The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
One of the main problems with running an online game is being truly in touch with your community. We sit in our ivory towers, we look at (usually insufficient) data mining, and get our community leads to compile reports, but sometimes, we don’t fully have our pulse on the problems. Continue reading
Happy new year. I’m still feeling lazy and headache-ridden, so let me point you to AFKGamer’s 2005 MMOG Wishlist.
Corpnews asked me some questions, and I gave some overly polite and politically correct answers, as part of their end-of-year developer roundup. Read it here.
If you believe in the ‘world/game’ split of online world design, and are a fan of the ‘world’ camp, now must seem like a pretty grim time. The grand-daddy of ‘world’ design is suddenly having people talk about it in the past tense (prematurely, I should reiterate). Furthermore, new additions to the ‘world’ side of things such as Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowbane and the Sims Online have all gotten disappointing reviews, whereas on the ‘game’ side of things, we’ve had endless praise for City of Heroes, followed by reviewers arguing, out of EverQuest 2 and Worlds of Warcraft, which game can cure the most lepers. The future doesn’t look too bright – Tabula Rasa and Vanguard, obviously on the front lines of the next wave, both appear to be ‘game-y’ games. If you’re a fan of broad game design with do-anything attitudes, some would argue your time is over.
But, for Surly Bob and the other “old school evil players” nostalgic for the glory days of Ultima Online – it won’t happen again. Ever. That moment in time was unique – and it’s gone. Because there will never again be a time where there is only one MMO. The market has matured to the point where there will always be choices. And in a dog-eat-dog PvP game, there will only be the PvPers, not the targets. Because now people actually have the choice of selecting which game to play, which game suits them best. If a person is targeted for the tender mercies of “evil players” – they simply will cancel and move on. The days of UO’s One World where many mutually exclusive play styles are forced to interact, on the terms of the more socially maladroit, are over. The market has fragmented, and cannot be put back together. People, when forced to play the role of “sheep” or “stupid newbie”, will simply leave.
Let’s play devil’s advocate. Continue reading
Talking about UO seems to be all the rage. Terranova is writing its eulogy. Scott is talking about why it was such a wondrous yet bad idea. I thought I’d talk about it from the unique point of view of someone who tried to make a sequel.
First and foremost, I’m extremely thankful for UO. The game captured the imagination like no other MMO ever has. People were absolutely enchanted with the idea. UO had ambition – a ridiculous amount of ambition, that it had no hope of living up to. But the ideas, man, they got in your head. You heard Raph talk about what could go on in UO, and your head spin with possibilities. Of course, half of those possibilities were exploits, but still. Continue reading
Someone on Slashdot games asks the question: why don’t we have hourly pay-to-play muds, i.e. muds that charge by the hour vs muds that charge by the month?
“With exciting MMO games like World of Warcraft and others existing, the current monthly fee plans that all MMO games that I’m aware of aren’t necessarily worth it for people that don’t have as much time to play games as others. For instance, I have about 3-5 hours to play games per week, if I’m lucky. On top of that, I like more than one game but I’m still interested in MMO games. I was wondering what Slashdot thinks about newer MMO games implementing some sort of pay-as-you-play system or at least having that option alongside the current monthly fees.”
Sonny, you missed the golden days. Before Meridian 59, all the ‘big guys’ (i.e. Simutronic’s Gemstone games, for example) were pay-to-play. This was the internet model in 1996, and the games followed suit. Now, the internet payment model is simpler (at least for end-users), and the games have followed suit as well.
Press Release from FunCom, offering free Anarchy Online play for a year. The fine print:
In a unique move Funcom is removing all cost barriers in the ultimate sci-fi MMORPG, allowing all new players to enter and stay, free of cost! At the same time Funcom is departing from the obligatory need to register with a credit card, making for an easier entrance and registration process.
…
As mentioned existing users can also take advantage of this offer, but ONLY if you start a new account. In order to take advantage of the completely free offer you need to sign up a new Anarchy Online account between the 15th of December 2004 and 15th of January 2005. Once you have done so you can play free of charge until 1/1 2006. Other restrictions and conditions may apply. See registration information for details. We would also like to add that the free version does not include access to any of the three expansion packs. Should you wish to upgrade to any of the expansion packs regular monthly subscription and client fees will be added.
Last week I discussed great bugs that never see the light of day.
What follows is a transcript of a conversation I had this morning, about a hotfix for Throne of Oblivion slated for next week.
Me: Sorry I’m late. Anything unusual in this morning’s hotfix build?
QA Lead: Every vampire NPC in the game is a female named Beavis.
Heh heh. Heh heh heh heh. Being undead is coooool.
File this in the ‘these guys haven’t been litigated out of business yet?’ Perhaps inspired by bad Capital One giveaways, Project Entropia has sold a virtual island to the highest bidder, for a sale of $26, 500. The winner plans to take that land, subdivide it up and resell it to other players for what he figures to be a net profit. Which just goes to show, there’s no place that can resist the encroachment of Levittown. Continue reading
… either that, or they decided to take my advice. Hey, Monolith, as long as you’re going to ship in spring anyway, may I offer some advice? Find out when TV goes into reruns, and ship then. I’m serious. I can’t even tell you how much more time I’ve spent gaming now that House is the only show on TV still doing new episodes because no one wants to go against A Charlie Brown Christmas. Exactly what you need if you’re trying to build a core community for your MMO.
There’s something compelling about a man so brilliant that he can be an unabashed jerk to everyone, including his patients. It and Lost are the only two new shows worth spit this year. Note to self: ABC is replaying the first two episodes, which I missed, of Lost on Wednesday. Maybe if I watch those, I’ll FINALLY understand what the hell is going on.
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