Author: Julian

Few things give me more irritation and grief than your common, garden-variety escort mission. Years ago I came to the personal realization that, well, I didn’t have to do them. I like to think my life has gotten better as a result of that. I can say that I’ve been reasonably free and clear for years.

Yes, every now and then I’m forced to take a hit and do one or two. But believe me, it’s not by choice. A designer somewhere had the idea of putting one of those in the middle of a primary quest line, or even worse as the necessary step to perform in order to progress into another area. That’s how it is. I hate them. With a passion. But sometimes we’re forced to do them. I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Just what is it about escort missions that make me feel as if I had eaten week-old meatloaf?

Continue reading Escort Service

No, no, it ain’t like that. You’d think that it’s just a matter of putting the ingredients together, mixing it up, heating a little and bada-bing, there you go – you have your seven-layer cake of MMO cream.

But you have no idea how difficult it can be until you sit down and start going through it, step by step. My personal respect for game designers has always been high, but yeah… a couple of months and 150+ pages later, it’s through the roof. It’s reached the stratosphere and checking for ozone concentration right about now. At this rate it’ll overtake Voyager by mid-January.

But back to cooking, and why it has nothing to do with it…

Continue reading It’s not like cooking. At all.

… women are from 19th. century Britain. Or so I’ve found out. Allow me to relate to you a conversation I recently had with my amazing spousal unit. It will be summarized and paraphrased, of course, but I’m sure you’ll get the idea. Even if the names have been removed to protect the innocent.

Developers, designers and psychology students take good note, because this is how deep the rabbit hole goes sometimes.

Continue reading Men are from sometime in the future…

Well, they’re not technically “my guys”; we don’t shower together and I don’t run with that crew, but I like their work a lot.

Yup, I just found out -late- that Andromeda Software Development (ASD) had just gone and won first place on Assembly ’07 with their “Lifeforce” production. So, well-deserved kudos, and you’ll understand why once you download and run that prod: Masterful use of layers and transitions, with a nice thematic thread all through it to boot, as usual with these guys.

Yes, I’ve been a demoscene nut for a long, long time now. And this has very little to do with gaming per se, but “Lifeforce” is one of those things you just have to share with the masses. If you’re still lost about all this, why, you just need to click on the conveniently placed “read more” link thingie below. Like this:

Continue reading Woo! My guys won!

If you’re (still) unfamiliar with the uncanny valley theory, you can get familiar here.

With that out of the way, now you can take a look at Trusim and see the stuff they got going over there. Very, very neat. As it was pointed out to me while discussing it elsewhere, this is not very much new tech, but rather a very good amalgamation of a few existing techs that are out there now, along with very good tools to get the juice out of those techs.

Still, it’s a little glimpse at the kind of thing we’re gonna be seeing in the years to come in many of our games. Which, yet again every time one of these little leaps comes along, will reopen the whole uncanny valley debate.

Brief thoughts follow.

Continue reading Bridge over uncanny valley

Probably one of the most used and abused phrases of 2007, that one.

At its best it’s honest advice, and the words chosen by the voice of experience. At its worst, a political statement and dishonest noise. There’s a little world behind this seemingly harmless phrase, and quite a colorful one too. Is this just the latest weapon of choice in the old and tiresome ‘Casual vs. Hardcore’ debate(*)? Or is there something more behind it and its shining rise to forum stardom?

You will read on. You know you want to.

(*) To call the ‘Casual vs. Hardcore’ debacle a ‘debate’ is like saying the guys in charge of the fryer at Micky Dee’s are ‘Chefs’, but you know where I’m coming from.

Continue reading Don’t tell me to smell the roses

Okay. Just shoot from the hip on this one. A simple scenario and a simple question:

“WTF Studios, a leader in the interactive blah blah blah, is proud to announce the development of its flagship MMORPG Title – Grynd : Legends of the Shadows of Fantasy and Ancient Wars with Vampires and More Stuff Online…”

And so on. You go through the usual bulletpoints and see what it’s all about. You check the screens. You may or may not look at beta videos that may or may not have been leaked. Standard Operating Procedure, basically. Some features you like, some others you don’t, some others you’re indifferent about. Until it comes to crafting, which essentially boils down to the following:

“Players can only have one character designated as crafter per account, per game server. There are no limits to the number of alts, however only one character per account and server can be a crafter.”

How does something like that tickle your game bone? Yea? Nay? Doesn’t even tickle? What’s your reaction as a hip-shooter? Utter lunacy, or an effective way to inject a little bit of common sense into an online economy?

(or how I learned to stop worrying and love RMT)

This is a complete 180. Yup. Yessiree. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It came to me as an epiphany. No, I didn’t have to bang my head on the toilet and come up with a flux capacitor. But it was close.

I, like many many others, used to be quite opposed to RMT in more or less venomous terms depending on the situation and the company. I never hated the concept in itself, but I did have a lot of mistrust built up towards it. Years and years of seeing systems used and abused by the userbase will make one a cynic about promises of rainbows and pots with gold. That’s how it is.

But now? I saw the light, one might say. RMT is an inevitability, that’s where we’re heading. I knew this, but I also knew I didn’t have to like it. However, that changed. Count me in. I’ve seen the future, and it’s lined with silver thread. RMT is good, if you design around it well. I am now a firm proponent of RMT. How? Why? Read on.

Continue reading Fluff

It doesn’t exist. I’d almost go as far as to say it cannot exist.

Long being held as a staple of “what makes PvP interesting”, this player remains purely in the realm of the mythical. Of course there is evidence arguing for its existence, but it’s purely anecdotical and cannot be reproduced.

Tonight on KTR Mythbusters we examine the elusive Unpredictable PvP Player. Its humble beginnings as a post-slaughter campfire tale, its rise to legendary status and its ultimate demise at the hands of science.

Continue reading KTR Mythbusters: The Unpredictable PvP Player

My pal Ben from ars’ Opposable Thumbs got to go to PAX, and I didn’t. I’ll just let that insult sink in for a minute.

…

Good? Good. Wronged as I was, I still would like to point to their pretty good coverage of the event. In particular, to draw your attention to Wil Wheaton’s keynote, which was trés cool, and almost required listening if you’re an old ricketty gamer like me. If you have time to spare, give it a spin.

All this courtesy, of course, of the good folks at PA and Op.Th. . Thanks guys. Thanks for not taking me. ;)