One of my hobby projects is a testament to the Ultima and Elder Scrolls games – a massive open-world, where everything you do impacts the world around you. This has long been promised by commercial games – and it sucks from a gameplay perspective; it’s just not fun. But a […]
design
29 posts
I noticed a few months back that Pat Wyatt has been blogging rgularly and in a lot of detail last year. This (IMHO) is big news: Pat is an awesome developer who held key positions in the teams behind many of the bestselling computer games (e.g.: Diablo 1 + 2, […]
(background: after 8 years as one of the world’s mid-tier MMO games, City of Heroes (+ City of Villains) is being shut down. The community banded together to ask if they could take over running the world that meant so much to them; NCsoft (the publisher, and a company I […]
I’ve recently been playing the excellent Realm of the Mad God – a very fast-paced 2d co-operative shooter. My feeling is that it’s going to be one of the most important games of 2011/2012, as it continues to grow in popularity. Typical experience of this game is that within 30 […]
Normally, I don’t allow “guest posts”, but I’m making an exception for my “10 Games You Should Have Played” series. I’ve been asking other games-industry people to write up their own lists + explanations, and that’s not always compatible with their personal/work/etc blog. When that happens, I’m happy to post […]
If you’re an MMO designer, and you *still* don’t grok the griefer-mindset, or you somehow hope/believe that “one day, there will be no griefers”, then maybe this RPS interview with the always-fun-to-watch Goonswarm will help you: MT: We are griefers. If nothing is going to happen then we’re going to […]
I’ve just done a round of fixes for the source-examples of ES’s. Github projects updated on this page: http://entity-systems.wikidot.com/rdbms-with-code-in-systems Changed: Added a complete Java implementation of the most basic ES example Fixed some minor bugs in the Objective-C basic ES example; added some missing classes Added a missing class method […]
There’s a growing problem right now with Facebook Connect: it can silently log you in to websites that you *don’t want* to share your private data with. I saw a funny example last month where a porn website had integrated Facebook Connect … so when you visit the site, one […]
I’m an idiot. It only just occured to me today to wonder how common a name “Markus Persson” actually is. My first reaction on playing with Minecraft was: “Ah, this (much success, this quickly, with this style of game) is what the WurmOnline guys would have loved to achieve, I […]
18 months ago, Scott and I described our perspectives on the fall of Tabula Rasa. I said that if you’re going to spend $100m on an MMO, you’d better be aware of MMO history and not repeat those mistakes. It would seem that Real Time Worlds wasn’t listening – coincidentally, […]
From the IGN walkthrough: “If you have trouble grabbing the beam, just keep trying—we promise it works, but lots of readers have told us it’s not always easy.” I’m a pretty good AC player, but after 10 minutes of trying to do that one standing jump, I gave up and […]
What’s a browser MMO? Today, not 5 years ago? In the previous post I poked Earth Eternal for claiming to be the “*REAL* MMO for your browser”, and disappointing on that front (although it could be awesome on all other fronts). I finished with: So … EE may be a […]
I got this in my inbox a few days ago, and it’s been forwarded to me by a few people since: (NB: the fact that you still have to login MERELY TO READ THE DAMN FAQ linked from the PR statement is IMHO symptomatic of some of MP’s problems :( […]
(Start by reading Entity Systems are the Future of MMOs Part 1) It’s been a long time since my last post on this topic. Last year, I stopped working for a big MMO publisher, and since then I’ve been having fun doing MMO Consultancy (helping other teams write their games), […]
(c.f. my original post here: http://t-machine.org/index.php/2009/06/28/want-to-help-write-a-simple-rpg-for-iphone/) I’ve been playing around with GUI setups for DM / EOTB / Wizardry clones on iPhone, and thought I’d post some of the more interesting results here – I’m interested to see what other people think of each of them. The first three are […]
Now I’ve recovered from GDC illness, I’ve got a little free time again, and I’m starting one of the iPhone games I wanted to write. This is a “for fun and learning” project, so it’s deliberately chosen to be low maintenance / easy to make a first version / easy […]
Richard has often been accused of being “arrogant”, “insane”, and even, simply, “wrong” for his comments along the lines of: He hasn’t “played” an MMO in decades (possibly “ever”) … because he can’t stop himself from interpreting as he uses them Surprisingly many MMOs are just WoW by another name […]
Alex Evans, Media Molecule Mark Healey, Media Molecule Summary The MM guys are funny as ever, although Alex’s “I made it myself on the way here” presentation tool would perhaps have been more usefully replaced with something like Presi (or whatever it’s called – the “interactive” presentation tool that is […]
Sulka Haro, Sulake Summary The intersection between social and gaming, and where that should be going, instead of where lots of people are obsessing about taking it. (I have more to add here later, but I’ve got to run to a meeting; will update the post when I have time)
Austin Hill, Akoha Summary Conference organizer introduced this as “during this first talk, think about the platform they’ve made, as much as you do the game; that could be especially interesting for this audience”. I totally support the principles and the ideals. The game looks fun and interesting, and at […]