Posts tagged lum-the-mad 
A bird's-eye view of China's MMO market
To a western MMO developer, China's market is alluring in much the same way that winning the lottery is alluring to everyone else. There's a huge market right there, even disregarding the almost stereotypical amount of gold farming associated with the country, but thus far western games have yet ...
2009 from a developer's point of view
We're finishing up our 2009 Reader's Choice Awards, but that doesn't mean we can't take note of the fact that the last year of the decade hasn't exactly been a stellar years. We've watched a recession hit hard, several games turn the lights off for good, several others lose staff, and generally ...
Anti-Aliased: The Quest of Vindication
Happy Holidays everybody! Hope you're all having an exciting time that's full of epic loot drops from purple gift packages sent by the jolly NPC in the red suit. This week's column is a holiday-tacular rant fest as I feel like tackling one of the major sticking points of an MMO player's ...
The dangers of PvP-focused games
The trouble with PvP is... well, there are several problems with PvP. The problems of balance are always there, of course, as they are in every aspect of the game. There are the problems of making PvP both accessible to new players and rewarding for veterans, their are issues with keeping people ...
The art of the expansion
Expansions are a fact of life for MMOs. We all know it, and while we might not necessarily like the fact that at least once a year we probably have to drop another chunk of change just to keep playing the game, we accept it as the price of progress. (And if you're a Guild Wars player, it's not ...
The breadth of morality in MMOs
It's been touched on before, but there's still more thought to be put into it: morality in MMOs, if you think about it, can be a touchy business at best. Scott Jennings recently took the opportunity to discuss the genre's stance in light of the Modern Warfare 2 controversy, pointing out that the ...
Why RMT won't go away
"Companies should just stop gold farmers." It's a consistent complaint in many games, with "gold" replaced by your game's currency of choice. As complaints go, it's right around "somebody should do something about all the problems" in terms of overall utility, but heck, no one likes the practice ...
Scott Jennings discusses fixing bugs in live games
If there's one thing that MMO gamers all agree on, it's the short list of things we almost universally hate: cheaters, gold (or equivalent currency) farmers searching for your credit card, and bugs. Oh, the dreaded bugs. They do so much damage to your gameplay experience, why doesn't the company ...
Scott Jennings MMO interview prep
It looks like Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings started up a new column over at MMORPG.com granting players a rare peek behind the MMO industry curtain. His first article covers some of the things you can expect to be confronted with if you are ever lucky enough to land a game designer interview with an ...
Unraveling the mystery of John Deere Online
Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings, well-known blogosphere participant and game designer, has recently been working on a game that is now sadly canceled. This is bad both for the natural sadness of a game having been canceled and the voyeuristic MMO fan impulse to ask, "Well, what was it going to be?" We ...
