Author: Zubon

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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On Towards IMGDC

I am here in sunny Minneapolis. My hotel is literally across the street from the Mall of America, which would be great if I liked to shop, but maybe I will poke my head in. I am here well in advance of IMGDC for another conference; if you are in town early, I am told that the exhibits hall for the Public Library Association will be stellar, and you can make back the cost of an exhibits-only pass by finding a few free books that interest you (a few months before they are published). (Not exactly what the exhibitors are hoping for, but I do post reviews of the books.)

Having driven most of yesterday, I felt as though I had fallen off the world. All day without my continuous news and internet feed! Insane! But I am obviously not so far out that I cannot blog. I need this internet thing since I wrote someone’s number down and left it by my computer at home. Bother. Isn’t my cell phone supposed to know these things? Anyway, e-mail remains the best way to reach me, granted with a delay because it is no longer continuously on.

My thanks again to Craig from Voyages in Eternity and Ethic from Kill Ten Rats for getting me into IMGDC. I expect that I will see folks there. I had been planning to suggest some sort of blogger get-together, but I noticed a 5-hour official after party on the schedule. That seems like a natural Schelling point. I am leaning towards the development track for my time at IMGDC, so sorry Nic if I miss your chat.

Comments are open if anyone has recommendations, requests, commands, etc. Cell phones are lovely things for on-site coordination of efforts. I will be sure to post comments from/about sessions afterwards, but I might not have much to say until then, having fallen off the world and all. Which is not a shot at Minnesota.

: Zubon

Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse

We have blasted through malls and ghost towns full of zombies, but are you ready for the zombie apocalypse? No, seriously. After all the humorous books and online quizzes about survival, someone has been taking a real world approach for the past five years:

Zombie Squad realizes that it is quite possible for someone to live their entire lives without encountering the undead nuisance. However, we hold fast to the belief that if you are prepared for a scenario where the walking corpses of your family and neighbors are trying to eat you alive, you will be prepared for almost anything.

Have you even backed up your computer? The Red Cross has some guidance on how to prepare in case of fire, flood, or terrorist attack. You have already learned the critical lesson of looking up for aliens on the ceiling. Check your smoke alarms while you are at it.

: Zubon

Fidelity

Champions Online will be almost as similar to Champions as Dungeons and Dragons Online is to Dungeons and Dragons. Which is to say, they are keeping the names and using an entirely different set of mechanics.

To compare this system to others, there is no such thing as a “Dark Blast” or an “Ice Blast” in the HERO System. Mechanically, everything is just an Energy Blast, but with different advantages and even limitations applied. … We are using systems that are essentially the same, but fit the MMORPG genre somewhat better. In Champions Online, we will have Dark Blast, Ice Blast, etc.

: Zubon

You Are Rated Against Your Hype

Simple guideline: a modest success is better than a grand failure. If you make unreasonable claims, I assume that everything else you say is a lie, and your game will be a parade of delays, disappointments, and broken promises.

Nicodemus hates this guy. Why? Because “CEO” means “you should know better than some idiot on a forum saying, ‘u cant beat wow for with like a billon dollars.'” Spore? Good luck with those expectations. LotRO? Best expansion evar or die. Vanguard? We saw that one. I expected more from Half-Life 2 because the box went on about its being the highest-rated game ever, but it came with the far-more-entertaining Portal.

A successful niche game is a great thing. It knows what it can do, and it does it well. If you want that thing, it is there for you. If not, you are not just getting a bad knockoff of something from Blizzard or Sony. Whatever jokes I may make about Alganon, I respect the David Allen interview that translated to “we’re making a pretty decent DikuMUD/EQ/WoW knockoff that does some stuff differently.” City of Heroes developers humbly remark that they did not know the costume creator would be popular.

Our industry sucks because we accept buggy releases. The PR for our media sucks because we accept unreasonable promotional crap. “Everyone promotes their game that way” is the same thing as “every game ships with bugs.” Some people do a better job, and not everyone spews exaggerations and blatant lies. And some people can live up to the hype.

: Zubon

More Selling Fluff

I have long pondered the notion of self-funding staff via microcontent. For example, hire more graphics artists for City of Heroes costume designs and then sell their output for a few dollars as an account upgrade. If they sell enough, they stay on. If the model works really well, you can open it up to independent contractors who could make and sell costume pieces, and otherwise replicate a bit of what goes on in Second Life with user-generated content. With the host company taking a percentage. See Julian on fluff for other thoughts.

Yes, I know there are issues there. I liked the idea of putting together Dungeons and Dragons Online dungeons that way, but you would very quickly run into balance issues where dungeons were intentionally too easy or rewarding, because people would buy them for easy xp/loot. See power creep in all the existing D&D books. (After all, why buy the new book if it does not have a prestige class you want to use, and why use one that is weaker than existing ones?) (Yes, I know.)

City of Heroes has kind of pulled this off. Lead developer Positron comments:

Well, the Villain Epic ATs were originally planned for I13, but the brisk sales of the Wedding Pack enabled us to fast track these by getting them budgeted to be done earlier. Every time you see a new tux or wedding dress you can send a thanks to that player for getting everyone VEATs an issue early.

I may be misinterpreting, but it sounds like CoX bought itself more staff time via microcontent. That is the opposite order, but it works as a potential model. Most of my CoX friends bought the microcontent for the jump pack and the Pocket D teleporter.

: Zubon

Steal This Old Idea

Dark Age of Camelot had concentration-based buffs. If you want to limit the number of characters someone can buff, just code that. Recast timers are annoying; Bob wants to keep these five buffs live all the time, done.

Yes, it encourages dual-boxing. Yes, there are times when you do want things to be timer-based. But if Bob can keep this buff on five characters continuously, just let him do it, rather than having him re-buff every four minutes.

: Zubon