Perhaps the perfect way to introduce housing into an MMO is to make a game that’s all about being settled in a single location. Instead of travelling the globe as an itinerant adventurer, the focus could be on building up the player’s house and garden/ lands and playing lord (or lady) of the manor. This [...]
Archive for May, 2009
Could this be the perfect housing MMO?
Posted in general mmo, tagged firefly games, player housing, stronghold kingdoms, upcoming mmo on May 30, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Howling Fjord: Sins of the Fathers
Posted in storytelling, warcraft, tagged apothecary faction, best zone in wrath, forsaken, gothic theme, howling fjord, what makes a good zone on May 29, 2009 | 19 Comments »
If you don’t play Wrath yourself, you may wonder why so many players went back to WoW when it launched. Were they just sheep? Could they not see how tired the old warcraft format had become? Was there something in the water? Was it just that the stars aligned? And why on earth did they [...]
Call of the Crusade might be a very smart patch indeed
Posted in warcraft, tagged call of the crusade, coliseum, new battleground, patch 3.2, pugs, summer on May 28, 2009 | 6 Comments »
We’re getting some more information out about the next content patch in WoW. Call of the Crusade is the name assigned to 3.2 (it probably has it’s own logo and theme tune coming soon too), and it’s currently including: More dailies, rewards etc at the Argent Tournament 5/10 and 25 man encounters inside the Coliseum [...]
Why do villains get the best plots?
Posted in general mmo, storytelling, tagged character goals, computer games, limited roleplay, player goals, plots, sandbox, setting goals, villains on May 28, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Have you ever noticed how in storytelling/ RPG types of games, it’s always the villains who have the coolest plots? They must have spent years recruiting minions, devising and populating huge dungeons or castles, building up networks of spies, and plotting over their careful spreadsheets. We talk about evil genius for a reason. Even though [...]
16 ways to speed up your raid
Posted in general mmo, warcraft, tagged check, delegate, don't panic, feedback, keep talking, knowing when to call the raid, raid leading, readycheck, shortcuts, skip bosses, speeding things up on May 27, 2009 | 6 Comments »
We used to have a cartoon up in my old office that read ‘Meetings: the alternative to work!’ and it showed ten people sleeping around a big desk, compared to one person sleeping at a desk on their own. When a group activity drifts from the core reason people came along, you’re potentially wasting a [...]
Best ever lead-in to an instance quest
Posted in general mmo, storytelling, warcraft, tagged anselm, atmosphere, freed slaves, howling fjord, keleseth, lead in to instance, motivation, payback, quest design, quests, utgarde keep, vengeance landing on May 26, 2009 | 9 Comments »
I’m planning to write some more later this week about my favourite zone in Wrath and why I think it’s such a masterpiece of design. So I was getting some screenshots (for ‘research’ purposes, naturally) on an alt and was reminded of one of my favourite cut-piece scenes in any game ever. This one is [...]
Running with non-optimal groups
Posted in general mmo, tagged achievement, composition, non-optimal groups, theorycraft on May 25, 2009 | 7 Comments »
It doesn’t typically take very long in a new MMO before theorycrafters start wondering about ‘the perfect group’. That is to say, given group content in game that’s designed for a fixed group size, what’s the optimal combination of classes/ specs/ etc to take? People spend a long time obsessing over exactly how many off-healers [...]
CAT: idea for a contemporary MMO
Posted in general mmo, tagged cat, idea for contemporary mmo, mmo idea on May 24, 2009 | 12 Comments »
Following from Dusty and Syp, this is one of my ideas for a contemporary MMO setting. Thinking of an interesting non-fantasy, non-scifi (or scyfy if you prefer) backdrop that might appeal to people is quite a tough challenge. In fact, setting any kind of immersive game in a non-magical version of the real world is [...]
Things to read over the holiday weekend
Posted in general mmo, tagged addons, art, bad review, design, dungeons and dragons, EVE online, good vs evil, john tynes, links, permanent raid spot, profile, sand castle, single server, visual design, why raid, wow tourist, wow.com on May 23, 2009 | 3 Comments »
John Tynes (who is an awesome designer) starts a new column at The Escapist, and there was much rejoicing. Here’s the first installment, where he solves the problem of Good vs Evil in games (ie. games like Knights of the Old Republic) The Rampant Coyote discusses why most spells in games just blow things up. [...]
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