Author: Julian

Art Treat Intermission: Dalí + Disney

If you can spare a moment from killing each other virtually, take a look at this rare little gem from way back in the day.

It’s the only collaboration between Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney, and it’s interesting (to me at least) because of the way in which two seemingly opposite styles are fused and flow so well together. You can clearly see and feel the classic Dalí surrealism and the old school Disney animation as separate elements all through the piece, but in complete harmony. Almost complementing each other. It’s called “Destino” (Destiny) and tells the story of a dancer who falls in love with a baseball player, but destiny – in the shape of time itself – makes it not meant to be.

(some fragments have been recently restored and done in 3D to complete the piece, but it’s not very intrusive)

Update: Check the comments for Dblade’s corrections to all this. Thanks for pointing it out ;)

How to #$*! your players

You there. Yeah, you, the dev with the plan. Put it down for a second. Considering going F2P, like all the other cool kids are doing? Well it won’t be successful until you learn how to properly #$*! your players. What’s that you say? The game? No, you got it wrong. This isn’t about games anymore. If you wanna make games then quit, start your own indie house and do it there for art’s sake. This industry is about making “interactive entertainment experiences with large potential to be monetized”, not “games”. Don’t be archaic.

If you’re still with me, some pointers on how to make sure you’re #$*!ing your players the right way:

– Is your virtual world very, very large and requires extensive travel? Make sure you #$*! your players by charging them to make this travel fast. Limit and sell, honeybear.

– Do your game and loot mechanics award gobs and gobs of items to players, both useless and useful? Do their bags get full easily? Then #$*! your players properly by reducing their bag space, and selling them unlocks. Limit and sell. Are you getting this?

– Use psychology! Remember, the more complicated and layered you make your F2P system, the more players will say “Aw, #$*! it” and just subscribe as usual. Throw mud into those waters! #$*! them all Freud-like!

– Your game virtual world thingie has tons of achievements? And lists, to make sure you’re constantly fingering that itch on OCD players? Great start! Awesome! Extreme! However, if your players complain that some of those feel way too long and grindy, then you have to do the right thing: Don’t adjust that length! #$*! them by leaving things inhumanely long and selling them stuff they can use to accelerate completion for a little while! Think outside the box and into the wallet.

– Every time you manage to squelch a little bit of fun it makes Bobby smile. #$*! ’em.

DDO, or how to take the RP out of ‘RPG’

Allow me to preface this by saying this isn’t a hateful post. It’s merely an observation.

I’ve got absolutely nothing against DDO. I think it’s a fine game. Not the best game there is, but does it have to be? It provides fun and that should be the basic mandate of any game. I like the visuals overall. It’s AD&D which, despite its DDO-specific splashes of flavor, is basically a known quantity and familiar waters if you’re into that kind of swimming. It treats its F2P players well and the Eberron setting is interesting.

However, after coming back to the game and playing it more or less steadily for the last couple of weeks something rather ironic stuck out at me: The RP scene is quite barren. The sadly ironic part of all this is that we’re essentially talking about D&D, kickstarter extraordinaire (however you wanna slice it) of Roleplay Gaming, paper or not. So it should have a more or less healthy RP community, but I haven’t observed it (and yes, I know where to look. Us RPers are like dogs sniffing each other’s butts when it comes to this).

So where’s the disconnect?

Continue reading DDO, or how to take the RP out of ‘RPG’

More Randy Farmer on the Real ID fiasco

I promise this is my last post on the Real ID debacle at this time.

That said, I shot some questions to Randy Farmer about this whole thing while it was still raging. This was yesterday. Since then, Blizzard recanted and the sun is apparently shining again over the green valleys of WoW. However, I think Randy’s answers are very good info regarding community issues, regardless of the final outcome of all this.

My questions and Randy’s answers after the break, brought to you by Left Click. Powering the Internet, one Left Click at a time.

Continue reading More Randy Farmer on the Real ID fiasco

Eternal Vigilance

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1

“I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.”

Recanting this failure was a good move.

Next time do what most polite, centered and sensical people all over the world would do: ask.