Category: General

Over at Tobold’s place. Check it out.

If I can recommend a mini-game variant from A Tale in the Desert: actually craft the item. If you are a blacksmith, you get a blob of metal and a hammer. Go nuts. Some players worked out how to make pretty good shovel heads in 10 seconds or less; other people specialized in getting that last bit of quality out of tapping the metal into just the right shape. You could determine the output by the final shape created or have a set “perfect shape” for a pre-picked output and determine item quality by its similarity to that Platonic ideal.

: Zubon

Hail adventurers! I have a task I need done, but alas I am unable to do it myself. You see, my feet have become permanently connected to the ground here where I stand. I would be so very thankful if you could help me out. Are you too busy to help? No? Good. Oh yes, I do have a reward for you should you complete my task well, but first let me tell you what I need.

I am gathering information about the great heroes that travel through my little town. What I need is for you to gather up the story or make a sketch of one of these brave guardians of our lands. Perhaps even you qualify? I will choose one of the many tales or sketches that will hopefully be shared with me by you and the other adventurers willing to help. The best will be rewarded.

Continue reading A Quest! aka Contest!

Closed up the 2007 Indie MMO Game Development Conference today. It was a very enlightening experience for me, realizing how much I have been looking at games from a developer’s viewpoint instead of a gamer’s viewpoint. The people attending this conference are extremely passionate about making MMOs. Not only that, they are willing and able to take the risks the big companies cannot and try something radically different. The next revolution in MMOs will almost certainly come from the Indie MMO arena.

The keynote speech this morning was given by Dr. Richard Bartle. It was a fantastic talk about the history of independent game development and how the time is ripe for Indie MMOs to really make a difference in the next few years. I could probably sit and listen to him talk for a whole weekend. It was a pity that we only had a few hours.

Continue reading IMGDC 2007 Day Two

I’m back from day one of the 2007 Indie MMO Game Development Conference. With regrets to Nicodemus for telling him I wasn’t going to write up anything, here are some of my thoughts.

I arrived to find the Minneapolis Convention Center packed with girls valleyball, girls dance and a karate tournament. Eventually I found my way to the IMGDC conference rooms. Several people I recognized right away – Dr. Richard Bartle and Brian “Psychochild” Green. I quickly found Robert/”Nicodemus” but was surprised he wasn’t smoking a pipe as his pictures always show.

Continue reading IMGDC 2007 Day One

[Eternal Lands] One interesting thing I found when messing about with Eternal Lands is this series of articles from one of the developers. He discusses various problems that came up, largely falling into two categories: technical issues and players. I have yet to do more than skim the blog that gives continuing thoughts from the presumably now ex-ex-developer. Re-developer? Look, he wrote about why he quit a few years ago, but he is writing about changes he is making to the game, so I presume he is back at it.

The blog does include a link to what seems to be Eternal Land’s greatest epic fight on YouTube.

: Zubon

Why have we built an internet culture that encourages negativity? If you are on a message board, replying that you agree with the original poster is often taken as pointless, content-free post-count building. Blogging “look at this great post” is sometimes described as being unable to develop worthwhile content of your own, the sort of thing you can only occasionally indulge in. If someone replies with “Great post!” there is no point to anyone doing so again, right? The only thing you can post agreement with is that someone else is wrong. You can agree with each other that someone else is an idiot.

You are only to post if you have additional content to add. Generally, that means you disagree. Even if you agree, you are extending the post away from where the original poster took it, which can easily come across as a slight in the sea of negativity.

The major exception I can think of is posting examples and stories. “Yeah, something like that happened to me one time…”

: Zubon

Wayback machine: Shiny Happy Week

Burch’s Law:

I think people should have a right to be stupid and, if they have that right, the market’s going to respond by supplying as much stupidity as can be sold.

: Zubon

Hat tip: Overcoming Bias

It’s time for another outburst. I have not had a lot of time to play anything in depth, so I just came up with some random thoughts to share.

World of Warcraft: My wife wants Blizzard to add an option to stop earning XP. Her level 35 Hunter has 8 days /played. Mine? 4 days. She spends a lot of time talking when she could be out playing with other people instead of saving her XP for grouping with me.

Continue reading Random Thoughts

Just to be sure we’re on the April Foolery bandwagon, and because I’m at a loss of something clever, I giving you a link to the classic, and probably most famous, April Fools Day gag of all time- The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest . Yes it’s grainy, but this was from 1957. Back in those days, we carved our TV’s out of stone.

Enjoy!