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
    • • [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
          cruise writes:
          
          > Thus spake Michael Hartman...
          > > 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.
          >
          > I think this is the reason we disagree, and is something many MMOG's
          > have lost sight of.
          >
          > I'm not playing through my 4000th (no typo :) warehouse mission for that
          > next level.
          >
          > I'm playing through it because it's fun. The actual activity involved in
          > "subduing" the various opponents is, for me, inherently enjoyable. I
          > couldn't care less about the XP. I still play my maxed level 50 in
          > simple zone sweeping. Purely because it's fun, even after 3+ years.
          >
          > I'm not motivated by achievements; goals do not make me play if the
          > activity required to achieve them is uninteresting.
          >
          > Players have become trained in CRPG's to treat the reward as the reason
          > for playing. There was a thread recently on the CoX boards asking for an
          > XP boost for a certain class of enemy, because fighting them is (and I
          > do agree here) somewhat dull, and they're being ignored.
          >
          > Surely the correct reaction should be to want the fight to be interesting?
          >
          > Current games are focused entirely on the rewards, without making the
          > actual gameplay itself satisfying, and players are now apparently
          > educated to expect this type of game.
          
          Hear, hear!
          
          Here's a sincere question for anyone who has been involved with developing a
          published game in the action genre: why are combat systems the way they are?
          Is it inertia from the past, failure to find a new sweet spot, simple
          enjoyment of things the way they are, difficulty in producing anything much
          more involved than exists today, something else?
          
          The systems that spring to mind for me invariably cannot be done in a
          massive setting because of the computational demands and/or the inability to
          trust the client. Are developers in the game outfits toying with new combat
          systems, or do they like to spend their play time on other areas of game
          development?
          
          JB
        • • 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