Category: MMO Design (Page 27 of 36)

Finally, Rest For The Wicked

August 24, 2005 / Damion Schubert

The other half of online gaming oversight from the Chinese government came today. Soon, leading games in China (including WoW) will institute measures designed to dissuade players from playing constant hours, in order to combat “sloth, truancy and even murder”. The exact measures are, at this point, a tad hazy, as each source I’ve found on the topic gives a slightly different account of what’s going on. One description is as follows.

The anti-addiction system cuts in-game benefits to players after three hours. For most games this will mean awarding fewer “experience points” to fantasy characters and reducing the value of virtual goods such as magic weapons that they acquire.

After five hours online, players will be subjected every 15 minutes to the warning: “You have entered unhealthy game time, please go offline immediately to rest. If you do not your health will be damaged and the benefits you can win will be cut to zero.“

In-Game Advertisements

August 11, 2005 / Damion Schubert

In-game advertisements, courtesy of Massive Incorporated, have begun showing up in Planetside. SOE’s small Tribes-like cult favorite isn’t the first MMO to drink the Kool-Aid, but the previous game that did so, Anarchy Online, preceded the move with an option to play certain parts of the game for free. As of yet, no such price decrease has occurred in Planetside. A quote from SOE:

Louis Figueroa, Director, Business Development, Sony Online Entertainment, commenting: “Realizing another revenue stream in PlanetSide will ultimately be good for the entire PlanetSide community. The additional income will allow us to support the game with continued development and new features that the community has been asking for. Working with Massive’s network helps make this possible.”

MMO Designers Can Learn from LARP

August 3, 2005 / Damion Schubert

A documentary about LARPers.

MMO designers should study LARPs more. If you think about it, they’re actually a much better analog to MMOs than the tabletop experience everyone tries to emulate. Tabletops are about cooperative storytelling. LARPs are much more self-running, with a small cabal loosely managing a large herd following fairly simple and cut-and-dried rules. They also do a better job of thinking of events that involves the whole populace, and still feel world-changing.

But this is all from anecdotal data – I’ve never taken part. Humorously enough, though, I had a girlfriend once who swore she would dump me if I ever LARPed. I’m pretty sure she meant it, too.
The original comment thread is here.

Yes, Game Devs are Sometimes Jealous Bitches

July 29, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Brian points out an article on Slashdot about how Microsoft’s image maps don’t show the Apple buildings. Pretty amusing. Even if you accept that the picture is an old one, it seems odd to use an old one in such a rapidly growing part of the world. Continue reading

Girls Who Are Boys Who Love Boys Like They’re Girls

July 29, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Nick Yee’s Daedalus Project has a new issue up – or very nearly so. It’s showing up in bloglines, but I can’t seem to see the actual research on the site soon. I’m sure all of this will be remedied shortly.. Continue reading

People Are Too In Love with the Giant MMO

July 21, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Here’s a snippet from a recent preview of Irth Online.

Irth online is a new fantasy based MMO, created by Magic Hat Software, that is currently in beta. Irth consists of a large 3,800 square kilometers of land. Considering the size of the land they have built in a portal system for faster travel from one area of the map to another. You can also travel via horseback or by swimming, although the portal system will likely be your fastest means of travel from one town to the next.

The End of the World As We Know It

July 21, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Psst, don’t tell anyone, but the Station Exchange launched today. Continue reading

Grey Shards

July 20, 2005 / Damion Schubert

The White Wolf thread spawned an interesting discussion, once you cut through the mindless flamewar, about Grey Shards. A Grey Shard is a server emulator for an MMO, with those for Ultima Online being the most common. The debate is, put simply, between “Grey shards are the spawn of Satan” and “Information wants to be free, yo.” As usual, the ‘yo’ crowd are the ones not trying to make money off the product.

Jaycen points out (quite correctly in my mind) that there is a clear parallel between White Wolf’s recent antics and how Ultima Online’s actions and direction nudges players who disagree with those directions to play on Grey Shards. What other choice do you have if you think Elves in UO are an abomination? Continue reading

The Guild Wars Business Model

July 20, 2005 / Damion Schubert

For those of us quibbling about price structures, Robert Garriott helpfully supplies us with the answer to what a game with Guild Wars’ billing model needs to do to be successful.

“We have to sell at least five times more copies than a subscriber-based online game in order to get to about the same level of profitability,” says Garriott, matter of factly.

At least. Noted: the article doesn’t mention whether or not they succeeded, although (as some have noted here) at the very least their sales in America have been very good.