The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
In the wake of perhaps one of the most conservative MMO designs that enjoyed great success, we have Guild Wars, possibly the boldest and most original MMO designs to be released. Yeah, yeah, they’ve got swords and sorcery, combat, a grind, etc, but it’s the stuff where they really differentiate themselves from the competitors that should make any student of MMO design sit up and take notice.
I’m really surprised more people aren’t talking about it. Continue reading
In the broken windows thread, Aufero had this sharp piece of insight.
SOE has been responsible for drilling into many, many people’s heads over the years that selling in-game assets for real world cash is cheating. It’s due in large part to their own efforts on the subject that it will continue to be perceived as cheating in the games they started with those policies in mind.
True, true. Continue reading
Sociology is, of course, an intensely interesting field to those in the business of making MMOs. One of the most interesting social theories of recent years is called ‘Broken Windows’, a theory based on an Atlantic Monthly article. Continue reading
Lost in all the noise about the sky falling and it all being Smedley’s fault, WoW also had a big day yesterday: they launched the honor system. Early feedback around the office has been mixed: everyone who played last night agrees that it turned our PvP server from a polite, armed society to an all-out gankfest. The disagreement is whether or not that’s a good thing or not.
Personally, I haven’t played yet so I can’t comment. I’m not optimistic, though – despite reports to the contrary, Paladins can’t kill anyone unless that person wants to die. Sure, we’re tough to kill, but I spend most of my fights trying to actually get close enough to take a swing at them.
Sony has come full circle – in the days after the launch of EQ, they were the company most likely to ban or sue customers that dared used eBay to bypass the mindblowing fun that was their advancement grind. Now, instead, they will fight fire with fire. And there was much factual reporting, intelligent discussion as well as gnashing of teeth.
My honest opinion? I’ve been trying to convince people to try this exact approach since I was toiling on UO2. Why? Because at the end of the day, the biggest problems with eBay and MMOs are service issues that are solvable if the trades can be secure (as illustrated by the lovely cartoons on Sony’s explanatory site). Continue reading
Has anyone noticed that some ideas seemed married to the MMO genre for no discernable reason?
Let’s take the flogged equine, permadeath. Has anyone noticed that no one is asking for this on other genres? Can you even imagine, for example, playing Doom 3 or God of War with Permadeath on?
We used to, of course. Back in the days of Pac-Man and Space Invaders, your game ended after 3 lives. Then someone comes up with ‘Insert a quarter to continue’, and we haven’t looked back since. Now, single-player developers are bitched out if they don’t drop save points enough, and many argue that we should be beyond that whole save point thing, and just allow players to save anywhere they want. Continue reading
One of the recurring ideas in the great permadeath debate (now slashdotted, for her pleasure) is the notion that permadeath might be saved only for certain extremely high-powered encounters (in fact, this idea is central to the Corpnews post that started this whole mess).
One of the things that ideas like this need to work around is that game players learn by doing. They tend not to read manuals, they tend not to listen to NPCs, they tend to want to try things and see what happens. And why not? People learn by reading in books, learn by observing in movies, and learn by doing in games. That interactivity is the cornerstone of the gaming experience, and it’s part of what draws people to our medium over others. Continue reading
1. Inquiry. “Hey, I know we’ve been talking about MUDs and permadeath for 25 years, but I bet no one’s thought of this angle!!”
2. Despair. “Please, Not the Permadeath Debate Again”, “Permadeath debates always drive me crazy”, “So I was going to stay the hell out of the permadeath discussion Damion started for no apparent reason other than, perhaps, that we were boring him.” ” I’m rather tired of recurring topics that do not go anywhere”. Funny, everyone hates the debate, but no one can resist jumping into it. Continue reading
You want to know why MMORPGs all suck so much? I’ll tell you why: in a word, players. The fucking players are single-handedly responsible for fucking up every MMOG since Everquest. Until they are silenced or eliminated, MMOGs will continue to be the bastion of mediocrity they have always been.
Permadeath is the whackamole idea of the MMO industry. It keeps popping up, and the people who argue against it keep knocking it back down. I’ll never fully understand why. Some people I know and respect greatly are huge fans of it. I don’t get it. Continue reading
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