Posts tagged game-design 
WildStar Wednesday talks about the game's narrative design
Unless you were at PAX Prime last year, about all you've seen of WildStar in action has been the game's cinematic trailer. While it didn't give much of an idea of how the game played, said video certainly had a lot of style. According to the latest WildStar Wednesday community blog post, that ...
EVE Evolved: The benefits of a subscription
In last week's EVE Evolved opinion piece, I tackled the question of whether it would be possible to make EVE Online free-to-play and then devised a viable hybrid freemium business model based on other apparently successful free-to-play conversions. While this was largely a thought experiment ...
Age of Conan's Craig Morrison talks conquest vs. competition
PvP is a naturally contentious subject, particularly when focused on its various flavors in the MMO space. Everyone thinks they know best, and whether they're arguing for a three-faction system, full loot, or open-world objectives, the discussion often devolves into verbal throw-downs every bit ...
EVE Evolved: Resurrecting faction warfare
I think it's safe to say that most EVE Online players have never tried their hands at faction warfare, the state-sponsored bloodbath that pits Minmatar and Gallente pilots against their Amarr and Caldari rivals. When the system launched almost four years ago during 2008's Empyrean Age expansion, ...
Global Chat: October 30-November 5, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more ...
Free for All: An inside look at Illyriad Games
You have to be a bit insane to write your own game, says James Niesewand, Illyriad Games' CEO. When he and a group of friends decided to sit down and list off what they wanted to see in a browser-based game, they decided to go for a game that would not periodically reset like so many browser ...
Some Assembly Required: How to screw up your sandbox
Between bouts of Global Agenda, Age of Conan, and a stack of single-player games, I've been taking my own advice lately and looking for a new sandbox. The end of Star Wars Galaxies is forcing my hand, and I figured I'd better start now if I don't want to be stuck with nothing to play on December ...
The Anvil of Crom: What's wrong with AoC's crafting?
In the wake of Funcom's glorious announcement that Age of Conan is due for an extreme tradeskill makeover in 2012, I thought it might be fun to brainstorm a few crafting-related design ideas. To be frank, I think any change will be an improvement, as it's hard to fathom a more boring and ...
BioWare talks SWTOR testing, post-release content
BioWare project director James Ohlen is apparently on the PR circuit of late, as a new interview at Gamasutra marks his second major gaming publication appearance in the last two days. This time around, there's nary a mention of Star Wars: The Old Republic's companions. There is, however, some ...
Storybricks taking an alternative approach to MMO story
If you've been following MMOs in recent months, you've no doubt been inundated by the new story focus of the genre's upcoming AAA titles. Whether we're talking about Star Wars The Old Republic, The Secret World, or even TERA, story has been the favored industry buzzword for a while now. Enter ...
