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MMObility: Online board games make for good mobile design

Beau Hindman — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Previews, Opinion, Free-to-play, Browser, Casual, MMORTS, Humor, MMObility

I'm proud of myself. The other day I was away from my phone and PC for nearly half an hour. Of course, I grabbed my phone in case I wanted to Tweet about the experience, but I decided to just leave it be. Sometimes, technology gets to be a bit much. After this record-breaking summer (and still no rain into the beginning of fall), I even found myself becoming mad at electricity. I found myself turning off fans or cable boxes to save a little bit here and there. I would get up earlier to walk the dogs and so I could enjoy some time with the door open and the air conditioners finally silent. I started to hate how much we need electricity.

When those irrational thoughts hit me, I like to play a board or card game. A good board game can give you the same feelings of adventure or teamwork that any MMO can. Then I stumbled upon Ironhelmet Games' site and started to fall in love with its online games. The site gave me some good ideas about designing for mobile gamers.

Click past the cut and let's discuss!

Continue reading MMObility: Online board games make for good mobile design

MMObility: Online board games make for good mobile design originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 13 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week on the MMO Report

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, News items, Humor, The MMO Report

Once again, Thursday has come, with Friday just around the corner. (We'll not discuss the two weeks in April of 1995 where Friday slept in until Sunday morning.) That means it's time for another MMO Report, and, like always, it highlights some of the latest and greatest news in the MMO world. Which, of course, means that this week it has to talk about the sparklepony.

That's not the only piece of news on the deck this week, of course. There's talk about the inimitable World of Tanks, followed shortly thereafter by discussion about Virtual Island Entertainment at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Lord of Ultima's release on Tuesday and rumors of BioShock being made into an MMO fill out the report. Well, and a dive inside Casey's mailbag, which is everything you've come to expect from it. That may not be a good thing.

Take a look after the break for the video, and keep your eyes here for another installment of the MMO Report every Thursday from G4TV and Massively.

Continue reading This week on the MMO Report

This week on the MMO Report originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Anti-Aliased: You don't need PvP to be successful, honest pt. 2

Seraphina Brennan — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Economy, Game mechanics, PvP, Opinion, Anti-Aliased

Screw PvP combat, we need PvP conflict

The minute you hear about PvP, you know what it is. It's groups of people bashing each other in the face like cavemen. While that's all well and good, combat is only one part of a spectrum of player vs. player activities. We need to stop focusing solely on the idea of PvP combat and perhaps look towards the larger picture of PvP conflict. Final Fantasy XI proves this point through the use of the conquest system. Players weren't bashing each other's face in, yet were participating in a conflict that changed how the game played and simultaneously provided rewards.

On the other side of the galaxy, EVE Online has become notorious for "trader combat." Where players go against one another in order to get goods out to the market and make a profit. Above those acts come social combat, where players make alliances and enemies as they participate in the other aspects of the game. Exploration could even go in this category, as players race through uncharted space to find caches of resources.

These ideas aren't unheard of, but they are unexplored. One of the best examples of how we don't make full use of our genres is the infamous rogue class. Rogues, by definition, are stealthy, thieving, and full of trickery. Their original portrayal in the genre is mostly through non-combat actions, like stealing. Yet, rogues never steal in our online games. Even if they do steal, it's almost always from monsters and not players.

"Once we evolve how we approach PvP, we can start truly integrating the system into our designs, rather than continually tacking on battlegrounds and combat objectives and applauding them as elegant design."

So why not include pickpocketing? Is it because we don't want to limit it to one class or cause an uproar when one player can steal your stuff? Why not let all players have the option, and actually have a pickpocketing mini-game. Why not expand the concept of "illegal activities" and actually start to develop a justice system, where players can become guards and other players can attempt to get away with small crimes? Of course, we'll get to see an example of how well this will work when Realtime Worlds launches All Points Bulletin, but it is something to think about for our current line of MMOs.

Past the legal system, there are other methods of conflict. Card games, price haggling at player run shops, even running an actual shop or a locale can give players a brand new perspective of conflict and simultaneously provide another sink for virtual cash in the economy.

The synopsis

Don't feel that a game needs to have PvP in order to be viable. Games that can level their challenges (like Final Fantasy's level capped bosses, which make them eternally challenging) and can also present strong, solid methods of entertainment (like Bioshock's emphasis on storytelling and single-player objectives, rather than splitting resources between single-player and multi-player.)

But PvP as a concept needs to perhaps become broader, centering more on areas of dynamic conflict rather than stagnant combat situations. Even facerolling on your keyboard against someone else facerolling on their keyboard becomes old -- especially when gear differences lock out true, meaningful engagements.

Once we evolve how we approach PvP, we can start truly integrating the system into our designs, rather than continually tacking on battlegrounds and combat objectives and applauding them as elegant design.

Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who knows people will scream about how much of a carebare he is in the comment boxes, just because they didn't read the whole article. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.

Anti-Aliased: You don't need PvP to be successful, honest pt. 2 originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take-Two Interactive considering subs and microtransactions for top titles

James Egan — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Expansions, MMO industry, News items

Subscriptions have been the bread and butter of MMOs since the days of Ultima Online, but subs may be coming to some popular standalone PC titles from Take-Two Interactive, presumably the Grand Theft Auto franchise and BioShock. Brian Crecente of Kotaku reports that "at the BMO Capital Markets conference, Take-Two head honcho Strauss Zelnick seemed very up on the idea of downloadable content, micro-transactions and even... subscriptions."

This falls in line with their business model of periodically offering downloadable content to either extend the storyline of a game, or to simply offer varied gameplay experiences. Downloadable content and microtransactions could solve some of the issues game publishers have with their titles being re-sold, allowing them to have a continuous revenue stream, and perhaps dissuading many consumers from reselling that game in the first place. Regular content refreshes could ensure that these games don't go stale and end up relegated to a dusty bookshelf. Zelnick implied that this business model, should it come to be, would likely only affect Take-Two's biggest titles. This implies changes to the business models for Grand Theft Auto and BioShock, although the words "Midnight Club Online" also seem apt.

But do you feel that adding the trappings of the MMO business model, namely subs and microtransactions, would enhance your experience with a standalone title, both as a gamer and as a consumer? Are more MMO-like PC games a good thing, or are you more of an MMO purist?

Take-Two Interactive considering subs and microtransactions for top titles originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warren Spector believes 100-hour games are on the way out

Kyle Horner — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, News items, Opinion

Making blanket statements is never really a good idea, because then things like this happen. Warren Spector recently made the statement that 100-hour games are on the way out. If that's true then somebody better tell the millions of online gamers who've spent (and will probably continue to spend) anywhere between 100-500 hours on various MMOs that they're not supposed to be doing that!

All right let's remove our tongue from the inside of our cheek. We all know that some games take more time from our lives than others. While World of Warcraft and Age of Conan may absorb upwards of a hundred hours of play, other games like Portal and Bioshock clock in around seven-to-twelve hours at best. So does that mean Warren is right? No, because we're pretty sure that Warhammer Online -- a game that isn't even out yet, mind you -- will be a fairly immense timesink for tens of thousands of players at the very least. Between the free-to-plays, the subscriptions and the coming hybrids -- 100-hour games probably aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Warren Spector believes 100-hour games are on the way out originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide

Rafe Brox — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: PlanetSide, Events, in-game, PvP, Reviews, Opinion, War, Hands-on, MMOFPS, Humor, The Gaming Iconoclast

"Come on, you apes! Do you want to live forever?"
- Unknown WWI platoon Sergeant, as quoted in the epigraph of Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein

This sort of chaos, of being flung into the maw of an overwhelming and relentless foe, very succinctly sums up the jovial insanity of Massively's foray into PlanetSide's world-event realm as so-called Black Ops. Replete with frenetic action, us-versus-the-world attitude, and the ever-so-helpful seismic and meteoric stylings of a GM eavesdropping on our Skype chat, TGI hopes that our incursion into PlanetSide's universe provided an entertaining distraction to the folks for whom it's been a long-time daily driver.

Our efforts could politely have been called "lambs to the slaughter." They could less-politely be visualized as a well-worn combat boot meeting a sensitive part of TGI's anatomy, perhaps the one he sits upon, repeatedly and with great vigor.

It was glorious.

Continue reading The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide

The Gaming Iconoclast: A side of PlanetSide originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behind the Curtain: Hard at Work?

Craig Withers — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, EverQuest, Game mechanics, Opinion, Ultima Online, Behind the Curtain

Having been trapped in the Hell that we call flood recovery SLASH redecorating over here in noble Caledonia, I have had precious little time to play anything this past week other than 'World of Pry the cat free from the slowly drying gloss paint Craft', so forgive me is this week's column is a little unfocused.

Still, as I was slopping on the third coat of paint on one particularly irritating wall, something MMO-related managed to penetrate the paint fume-induced fog in my brain, and I began to wonder about how the ease and difficulty of accomplishing certain tasks in MMOS - how hard are they really, and should they be easier of harder than they are?

Continue reading Behind the Curtain: Hard at Work?

Behind the Curtain: Hard at Work? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 15 May 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Are MMOs the future of gaming?

Akela Talamasca — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, Endgame, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Raph Koster certainly thinks so. He feels that single-player gaming is a phase we all went through, and that online, interconnected gaming is simply the next evolutionary step -- or, possibly, a return to form. 'People always play games together. All of you learned to play games with each other,' he said, citing a reason for shared gaming's return to prominence. The problem is, however, that MMOs don't exactly scratch the same itch that single-player games do, and ironically, that's an itch engendered by the mere existence of single-player games, a kind of weird self-fulfilling prophecy. We learned to like single-player games because we were offered single-player games.

So how does this affect the MMO experience? With a sophisticated enough platform, there's no reason to think that a fully-immersive single-player experience couldn't exist cheek-by-jowl with an MMO experience. People talk about soloing, but that's just a concession, a way around the issue. What if, for example, while playing Bioshock, you arrived at endgame and left Rapture, only to discover a world filled with other players who've gone through the same experience? Is the future of gaming synthesis, rather than exchanging one form of gameplay for another?

The Daily Grind: Are MMOs the future of gaming? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bioshock creator's top five games includes WoW

Kyle Horner — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, New titles

It may not really be a shock to us here at Massively, but Ken Levine likes to play a lot of World of Warcraft. In fact, he says that he plays it at least a few minutes every day and sometimes far longer than that. For many of us actively playing an MMO, they can serve as a kind of place that we finish our day at as we watch the evening hours dwindle. So we can easily see where Ken is coming from when he says, "You know how in the movies when the father comes home, and he puts on his slippers and drinks a glass of scotch? Well, that's WoW to me."

Granted, there are days when we find ourselves slipping into hours of play in our own favorite massively multiplayer online game. Sometimes you just get caught up in things, especially if you've rolled as many alts as we have over the years.

Bioshock creator's top five games includes WoW originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Digital Continuum: Bioshock MMO

Kyle Horner — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, The Digital Continuum, Rumors

A torrent of happy thoughts burst forward from my brain at the rumor of a possible Bioshock MMO; Would it be good? When would it be set? Where would it even be set, Rapture, or some other previously unknown location? What kind of gameplay would it employ?

These questions -- and many more like them -- are all great and also quite valid. This is why I couldn't help myself from exploring the possibilities of what such a game could deliver to us as players -- except with a particular twist. Being that Andrew Ryan was so very influential in both the world of Rapture as well as our own, this entire look into a Bioshock MMO has been written in the spirit of Mr. Ryan.

With a fan-base as strong as the Big Daddies themselves, Bioshock could create quite the tsunami if it went massively multiplayer. Simply click on the picture above to find out the how and why.

Gallery: The Digital Continuum: Bioshock MMO

The Digital Continuum: Bioshock MMO originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take-Two contemplating BioShock MMO?

Michael Zenke — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:45:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Opinion, Rumors

My daddy's SMARTER than Einstein, STRONGER than Hercules and can light a fire with a SNAP of his fingers! - The Gatherer's Garden
If you're anything like us, the very concept of a BioShock MMO is enough to make you break out in cold sweats. Stiff upper lip and set jaw though, old boy. It's no sure thing yet. The MTV Multiplayer site found a verrry interesting slide in a presentation given by Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick. He was explaining why they aren't taking EA's offer, and noted (on this slide) past and future projects they've tackled.

Under 'MMO/Online gaming', both BioShock and the Civilization series are listed as 'Potential Opportunities'. Consider us signed up! Steampunk survival-horror and leveling at the bottom of the ocean? Collaborating with the Ryanists to hold off the depredations of the hideous splicers? Getting to watch all that gorgeous water during raids? Sounds like a plan. What about you? Would you play a BioShock MMO?

Take-Two contemplating BioShock MMO? originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How Ken Levine (maker of BioShock) plays World of Warcraft

Michael Zenke — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, At a glance, Fantasy, Classes, Humor

Ken Levine is best known for his work on such games as Thief, System Shock 2 and (most recently) BioShock. Before a talk at GDC this morning about the storytelling BioShock we noticed a World of Warcraft icon very prominent in the quicklaunch bar on his Mac. Over the course of the lecture Levine reinforced his online influences by several times referencing some of Blizzard's talented design. We chatted with him for a few minutes after the talk ended, and he confirmed that he's a big fan of the game. In fact, he just recently leveled a druid to 57 - solo, as that's the way he generally plays.

He also touched on the depth of WoW's design in a response to differences between BioShock and System Shock 2: "Feature-wise it's not really that different from System Shock 2. We wanted to make sure every player understood what they were doing on an instictual level - not that they were doing 2d6 of fire damage. That meant there were limitations. In a game like WoW, on the other hand, they can make stuff that's incredibly deep because you're watching the numbers scroll by. My friend Joe likes to brag "My tank has 12,612 armor points!" Which in a game is a distinction that's meaningful to some extent - some people really like min/maxing, some people area really about the world, and I didn't want to get trapped in the middle."

How Ken Levine (maker of BioShock) plays World of Warcraft originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Game over?

Krystalle Voecks — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:08:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind

So I'll start off this morning a wee bit off-topic. You see, I just recently picked up a 360 (yeah, I'm behind the times, hush) and despite the fact that I'm not a huge FPS person, I've really been enjoying Bioshock. Of course, I admit that I'm enjoying it more from the aspect of taking Ayn Rand & Objectivism and turning it completely on its ear, moreso than shooting splicers into gooey piles. As with all console games, there will eventually come an end -- a point at which I've beaten it and have to move on. This isn't the case with MMOs, for the most part. There is never a "game over" screen for them -- you must decide the end of your own story. So today we thought we'd ask you this; is there ever a point at which you feel that you've personally hit a "game over" portion? Would you consider "game over" to be when you've beaten all the big endgame content, or is it just when you're tired of playing and need a break? Is there never a point where you say to yourself that it's over?

The Daily Grind: Game over? originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WRUP: Deep freeze edition

Mike Schramm — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Massively Meta, Humor

Finally, the weekend has arrived! Maybe it's the freezing temps here in Chicago this week (Saturday is supposed to be a brain-solidifying seven degrees here), but this week has seemed longer than most others to me, and so I'm doubly glad that it's time once again to find out What You, our dear readers, aRe Playing.

This week, I'm a little tired of telling you just what I've been playing (although this weekend it'll be more WoW and lots of Rock Band-- our band, Fel and the Boatmen, is having a game night on Saturday), so I asked a few more Massively-ers what they're playing this weekend. Michael Zenke is aiming to finally finish Bioshock (would you kindly get it done already, man!) and will be revisiting his Warforged Fighter in DDO (he's excited about Module 6 after covering that preview). And Matt Warner says he'll be back in WoW leveling an alt, though he'd be happy to leave it for WAR or Age of Conan, if those ever come out. He also just finished up Heavy Drones V after 30 days of training in EVE Online. Grats on that!

So what are you playing this weekend?

Previously on WRUP...

WRUP: Deep freeze edition originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behind the Curtain: More Plot Please

Craig Withers — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Sci-fi, EVE Online, Game mechanics, PvP, Opinion, Behind the Curtain, Roleplaying

So, I've been playing Bioshock pretty much non-stop for the past few days, and it's got me thinking. Not only did it get me thinking that I'm super clever for figuring out the twist about ten minutes into the game, it also got me thinking about story and plot and the importance they play in games. The story in Bioshock is handled masterfully - it's handed out to you in a careful and controlled manner, feeding you it piece by piece with just enough to keep you hooked, but not so much that you're getting hit with an info dump every half an hour.
I'd like to see more story in my MMOs. Certainly, an MMO needs to have a good story set up around it, something to give the world some life, and get you interested from the word go. Or it may not, maybe you just want out-and-out PvP with no RP noobs or lore geeks to bother you, in which case I feel a little sad for you and I ask you kindly to move along and find another column to read.

Continue reading Behind the Curtain: More Plot Please

Behind the Curtain: More Plot Please originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The 'high fidelity' nature of MMOs

Michael Zenke — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Culture, MMO industry, Opinion

Inspired by a few days of dedicated holiday gaming, veteran MMO designer Raph Koster offered up an opinion on the state of modern game development. Playing titles like Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and BioShock, he notes the 'intense' nature of most of the best-selling titles this year. He then ties this in to a recent Rolling Stone article about the modern face of music. That article discusses the pervasive role of music in America today, and the resulting requirement to 'amp up' the volume to be heard in public places.

He directly relates this to the loss of nuanced sound this results in, making a sly dig at the quality of these single-player experiences. IE: by being 'bold and brassy', these titles pale in the realm of quality compared to quieter, more thoughtful titles (like, say, Portal). Steve Danuser, better known as Moorgard, concurs with his assessment. He notes that Massive games in particular are arguments for broader, more varied experiences.

While I'm obviously a fan of Massive titles - and very much agree that the breadth of content you can cram into them is one of their strengths - I can't help but think they're missing the point here a bit. I'm willing to agree, generally, with Raph's argument that truly single-player games will eventually be extinct. There's absolutely no reason that BioShock or Mass Effect couldn't have some sort of shared-world or co-op component (CoD4 and Halo 3 already do).

That said, I bristle a bit at the notion that the big releases of 2007 have no nuance. Several of these titles, as with MMOs, have enough breadth to allow for more than just one activity. While 'shoot things' is the marquee entertainment in Mass Effect and 'stab people' is the main draw for Assassin's Creed, both have other activities in them; certainly Raph isn't going to sit there with a straight face and say the storytelling in Mass Effect is completely without nuance? Even BioShock, which is fundamentally a shooter, offers moments of quieter contemplation. I found the storytelling-via-voice-logs extremely effective, and made it a point to search out and listen to as many as I could.

Where do you fall here? Are console-oriented single-player titles too much flash for you, or do you see possibilities in Rapture's destroyed beauty?

The 'high fidelity' nature of MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Voodoo Extreme's MMO of the year poll

Louis McLaughlin — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Polls, Lord of the Rings Online, Hellgate: London, Tabula Rasa

It's about the right time of year for it, and with perfect timing Voodoo Extreme has a poll up for (MMO)RPG Game of the Year.

Being in the same category as The Witcher & Mass Effect seems harsh for the MMOs listed, as some great titles went retail in 2007. Was Lord of the Rings Online really just this year? We've also had the first expansion to one of the biggest games of all time, and a minor explosion of Free-to-Play MMOs -- which of course won't feature in a commercial games poll, but they're still surging through the market even so.

Overall, 2007 has been a solid year for MMO fans. It may end up being remembered as the year of Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, and Bioshock -- but then 2008 may redress the balance somewhat.

Is there an MMO of the year for you, so far?

Voodoo Extreme's MMO of the year poll originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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