June 2005
- Development and Live Team Dynamics Chris Richards
- Development and Live Team Dynamics Koster, Raph
- (no subject) Unknown
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from -Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? John Buehler
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? HRose
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise@casual-tempest.net
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Damien Neil
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Yggdrasil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle II Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play Paolo Piselli
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play Russ Whiteman
- DGN: Reasons for play Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play Sean Howard
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Jaycen Rigger
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Ren Reynolds
- SOC: Yee vs. Bartle Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
Sean Howard wrote:
> "Lydia Leong" <lwl@black-knight.org>
>> While Frank Lloyd Wright probably didn't have any special passion
>> for gas stations, he was passionate about his _work_; he had an
>> artistic vision for the world, which infused whatever he created,
>> even the most mundane of things.
> Which was my point - to contradict a statement by somebody who
> said that the best way to make the Sims Online was to get somebody
> who liked the Sims, liked MMORPGs, and had a whole bunch of luck.
That is a mischaracterization. "Luck" is your addition to the
equation.
> merely state that great designers require neither luck nor
> familiarity. I think it may be a mistake to confuse Wright's
> interest in architecture as passion - if it wasn't buildings, I'm
> absolutely 100% positive that he would've found something else to
> design with equal fevor. He was passionate about designing; I
> doubt very much that it mattered what.
I think it matters a great deal. If you do not have a personal
interest in what you are designing, it will be (as Damien already
pointed out) soulless. That is the domain of movie-themed schlock
that is churned out for a cross marketing purpose rather than to try
and make a game that is fun.
>> Experience, too, is immensely valuable, no matter how natively
>> talented one might be.
> I've been down this discussion before when I was trying to get
> into the game industry in the first place. Most of the people
> argued that experience was more important than knowledge/talent -
> I guess I should've known the industry wasn't for me right then
> and there. Never much cared for the arrogance of "experience".
I am not sure how much of a serious discussion is even possible if
you so casually blow off the importance of experience in making good
games.
I have been making games for 10 years. Any game I make from this
point forward will be immensely superior to games I made 10 years
prior, largely because of invaluable experience. In my current work,
I frequently notice how much better something I have designed turns
out specifically because of lessons I learned in the past.
> People with lots of experience have refined their theories on
> gaming, but it won't matter if you started out with something
> fundamentally unsound in the first place.
No, people with experience have seen things that work and don't
work. They have, hopefully, also figured out why.
> But put this in your pipe and smoke it: Frank Lloyd Wright didn't
> make gas stations and low cost housing because he wanted the
> challenge; he was unemployable. He was arrogant, disagreeable,
> impatient with authority, and all around a grumpy gus - but he is
> probably the greatest architect in the past 200 years (if not
> longer). History's greatest inventors are infamous for being
> unemployable - Charles Babbage had dead monkeys flung in his
> window while he was on his deathbed.
I really think the Frank Lloyd Wright hero-worshipping example is
not only a bit worn out but also wildly inapplicable. I am willing
to stipulate that Frank Lloyd Wright was a brilliant architecht if
you'll promise to stop gushing about him. :)
Frank Lloyd Wright was not creating consumer entertainment.
A game developer IS creating consumer entertainment. A game
developer needs to make a product that will be enjoyed by thousands
(or millions, depending upon the platform and genre) of customers
who will each pay a small portion of the cost of its creation. With
the possible exception of games like America's Army, a game
developer has to get paid by each individual user of his product- an
architect does not.
The two types of design are really not very comparable whatsoever.
> So, to answer you original question - a great designer is someone
> who can design something great that wouldn't exist if he, himself,
> didn't design it - something that inspires other creators with new
> ideas and courage - and the world would be worse off without his
> contributions.
Honestly, this has very little to do with developing games. A great
game does not need to inspire other creatores with "new ideas and
courage" in order to be great. Also, I daresay that the world would
not be "worse off" without even the best games ever made. That is a
pretty severe overstatement. One of my favorite games, as a player,
was Diablo 2. The world would not be "worse off" without Diablo 2.
> He doesn't have to be a model employee, and I dare say that if he
> truly wanted to create something unique, there's no way he COULD
> BE.
This sounds to me like the theory of an anti-social, non-team player
trying to justify their behavior by saying "only a jerk like me
could ever make something great." I am not saying that about YOU, I
am saying that the above words sound like the argument such an
individual would make.
Being anti-social and disagreeable are not requirements for
greatness or creativity. It is, quite frankly, insulting to say so.
--
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.thresholdrpg.com)
President & CEO, Threshold Virtual Environments, Inc.
University of Georgia School of Law, 1995-1998
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990-1994
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Max Battcher
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] Oliver Smith
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawned from...] Mike Rozak
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Jeff Bachtel
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Jaycen Rigger
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Sean Howard
- SOC/DGN: Enforcing Socially Acceptable Behavior Damion Schubert
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damien Neil
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] P J
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Jaycen Rigger
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Amanda Walker
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? cruise
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt the MMO community? Darkwolf
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Emergent Behaviors spawned from - Re: [MUD-Dev]SOC:Willcompany sanctioned cheating hurt theMMOcommunity? Vincent Archer
- (no subject) Unknown
- Re: Morris Cox
- BIZ: Customer Acquisition Costs in MMOs Vladimir Cole
- Castle Marrach Comic released under Creative Commons Christopher Allen
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions James Turner
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions Scott Jennings
- Hosting questions Mike Rozak
- Hosting questions ceo
- Hosting questions Kwon J. Ekstrom
- Hosting questions ceo
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) erik
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Michael Chui
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Richard A. Bartle
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) William Leader
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Erik Bethke
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) William Leader
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Jaycen Rigger
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Eli Stevens (WG.c)
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Akiba Liebskind
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Matt Chatterley
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) David Love
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Damien Neil
- Looking for a Magic System (inspired by Bartle's book) Hulbert, Leland
- Attack System Dhiego Ramos
- Attack System Tiago Carita
- Attack System Damion Schubert
- Attack System Tess Snider
- Attack System Tony Hoyt
- Attack System Dhiego Ramos
- Attack System Matt Chatterley
- Hosting questions Frederick Nacino
- Hosting questions ceo