Posts tagged themepark 
GDC Online 2012: CCP on keeping players cheaply
Sandboxes get a lot of flak in today's themepark-dominated MMO industry. That said, sandbox developers who do it right will be laughing all the way to bank, according to CCP senior designer Matthew Woodward. Woodward recently gave a talk at GDC Online titled The Other White Meat: Design ...
Some Assembly Required: The newer-is-better fallacy
There's this idea that old-school MMO players don't know what they want. I've an inkling that the folks espousing this idea have little experience with the old-school games they purport to be evolving beyond. This doesn't stop them from claiming that old-schoolers are in love with a time ...
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs embrace item decay?
If you grew up on themeparks like World of Warcraft, the very idea of item decay is probably foreign to you. Just go to the vendor and click the repair button and everything's just as it was the day you looted it, right? Well, no. In older games and especially in sandboxes, you'd need a player to ...
EVE Evolved: Sandboxes make the best stories
Every MMO has stories to tell, some written by developers and told through quest content and others created by players through everyday gameplay. Themepark MMOs lead every player through the same fictional story and give no real control over the outcome, but I have to wonder whether the effort ...
EVE Evolved: Themepark quests in EVE
EVE Online has always had a reputation as a hardcore sandbox MMO, a game in which the players build the world as they see fit. While developers build the core gameplay systems, it's what players do with that gameplay that makes EVE special. It's the political hijinks of nullsec alliances, the ...
CCP: It's 'deeply wrong' to assume that repetition is the way forward
CCP's got opinions. This isn't news. The Icelandic developer behind EVE Online isn't afraid to share its opinions, which is also par for the course. MMO developers rarely comment on other games, though, and so we read lead EVE designer Kristopher Touborg's thoughts on The Elder Scrolls Online ...
The Daily Grind: Do you judge all MMOs by the same standard?
One of the challenges facing sandbox developers is the fact that recent themepark MMORPGs have raised the bar in terms of smooth launches and relatively bug-free experiences. Aside from EVE Online, most of the current sandboxes on offer are small indie affairs known as much for their ...
The Soapbox: Translating Elder Scrolls Online dev speak
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Language is a pretty fascinating thing, and studying a second ...
The Daily Grind: Must MMO housing be open-world to be good?
Whenever the Great MMO Housing debate rears its head, the "of course MMOs ought to have housing" players usually drown out the curmudgeons who lack decorating skills and prefer to live out of their banks and sleep on a bedroll on the public streets (you know who you are!). And then, inevitably, ...
The Daily Grind: What MMO would you bring to the proverbial desert island?
So let's pretend you're stuck on a desert island. You're stocked up on snacks and sunblock. You've got a gaming rig and internet but no conceivable way of contacting anyone to come save you (work with me here). And let's pretend you managed to bring just one single MMO with you to this magical ...
