February 2007
- [Design] Personal virtual worlds Lachek Butalek
- [Design] Personal virtual worlds Mike Rozak
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Nick Koranda
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Raph Koster
- [ALL PLEASE READ - FROM MODERATOR] Nick Koranda
- [Design] Avoiding the uncanny valley: cartoons and animals Mike Rozak
- stock market mechanisms in muds Johnicholas Hines
- stock market mechanisms in muds John Buehler
- stock market mechanisms in muds Acius
- stock market mechanisms in muds Daniel James
- stock market mechanisms in muds Matt Chatterley
- stock market mechanisms in muds Johnicholas Hines
- stock market mechanisms in muds Chapman, Greg
- Imaginary Realities mirror Richard Tew
- Imaginary Realities mirror Michael Hartman
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Peter Harkins
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Phillip Lenhardt
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Morris Cox
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? John Bertoglio
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Morris Cox
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Jeremy Noetzelman
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Alex Arnon
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? Squid
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Ghilardi Filippo
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Darryl Woodford
- stock market mechanisms in muds Raph Koster
- [DESIGN] AJAX Client/Servers? John Bertoglio
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personal virtual worlds] Mike Rozak
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personalvirtual worlds] Michael Sellers
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personal virtual worlds] Caliban Darklock
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personalvirtual worlds] John Buehler
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personalvirtual worlds] Michael Sellers
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personalvirtual worlds] Jeffrey Kesselman
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personalvirtual worlds] Caliban Darklock
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [wasPersonalvirtual worlds] Dave Scheffer
- [Design]Characters moving between worlds [was Personal virtual worlds] Jeffrey Kesselman
- Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives Ghilardi Filippo
- [Design] A rant against MMORPG installs and initial user experience Mike Rozak
- stock market mechanisms in muds Matt Chatterley
- stock market mechanisms in muds Peter Keeler
- stock market mechanisms in muds Johnicholas Hines
- [MUD-Dev2] Michael Sellers
- [Design] A rant against MMORPG installs and initial user experience Jeffrey Kesselman
- Mailing List Alternatives (was Old MUD-Dev mailing list archives) Morgan Ramsay
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Mike Rozak
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Lachek Butalek
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Jeffrey Kesselman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Mike Rozak
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Mike Rozak
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] cruise
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] Jeffrey Kesselman
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] Jeffrey Kesselman
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] cruise
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] Sean Howard
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] Jeffrey Kesselman
- genre vs creativity [was: Rant against Vanguard] Damion Schubert
On 2/27/07, cruise <cruise@casual-tempest.net> wrote:
>
> Thus spake Mike Rozak...
>
> > I think that as one of the brand-new features, (as opposed to combat,
> > which is a well-known feature) diplomacy should have been introduced and
> > emphasized early on. Again, the genre says that combat is the
> > meat-and-potatoes of MMORPGs and that your first quest should be to kill
> > 10 rats, on a dark and stormy night.
I'm not sure that introducing an abstracted minigame that isn't necessarily
intuitive first-thing out of the gate was the way to go. Especially since,
much
like Mike Sellers, I think that calling something a 'diplomacy' minigame in
an
massively multiplayer game, and not having that game involve other players,
feels very wierd.
> IMHO, part of the reason to give players the option of race and clothing
> > is that race and clothing say something about the player's personality.
> > In the MMORPG genre definition, however, race and clothing (aka: armor)
> > is about abilities and numbers.
>
> Many of these have been discussed here before - making your players feel
> heroic right from the start (LotRO and CoH both do a good job of this);
> reducing the emphasis on or necessity for combat; taking away the
> reliance on phat loot for player progression.
>
> All of these have been recognised as areas ripe for change and
> variation. Why are current mainstream MMO's carrying on with the same
> cliches?
>
I agree with the heroic at the start part.
The emphasis on combat is basically because it is the easiest way to
provide players with an interesting, tactical challenge that can fill the
number of hours players want to play these games. I've actually talked
about this topic at AGC: http://www.zenofdesign.com/?pq3
If you want to remove or decentralize combat, you need to come up with
an alternative activity or activities that can provide hours of gameplay,
has
a 'heroic arc' where the game gets more interesting, demos well, and
is, hopefully, not a content black hole, easy to QA, and a host of other
issues. And even then, you're facing the fact that most people log onto
games with an expectation that they're going to kill things, hopefully in
an interesting and visceral fashion.
Star Trek Online has an interesting problem - the license is about diplomacy
more than gankity ganking. But how do you turn the Picard experience
into something that provides about 500 hours of fun to a thousand people
playing on the same server at a time. If they don't end up using combat
as their central mechanism (which, to be clear, I don't think they
necessarily should), they have to enter unexplored design space, providing
all-new, untested game mechanisms in hopes that those mechanisms
are ones that can entertain players nigh endlessly. This is, ultimately, a
very scary thing.
As for item-centricity -- we give 'em because people like 'em. They satisfy
all of the player types: They provide far-reaching goals to Achievers,
additional
power to Killers, new character building options to Explorers, and unique
visual appearances for Socializers. In fact, few other features cover as
many bases as items do.
I wouldn't expect games to get less item-centric at all for another reason,
though -- as micropayment games come into the fore, items are usually
hot on the list of the things suits want to sell. This isn't something that
thrills me personally, but its probably inevitable.
--d
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Jeffrey Kesselman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Adam Martin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants cruise
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Damion Schubert
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Dana V. Baldwin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Amanda Walker
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Dave Scheffer
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Phillip Lenhardt
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Caliban Darklock
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Vincent Archer
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Michael Sellers
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Caliban Darklock
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Dana V. Baldwin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Caliban Darklock
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Michael Hartman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Dana V. Baldwin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Vincent Archer
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Michael Hartman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Damion Schubert
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Damion Schubert
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Matt Chatterley
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Damion Schubert
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Amanda Walker
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [TECH DESIGN] Next Generation Infrastructure Phillip Lenhardt
- [TECH DESIGN] Next Generation Infrastructure Lachek Butalek
- [TECH DESIGN] Next Generation Infrastructure Jeffrey Kesselman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Adam Martin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Amanda Walker
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Adam Martin
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Amanda Walker
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Daniel James
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Richard A. Bartle
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Phillip Lenhardt
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants John Buehler
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Mike Rozak
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Sean Howard
- Re:[Humor] MMORPG Cliches (was " A rant against MMORPG installs and initialuserexperience") Mike Rozak
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants Mike Rozak
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Adam Martin
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Michael Sellers
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Raph Koster
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Adam Martin
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Jon Leonard
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Jeffrey Kesselman
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Raph Koster
- [Design] A rant against MMORPG installs and initial user experience Vincent Archer
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system Michael Sellers
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system cruise
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem Michael Sellers
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem Sean Howard
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem Caliban Darklock
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem John Buehler
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem Lachek Butalek
- [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem Raph Koster
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant for Vanguard DANIEL Harman
- [OFF-TOPIC] A rant for Vanguard Sean Howard
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry (Was: A rant for Vanguard) Nick Koranda
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Sean Howard
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Morgan Ramsay
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Caliban Darklock
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Jeffrey Kesselman
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Adam Martin
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Industry Christopher Allen
- [DESIGN] Music Industry teaching the Game Michael Sellers
- [OFF-TOPIC] GDC (and hello all) Raph Koster