Mar

29

Journeys into N-Town

March 29, 2007 | 3 Comments

It was early on a Thursday morning and I wasn’t quite ready for bed yet. I was Jonesing for a game to play, so I looked over at my library of PC entertainment software. Vanguard? WoW? Guild Wars? Europa Universalis 3? Supreme Commander? A pox on them all! It seemed as if there was nothing that would scratch my gaming itch, but then I happened upon an MSN article about marketing in virtual worlds. Mentioned in the article was a new cyberscape for kids produced by Nickelodeon called Nicktropolis (www.nicktropolis.com) and for some reason, I felt compelled to sign up.

So this is a little story about my first adventure in Nicktropolis. Read more


 

Mar

27

Musings: The need for conventions

March 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

As I stroll through the world of Telon in Vanguard, I am struck by how much of it looks strangely familiar to me. Deer, panthers, tortoises roam the lands around me, elm, oak and pine trees grow in vast numbers and ores such as iron and tin can be found among the rocky cliff sides. And as I wander, I feel a vague sense of deja vu, like I had visited this world before. Read more


 

Mar

24

1001 Crazy Game Design Ideas: #4 You Like Me, You Really Like Me

March 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Since the dawn of time, man has been living by the wonderful axiomatic reality that it often isn’t what you know, but who you know which determines your success in any endeavor. I wonder if game designers might implement a way to help incorporate this aspect of community in the game empowering players with knowledge of the opinions of other players about their peers.

Some games have offered ways that the engine itself could flag players for bad behavior, but I’m proposing a whole new mechanism for black-balling and/or sucking up to people facilitated by the game. Read more


 

Mar

22

1001 Crazy Game Design Ideas: #3 A Mob by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

March 22, 2007 | 2 Comments

From across the plains you can see them floating weightlessly in the air, bobbing gently with the movements of your quarry, the impalpable letters of your prey’s name.

Good thing the developers have let me know that it’s a Greater Osterampusaur that I was about to trip over because lord knows I would have hated to accidentally call it, “some weird lizard thing that attacked me.” Read more


 

Mar

22

Musings: Scrap the “Tank”

March 22, 2007 | 10 Comments

The TankThe character archetype of the “Tank,” the burly melee fighter who stands at the front of the fray and summons the wrath of the engaged digital monster is a fixture in modern-day MMOGs. The Tank, also known as the “MT” (main tank), the “meatshield,” and the “one most likely to die if things go bad” is a featured member of the holy trinity of MMO character archetypes as the one who absorbs the damage. Read more


 

Mar

21

1001 Crazy Game Design Ideas: #2 An Alternative to the Treadmill

March 21, 2007 | 2 Comments

No more BoarsNo offense to those of you who loved to sit on grassy, gentle, southern slopes of the Overthere, pulling rhinos, succulents, cockatrices and such until you heard the comforting ding of level 40, but grinding for experience to me seems kind of dumb. I wonder why is it that I should simply sit in one place and kill the same monsters ad nauseum in order to advance my level?

Want to have monsters drop occasional worthwhile loot, that’s cool – let the campers get a reward every once in a while, but I am thinking that to drive experience, characters should have to talk to people, take part in a lesson, learn a skill, complete pilgrimages, touch magic rocks, view the massing of an army, witness the execution of a mentor…

So, instead of simply having quests which contribute a little experience to the pool, but are seldom as efficient as just hanging around killing hordes of nameless minions, characters should also get advancement quests which must be completed to, you know… advance. Read more


 

Mar

18

1001 Crazy Game Design Ideas: #1 In the end, I’d like a story

March 18, 2007 | 2 Comments

What fun is it to be an adventurer if there isn’t a handy bard around to record tales of your daring exploits and brushes with death for all of posterity to hear. While in many cases it is hard to find a good bard who will stick with you through the thick and thin of dungeon delving, blood filled battles, and extra-planar exploration, it seems like your trusty computer could keep some notes. Read more


 

Mar

18

Musings: MMORPG variations we haven’t seen yet

March 18, 2007 | 1 Comment

World of Slasher FlicksWhen it comes to MMORPGS, the choices for what type of game environment you play in seem somewhat small, considering that the nature of any video game space is theoretically limited only by the imagination of the developers. Read more


 

Mar

18

1001 Crazy Game Design Ideas: Prelude

March 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to come up with some radical ideas which could be used to change video games design in strange and unusual ways. The concepts I am throwing out are not recommendations and in some cases may not even be possible. They are an exercise that I have given myself to think of things which have not yet been tried, to my knowledge, in the game genres to which each refers. Since I have yet to write a single idea, I also have no idea if I will end up with exactly 1001 at the end, it could be just one or 10,001, but I’ll keep them all labeled for those keeping track. And they will be, of course, not ordered by importance, significance, value, revolutionary-ness or any other criteria except that I just happened to think/write them in this order.


 

Mar

16

Still a work in progress

March 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The other day when I started this site, I posted a snarky little comment about my first post being just a placeholder: incomplete and rushed out the door too early, which made me ideally suited to be a part of the video game industry. I thought that was pretty clever at the time. Of course today, when I am noticing that my theme for the site isn’t what I’d like it to be and that I will have to do a major overhaul of the site’s look and feel… I feel kind of stupid for posting that.

That doesn’t make it any less true though


 
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