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 December 15, Sunday |
| December 6, Friday |
 | PostMortem on Neverwinter Nights -Videric |  |
| SWG only one character per server -Videric | |
Star Wars Galaxies continues to boldly there where no man has gone before. Even with this shameless Star Trek plug, they are trying a new approach, and altough as role-player it makes my choise of character even more important, I feel sadisfied that they are willing to try fresh new things instead following how UO or EQ did it. I have to think carefully now what I will be.
You can read about it here:
http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/starwars/Forum3/HTML/087613.html |
| November 13, Wednesday |
| Is Raph Koster still idealist? (SWG & UO) -Videric | |
From official SWG forums:
Random thoughts.
I'm still idealistic. Most of my co-workers, colleagues, managers, and far-off money men are, uh, less so. But me, I'm still idealistic. You can see it in all the things on my website. Declaring the rights of avatars? Philosophical statement on playerkilling? Go read up, you'll see I am still as impractical as ever.
We will get to the online world where players have freedom and ALSO controls. But it's going to take a lot more baby steps.
I do tend to believe that had UO put in a form of Outcasting instead of Trammel, it probably would have been enough. I still believe (despite having removed Outcasting from SWG) that the ideal punishment for a PKer is to prevent them from PKing. But I also think that it may be a while before the players and the companies are ready for a step like that.
I also think I was completely dead wrong about the effect of a PK switch on EQ. The ways in which is hurt the community were subtle, not blatant, and were outweighed by many other factors that kept the community strong.
I don't like the idea of microcommunities that can insulate themselves. "Private towns" is an oxymoron to me. The biggest redeeming feature of online worlds is the fact that they bring together people who would not normally be together. They provide the neighborhood that human nature is built for, and that we are sorely lacking in modern life. Groups of people who all think alike scare me. Groups of people where nobody talks also scare me. I like groups of people with different opinions and beliefs interacting. And an invite-only club doesn't create those.
A UO player once said that he's not sure I should be allowed to design games, but maybe just write on them. That's actually been a refrain I've heard many times from many quarters. I take some comfort from the fact that I know of two muds that use the avatar rights stuff as the basis for their code of conduct; that I know that many of the new generation of games has been inspired to some degree by stuff I've said or written. If I weren't out there trying stuff, then a lot of stuff maybe wouldn't get tried. At the same time, I do try to be honest and upfront about my screwups. I do need people around me to restrain me from implementing impractical things.
SWG is evolutionary, not revolutionary. I've said that before, I'll say it again. We're doing a lot of really cool refinements. A lot of what seem to me to be obvious next steps. Don't look for this to be the game that rewrites the definition of MMORPG top to bottom. I know many of you WANT it to be because it's Star Wars, but in fact, it cuts both ways--the fact that it IS Star Wars means that it has to be more conservative. This does not prevent it from being a great game, IMHO.
I have many thoughts on the examples you've citeed: DarkFall, Shadowbane, Darktide on AC, etc. But I won't comment on them here (though I DO comment on it to fellow developers, when asked. I believe that sharing opinions and knowledge is the only way things improve). Soon as one of these succeeds at something, I steal the idea. I am not shy about co-opting what works.
To date, no PvP-centric solution has worked well enough to warrant stealing, for me. Lineage's is probably the best model thus far, and there's elements of that and DAoC in our model.
I have to be honest and tell you that I see less and less point in having ZOC's in SWG. I believe we can actually have a more fun (albeit perhaps less "meaningful") PvP experience via other means.
I believe the immediate future of MMO's rests in microcommunities. Towns are more important than guilds are more important than factions. That's my personal ranking, and you may disagree.
For me, one of the biggest lessons of the last six months in online game design has been that you can streamline too much, can remove too much downtime, can make the game too player-friendly, remove too much risk, make things too convenient, and coddle players too much.
People aren't broken. They're flawed. But that is an important distinction, a CRUCIAL distinction. "Broken" implies people don't change; they do. "Broken" implies people can't act intelligently; but people are smart, it's mobs that are stupid. "Flawed" means you accept the many foibles that come with humans and you work with them. Some of them are even glorious, wonderful, fascinating flaws. "Broken" sounds like something you give up on, toss in the trash. "Flawed" sounds like something with a quirk. Something interesting. Something with character. Something collectible, maybe. Something to be cherished. The moment you lose respect for your players, you should get out of this business.
-Raph Koster
Creative Director
SWG boards post |
| September 24, Tuesday |
| Middle Earth Online in development (again) -Videric | |
It seems that Chris Taylor and his team are working on third try on the Lord of the rings Online. Previous two were canceled during the production. Development seems to be at very early stages and it will take several years before this title might be released.
More news here:
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=36077447 |
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