To raid or not to raid, that is the question. Why do both game companies and the players themselves choose to reward a certain play-style? Chances are they consider it to be in their own best interest to do so.
Yes, the death penalty. No, not government sanctioned murder - something much, much, scarier. I'm of course thinking of the penalty applied to your character after dying in some games. That's right: bad stuff can happen to your character when it dies in a game! Spooky!
Nothing to see here - really. As these are pretty much the only two games I'm looking forward to, and I've been able to test both of them, I decided to write down what I thought of them. Considering the different approaches and goals behind them - they are surprisingly similar. Neither game is revolutionary, they are evolutionary - but have generally managed to polish a number of gameplay elements enough to keep them interesting. My main problem with both games also happens to be the same thing - their user interfaces. The UI appear to evolve significantly slower than other parts of these games. That's no different from the rest of the software industry though - UI is apparently hard and whatnot...
Apparently Opera (at least the version I have) doesn't parse nested lists in an intuitive manner (one result of which is my crappy looking menu). This pretty much leaves Mozilla as the only browser that parses css files in a predictable way. "And suddenly it dawned on me why all the good games seem to be console games these days." Actually, that's not true; I already know what a pain in the ass obscure hardware combinations can be. Still, aside from the fact that Microsoft doesn't want to parse HTML and such correctly - I never imagined that parsing simple text files could be this difficult. Oh well, standards are for pussies anyway - we all know real men never read manuals or ask for directions.
I have a poor memory when it comes to names and titles of any kind. Therefore I've decided to put a list of my books in a place where I can easily access it - hoping this might reduce the number of times I'm in a bookstore wondering whether or not I have that particular book. Who knows, maybe someone else might find something interesting here as well...
How can people working on a community-centric product like a MMOG not know even the most basic properties of a community? I'm not saying everybody should know everything, but there should be at least one person in the company who knows something. It's not as if this is complicated - and similar mistakes have been made in the past. You know, that "learning from the mistakes of others" thing I'm so fond of.
I finally changed the layout - unfortunately the new layout is just as crappy as the old one. I also, finally, got my Master's Thesis approved! I'm a bit surprised, but also relieved - somewhere between amused and happy I think. Internet Explorer reminds me of cattle.
I've been wondering for a while how the layout of the interface
in multi-user applications affect the user. There has been a lot
of research done on single-user applications, but I have found
very little research on multi-user applications. It is my opinion
that the guidelines for creating a good single-user interface
cannot be applied to multi-user interfaces. Anyway, since I have
been unable to find any research on the subject I've decided to
make this the topic of my Master's Thesis.
As part of this work I have made a survey to gather some background
information on MMOG players.
If you have played a MMOG - go ahead and take
the Survey. FOR THE CHILDREN!
Partly because I've been wasting my spare time, and partly because I'm lazy. That's my excuse for not posting anything. Anyway, around the time of my previous post I was also writing down some stuff about the treadmill. Then an article was posted on the subject and I decided to rewrite what I had. Then real life kicked in...
Massively Multiplayer Online Games, do they need to get even more massive? Currently server population is often determined by hardware and software limitations, is that really such a good idea?
I got incredibly bored the other day. So I wrote this thing to amuse myself.
This one was "almost finished" three months ago,
since then it has mutated into some kind of beast. Now I've
finally given up. This thing is as finished as it'll ever get,
and the only thing that's impressive about it is its length. Anyway,
the Players - the most visible, if
not the most devastating, curse of the gaming industry.
Oh, and while I remember it, updating this place more often was
not one of my New Year resolutions - cheers :)
There are many people out there wondering what
Game Developers are doing.
Actually, quite a few game developers are wondering about the
exact same thing. I'm not providing any answers, just a ramble
of incoherent thoughts. Yay me!
To make up for it - here's a good piece I found about
Marketing.
The goal is no longer to make a good product, but to make it appeal to as many people as possible. The obvious way to do this would be to aim for the Lowest Common Denominator. I also included why Everquest isn't my favorite game
How E3 is influencing the direction of the gaming industry, and why I think it's bad.
Well... I can always hope. This place has been just another of thousands of dead sites for more than six years now. I guess it's about time to resurrect it and see if I can make something out of it. For my own amusement, if nothing else... And, currently, fancy layout doesn't amuse me, so I'll probably stay with this super simple stuff for a while.