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Discover the wizardry of game design with WAR's Brian Wheeler

William Dobson — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, MMO Industry, Warhammer Online

Gather around folks, get comfortable; we've got a tale of fantasy, kings and wizards to share with you. As seems to be the norm with our friendly neighborhood Mythic developers, Brian Wheeler has done his best to avoid bringing us a boring and straightforward Dev Diary, instead opting to explain his role of Senior Designer for Warhammer Online through a short story.

It turns out that game designers are not unlike the great wizards Merlin and Gandalf (coincidentally, these two exist in the same space in Wheeler's fantasy world, and often enjoy a pint together) in that they come up with multiple ideas and solutions for a single problem, and present them all to the king to decide which will be used. They aren't necessarily ideas that the king couldn't figure out on his own, but the wizards can afford to spend all their time researching every possible strategy, giving the king the freedom to attend to other business. That's the short version -- to read Wheeler's longer and much more entertaining take, visit the latest WAR dev diary.

Discover the wizardry of game design with WAR's Brian Wheeler originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Braid creator rips on WoW, talks artificial rewards and social gaming

Samuel Axon — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Culture, Game Mechanics, Interviews, Opinion

In an interview with Gamasutra, game designer Jon Blow (who created the critically acclaimed Xbox Live Arcade game Braid) had a few things to say about World of Warcraft. His criticisms could be just as easily leveled against any Diku-based, WoW-like MMO.

He began by saying that WoW employs "artificial rewards" as opposed to "natural rewards." In other words, players play WoW for achievements like leveling up that have little real meaning, and they'll sit through a lot of boredom to reach those goals. That's not an unfair analysis; leveling up is a very empty and artificial kind of catharsis. Perhaps the most controversial statements he made were related to the social aspect of the game.

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Continue reading Braid creator rips on WoW, talks artificial rewards and social gaming

Braid creator rips on WoW, talks artificial rewards and social gaming originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Official Asheron's Call blog is nostalgic

Samuel Axon — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Asheron's Call, Culture

Asheron's Call's 100th update is imminent, and to celebrate, Turbine has started a "Nostalgia Blog" in which old designers of the game reminisce about their experiences of elation and tribulation. The first entry is now live. It was written by Allan "Orion" Maki, who worked as a designer on nearly half of AC's content updates. He also wrote a huge chunk of the game's ongoing storyline. That storyline has been an important reason for people to keep on playing the game after all these years.

In the blog, he describes his first, disaster-laden attempt at design, names his favorite characters and quests, and gushes compliments at AC, saying "you never forget your first love." Now he's working on The Lord of the Rings Online, but one senses that he won't forget his roots.

Official Asheron's Call blog is nostalgic originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AO designer says adieu, moves on to The Secret World

Samuel Axon — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-Fi, Anarchy Online, Culture, The Secret World

Anarchy Online content designer Nina "Aythem" Sund has been writing developer journal entries over at Ten Ton Hammer for several months, sharing game design wisdom and insider anecdotes with players. Her latest entry had a different tone, though. She used the medium to bid farewell to AO players as she moves on to work on Funcom's next MMO, The Secret World.

As a parting gift, she spent the rest of her entry telling fans how they too can become game designers. Hers is good advice if that's an aspiration for you. Unfortunately, she didn't slip out any news or information on The Secret World, which as so far been very, well ... secret. Ten Ton Hammer attached two bits of concept art, though, so savor that!

We hope Funcom will continue to support AO even though it now has Age of Conan and The Secret World to worry about, too. Sund was a popular quest designer at AO; we're glad she'll be adding her touch to TSW, but poor AO!

AO designer says adieu, moves on to The Secret World originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EQII dev Noel "Ilucide" Walling interviewed

William Dobson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Culture, Interviews, MMO Industry

EverQuest II developer Noel Walling (also known as "Ilucide") has given some of his time to let the fans find out more about him. His move into the gaming industry was born from a near-obsession with the original EverQuest, something that a number of readers may be able to relate to. After being a GM with EQ for a while, he moved to work on EQII before its launch, and has remained there since.

Ilucide seems to have a hand in everything when it comes to EQII, performing many different roles some days, but enjoys designing group instances the most. He has a level 74 character in the game, and perhaps the reason he's not 80 is due to the amount of other games he is playing on and off: a lengthy list -- and a great list, at that -- ranging from other MMOs to console games. Have a read of the rest of the interview to learn about Walling's interest outside of games, including the ever-important question: "Regular or Decaf?".

EQII dev Noel "Ilucide" Walling interviewed originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TR's Tom Potter knows what it will take

Chris Chester — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-Fi, Game Mechanics, Crafting, Endgame, Tabula Rasa

There's been a fairly substantial amount of buzz surrounding Tabula Rasa over the past couple weeks. Ever since long-time designer Paul Sage was announced to be leaving the game to be replaced by designer Tom Potter, fans and observers alike have been left to speculation about the state of flux surrounding Destination Game's sci-fi MMO. To their credit, they've really stepped up to the bat, both with the recent War College meetings at their Austin studio, and with other interviews around and about the gaming media.

Adding to this steady trend is this week's Feedback Friday, penned by none other than Tom Potter himself. Potter really goes all out and addresses many of our complaints, including the hyper-active enemy aggro, buffs to Logos users, a link loot system, and a true, blue repeatable end-game. Perhaps best of all, at least in this bloggers' opinion, is his acknowledgment that the crafting system needs a near-complete overhaul.

Now, we have to emphasize that there is a serious difference between knowing what needs to be done with a game and actually accomplishing these changes in a reasonable amount of time. Now that we know Potter is wise to what's wrong with the game, we're expecting him to push the changes through, and soon!

TR's Tom Potter knows what it will take originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AoC mount bug fixes and speed boosts on the way

William Dobson — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Bugs, Game Mechanics, Patches

If you already own a horse mount in Age of Conan, you are probably extremely unimpressed with your new companion's speed -- it almost seems like you don't move any faster at all. According to this post at AoC's official forums, this is in fact the case. One of the game's designers has confirmed that, currently, even the mighty horse trots along at regular run-speed. A proper fix for this is coming in a future patch, but a temporary workaround is shared for now (which a lot of people in the community had already figured out): simply sheathe or unsheathe your weapon while mounted, and enjoy the mount's speed boost as it was intended.

Also included in the post is the fact that the speed boost itself will be increased very soon. Horses will be slightly faster, and Mammoths and Rhinos will get a smaller boost. As well as this, to address a complaint that those with Mammoth/Rhino pre-order privileges have, the riding skills (charging, attacks, etc.) associated with these mounts will be given automatically with the "/claim" command after a future patch, and those who already have the skills through buying Basic Riding will need to perform the command to receive them again.

EDIT: Going by this forum thread, the mount speed increase is already in effect as of today's patch. Some in-game testing of our own shows that at the very least, the bug requiring weapon sheathing/unsheathing is fixed. More on these other undocumented patch changes shortly.

AoC mount bug fixes and speed boosts on the way originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Player vs. Everything: Those poor, poor designers

Cameron Sorden — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, Humor, Player vs. Everything

I've gotta hand it to MMOG designers. They really kind of get shafted. They spend weeks, months, and years fine-tuning tiny aspects of gameplay that you never even notice or care about (like the amount of silver that level 12 murlocs drop), coming up with interesting quests, trying to innovate the game enough to keep us interested, and developing a stream of content that's regular and enthralling enough to satisfy our all-encompassing hunger for more, more, MORE! While they do this, they have to pay attention to a million other things: time constraints, budget constraints, balance considerations, community expectations, and their pushy producers who want them to get the job done now, even if it means they can't include all of these cool features they have in mind.

When they finally put the finishing touches on this labor of love that they've slaved away on for so, so long, they deliver it out into the excited arms of the community that's been eagerly awaiting the game since they announced what they were working on in pre-alpha. What happens then? Worst case scenario, everyone hates the game and it sinks like a stone to the trash pile of the bargain bin (along with the shattered hopes and dreams of the entire team that worked on the game). But even in the best case scenario, everyone loves the game for about two weeks until they notice all the little flaws that they don't like about your particular design. Then, they start picking it apart bit by bit. "Why didn't you do this this way?" they ask. "Why didn't you make this quest reward better? Why are Mages better than Rogues? Why isn't my +3 sword worse than a +3 axe against Ents? Here's how I think you should fix this awful, terrible, no-good, very bad game design."

Continue reading Player vs. Everything: Those poor, poor designers

Player vs. Everything: Those poor, poor designers originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 01 May 2008 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A day in the life of an Age of Conan designer

Michael Zenke — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Interviews, MMO Industry

Joe Hegarty is an AI Designer for Funcom's Age of Conan project. And, it appears, he loves his job. In a 'Day in the Life' article at TenTonHammer, Hegarty describes the sheer enjoyment he gets from breathing life into the inhabitants of Hyborea. From street preachers to wayward children, all the way up to Conan himself, his work makes the NPCs we'll be interacting with on launch day all the more meaningful.

The designer gives several examples of where you'll see his work in action, and even describes some of the behind-the-scenes mechanics driving the NPC's decisions. The designers at Funcom have a series of tools at their disposal, from in-house software to theoretical constructs. Hegarty mentions Maslow's hierarchy of needs as one of these supporting constructs; NPCs essentially have a priority list of needs, ensuring that you'll see them doing a variety of activities as you move through a given area.

Fascinating stuff, and with the Open Beta kicking off tomorrow, something we'll all be experiencing very soon.

A day in the life of an Age of Conan designer originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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