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Shadow of the Colossus MMO

No, one has not been announced, but I have long been wondering why there are so few games of the “it’s all boss fights” style. I can get the notion of having “trash mobs” like matting around a picture, but you probably should not want trash in your game. Grinds keep players subscribed, blah blah, killing 10,000 rats in your new game is not going to be any better than killing 10,000 rats in WoW, so that’s not going to be a huge draw for you. The only place I’ve seen where killing 10,000 rats is different is City of Heroes, where things get to be wacky fun in the late levels with massive AE buffs and attacks while you fight 20+ enemies at once.

Can we skip the crap and get to the interesting part?

: Zubon

Profile of an addict

I”m beginning to wonder if I’m too addicted to mmorpgs. Whether I’m addicted or not, is not really up for questioning, it’s just a matter of how badly I’m addicted. I stumbled upon my old Everquest 2 profile. I noticed that I logged an average of about 40 hours per week on my main character even though I know I was working full-time during that time period.

Continue reading Profile of an addict

Tamagotchi Craze

KTReuters – Teh Internet 1996

Today Bandai of Japan has released their flagship digital pet they call the Tamagotchi.  A spokesperson for the company said that they believe that most schoolchildren will be playing with the small handheld game by Christmas.  The game itself allows the player to interact with a virtual pet that the player can grow, feed, and teach.  The controls and game are simple, but can allow for hours of fun according to the creator Akihiro Yokoi.  Bandai stocks went through the roof with the projection that 70,000,000 Tamagotchi products will be sold in just over ten years.

This caused somber news throughout the handheld game industry.  Nintendo, the company known for its popular Gameboy system declined official statement.  However, a businessman speaking on condition of anonymity said that if the Gameboy could sell even a fraction of the amount of Tamagotchi’s sales it would make money hand over fist.  The businessman refused to discuss whether the rumors of Nintendo planning on ditching its Gameboy line for a Tamagotchi-esque product were true.

This reporter, during the time traveling session, noted that in the reporter’s classroom of 26 students nearly two thirds of the students owned a Tamagotchi game or a similar knockoff.  Only 4 students owned Gameboys.  With reports like these coming from the children who will shape the future, it is clear that the future of handheld gaming is Tamagotchi.  Now back to your regularly scheduled time.

–Ravious
plutonium is available in every corner drug store

Guild Wars 2 Alliance Necessity

There is a lot of talk regarding the mechanics leap between Guild Wars 1 and its successor.  We already know that Guild Wars 2 is changing the series in a big way with the inclusion of large persistent zones and the lack of exclamation point-type quests.  There are so many other mechanics questions remaining unanswered.  Will our skill bar be as limited as it was in the original Guild Wars?  How will professions work across all the races? How will we find events, which seem to replace quests? Ad infinitum.  These questions are all important to the enjoyability of the game and the feeling of Guild Wars.  I feel there is another far more consequential mechanic that should be duplicated to Guild Wars 2. That mechanic is alliances.   Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Alliance Necessity

My Tribe

At Tobold’s suggestion, I have been trying My Tribe on Facebook. It appears to be a worse version of the standalone game, with time sinks that you can pay to avoid and an incentive to leave the window open so you can click things more often. I’m not sure what it is meant to add to the three Virtual Villagers games that preceded it, beyond the chance to cash in on Facebook a bit. You can show your friends your village, so if you think people will go look at your highly skilled villager or well-built island, there is that.

Am I missing something? After trying a bunch of Facebook games this past month, I purged most of them last weekend, and I struggle for any good rationalization of time in this game as “investment” rather than “sunk cost.”

: Zubon

Guild Wars 2 Stuff (3/22)

It’s been awhile since my last Guild Wars news post, but I think that ArenaNet slowed down quite a bit for the explosion of awesome we are expecting on Guild Wars 5th Anniversary (April 28).  Hopefully the engines will begin to pick up more speed in the coming weeks.

ArenaNet’s Daniel Dociu gave a presentation at GDC.  Unlike the many bullet-pointed presentations at the con, Docui’s presentation was filled with tons of concept art from the Guild Wars series.  It even had a few 2.5d animations like the kind shown in the first Guild Wars 2 video (my favorite parts).  Fans kindly asked – as kindly as any rabid, starving weasel can – for the presentation to be uploaded.  The Community Managers pushed to get the presentation out to fans, which I believe was not originally planned.  The presentation was slowed down with a few sounds and Guild Wars 1 music added so that all could see in high quality.  The first two parts of four have been released so far, and I expect the last two parts to be released by the 5th Anniversary.

At GDC and ECCC (another small con), the Community Managers handed out some interesting flyers.  The flyers had a picture of either a White Mantle guy with the word “Obey” or a hand holding the Shining Blade-iconic sword with the word “Dismantle.”  Each picture also had a 2d bar code, which gave the URL to a site showing the flyers pictures.  Here is the link to the White Mantle flyer and the link to the Shining Blade flyer. 

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Stuff (3/22)

Early, Middle, Late

For a game that depends on a stream of income from subscribers or RMT shoppers, the first hour of play must be the top development priority. This is where you hook players. After that, the endgame is important because that is where your players will be spending time indefinitely and where your game’s chatter will come from in the long run. Next is the early game, when you build momentum. The mid-game has already fallen this far down the list, as you have certainly seen in a lot of MMOs, and frankly few care much how good the late-game is because they are already fully committed and racing for the end-game.

I stand by my repeated claim that optimizing the new player experience is of paramount importance. You must grab my attention within five minutes, and you must deliver a satisfying hour or two for my first play session. Without that, any free trial is worthless, and you may even lose some people who have thrown down $50 for a box. This is the part of the game that every single player will see on every single character, and if you cannot do a good job here, I have no hope for the rest of the game. Yes, it is hard to make things interesting while giving the player only a few buttons to play with. Suck it up, we all have hard parts in our jobs. That’s why they pay us. Continue reading Early, Middle, Late

Blizzard: Not One Of Us

There is no question that the strong majority of North American MMO players play World of Warcraft.  Even assuming a paltry 3 million players are still playing in the twilight of the latest expansion, that is still a magnitude more active players than the next similar MMO in line.  Other MMOs like FreeRealms and Runescape muddy the waters as to what is an active or subscribing player or even similar game.  But, defining MMO is irrelevant.  What is relevant is World of Warcraft is the god-king of MMOs, and like a good god-king, it views itself as above the rest to the degree that they might as well not exist.

Continue reading Blizzard: Not One Of Us

More Beauty

Daniel Dociu, concept art god, had a presentation at the recent GDC.  Instead of doing bullet point powerpoint slides, he decided to blast a few retinas with some old and new concept art going by at warp speed for the Guild Wars series (including Guild Wars 2 concept art).  ArenaNet worked hard to push out a high-quality version of the video so people would be able to stop watching the cam versions.  Enjoy!