March 2007

• [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
• • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Morris Cox
  • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Michael Hartman
  • • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
    • • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Michael Hartman
  • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Mike Rozak
  • • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
    • • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Damion Schubert
      • • [ANNOUNCE] Midgard Online Andreas Weidenhaupt
• [NEWS] Trident Games Prepares New Online Game Using Skotos Engine Shannon Appelcline
• [TECH] MMOG Design List Weston Fryatt
• • [TECH] MMOG Design List Lachek Butalek
  • • [TECH] MMOG Design List Adam Martin
  • [TECH] MMOG Design List Mike Rozak
  • • [TECH] MMOG Design List Weston Fryatt
  • [TECH] MMOG Design List Hyrup, Darrin
  • [TECH] MMOG Design List Morgan Ramsay
• [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work mud-dev-list@jaruzel.com
• • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Lachek Butalek
  • • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Sean Howard
    • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work David Johansson
    • • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Lachek Butalek
      • • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work David Johansson
  • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Keith Dunwoody
  • • [BIZ] Unauthorised Publishing of My Work Sean Howard
• [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
• • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Caliban Darklock
  • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Lachek Butalek
    • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
    • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Caliban Darklock
  • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
  • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Craig Huber
    • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
      • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Craig Huber
        • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: Arantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Dave Scheffer
          • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rantagainst Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
    • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
    • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
    • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
      • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
        • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
          • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Damion Schubert
          • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Tess Snider
            • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
              • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Adam Martin
                • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
              • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Mike Rozak
              • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
                • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
              • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
              • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Acius
              • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jeffrey Kesselman
        • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Mike Rozak
        • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Chris Richards
          • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
            • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Ling Lo
              • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
            • [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
            • • [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study Mike Sellers
              • • [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
                • • [ANNOUNCE] Magic Study John Buehler
            • [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names cruise
            • • [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names John Buehler
              • [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names Johnicholas Hines
              • [TECH] Randomly-generated Faction Names Lachek Butalek
          • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments John Buehler
          • • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Adam Martin
        • [DESIGN] Ray traced environments Jon Leonard
  • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
  • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
    • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
      • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Morris Cox
        • • [DESIGN] Homogenized MMORPG Engines (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
• [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Michael Hartman
• • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jean, Yannick
  • • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Michael Hartman
      Jean, Yannick wrote:
      > Michael Hartman wrote:
      > <mlist@thresholdrpg.com> said:
      >>I venture the opinion that it would have sold at least 10-100 times as
      >>many copies, and made more money in the process, as a non-subscription
      >>based game that simply sold periodic expansions (at nearly the rate that
      >>they release their "issues"). As an added bonus, by doing it that way
      >>they could avoid the silly time sinks and let people focus on making
      >>tens if not hundreds of different characters (which is the best part of
      >>the game anyway) instead of the MMO-standard hundreds of hours of
      >>grinding.
      >
      > On the other side, the veteran gamers craving for depth and strategy,
      > will quickly get bored at the lack of depth and leave for other, more
      > "hardcore", games.
      >
      > Bottom line, choosing to give your player a game experience without much
      > "depth" may very well be a valid decision, just make sure you understand
      > the pros and the cons of it.
      
      Actually, if you re-read my quoted paragraph above yours, that is not my
      argument at all. When I look at City of Heroes (known now by the acronym
      CoX), I try to take its complete and total lack of depth, gameplay
      options, and variety as a given. Then I wonder how they could have done
      a better job of marketing and pricing their product.
      
      The thing is, there is one area where they actually DO have depth and
      variety: character creation and design. But the thing is, they do not
      even play to this strength, because you still have to go through an
      MMO-typical, timesink filled grind to level up a character to max and
      fully realize its potential (and see all of its powers).
      
      It has long been my belief that their product would be superior, and
      make a lot more money, if they dumped the grind, massively accelerated
      the levelling rate, and made their money through the sale of expansions
      (what they call "issues") instead of subscriptions.
      
      The presence of a levelling grind badly exposes the lack of variety in
      gameplay in CoX. Grinding out your 400th warehouse mission in a row is a
      lot more glaring of a problem when it is what you have to do in order to
      make that next level. Pursuit of badges and completion of task
      forces/strike forces would be a more rewarding element of the game if
      you didn't have to worry about grinding xp.
      
      Other MMOs try to keep you grinding by giving you a wide variety of
      zones to grind in, and a wide variety of loot to keep you moving forward
      to that next little piece of candy. City of Heroes has no loot and
      virtually zero zone variety. Thus, they shouldn't rub your nose in it by
      making you do the same warehouse mission (or office mission, or
      whatever) endlessly.
      
      I enjoyed CoX, and renewed my account a couple of times. But it never
      really lasts long because I can't tolerate the coexistence of a grind
      with no variety. If they encouraged you to make tons of characters
      (through an advancement system that would be at least 10 times faster),
      I'd probably keep my subscription indefinitely and be on my 100th alt by
      now.
    • • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Damion Schubert
      • • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jeffrey Kesselman
        • • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) cruise
          • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Michael Hartman
          • • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jeffrey Kesselman
      • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] cruise
      • • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] John Buehler
        • • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Sean Howard
        • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Michael Hartman
        • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Jeffrey Kesselman
        • • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] cruise
          • • Reasons for Play [was: City of Heroes tangent] Jeffrey Kesselman
    • [OFF-TOPIC] City of Heroes tangent (was: genre vs creativity) Jeffrey Kesselman
• [DESIGN] Turn Around Time On Experimentation (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
• • [DESIGN] Turn Around Time On Experimentation (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
• [ANNOUNCE] What Makes A Next-Gen Game? Morgan Ramsay
• • [ANNOUNCE] What Makes A Next-Gen Game? Lachek Butalek
• [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Mike Rozak
• • [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction John Buehler
  • [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Paolo Piselli
  • • [DESIGN] Multiplayer interactive fiction Mike Rozak
• [BIZ] Austin Game Conference Contacts? Jeffrey Kesselman
• • [BIZ] Austin Game Conference Contacts? Daniel James
• [MEDIA] A good, hour-long news segment about Second Life Mike Rozak
• Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Adam Martin
• • Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Adam Martin
  • • Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Hudson, Thomas C.
    • • Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Jeffrey Kesselman
  • Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Kerry Fraser-Robinson
  • Combat Systems (was: Reasons for Play) Jeffrey Kesselman
• [Announce] CircumReality - A grahical MUD (kind of) develoment toolkit Mike Rozak
• Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Hudson, Thomas C.
• • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
  • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Shannon Sullivan
    • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Sean Howard
      • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Adam Martin
    • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Dana V. Baldwin
    • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
      • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Peter Keeler
        • • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Jeffrey Kesselman
        • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Dana V. Baldwin
    • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants) Tess Snider
  • Importance of emoting (Was: A rant against Vanguardreviews and rants) Richard A. Bartle