Posts Tagged ‘Pirates of the Burning Sea’

Foreclosure

Posted: December 16, 2010 by Twitchdoctor in Ancient History, Exemplary Games, game design, Game Genres, Games and Life
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One of the most striking things about our virtual worlds, even many years on from the first MMORPGs, is how resistant these worlds are to player transformation; for years the marketing pitch of all these games has, in essence, been “you make a difference.” The reality is that you don’t. That boss will re-spawn for the next player, that field littered with the corpses of 30 Savage Fluffy Froofroos will, in five minutes be teeming with life, that town will need to be defended all over again by the next raid.

I may have been wr. . .wro. . .wr. . .actually no. I was dead on balls accurate.

Posted: September 26, 2010 by Twitchdoctor in game design, Game Platforms, Games and Life
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Sometimes I am brilliant, even when I’m wrong.

The Huddled Masses, Yearning to be Free?

Posted: September 19, 2010 by Twitchdoctor in Games and Marketing
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Players don’t typically buy a game expecting to finish it in a couple of hours. That our involvement with various games is more in the nature of a hook-up than a shared toothbrush holder regrettably says more about the quality of the games we are presented with. Most players I know, after all, really want a game that has great replayability and to which they can return after being unfaithful with some other tawdry and momentarily attractive title and find that it welcomes you back without any questions asked.

Everything We Know About MMORPGs is About To Change. . .Or is it?

Posted: May 19, 2010 by Twitchdoctor in Exemplary Games, game design
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The vast majority of MMO players have proven, by voting with their dollars, that they don’t want something new and radically different: they want to play GrindQuest: The Grinding Crusade.

The Artifice of Community

Posted: April 27, 2010 by Twitchdoctor in game design, Game Research
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In most MMOs, all too often other players don’t matter, not really. Of course, if you are part of a guild, then your guildmates typically do matter. But to a large extent that “mattering” derives from associations and motivations that while linked with the game world are often external to it. There are many games out there that encourage players to group. But they do this chiefly by bribing players. They try to encourage Joe and Jane Gamer to break out of their entrenched solipsism by then encouraging them to see other players simply in a self-serving light, as props to their own prowess. So grouping with other players will give you an XP boost, or provide you with healer support, etc. This, however, is a long way from feeling that other players really matter. Because what matters to you is not the individual player but rather their class and/or level.