Comments on: Piercing the Veil and Losing the Monkey

By: Quote of the Week | Kill Ten Rats

Quote of the Week | Kill Ten Rats — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:03:31 +0000

[...] It applies generally. [...]

By: Rarefied to Extinction | Kill Ten Rats

Rarefied to Extinction | Kill Ten Rats — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:48:19 +0000

[...] wonders to what extent MMOs are fun versus habit-forming. We have addressed this before, but I find it always a healthy question. For anything you do often, pause and ask yourself how [...]

By: Procedural Content | Kill Ten Rats

Procedural Content | Kill Ten Rats — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:03:09 +0000

[...] was worried that skirmishes would pale. They have, for me at least. The problem is that they are so transparently procedural content, and that is not LotRO’s strong point. Let me contrast with the equally [...]

By: Price, Quantity, Quality | Kill Ten Rats

Price, Quantity, Quality | Kill Ten Rats — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:03:35 +0000

[...] In MMOs, our variant is “36 zones! 128 playable classes!” How many of those zones are repetitive or procedural content? Did you get those classes by taking every possible combination of skills and giving each package a [...]

By: Chewing Through Content at Kill Ten Rats

Chewing Through Content at Kill Ten Rats — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:05:52 +0000

[...] what happens when they pierce the veil on your procedural content? Once the formula is apparent, its use does not generate new explorer content. It is a previously [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:12:29 +0000

I’ve just started a 10 day trial of WoW for the first time. I could not agree more: there is nothing unique about WoW that isn’t in any other RPG game since NetHack.

Is anyone inventing a better mousetrap, or is this the end of the road?

By: xwn

xwn — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:35:07 +0000

I came back to WoW with the addon, but again, it begins to feel boring. The only thing holding me back are my friends who are in the same guild, but all the new stuff already feels like the old grind. I came back to EVE Online, but again, I get this feeling that it could be so much more if they made a real game, not a sandbox out of it – and when you’re doing missions, they are all pretty much the same, as in CoX. Thinking of that, I really liked CoV – if the PvP wasn’t so unbalanced, if the EU servers had a decent population, I guess I’d be back on the Rogue Islands.

There is one good thing though: It’s spring – a good time to quit all those virtual worlds and get back in the real one :)

By: Jezebeau

Jezebeau — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:02:25 +0000

I know the feeling. I’m slowly withdrawing from the world of MMO’s. Vanguard is not so much the vanguard as the final stand, t’would seem, against hanging up my monthly subscriptions. The funny bit is that I’m avoiding the traditional MMO game whilst running around doing diplomacy quests. If they have a trial running, I’d suggest you take a look, if more for the novelty than anything else. The game’s still in a state I’d classify as late alpha rather than the mid-to-late beta of most MMO’s, but it’s refreshing enough in its crafting and diplomacy systems to count as a diversion. It may or may not have a population problem. I wouldn’t know as I just found out the server I’m on is actually Oceanic, and I play during their morning->afternoon.

Single-player games offer rehashes of mediocre clones of decade-old good games, and even board games oft fail to yield anything new. I’ve started reading through the pile of books that’s been building on my shelf, and find myself looking at RPG sourcebooks again… Gods help me….