re running around in today could be a ruined tomb tomorrow if you and your fellows do not defend it tooth and nail. To do so, you’ll be given the chance to push deeper and deeper into enemy territory until you finally reach THEIR capital, at which point you’ll lay siege to it and – if successful – do things that… well, Slashdot is a FAMILY FRIENDLY place, so let’s just say that you’ll do terrible, terrible things to the huddled, whimpering survivors of the siege.

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Straight Talking with the Fans

November 27, 2006 /

With Vanguard’s launch imminent, and with heavy pressure from the 800-lb gorilla launching two weeks before it, Brad McQuaid felt it was time to have a ‘come to Jesus’ talk with the fans.

The interesting subtext is Brad laying it all out – the game isn’t going to be nearly as hardcore as they seem to want it. Key notes that Brad makes: the game WILL have a minimap. The game WON’T mandate endless camping. The game WILL have quests, so you won’t be forced to endlessly grind. Believe it or not, they had to defend these positions on the boards. I guess there are fans of anything, even tedious inventory management. Continue reading

Go Here for RMT Flamewar

November 20, 2006 /

Matt Mihaly wants to know what’s wrong with twinking.

One argument the anti-RMT crowd puts forth, however, has always puzzled me insofar as it strikes me as fairly hypocritical: The idea that Player A giving something to Player B in exchange for real-world money somehow harms Player C and thus should be banned, but that Player A giving an item to Player B in exchange for real-world friendship (or familial connections, etc) does not harm Player C in the same way.

Original comments thread is here.

Now That’s A Dupe!

November 15, 2006 /

Wanna know what it’s like to live in the Star Trek universe, where anything and everything you possibly could hope to ask for is one replicator function away? Then perhaps this Second Life script is for you!

Copybot is able to perfectly reproduce objects, along with their textures. The statue or piece of furniture one worked so hard to create in hopes of selling it can be recreated flawlessly by Copybot. Recreated flawlessy but not identically – the creator field will be different, the version produced by the Copybot proram will show the name of the account the Copybot program used to log in with, not the person who actually created the object design.

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CCP and White Wolf to Merge

November 12, 2006 /

The company that made the ultimate stat-oriented MMO is apparently set to acquire the company that made pretentious gothness cool among the gamer set. I didn’t see this coming, but I’m actually quite excited. I’ve been trying to convince people for years that World of Darkness is perfect fodder for an online world.

Seriously: read my AGC presentation and tell me it doesn’t fit pretty well. Maybe now it will actually happen.

How well the two companies will merge is interesting. At their face, the ultimate spreadsheet-like game merging with a company fanatically devoted to roleplaying seems like a stretch. One thing that both companies does share is a laser focus on owning their own niche, and being as true as possible to the original vision, which I think has led to success for both companies (and WW’s more catastrophic failures can be seen as examples of them diverging from that). It will be interesting if the marriage here is a good one.

Virtual Reality Reality Shows

November 9, 2006 /

I’ve posted in the past about Second Life’s amazing ability to draw attention well beyond what their population merits. This trend seems set to continue – Big Brother (the TV show) is set to hold a contest inside of Second Life.

Imagining a reality show set in a Virtual World has interesting ramifications. On one hand, the frozen, static faces of an MMO avatar cannot hope to capture the true magic of reality television: the inadvertent bitchface on a contestant’s face when another contestant has done something truly repugnant.

On the other hand, the level of repugnancy can only be high, when you combine the standard reality TV contestant’s desperate need for attention with the anonymity that the web provides.

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