Category: MMO Design (Page 24 of 36)

Being Loved Long Time – Virtually

April 11, 2006 / Damion Schubert

1Up has discovered that there are prostitutes in Second Life! Of course, if you’re reading this blog, you probably already knew that. MMO Prostitutes have been around forever. In Meridian 59, taking off your chain mail shirt to show the ratty brown undershirt underneath was about as sexy as you could act, yet we had our first virtual prostitute day one. World’s oldest profession indeed.

Still, there’s no doubt that the culture of SL takes this to the next level. Scott recently linked to the Second Life Escort Ratings (which the article mentions, and is definitely worth a read). What I found more interesting is people working to solve the primary problem when selling this particular… service. Continue reading

Pardon Me, I’ll Be Camping The Wicked Witch of the East

April 9, 2006 / Damion Schubert

So, you got yourself the Wizard of Oz license! Congratulations!

Rule one of working with a license: understand, deep at your core, what your license is about.

Don’t, for example, turn Dorothy into an Antonia wanna-be.

Oh, wait, too late.

I See Ugly People

April 7, 2006 / Damion Schubert

A conversation, last night, in the computer den, while playing WoW.

Me: You’re ugly.
Fiancee: What?
Me: Really, you’re like the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen.
Fiancee: …..
Me: Um, I meant in the game! Really!

Apparently, a bug last night made it so the player portraits you were seeing didn’t accurately reflect your groupmates, so it turned her spunky red-headed dwarf into a blonde, hag-faced dwarf-like beast with two black eyes. On her machine, my gnome had a different mustache. Continue reading

Crucifying Your Playerbase

March 25, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I get press releases from time to time. Normally, I don’t put them up, as I’m not really in the news business, but this one struck me as a particularly bad idea. Here’s the link from Roma Victor. Continue reading

Paladins as Easy Mode

March 15, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Someone pointed out this Powerpoint slide to me from last year’s Blizzcon – a Blizzard designer pointing out that Paladins were intended to be an easy class to play in that game. By contrast, one can imagine Rogues being designed with the frenetic script kiddie in mind. Continue reading

Real-Life Background Checks in Online Games

March 10, 2006 / Damion Schubert

The fiancee pointed this out to me, although I’ve been sitting on this one for a while…

Naughty America the Game is, pretty much exactly what you’d expect – an online, sexually charged virtual world that the designers hope will become a meat market for real-life dating. But how to deal with the fact that the guy that you’re talking to might be a serial killer? Continue reading

Localizing Magic Art to China

March 7, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Speaking of China, Raph has a list of differences between the Chinese market and our own. One thing I don’t see in his list is any differences in content localization. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what those differences are.

In Korea, rumor has it that Starcraft had one bit of localization of content – removing a floating corpse in the intro movie – before the game was allowed on that market. In China, Magic the Gathering is fanatical about removing or obscuring anything that looks like a skull – be it animated monster, death armor adornment or random bone lying in the corner. The strange this is that zombies are okay, and skeletons with eyes are fine. Take a look at some of these minor changes that Wizards, for some reason, found necessary. Continue reading

Dungeons and Dragons Online

March 3, 2006 / Damion Schubert

So Dungeons and Dragons went live this week. Congrats to the team!

Actually, what i wanted to say was that D&DO warranted a mention on last night’s Colbert Report. I swear, I almost choked on my chicken pot pie.

Update: Here’s a link to Colbert geeking out.

“The good news is with D&D now available on the internet, the social outcasts of this generation are relieved of the agony of any social contact. Enjoy your magnificent isolation, and don’t forget to bathe.”

Original comments thread is here.

No More PK In Super Voice Girl

February 23, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Previously, I noted that the Chinese variant of American Idol used the term ‘PK’ to describe the process of kicking a player off the show. The fiancee points out that this probably won’t happen in the future, as the government is stepping in to end the use of such slang when addressing the public in a public forum.

[A] new law taking effect on March 1 that aims to clamp down on the rampant use of internet and media inspired neologisms. The article (in Chinese) that we read this in also states that only standard Chinese should be used in schools and official documents and that no signs for stores and businesses be purely in foreign (non-Chinese) languages. On the surface, this seems like a rather prissy but otherwise innocuous law, but if you keep digging, as Shanghaiist always does, you will discover that “[t]he invention of new words [is] regarded as a symptom of certain psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia.”

Incidentally, it looks like I get to visit China in a couple weeks on business. If you don’t hear from me, assume I said the word ‘LOL’ out loud instead of laughing. Which, come to think of it, probably should be a shooting offense anyway.

Dark And Light Moved To The “Likely To Ship” Column

February 21, 2006 / Damion Schubert

A friend of mine spent the three day weekend playing a lot of the Dark And Light beta, the upcoming MMO whose primary feature is that it’s big (as previously discussed). It’s currently targetting a late April release. His response was overall favorable, although in his rundown of what happened to him during the play session, I found this quote hilarious:

[paraphrased]This guy took me for a ride on his dragon. He took me 3 miles in the air, then dropped me and told me to aim for a lake.