Category: General

Did I get your attention? Good.

Unfortunately, you’ve been had. This isn’t about sex. Or rather, this is not all about sex – I’m not that Freudian. This is about raising the discourse, in a way. Improving these games we play. Enriching the narrative.

The question is simple: Why is it that the vast majority of the games we play, and have played, are so thematically shallow? It seems to me that, sure, of course, games must have a clear mandate to entertain. There’s no escaping that, and it’s as it should be. But, should that be all? Here we have this medium, one of the most versatile ever created, but somehow we can’t seem to be able to look past its mere entertainment value. We do nothing else with it. What can we do with this, and why are we not doing it?

Continue reading Sex!

The work I commissioned from O at Commissioned Comic is up today. Go check it out and watch the video. Sweet!

– Ethic

I plan to write several articles in the coming weeks over MMOs as a genre, with an eye towards seeing what can be done in terms of improving the genre.  During the analysis, I’ll be comparing MMOs with several other types of games, along with other forms of media and some types of social constructs, such as football leagues and fraternal orders.  At some point in here, you’ll also get to hear me blather on about my “ideal” MMO.  For the kickoff of Analyzing the MMO, we’re going to take a look at what MMOs do well.  Some of this is blindingly obvious stuff for some of the readers here, I’m sure, but it’s important to lay down a baseline, so I beg your indulgence for the first few articles

Continue reading Analyzing the MMO: First in a series of… some

How better to follow on from Nicodemus than scavenging a throwaway line from post? Well, there are probably a plethora of better ways but that’s the one I’m going to use. But this isn’t going to be an examination of what little we the Un-beta’d know about how Tabula Rasa may or may not be providing players with ethical dilemmas in its quest structure nor is it going to postulate as to exactly how a being “shooter” does not necessarily exclude a game from being an RPG. That’s dull and tedious conversation and just needs exhibit A: System Shock and exhibit B: Deus Ex to make the case.

This is about the lack of RP in MMORPG.

Continue reading “Putting the RP back into RPG”

It’s ok, I know you automatically tried to type “gratz”. If you play online games, you just do. ‘Ding’ is THE universal MMORPG word, present in every game. I remember where I first heard it and learned to hate it: South Karana, Norrath, Everquest. It is the symbol of your achievement, displaying a success in your work, and, more than likely, showing that you’re about to start a whole new set of goals. After reading Zubon’s post, and responding to it, I found myself thinking about how ‘Ding’ has evolved.

Continue reading *yell* “Ding!”

I’ve been paying attention to the forums here so much I’ve neglected posting here. Omg wth! To make up for it, I thought I would come up with a snazzy lolcatz title (hey, everyone else is doing it) that would surely make its way across the internet, RSS feeds, reposts, and linkbacks. This will assuredly draw your eyes to these very words! Ah, the power of greysku…er the internet!

Anyway, I just moved into a new place and the stupid AC doesn’t work. APPARENTLY my anti-industry rantings have caused a small cabal of evil developers to band together and they have set out to silence me. Galileo knows what I’m talking about. Anyway, these guys are total amateurs. I caught them trying to load a copy of Vanguard on my computer (dorks) and they had the nerve to throw old AOL disks at me like shurikens. HA!

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition you know.
Continue reading I’m in ur market stealing yer customers…meowlolz

(*mumbles* I knew the book wasn’t for free after all)

Well, hello everyone. Julian here. Grandmaster farmer, exceptional dancer, friend to the animals. Also a gamer when real life doesn’t intersect too much. Ethic was kind enough to give me the chance to pour some musings here, in between all the rat killing, so I decided to take his generous offer. Or was it “crazy enough”? Well, I can’t tell the difference anyway.

I’ve been playing all kinds of games for as long as I can remember. Started on a ZX-81. 8K RAM (16K with the expansion, mind you), membrane keyboard, black and white: The world was an oyster. Ever since then, I won’t say I played them all, but I did play most. Good ones and bad ones alike. Like others here, I’m a relative newcomer to MMOs having only played them for about four years. Alas, also like most others, soon enough I was captivated by the genre.

I absolutely adore talking about games and game design, mechanics and also the more social, surrounding aspects of this ordeal of ours we like to call ‘gaming’. So that’s about it, and the kind of things you can expect to read from me. For the moment, stay tuned. If statistics are to be believed, I’m bound to write something worth reading at some point in the future. And if not, well, I’ll write it anyway because it all comes from the heart.

/wave

From the New York Times: a slide show of players and their characters. We have strong City of Heroes representation! Fun pictures. I have considered doing the same with my CoH Zubon, who looks disturbingly like me. I need a haircut.

: Zubon

Hat tip: our dear friend Simon

Random Battle has an interesting idea about how to re-balance rewards for raiders and folks in small groups. Check it out.
: Zubon