September 2007

• Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
• • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Aurel Mihai
  • • [DESIGN] Where massive? John Buehler
    • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Damion Schubert
      • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Aurel Mihai
        • • [DESIGN] Where massive? Richard A. Bartle
          • [DESIGN] Where massive? Damion Schubert
            On 9/22/07, Aurel Mihai <aurel.gets.mail@gmail.com> wrote:
            >
            > Imagine a game that's free to play once you buy the box, very nice
            > graphically, and is not instanced. Now imagine the people populating
            > that world. Scary thought, huh? MUDs are fun because they're free and
            > not instanced, but the population of immature griefers is kept at bay by
            > the fact that they don't do text. MMOs tend to keep griefers at bay
            > because they're not free so griefers tend not to want to pay money just
            > to bother others.
            
            
            I don't have to imagine too hard. Habbo Hotel, Maple Story, Kart Rider -
            all free games. All have huge teen populations, which anecdotally are
            the worst of the worst of the populations. All are not particularly
            'scary'.
            
            I fully concede that, as we move towards free play models in MMOs,
            the scariest result is the loss of the credit card suspension as a means
            of griefer punishment and mitigation. That being said, we have to
            concede some things when designing a social space. People play
            MMOs not just to be with their friends - they play MMOs largely because
            -other people are interesting-. Limiting player's interactions to a tiny
            social circle, in the name of protecting them from the 1-2% of players
            who are genuinely bad apples, is ultimately short sighted. And all
            too often, it creates a feeling of loneliness - a very ironic feeling in
            a 'massively multiplayer' game.
            
            Designers of classic MUDs and MMOs also have entirely too rosy
            memories of the old days of text MUDs. Most MUDs I worked and
            played on were also played by griefers. In some ways, they were
            even more problematic, as they tended to be much more technically
            proficient (in those days, you pretty much had to be a CS major at
            a university to even know what telnet was).
            
            Guild Wars managed the griefers by giving players an
            > opportunity to group with whoever they wanted and allowing them to
            > ignore all the other obnoxious people in the game. Griefers aren't just
            > PKers, they're the people that ruin the game for everyone by ruining the
            > atmosphere. Guild Wars 2 going non-instanced is a mistake because there
            > will be no escape from that portion of the population, so eventually
            > they will be the only ones left playing it.
            
            
            This is a lot of doom and gloom. It's also not very well founded.
            Maintaining a healthy social environment is not particularly a new
            problem, and I'm pretty sure that the Guild Wars team has enough
            knowledge from their own experience on GW, as well as from other
            games in NCSoft's arsenal, that they'll have some clues on how
            to take this on.
            
            --d
    • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
    • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Roger Hicks
      • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Christopher Lloyd
      • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
      • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
        • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Damion Schubert
          • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Michael Hartman
            • • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore andMMOs) Mike Sellers
              • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) Vincent Archer
              • Activity Duration in MMOs (was: [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs) John Buehler
• [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) Ian Hess
• • [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) Aurel Mihai
  • • [DESIGN] Character Growth Models (Was: Removing the almighty experience point...) cruise
• [BIZ] Community-building books Mike Rozak
• [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Mike Rozak
• • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Jon Mayo
  • • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Peter Keeler
    • • [MEDIA] Intel Purchases Game Tools Firm Havok Mike Rozak
• [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Mike Rozak
• • [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Aurel Mihai
  • [DESIGN] Factor of 16 Michael Hartman
• [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
• • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Lachek Butalek
  • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Darryl Woodford
    • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
      • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
        • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
          • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Damion Schubert
            • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
            • [DESIGN] Player skill vs. Character Skill [was: Player-generated content] cruise
            • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Vincent Archer
            • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content John Buehler
  • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Caliban Darklock
  • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content cruise
    • • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Tom Hudson
  • [DESIGN] Player-generated content Matt Chatterley
• [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace cruise
• • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Caliban Darklock
  • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Ammon Lauritzen
  • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace cruise
    • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Bristle
    • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Shannon Sullivan
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Dave Scheffer
      • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Raph Koster
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Morris Cox
  • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Matt Chatterley
  • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Dana V. Baldwin
    • • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Matt Chatterley
      • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Morris Cox
    • [ANNOUNCE] MetaPlace Vincent Archer
• [DESIGN] Spore and MMOs Michael Hartman