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Hokay. So I’ve been a little busy recently and hence haven’t updated as often as I would have liked. No matter. In my last post I asked what people would like me to write about and one of my Devoted Fans mentiond the following.
Do you think mmo’s nowadays put to much emphasis on Item collection and progression through that next “Phat Lewt” or can a game that has replacable low cost items with high wear or player lootable corpses live in this day and age thanks to the EQ style game. Surely someone can supply a better “end game” than that next 7 hour raid for chance at getting the Sword of uberpwn instead of his current sword of pwn.
So, here I am, 60 seconds on the clock to talk about itemisation in games…
I read this article about ingame intelligence gathering in Eve recently and it made me think once again of the question of skill in games. As games become more complex and more realistic (not just graphically but in the way that they allow complex interactions between different players and environments), so we need to reassess our previously held benchmarks for player skill or game difficulty. Continue reading
Let’s say you have an MMO which includes a robust PvP element. The concept stated by the developers is that meaningful PvP will exist at all levels of the game. This of course makes the PvP gamers very happy. Already the boards for this game are full of gamers requesting that the developers make a fully skill based combat system where invested time means nothing against an opponent who knows when to hit a particular button. They are asking for equipment to have zero effect on combat outcomes. Essentially they are saying that character development and investment should not be deciding factors in a PvP encounter, only the player skill not the character attributes should determine the winner. Continue reading
Recently Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) published a white paper on their Station Exchange service. As can be expected this kicked off a fresh round of debate over real money trading in MMOs and also an interesting discussion on Raph Koster’s blog on the related topic of powerlevelling companies. I inserted my tuppence there but it’s not my home so I didn’t want to climb on the table and declaim too much. Here though, the furniture is less safe. Continue reading
So I intended to update this thing a couple of times a week and that didn’t exactly work out. Hey ho.
So anyway, I’ve been following the fan boards of my new project and reading what the world and his dog has to say about MMO games design. It appears they do not want WoW. Apart you know, from the six million odd people who do want WoW of course. They also don’t want people to advance based on time invested, but they do want to feel as though their time ingame is rewarding. This is what the technical people call a dilemma. All of this will be nothing new to anyone who’s been on the other side of the games industry table. At any given time you have roughly equivalent portions of your public holding deeply held and deeply incompatible views on what the producers must absolutely do to salvage this game from the swirling vortex of suck that threatens to engulf it. Because if you don’t then you’re clearly on smack or something. Continue reading
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