Last time, I talked about what MMOs do well. This time, I’ll talk about what they do poorly.
Continue reading Analyzing the MMO: Second in a series of a few
General
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.
.Last time, I talked about what MMOs do well. This time, I’ll talk about what they do poorly.
Continue reading Analyzing the MMO: Second in a series of a few
My wife and I have decided to cancel World of Warcraft, and head for a new virtual world.
You might think we have grown bored, or are tired of the grind, or find the endgame unsatisfying, but in the end you’d be wrong about our reasons. So why are we leaving Azeroth?
The conundrum is that we like the game TOO much…
But I do not always feel like playing, or at least playing City of Heroes. I may spend half a night messing around with flash games or going out with my wife. When I am away from internet access, I do not feel the need to log in. It is nice to have a break and see the real world sometimes, although the big room with the blue ceiling is perhaps over-rated. I can go for a walk without worrying that I am falling behind my friends.
I never feel obliged to log in. It is not something I am required to do. I have no raids to keep up with, although we might plan on running a task force on a given night (usually: no planning). It is not a job, not a drudge, not a grind. Okay, it is inherently somewhat grindy, but I never log on with a resigned sigh. I play when I want to play and wander off when it is not exciting me.
The icon is always there, ready to be clicked, but it does not call like a dark siren.
: Zubon
I hope everyone in the U.S. had as wonderful a holiday as I did. I took the week of the holiday off to celebrate a special occasion, my graduation from college! I’ve just completed a bachelor’s degree for game design and development. That’s right, I are a game designer! :-P Sort of… Continue reading Post Holiday Thoughts
A blogger’s problems with Sony VAIO customer service have me wondering how customer service is with the online games. Many people don’t seem to like SOE. Personally, I have never played anything from them except free Planetside, so I have no experience from which to speak, although I have complained about waiting for NCSoft customer service. Commenters have reminded me of Comcast customer service.
Thoughts?
: Zubon
In our last episode, I pondered whether city-building and -defense was a path to certain MMO failure. Robin Hanson has some words that apply well to this or any other radical departure from Yet Another Fantasy MMORPG:
To have the best chance of succeeding in a radical project, you should instead choose just a few related dimensions on which to make radical choices, and then make conservative conventional choices on all the other dimensions. This strategy minimizes the chance that some other project dimension will go badly wrong and take down your central radical idea with it.
While all-dimension-radical freethinker projects have little chance of success, their looming wreckage can be a great place to look for promising radical ideas to pursue…
Or as it has been phrased elsewhere, don’t innovate for the sake of innovation. It is hard enough to think through the implications of one radical change. One commenter adds, though, that sometimes one radical change forces you to change a lot of things.
I don’t usually plug stuff, but I think this is worth it. The Intel 2007 Game Demo contest has started and a new friend of mine has an entry there. He was in the lead with over 800 votes when Intel reset everything to “officially” start the contest…again. So, now he only has 28 votes.
Go check out his game, Hexaxis XXI and if you like it, give him a vote!
I met him a few weeks ago at the Digital Games Expo here in Raleigh and he really impressed me with his skills and creativity.
Thanks!
Yup, avatars: Your character model. The representation of your character(s) in the game world. How important are avatars to you?
The contest is over, the random drawing has been held. “Lachek” from Ontario Canada is the winner of a signed copy of MMO Evolution. The book was donated by the author, our own Nicodemus aka Robert Rice. Congratulations!
– Ethic
Yep, part one of the interview is live.
Reading over my own comments, I realize I should have edited them a bit more than I initially did. Silly me. Still though, take a look to see what I think about some stuff and my own real world MMORPG adventure with Neogence Studios and Immortal Destiny.
Robert / Nicodemus